User talk:Ff0123

Mandatory paid editing disclosure
Hello Ff0123. The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, and that you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially egregious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to Black hat SEO.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists, and if it does not, from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are  required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Ff0123. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, please do not edit further until you answer this message. Jytdog (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Jytdog,
 * I am not being compensated for my edits; however, I was getting the information for the Wikipedia page from a organization that I do have an unpaid internship with. Does this position also not allow me to edit directly? Ff0123 (talk) 17:32, 19 June 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 when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this  in front of your comment. This 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 insanely archaic and 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) 18:01, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, the summer intern thing. It is more  or less "paid" here (the experience and resumé line, is the compensation) but you definitely have a conflict of interest and should follow that guideline. Which comes down to the same thing.
 * Lots of people come to Wikipedia with some sort of conflict of interest and are not aware of how we manage it. Here is the drill...


 * 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. Managing conflict of interest well, also protects conflicted editors themselves - please see WP:Wikipedia is in the real world, and Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia for some guidance and stories about people who have brought bad press upon themselves through unmanaged conflict of interest editing.


 * 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.


 * 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 the name of the organization for which you are interning?  Here in Wikipedia such disclosures must be made explicitly.


 * After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the quick response and the information! I am interning for the Functional Food Center (FFC). Ff0123 (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your note, and for disclosing your relationship with the Functional Food Center. So you have a COI for that organization and related topics, as we define that in Wikipedia.


 * To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Ff0123 - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I am doing an internship with the Functional Food Center and have a conflict of interest with respect to that organization and related topics."  would fine.  If there  is anything else there that is relevant to what you want to do in WP feel free to add it, but please don't add anything promotional about the company or yourself (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).


 * Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.


 * As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP.  The first is disclosure.  The second is a form of peer review.  This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense.  In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done.  No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world.  So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article.  Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest.   If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.


 * What we ask editors to do who have a COI or who are paid, and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:
 * a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page with the Template:Connected contributor tag, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and
 * b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to
 * (i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor (paid) tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page; and
 * (ii) propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. Just open a new section, put the proposed content there, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) please the  tag to flag it for other editors to review.  In general it should be relatively short so that it is not too much review at once.  Sometimes editors propose complete rewrites, providing a link to their sandbox for example.  This is OK to do but please be aware that it is lot more for volunteers to process and will probably take longer.


 * By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies.    (There are good faith paid editors here, who have signed and follow the Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms, and there are "black hat" paid editors here who lie about what they do and really harm Wikipedia).


 * But understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important!  There are a whole slew of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior here in Wikipedia.   Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of what Wikipedia is and is not (we are not a directory or a place to promote anything), and for an overview of the content and behavior policies and guidelines.  Learning and following these is very important, and takes time.   Please be aware that you have created a Wikipedia account, and this makes you a Wikipedian - you are obligated to pursue Wikipedia's mission first and foremost when you work here, and you are obligated to edit according to the policies and guidelines.  Editing Wikipedia is a privilege that is freely offered to all, but the community restricts or completely takes that privilege away from people who will not edit and behave as Wikipedians.
 * I hope that makes sense to you.


 * I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content.   If you are not sure if something is uncontroversial, please ask at the Talk page.


 * Will you please agree to learn and follow the content and behavioral policies and guidelines, and to follow the peer review processes going forward when you want to work on articles related to "functional foods", or the center? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Great, thank you so much! I will be sure to learn the behavioral polices and guidelines and go forward with those steps. Thank you for your time, Ff0123 (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working through this! Please be sure to get grounded on the mission of WP, and how we do stuff, and why. :) Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)