User talk:Lllapides

Conflict of interest
If you have a close connection to the external link you placed in the Syrah article, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when: For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for businesses. For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines. Thank you. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
 * participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
 * linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam); and,
 * avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

Amatulic, I appreciate your concern, and the general Wikipedia concern, about COI. And I can certainly see that there is COI from at least one perspective, in that the external link that I put in did go to a website for my organization. However, it seems that the overriding WP principal is a neutral point of view for the information presented. The link pointed to an article on Syrah written by a winemaker, and seemed to me to add to the discussion of Syrah and the information available in the WP article. At least one of the other links in the External Links section of the Syrah article is to a website of a for-profit organization, so my website itself does not violate WP rules. Sorry, new at this, so I'm a bit confused and willing to be educated. My summary: the information on the other end of the link is NPOV, although on a website for my organization. So if someone else had added the link, there would be no question about accepting it. It's only the appearance of COI with my edit that caused you to delete the link. Seems a little reactionary to me, but as I said, I'm interested in learning how this works. Thanks for your patience. Lllapides (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Lllapides


 * Thanks for your understanding. COI wasn't the only problem I had with the link, but I felt that the COI notice adequately summarized (and linked to) the appropriate policies and guidelines.


 * I looked over your site closely. It's a nice site, but I don't see anything there that tells me it's an authoritative source of information. It's almost like a blog with guest writers. The article to which you linked seems like a self-published editorial on Syrah, written by a non-notable winemaker, that contains many unreferenced claims and personal observations. It didn't strike me as an authoritative essay on the subject of Syrah. I saw problems with the conflict of interest guidelines, the external links guidelines, and especially the reliable sources policy; all those together compelled me to delete your link. Even if someone else had added the link, I would have still deleted it on other grounds besides COI. I deleted a couple more links just now. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, that explanation helps a lot. Thanks.  I'm hopeful that the winemaker does become notable in the future, although it may take a bit of time.  But I understand the policies better now.  Lllapides (talk) 00:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Lllapides