User talk:Cheetah61

Welcome!
Hello, Cheetah61, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! JohnCD (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
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African Wildlife Foundation
Welcome. I presume that you are user and have set up an individual account as I invited when I blocked that account.

Before you edit again, please read:
 * Conflict of interest
 * Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest

If Wikipedia is a more useful information resource than, say, Myspace, that is only because we have Neutral point of view as a fundamental policy, and work hard to prevent Wikipedia being used for any kind of promotion. The conflict-of-interest rules are there because, with the best intentions, editors close to a subject want to stress its strengths and play down its weaknesses and put its point of view, and soon what should be a neutral encyclopedia article becomes the organization's own manifesto. There are plenty of places to publish that, but Wikipedia is not one of them.

I plan to invite some other editors ("editor" means just the same as "user") who have worked on the article to take an interest in your proposed changes, and I will also make an entry at WP:COI/N, the conflict-of-interest noticeboard, which should bring others to help. I have not yet decided whether to roll back the article to its state before you began to edit it. We are keen that the article should be correct and up-to-date, but we do not want it to be the Foundation's manifesto. You may find User:JohnCD/Not a noticeboard gives useful background.

Please ask any questions below here - I will watch this talk page.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protected
Despite the above, you are continuing to edit the article. I am sure your intentions are good, but I need time to get some uninvolved users to look at your changes. I have therefore "semi-protected" the article for 24 hours, so that it cannot be edited by anonymous IPs or by new users. Please use the time to read carefully the guidelines I have linked above, and also WP:Verifiability, another key policy: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source". You will see that the existing parts of the article were carefully referenced, but new passages you have added were not. I am sure they are true from your personal knowledge, or the organization's, but that is not enough for Wikipedia. JohnCD (talk) 21:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I have asked others to help
See WP:COI/N.

I must emphasis that in accordance with WP:BESTCOI you should make yourself only absolutely uncontroversial edits. Anything else should be suggested on the article talk page, to let uninvolved users decide.

You should also read WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. The BOLD bit is limited by your COI, but the important point is that disagreements should be settled by discussion on the article talk page, not by WP:Edit warring.

I look forward to an agreed, improved article that meets Wikipedia's standards. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:25, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello
I am the editor who put together the first version of the article on the African Wildlife Foundation. I hope you are not discouraged by User:JohnCD's decision to undo your recent changes, but I have to support him. I am sure that your intent has been purely to correct errors and add missing information, but there are two very important principles you have missed: all information must be verifiable, and the article must be neutral. "Verifiable" means any statement in the article should be backed up by a citation to a reliable source, and should accurately reflect what that source says. "Neutral" means as far as possible that sources should be independent of the AWF apart from mundane details like the names of executives or audited financial results. Even before your changes, this article relied too much on the AWF itself for information. The goal is for the article to present a view of the organization as it is seen from outside rather than as it would like to be seen. External observers are mostly interested in visible actions and results. Some information you feel is very important, such as the AWF mission and vision, may therefore have to be left out because no independent source has commented on it. That is how it has to be. Think of an organization you dislike, a company or a political or religious group. Do you really want to read at length what they have to say about themselves? Or do you want to read what others have said about them?

Obviously this version of the article could use a lot of improvement. What I propose is that you put a note on the article talk page (click on Talk:African Wildlife Foundation, then click on the "new section" tab) listing the areas you feel need correction or expansion. I or some other editor will then try to find independent sources and make the changes. That is a bit complicated and you may not be entirely pleased with the result, but it does ensure a degree of independence. Thanks, Aymatth2 (talk) 11:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * To expand a little on what Aymatth2 has written: I apologise for having to roll back all your edits and also, on behalf of Wikipedia, that we do not do enough at account creation time to make clear the difference between Wikipedia and "notice-board" sites like Myspace and Facebook. Your first edit summary said "We here at AWF want to update a few of the sections on our page" and there is the misunderstanding - on those other sites it would be your page where, as on your own website, you could tell the world about your Foundation and its aims and views. Wikipedia is here not just to give you another platform, but to do something different; so it is not your page, it is Wikipedia's page about you, intended to provide a (neutral and properly sourced) view of the Foundation from outside. JohnCD (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)