User talk:Hjl7

Please do not add advertising or inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policies for further explanations of links that are considered appropriate. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. JFW | T@lk  15:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I do apologize if you found my link too commercial. I just felt that what I linked to is a valuable resource for hardworking scientists who desperately need funding.

Would you please reconsider your attitude? I meant no harm. I am simply trying to alert hardworking researchers to funds that might help them in their work.

Thank you for your trouble and I do admire the work you do and am sorry to have caused you trouble. But I would appreciate it if you would reconsider. The list of funding sources seemed to need some beefing up and the site I linked to links to dozens of foundations and grants that Wikipedia users looking for funding for medical research could benefit from learning about.

Hjl7 (talk) 16:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I received your email. As I suspect you may have gathered, the above message is a standardised template that does not reflect my personal opinion of the hard work you are putting in, or indeed the aims of ScanGrants itself. It is clear from the site that no commercial interest is being served.
 * However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and serves the needs of the general readership rather than the specific aims of hardworking researchers (who I know spend far too much time having to justify their work to funding bodies and agencies, rather than conducting the research they are capable of doing). For the same reasons, our external link guidelines frown on other types of targeted links.
 * You are always free to approach other Wikipedians to see if they take a different view on this matter, but I suspect you'll get a fairly similar reply. I notice that you left a message on Talk:Research funding. I suggest waiting on responses there, or perhaps approaching editors who have edited that page previously. JFW | T@lk  19:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have made some comments there--it is possible in my view that the link mightbe made in a single article. We never include links from articles in multiple fields of this sort, only at the most appropriate place. I do have to alert you that I am personally rather flexible on these things, and others may view it differently. DGG (talk) 00:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, David. Thank you for your helpful note below. Sorry to be obtuse, but I don’t really follow you here, “We never include links from articles in multiple fields of this sort, only at the most appropriate place.”

What I would like to do in Wikipedia is place a link to ScanGrants in what seem to me to be appropriate places. That is, on pages about grants, foundations, philanthropy, basic science, science, medicine, neurology, laboratory sciences, clinical research, etc. I believe that the provision of the opportunity to browse through the many categories of ScanGrants and seeing what a huge range of research funding is out there on such a variety of diseases (many of which are rare diseases that cry out for the attention of skilled researchers) would be an educational aid and public service for the medical and scientific community. Researchers in need of funding may not know about the funders we list on ScanGrants that fund research in their areas of interest given that many of the funders are small, rather obscure, one-disease specific foundations.

I don’t want to be regarded to a sort of litterbug or manic poster of unwanted links. I just really do feel that ScanGrants would be an aid to scientists and to the foundations themselves and would be an aid to students in the health sciences in the early stages of their careers who may not even realize that they can apply their skills in chromosomal disorders, say, or rare neuromuscular diseases.

Is there some board that I can submit my request to or do I simply post links and see what happens? I very much appreciate the trouble that you and JFW have gone to on this point and have enjoyed the colloquy between you the librarian and the physician JFW. I’d like much to enable researchers and librarians to learn about ScanGrants but don’t want to be a pest, either. Actually, I don’t mind being a pest--I just don’t want to be perceived as a pest.

In short, could I go ahead and try again to post a simple link at the bottom of pages that have to do with science, research and philanthropy? I don’t want to barge into anyone’s articles, but I am a bit unclear still about what is accepted Wikipedian communal practice and what is regarded a behind the pale and utterly, appallingly outré.

Hope


 * let me explain the way it works here. The policy is set by WP:EL. There are some differences in interpretation, as for any policy, but the basic idea has general consensus. From the beginning: Wikipedia is not a general purpose information service, but a particular kind, an encyclopedia, with the basic properties as specified at WP:FIVE. The basic idea of an encyclopedia is that it be objective and its reputation pends upon its freedom from being used for publicity. To be trusted as an encyclopedia, it must be limited to the things that people expect from an encyclopedia. This does not include directory information. Google does pretty well as a web directory. Google does not do well in sorting out material of encyclopedic importance. We try to. In order to do this, the basic principle of editing is that one does not edit the articles about one's own services or add links to the things one is intimately connected with. If they are important or relevant, other people will know about them and they will do so. This principle is known as WP:COI, avoiding conflict of interest.
 * People who want to find information on grants use an appropriate information service. People who want to find an appropriate specialized source use a guide or directory set up for the purpose, and most libraries try to provide this service--indeed, you mention one which lists you. Finding such sources and deciding which to list has been among the things I have always done as a librarian. The standard used is usefulness to one's user community, and we have no hesitation in promoting --and if necessary paying for--good new services.
 * That's not the job of Wikipedia . We provide information about the notable things in the world, including information services, but we do not attempt to judge or promote them. We include articles about the things the world judges important. Our standard is not general public usefulness, but the usefulness that can be provided by having a modern free online encyclopedia.
 * You are doing it the right way--you have posted your proposed links on a talk page, and the people who edit articles on the subject will decide whether to add them. If you add them back yourselves, the experiment will end in their getting removed, your site blacklisted, and you blocked from editing. You can discuss it at the Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, but you'll get the same answer. At best--people there tend to be dealing with professional spammers, people who add large numbers of links as a business--I know you're not one, but some people will judge by appearances. the best guide to our practices is see our Business FAQ, which applies to non profit organisations also. If you have any further questions, feel free to email me from my user page link. DGG (talk) 05:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Editing Marie Stopes
Your recent edits are factually wrong. Stopes was not estranged from her son at the time. However, she was a controlling mother, but if you had looked at the source you would understand. I have simply removed the error at the moment and will think about how to deal with it. In an effort to smooth over the facts you seem to find unpleasant you falsify history. --  spin |control 04:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)