User talk:BGEnglert

Misleading
You say of Englert-Greenberger duality relation "The entry as a whole is misleading and does not have my blessing." Please tell us how to correct and improve the article. --Michael C. Price talk 05:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a copy of "Fringe Visibility and Which-Way Information: An Inequality", Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 77, 2154 (1996) available? --Michael C. Price talk 13:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome
Hi,

I'd like to welcome you to Wikipedia. I am sorry to hear the article on the Englert-Greenberger duality relation is misleading. Unfortunately, at this moment, it is the war-child of a very controversial article, the Afshar experiment. This article (on the duality relation) was whipped together to provide a basis for the arguments there; at the moment, none of the participants are students of quantum optics. Even worse, controversy tends to bring out the very worst manners in participants, and so, being a neighbor of controversy, you will see not just rudeness, but outright shouting, name-calling and the like. Please accept my apologies.

I do encourage you to either fix the article, or to put up a critique on the talk page. The nature of Wikipedia is that articles sometimes start slanted, the fixes are not often immediate, and the people editing an article are often not experts in the field. However, in general, I've noticed that articles do tend to improve over time. Sometimes this is because an expert adopts an article, and sometimes because those with varied experience provide a balance. I encourage your participation. Thank you. linas 15:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

p.s. below is the standard welcoming "boilerplate" for new editors.

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Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, BGEnglert. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the article Draft:Julian Schwinger Foundation, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. 331dot (talk) 11:40, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello. With this edit you posted that (who I assume is) you are the vice president of this charity. That is indeed a conflict of interest and you should review the conflict of interest guideline linked to above, as you will need to formally declare that on your user page(or on this page). If you derive income from your work with the charity, you also need to declare as a paid editor per WP:PAID, which is required by Wikipedia's Terms of Use if you are paid.

A conflict of interest does not mean that you cannot edit the draft; in fact, drafting an article about your organization first is exactly what should happen with a conflict of interest, thank you. However, in the main encyclopedia, you should avoid directly editing existing articles related to your organization, instead first suggesting changes on the associated article talk page.

The person who created the draft posted that "This is the information that the Julian Schwinger Foundation wants to make public about the legacy of Julian Schwinger" which suggests that they represent the charity as well. Are you stating that this person is not affiliated with your charity?

The draft is currently not ready for placement in the main encyclopedia, as it does not offer any independent reliable sources that indicate how your charity meets the notability guidelines listed at WP:ORG. In short, that means that your charity needs to have been written about with in depth coverage about the charity itself in third party sources like news reports or independent reviews, that indicate how it is worthy of mention in this global encyclopedia. Not every organization merits an article here. I obviously don't know enough about your charity to know whether it merits an article or not, only that there are no appropriate sources in the draft. If you are aware of such sources, feel free to add them to the draft. If you are interested in further editing the draft, you may want to read Your First Article to learn more about what is being looked for.

If you have any further questions, please ask. Please post them on this page, I will see them. Thanks 331dot (talk) 12:24, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, let me note that our attempt to create a wikipedia page for the Schwinger Foundation was solely for the purpose of making it easier for interested parties to find information. It is not a commercial advertisement or anything of a similar sort. The foundation has no income from applicant but rather gives money to those whose applications are successful. This should not be so hard to understand.

The person who drafted the simply wikipedia entry about the Schwinger Foundation is currently paid by the foundation for developing software for the database, upgrading the website, and related matters. I see nothing improper in that. And, yes, I did some minor editing, and don't think that many others would be better qualified for ensuring that the information about the foundation is correct. In this, I also see nothing improper.

Further, there are independent sources to which the article refers, in the context of the Schwinger Fellowship at the UCLA Dept of Physics & Astronomy and the Schwinger Workshops at IPAM. You may want to explain why these do not count as "third party sources".

