User talk:Lauraglaw

March 2016
Hello, I noticed that you may have recently made edits to WP:THQ while logged out. Making edits while logged out reveals your IP address, which may allow others to determine your location and identity. Wikipedia's policy on multiple accounts usually does not allow the use of more than one account or IP address per person. If this was not your intention, please remember to log in when editing. ''One of your questions at the Teahouse about William J. Kelly was made from an IP address, but I have reason to assume that it was you. Please be sure to log in before editing.'' Robert McClenon (talk) 19:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Your Questions
Your questions at the Teahouse have been addressed. Please see if you understand them. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:23, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Deleted Articles
I think that I answered your questions at the Teahouse about a deleted article, but would like to be sure. First, am I correct that two of the versions of the biographies were deleted because they were submitted by a banned or blocked user? If so, my guess is that you were, unknowingly, hiring a paid editor who had already been blocked or banned for being a paid editor, and who was then using sockpuppets to create the articles, and the sockpuppets were blocked. If you are willing to say, what were the names of the paid editor or editors? Second, do you have a commercial connection with a company (or self-employed person) that was the reason or part of the reason why you wanted the article on William J. Kelly created? That is, what was your connection that made you willing to pay a hired editor? If you have a conflict of interest connection, you are required to provide a conflict of interest disclosure either on this page (your talk page) or your user talk page. I know that you may feel embarrassed at having been taken advantage of by a con man, but if you want to edit Wikipedia, you have to either edit without conflict of interest (do you have one?) or disclose it. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Answers
Yes, correct. I hired an editor who represented himself to be a Wikipedia editor and did not know he was banned. I hired him through Elance and Elance stands by their statement that the writer was not banned at the time. I agree, I was conned. He goes by the name of Owais N on Elance and Upwork. I also have no problem disclosing that I am colleagues with the subject, Mr. Kelly. I wanted his profile done with Wikipedia's rules of neutrality which was why I hired a freelancer. I don't know the rules well enough and I don't think I can write a neutral profile. Where do I need to disclose my interest in the subject? Is posting that here sufficient? Is it possible for me to submit a profile? Thank you. Lauraglaw (talk) 18:14, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Lauraglaw. I will try to answer your questions as best as I can in the order they were listed.
 * Where do I need to disclose my interest in the subject? Is posting that here sufficient? How and where to do this are described at WP:DCOI. For reference, your userpage can be found at User:Lauraglaw. By the way, your use name is currenty displayed in red because you have yet to create a userpage. Once you have created a page, your user name will be displayed in blue.
 * Is it possible for me to submit a profile? Wikipedia does not expressly prohibit COI editing; it only highly discourages it. So, yes you can submit a draft for an article about William J. Kelly. My suggestion to you is try and do this via Wikipedia:Articles for creation (AfC). AfC reviewers are typically very experienced editors who are well-versed in Wikipedia's various policies and guidelines and Wikipedia's manual of style. There are over 5,000,000 articles on Wikipedia and unfortunately quite a few of these probably shouldn't have been added in the first place. Sometimes these articles are noticed right away and subsequently deleted, but other times it make takes years before they are detected. The main reason an article is deleted from Wikipedia is because the subject matter is judged to not satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines. We as editors can improve badly formated articles or poorly written/sourced articles, but we cannot make something notable through our editing. The AfC reviewers are looking to see whether the subject of an article has received the significant coverage in independent reliable sources it needs to establich notability. If it has, the AfC reviewer will likely approve the draft and move it to the article namespace; if it has not, then the draft will likely be declined. So, as long as you are able to establish that Kelly is Wikipedia notable in your draft, the AfC reviewers or other editors will help to clean up any promotional (non-neutral) text as well as any formating/style error. If you do create a draft, I suggest you add Template:Connected contributor to the draft's talk page just to make the reviewer(s) aware of your COI. AfC drafts which become articles are not 100% guaranteed to never be deleted from Wikipedia, but their chances of lasting are much better since they are vetted and AfC reviewers typically do not add articles which are likely to be quickly challenged/deleted. There is an alternative to writing the article yourself called Wikipedia:Requested articles. Basically, you gather up all of the pieces of the puzzle you want to do and request that another editor put it all together for you. Once again, however, you need to provide sources which establish Kelly's Wikipedia's notability since an experienced editor is not likely to waste time working on something that has no chance of ever becoming an article.
 * Finally, some final words about COI editing and drafts. Drafts like articles and pretty much everything else on Wikipedia are not owned by their creators/editors, which means that anyone can edit it at anytime. Most experienced editors will refrain from directly editing your draft out of deference to you unless you request that they do so or there is a serious policy/guideline violation which requires immediate attention. Once a draft has been added to the article namespace, however, it's free game for anyone to edit for better or worse and the draft's creator or the subject of the article are not granted any sort of final editorial control over what is added/removed. Most people seem to feel that having a Wikipedia article written about them is a 100% good thing, but there can also be an unexpected downside. COI editors are given quite a bit of leeway when it comes to drafts, but there are limitations placed upon them when it comes to articles. So, I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide to familiarize yourself with what these are. Good luck. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC

Downside
Thank you very much for your help, Marchjuly. This subject has had a profile vandalized before so I agree there are downsides. Lauraglaw (talk) 15:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)