User talk:Claire Dubois

Welcome!
Hello, Claire Dubois, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as User:Claire Dubois, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may not be retained.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type helpme on this page, followed by your question, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! I am One of Many (talk) 15:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
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Speedy deletion nomination of User:Claire Dubois


A tag has been placed on User:Claire Dubois, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Please read the guidelines on spam and FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. I am One of Many (talk) 15:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I have moved your page to a "userspace draft"
Your Wikipedia user page is intended for you, as an individual contributor, to say something about yourself and your Wikipedia work. I have moved the material that was there to a "userspace draft" page at at User:Claire Dubois/Partnership for European Research in Occupational Safety and Health, where you can work on it. In its present form it is not suitable for an article. For background, please read:
 * Plain and simple conflict of interest guide (since you work for PEROSH)
 * Your first article
 * User:JohnCD/Not a noticeboard

The most important single message from those, which I wish could be explained to new users before they join Wikipedia, is this:
 * Wikipedia is not a place for people, or organizations, to tell the world about themselves.

I have removed from your text three paragraphs which were copied direct from your website. We cannot hold copyright material unless a formal copyright release has been made: no doubt you could do that but, as with most material copied from organizations' own sites, it was far too promotional in tone. "PEROSH partners are strongly committed to maintain a proactive dialogue with the EU... " and "The uniqueness and strength of PEROSH lies in the comprehensive interdisciplinary collaboration... " etc. is marketing-speak, full of buzzwords and "peacock terms", and quite unacceptable in an encyclopedia article, which requires a neutral point of view. Anything like that is deleted - that is why your user page was tagged as an advertisement.

I will provide more advice on this page tomorrow. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 21:13, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Advice
The first important consideration is notability. That is Wikipedia's inclusion criterion, and it is not a matter of opinion but has to be demonstrated by references showing "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Significant means more than just listing-type mentions; reliable excludes Myspace, Facebook, blogs, places where anyone can post anything; independent excludes the subject's own website, affiliated ones and anything based on press releases. The test is, have people not connected with the subject thought it significant enough to write substantial comment about? See WP:Notability (summary) for what it means.

That has the advantage of being a more objective test than "Do we think it's important?" and also of ensuring that there are independent sources for the article. It is quite a tough test, and many worthy organizations, especially new ones, cannot pass it. That is not at all to their discredit, but it means they are not suitable subjects for a global encyclopedia. The test applies to non-commercial organizations and good causes, too - we have an explanatory essay entitled Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause.

There is good advice from a very experienced Wikipedia editor at User:Uncle G/On notability: "When writing about subjects that are close to you, don't use your own personal knowledge of the subject, and don't cite yourself, your web site, or the subject's web site. Instead, use what is written about the subject by other people, independently, as your sources. Cite those sources in your very first edit.  If you don't have such sources, don't write."

Think hard about notability, because if you cannot demonstrate it you will be wasting your time and effort. I think it quite likely that a program like yours, though no doubt of interest to its organizers and its members, may not have attracted the sort of independent comment necessary.

One reason why editing with a conflict of interest is discouraged is that an editor connected with a subject thinks in terms of the story the organization wants to tell, rather than what a general encyclopedia reader might want to know. You need to make a strong effort to think of yourself, not as writing for the organization, but as writing for Wikipedia about the organization, from outside. Bear in mind the WP:Verifiability policy: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source", and when writing any glowing adjective, or indeed any claim, imagine a hostile critic saying "Who says? Can you prove that?" Don't talk about the organization's aims, intentions and hopes for the future, or its mission statement, but about what is has achieved. No opinions, only facts, neutrally stated and cited to reliable sources. Write in your own words, without copying from the website.

By now you are thinking "This is much harder than I thought, all I wanted to do was post a copy of our web-site to tell the world about us!" I apologise that (because we are anxious not to put new contributors off by making them read a lot of advice) Wikipedia does not make clear at sign-up time that it is not a "notice-board" site like Myspace or Facebook, which are set up for people to do exactly that; but if Wikipedia is a more valuable resource than Myspace, it is only because we have standards and rules on notability, verifiability and conflict of interest.

If you decide to go ahead, when your draft is ready, do not post it directly, but click the "Submit the article" link in the box at the top. That will send it to WP:Articles for creation, where an experienced user will check it and either accept it or give you feedback.

I have gone into all this at length not because I wish to discourage you, but to help you understand what is involved, and to avoid the common situation where a new contributor expends a lot of time, energy and emotion on what was always a hopeless cause. If you decide to go ahead, you will find many people willing to advise and assist you. There is a WP:Tutorial and a WP:New contributors' help page, and you can also ask for help by putting  (two curly brackets each side) at the bottom of your talk page with your question below it.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 21:57, 14 August 2013 (UTC)