Other matter: You didn't comment on my conflict of interest with the wikipedia entry about me. Fear not, I am not going to touch it and get my fingers burnt a second time. I am wondering, however: Is it common practice that living persons are not asked for their consent before an entry about them is made public? Usually, the subject of the entry is in a very good position to verify the content and prevent embarrassing mistakes like those in Berthold-Georg Englert — embarrassing to wikipedia, that is. BGEnglert (talk) 16:32, 2 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your answer. I will try to address your points.
 * If the user who created the draft was paid to do so, then they need to declare as a paid editor as soon as possible per WP:PAID. If they do not, they risk being blocked from editing. Wikipedia's Terms of Use require paid editors to declare such status. It has been decided by the Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation that paid editors need to be open about their status to allow other editors to properly evaluate contributions for neutral point of view.  In some ways, the policy is a compromise between editors who wanted to ban paid editing and editors who wanted to expressly permit it.
 * "making it easier for interested parties to find information" is a promotional purpose as Wikipedia defines it. You don't have to be actively selling something or promoting your organization(though the draft does have some promotional language in it). Wikipedia is not simply a means to disseminate information or free webspace for your Foundation to use; it is an encyclopedia. All article subjects must be shown to be notable.  If you just want to tell the world about your Foundation, you should use social media or a website owned by the Foundation to do so.
 * As I indicated already, it is not a problem for you to edit the draft about your Foundation, before it is submitted for review by an independent editor. The issue arises when you attempt to edit about your Foundation in existing articles.  This is when you should first suggest a change on the article talk page.  If no one replies to you, it is OK for you to then make an edit, but when you do you should make your COI clear and invite others to review it.  This is all explained in the conflict of interest policy which I highly recommend that you review at WP:COI.
 * The link to information about the scholarship is not a third party source, as it was put out by the university offering the scholarship. Independent sources are not affiliated with the subject in any way, such as news reports, independent reviews, or anything not affiliated with the Foundation, scholarship, or the university offering the scholarship.  If there are no independent sources, it will be difficult to have an article about your Foundation at this time.
 * With regards to the article about you, as long as information about you has appeared in independent reliable sources, it is not sensitive personal information like your home address, and the information is not defamatory or incorrect, it can be in a Wikipedia article about you and your permission is not required. Please read WP:BIOSELF for what to do in the event that there is incorrect and/or improper information in the article about you.  No editor here has exclusive control over any article, even those whom the article might be about(see WP:OWN).  For something basic like your name being misspelled you are pretty safe in fixing it yourself, but anything more than that should be requested first and time given for others to comment. You may also want to review the Biographies of living persons policy in general.
 * If I have missed something, please point it out, or if you have any other questions. You may find reading the FAQ for organizations helpful, located at WP:ORGFAQ. If you would like to discuss this with others besides me, you would be welcome at the Teahouse, an area for new users to ask questions, or at the Help Desk. 331dot (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate that you are taking time to respond to my queries, I really do.

While I shall not return to the topic "it is perfectly OK for an anonymous user to put up wrong information about a living person, but it is not at all OK for that person to correct the mistakes by editing the entry because of an obvious conflict of interest" you will please allow me to wonder what exactly is this conflict between the anonymous wrong-doer and the victim and why wikipedia policies protect the wrong-doing. I believe I got your message and learned my lesson. I regard this topic as closed.

In the context of the Schwinger Foundation, I have a follow-up question: Does this news item in Physics Today meet your criteria of "independent third party"? Just in case, let me assure you that Physics Today is not a stake holder in, or beneficiary of, the Schwinger Foundation.

Thank you. BGEnglert (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That source would be a good start, though more than one would be much better.
 * It isn't the intention of Wikipedia policies to protect wrongdoers, but a neutral point of view is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. It would be difficult to maintain neutrality if article subjects (be it people or a business) made major contributions to the articles about them. Imagine Donald Trump or his staff editing his article. The Biography of living persons policy is also important; incorrect information can, should, and will be removed when properly pointed out. If it a gross error, policy does permit an article subject to remove it (WP:BLPEDIT) though an explanation should be provided on the talk page. Habitual vandalism or addition of improper information can be addressed at the BLP noticeboard (WP:BLPN). I do encourage you to talk to others about this if you desire and I wish you well. No reply is necessary. 331dot (talk) 01:14, 3 December 2017 (UTC)