User talk:John L. Graham

June 2014
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 * The following is the log entry regarding this message: Negotiation was changed by John L. Graham (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.914956 on 2014-06-05T20:43:40+00:00 . Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 20:43, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Negotiation
Hello. In your most recent edit summary for the Negotiation article you stated "I have shortened it. Because it is a new concept, I think it needs more explanation than the more familiar distributive and integrative strategies" and therein lies the problem. Wikipedia has a very strong preference for secondary sources for the very reason you have mentioned. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia for the average person to gain a basic understanding of a topic. If there is brand new cutting edge theory involved in a topic then if reliable secondary sources discuss it, it might merit mention. If there are no reliable secondary sources that discuss it then that's a good indication that you are giving it undue weight. Your reasoning that these ideas need more explanation than the more familiar ones actually runs entirely against Wikipedia policy and guidelines. Because it is not as well-known it is required that it have less space given over to it. That is how Wikipedia operates.

Also, be careful of edit warring. When two editors revert you for basically the same edit your next course of action should be to discuss the issue on the talk page and explain your edits and try to achieve a new consensus in support of them.

Also, also, I just noticed that you appear to be one the authors your cite in your edit. This is a big problem as a conflict of interest. Wikipedia cannot be used in this manner. If you reveal your identity and make it clear what you are doing then it can be appropriate for you to add content like this to Wikipedia, but you have to tread carefully being mindful of the fact that our first (actually first through twentieth) instinct(s) is going to be that you are using Wikipedia to promote yourself and that is a huge sin. I mean a major sin that will get you blocked and possibly banned from the topic should the behavior continue. We love love love to have experts edit articles in the topics of which they are experts but they must do so within the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia which includes not promoting themselves and remaining entirely neutral.

So please, act in good faith and revert your edit. If you have secondary sources for your claim then a brief mention of it can be added to the article, otherwise it might just be that Wikipedia is not (yet) the best place for this information. If you have any questions or comments you can reach me on my talk page. Thanks. SQGibbon (talk) 20:57, 6 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hey John, thanks for responding. Unfortunately everything I said in my original message above still applies. You are giving undue weight to an approach that relies on one book that is not (yet?) a consensus view held within the academic community. The principle of Wikipedia's stance on undue weight is that your new approach to negotiation should receive very little mention if any at all. There is no way around this according to Wikipedia policy and guidelines. The policy on conflict of interest is also very important as our the policies against self-promotion or using Wikipedia to promote anything.


 * I appreciate your passion for the subject and hope that it really can save lives but regardless of the nobility and good intentions this information does not belong in Wikipedia in the manner in which you've attempted to add it. If in time reliable secondary sources report on it then we can mention it. If it becomes a widely adopted position among academics then it can receive a fuller explanation or perhaps even its own article. But right now that is all down the road. Right now Wikipedia policies and guidelines are very clear on the topic and the restraint we must exercise. SQGibbon (talk) 14:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I assume this is the best way to reach you. Does the other editor (U....)see this as well? I certainly did not mean to hide my identity -- that is why I used my name. But, what I do not understand still is how would one go about describing (and starting a debate about) the weaknesses and limitations of any particular theory, especially the well accepted ones? Given your views let me think about all of this a bit more. Thanks for your patience. John


 * Actually, if you leave a message on my talk page then I receive an email telling me I have a message. If you wish to open this up to the entire community then you need to start the conversation on the Negotiation talk page (here). User "U" left a message for you on my talk page and I just left a note for him telling him he might want to contact you here. I think perhaps you are having a conceptual difficulty here, Wikipedia is not an academic journal nor really a place to discuss actual theories themselves but only to report on what other have said about those theories. In any case the talk page I linked to above is where you want to go. SQGibbon (talk) 21:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi John. You will notice that I have reverted your latest addition to the negotiation page. I do accept that you made some improvements in response to feedback from myself and SQGibbon, but there are still multiple issues with your edit (as mentioned in the edit summary). These issues could have been avoided if you allowed substantive discussion to take place before again attempting to introduce "inventive negotiation" into the article. Please be patient and actually converse with other editors. It will save you time and effort in the long run.
 * I also hope you attend to SQGibbon's summary of what Wikipedia is. I do think this will help clarify your role as an editor. I would only add that, in answer to your question, there is a specific way that we can go about "describing...the weaknesses and limitations of any particular theory". That is to report the analysis of other researchers that has been published in reliable sources. Cheers Andrew (talk) 02:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)