User talk:Ekappelman

Your submission at Articles for creation
 Thank you for your recent submission to Articles for Creation. Your article submission has been reviewed. The submission has not been accepted because it included copyrighted information, which is not permitted on Wikipedia. You are welcome to write an article on the subject, but please do not use copyrighted work.
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 * Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! GregJackP   Boomer!   03:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

So I am new to Wikipedia, but the page that I submitted, Cooperative Network, was deleted due to a copyright violation. The information that is said to be copyrighted was the seven principles of a cooperative, which is a universal set of principles used and followed by all cooperatives. I cited my company's website, but they are also on over 300 other webpages. Is there any way to challenge the deletion and get my page back? Or is it gone forever, and I have to retype it? I would appreciate some help! Thanks! Ekappelman (talk) 18:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)ekappelman
 * did you copy-and-paste off any websites at all. Mdann52 (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, off of my company's website, www.cooperativenetwork.coop . These principles are not copywrited because they are the same principles for every cooperative in every country in the world. I cannot change them because they are the principles that have been in place since 1844. Ekappelman (talk) 14:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)ekappelman
 * WP:COPYVIO. We can't accept copys of almost all pages. Mdann52 (talk) 14:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If we remove the copied section, can our page be restored? How do I go about doing that? Ekappelman (talk) 14:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)ekappelman

Request to userfy
Can an admin userfy Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cooperative Network so that this editor can clean up the copyvio and resubmit the article? Thanks, GregJackP   Boomer!   14:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, we cannot restore copyright material, not even into user pages, not even temporarily. What I can do is email the text of the deleted article: if you would like that, reply below here. JohnCD (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That would be great! Thank you so much! Please send to: erin.kappelman@cooperativenetwork.coop Ekappelman (talk) 14:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)ekappelman
 * I have emailed the text of the article to the address set up in your preferences. It will require considerable work to be accepted as an encyclopedia article; I will give some advice on this talk page tonight (if I have time) or tomorrow. For a start, see User:JohnCD/Not a noticeboard. JohnCD (talk) 17:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Ekappelman, 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) 22:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
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Advice
I should first apologise that no-one has given you a Welcome message such as the one above, which contains several useful links; also that, because Wikipedia is keen that new users should be able to dive right in without having to read a lot of guidelines, we do not make it clear enough that Wikipedia is not a "Notice-board" site like Myspace where people and organizations come to write about themselves. It is a project to build a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. Some of the differences are explained in User:JohnCD/Not a noticeboard

Your article reads like (what it is) the organization telling the world about itself, written partly in the first person ("our members"), talking about the organization's aims "is committed to building..." and "will strive to focus...", using "peacock terms" like "unique and crucial role", and marketing-speak like "resolve their business challenges to better meet the needs of their members". As a general rule, a suitable page would be best written by someone without a Conflict of Interest; it's not impossible to do it properly with a conflict of interest or as a paid press agent, but it's much more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of what your company wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know.

What you need to do is put right out of your mind any idea that you are writing for the company. You are writing for Wikipedia about the company, a general, neutral view from outside, based not on insider knowledge (in Wikipedia terms, that is original research) but on publicly verifiable facts. Whenever you are about to write a glowing adjective, or indeed any claim, remember the verifiability policy, and imagine a hostile critic looking over your shoulder saying "Who says? Can you prove that?" Include only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the firm and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia. Do not include material that would be of interest only to those associated with the firm, or to prospective clients - that sort of content is considered promotional. An example of such unencyclopedic content is your lists of staff members - that's material for your own website

The seven co-operative principles are a problem because we cannot host previously-published material without explicit permission from the copyright owner, and this is really too long an extract to justify under WP:Quotations; but in any case you should be saying what the organization has actually done, rather than its aims - see WP:Avoid mission statements.

The title worries me a little - Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, and there must be many organizations that call themselves "Cooperative Network". How about "Cooperative Network (Wisconsin and Minnesota)"? This may not be a problem now, but it could become so if articles about other "Cooperative Networks" are proposed.

Because of your COI, you should not submit an article directly - go through "Articles for Creation", as you correctly did before. To demonstrate notability, you could do with more references independent of the organization and its associates - see WP:42. Guidelines it might save you time in the end to read include:
 * WP:Your first article
 * WP:Writing better articles
 * WP:Notability (organizations and companies)
 * WP:FAQ/Organizations
 * WP:Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

More advice
Better, but I'm afraid I had to read the two versions carefully side by side to see your changes. It still looks like the organization's manifesto, rather than an article about it from outside. One example: the long lists of names. Does the general encyclopedia reader really want to know the names of the newsletter's layout/design person or the Co-op Care Coordinator? That's material for your own website. Putting them all in makes it look like a vanity page. I suggest one to three names at most, and generally not such detailed lists of all the things you do, more of a general overview. You can put a link to your own website under an "External links" heading, so that all the detail is only a click away for any reader who really wants it. There is still stuff about what you "will strive to focus on" rather than what you have achieved, and still "peacock terms" like "unique and crucial".

Copyright on the seven principles is a problem. Who actually owns the copyright - who would have the authority to make a formal copyright release? If you like I will ask the experts whether so long an extract could pass under the Quotations policy; otherwise it may be a case of saying "The movement is governed by seven principles which are found " with a link to the site.

I am also concerned about the lack of independent references. References serve two purposes: verification and notability. What you have is fine for verification, but Notability requires evidence of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and I don't see that - see WP:42 for what it means. #1 does have some mentions; #2 is your own site; #3 mentions some of your members in a list; #4 doesn't mention you; #5 is an interview with your CEO; #6 is your press release; #7 and #8 are lists where your CEO's name can be found, #9 is your parent organization; #10 (WECA) I tried to fix but I don't think it's pointing where you meant - anyway it seems to be the website of an associated organization; #11 is the same as #1 and doesn't seem to mention the FYF; #12 is your own website; #13 and #14 are associated activities but don't seem to actually mention you; #15 is an associated site.

To show notability, and to help get away from the problem we always have when people are writing about their own organizations, that the impression given is of the organization telling the world about itself, I offer you the advice of a Wikipedia "elder statesman" who had a considerable hand in drafting the notability policy, way back when Wikipedia decided it was not going to be a "list of everything" but should be selective. This is from 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.'"

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 00:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)