User talk:IsraeliteHistorian

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, IsraeliteHistorian. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:


 * Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
 * Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
 * Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).
 * Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. Dougweller (talk) 18:29, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry
Life too busy to respond in a timely fashion, sorry. You were also unfortunate in having a fan, see the now blocked User talk:Oh My Volcano and the discussion at. But basically it's usual if an author, even in a peer reviewed journal, isn't really well known to wait to see what other academics have to say about their article before mentioning it. We have this thing called WP:UNDUE which describes what I'm talking about. The more an author's work is discussed the more significant their view is seen to be. And as I think I said, adding one's own work is usually seen as something to be avoided. I've seen authors more or less spam their work to all the related articles they could find. I'm not for a moment suggesting that you've done that of course, it's just that that sort of behavior is one reason we ask people to make their suggestions on the talk page if they think their work would be useful. Thanks for using edit summaries, they are always helpful. You mentioned my spelling. It wasn't my spelling at all. The text I read said "When I teamt(sic) that this Mount Birghir is the same" and of course Hoffmeier spells it Biggir. Your spelling seems to be yet another alternative spelling, but I don't think I should be criticised for not using it. I very much appreciate that you are up front about who you are. And your latest edit to that article is really good. I haven't looked in detail at your edits at Midian but they also look very helpful. In case you are wondering, Midian is on my WP:WATCHLIST so I automatically see all edits to it or its talk page. One thing that tripped me up at first is what we call "original research", see WP:NOR. Part of that is sources must discuss the subject. This is very different from writing a journal article, where you can build an argument from sources that don't directly discuss the subject. Thus when I was trying to edit Where Troy Once Stood many years ago I was trying to argue against the thesis of the book the way I would in an ordinary essay, using sources discussing Troy but not mentioning the book. I got quickly told that Wikipedia doesn't work that way. I'm not suggesting at all that you've done that, but it's something that often surprises new editors who are used to working quite differently. WP:VERIFY is also worth reading. Anyway, sorry if I made your experience here at all unpleasant, I'm really pleased to see you editing here and may even call on you for help sometime! Dougweller (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Doug,

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me. As for my "fan", that lady (OhMyVolcano) is quite bothersome. I hope that you like the edits I've done to the Midian entry, and if you ever need anything in the future let me know.