User talk:Freelance Columnist

Welcome!
Hello, Freelance Columnist, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Saturday Kitchen. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Longhair\talk 11:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Username
Please see the notice below.

Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that your username, "'Freelance Columnist", may not comply with our username policy. Please note that you may not use a username that represents the name of a company, group, organization, product, or website. Examples of usernames that are not allowed include "XYZ Company", "MyWidgetsUSA.com", and "Foobar Museum of Art". However, you are permitted to use a username that contains such a name if it identifies you individually, such as "Sara Smith at XYZ Company", "Mark at WidgetsUSA", or "FoobarFan87".

Please also note that Wikipedia does not allow accounts to be shared by multiple people, and that you may not advocate for or promote any company, group, organization, product, or website, regardless of your username. Please also read our paid editing policy and our conflict of interest guideline. If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please request a change of username, by completing this form, choosing a username that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you.

In my view your username is good in some ways, in that through it you ~appear~ to be disclosing that you are probably editing for pay (please see below about that). However your username also a) appears to be a group account? (see below about that) and b) appears to be promotional with respect to you offering your services as a freelance writer in Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 15:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Sock- and meatpuppetry
Would you please explain the relationship between this account and ? Are these both your accounts, or are you working with the person operating the Freelance Writer account? Please explain what is going on here. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now also ? Jytdog (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Paid editing in Wikipedia
Hi Freelance Columnist. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing, which is mostly about health and medicine. Your edits to date for example about psychiatric nursing appear promotional, as do those of Freelance Writer. 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, Freelance Writing. 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. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. 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 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.

Comments and requests
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. 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).

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 companies or people involved in the topics about which you have edited, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? Would you also please disclose specifically if you are editing for pay, and if so, would you please disclose your employer, the client, and any additional affiliations that would provide full disclosure of the conflict of interest? (See PAID, mentioned above) You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through the details of how to formally disclose, 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) 15:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)