User talk:Cryptoctopus777

Notice of general sanctions
Jytdog (talk) 20:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia
Hi Cryptoctopus777. I work on conflict of interest and advocacy issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing Your recent edits at User:Cryptoctopus777/sandboxYY are promotional. I don't know if you are aware, but we have had so much promotional editing across cryptocurrency articles by people in the online communities that have formed around these currencies, that we have added "holding a cryptocurrency" to the COI guideline, as something that creates a conflict of interest here in Wikipedia with regard to that cryptocurrency and others. There are also now what we call "general sanctions" (see WP:General sanctions for the general notion, and the notice above, for the specifics) Folks in those communities, and who hold them, have come to WP in the hopes of promoting them. In case you do have a COI with respect to this currency, I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Cryptoctopus777. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. 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 which forms all or part of work 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.

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. Unmanaged conflicts of interest can also lead to people behaving in ways that violate our behavioral policies and cause disruption in the normal editing process. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).
 * Comments and requests

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with Steem blockchain community, and if you hold this currency? After you respond (and you can just reply below), if it is relevant I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply. This sanction makes complete sense. First, I do not work for the Steemit Inc. (the company that created the software). I have opened an account long ago (https://steemit.com/@creativewriting) but haven't used it. I do know people in the community and chat with them on Telegram. There is however about $4.80 worth of token on my account (which was given when I registered)...sadly not enough to buy myself a sandwich. But I imagine that this might be consider "owning" cryptocurrencies. My primary motivation was to clear the confusion that is happening on the current Steemit wikipedia page (steemit). Cryptoctopus777 (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying!  Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone, you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and so on, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this  in front of your comment. Threading/indenting also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread.  I hope that all makes sense. And you already have this part down, but at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit.  That is how we know who said what to whom and when.


 * Please be aware that threading and signing are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).


 * I know this is unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I like the "enough to buy a sandwich" :)  So situationally you are somewhere on the border between someone who is just an expert (see WP:EXPERT), someone who is a fan or user of a platform (se WP:ADVOCACY) and someone with a conflict of interest.   A possibly perfect place to be, to make really great contributions, and possibly disastrous, depending on how you handle yourself. :)
 * The really thing to keep in mind when you edit about crypto stuff, is to use high quality secondary sources -- so please avoid citing github or the project's own pages - it is OK to use them a little for simple facts, but there should be no passages cited entirely from them and please avoid blogs and trade-rag blogs; avoid these altogether if possible as they are full of hype.
 * The crypt/blockchain topic has been really hard because a) people who are immersed in those worlds really inhabit their bubbles - places reddit and github and those blogs are where they get their information, and b) in general our software pages are pretty fancrufty anyway and many are sparsely watched. The financial conflict of interest involved in cryptocurrencies and all the hype out there driving people here, is what has led the broader editing to be mindful of them.  So the "general sanctions" that the community has put in place are a sign of that - we look for good behavior and high quality content on blockchain topics.
 * Based on what you have written and done so far, you are off to a good start, and I wish you well.
 * If you like, you can have a read of User:Jytdog/How, which I wrote to help new users understand what we do here, how we do things, and why we do them that way. You might find it helpful.
 * If you have any questions as your time here unfolds, please let me know. Jytdog (talk) 15:07, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your helpful guidance. It's a learning process and I'm looking forward to be more involved in Wikipedia. So if I understand correctly, if I do a good job on my next entry, I may have a chance for my contribution to be accepted?


 * What is tricky is that in the blockchain world, the primary source is the whitepaper and then most of the stuff out there are garbage opinion piece based on different biases about which way to do things is better(PoW,PoS,DPos,etc). With that in mind, I'll look harder for authoritative sources outside the whitepaper.


 * If you have any other helpful tips, they are greatly appreciated since I might be hanging around Wikipedia for a while :-) Cryptoctopus777 (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2018 (UTC)