User talk:Mattie van der Merwe

Mattie van der Merwe (talk) 11:37, 23 February 2017 (UTC) I updated the section "Language" as follows: The first paragraph was modified to bring the use of language usage at the University up to date. The second paragraph, the University's official take on its language usage, was added. The students' language profile was brought up to date and a reference was added. Information about the University's Woordfees was added and a reference to a web page - news about its 2017 programme.

Welcome from a fellow Matie!
Hi Mattie,

I noticed your edits on the Stellenbosch University article, and I did a bit of tweaking in response. A phrase like "SU is committed to engagement with knowledge in a diverse society" just doesn't fit Wikipedia's style: it comes off as promotional, like something that you would read in a prospectus. You need to look for neutral, direct ways of communicating. I see that you're on the SU communications team. That means that you have a conflict of interest (and of course, Wikipedia has a conflict of interest policy!) which you need to declare. It also means that you should ideally not edit any articles about the University except to correct or update uncontroversial facts or to remove vandalism, and you should certainly make a note on the article's talk page every time you make any edits.

I'm always willing to help people navigate Wikipedia, so if you need help, you can drop a note at User talk:Slashme, or just make a link to my username if you're having a discussion which you would like me to notice. To do this, you can type User:Slashme to mention my name, or type, which will display as "@Slashme," when you save the page. --Slashme (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Stellenbosch University article
Mattie van der Merwe (talk) 13:19, 24 February 2017 (UTC) Hi, thanks for the timely advice! As a newby I appreciate it. I realise I have a COI. Shall mention it when I edit. I've been tasked to make sure that the information about the university is correct and up to date. I'll take your warning "no promotional language" to heart. Sorry about that. It is a relief actually, because now I have grounds to keep it factual. I'll also talk about the changes I make so they can be checked out. I respect the hard work and goodwill that went into this article in the first place. Thanks for taking me under your wing!


 * Hi Mattie,


 * The right way to declare a conflict of interest is explained at Conflict_of_interest. You can edit your user page (User:Mattie_van_der_Merwe) and add the following template: . Then you can edit the article talk page (Talk:Stellenbosch_University), and at the top of the page, add this template:.


 * When you edit the page, as I mentioned above, it should only be to make completely uncontroversial changes (corrections of grammar or factual inaccuracies, reverting vandalism, etc.) and you should make a note on the article talk page. If you would like anything more substantial to be changed, you should use the template, again on the article talk page.


 * A note about signatures and replies: you don't have to put your signature in the topic of a discussion, and it's conventional to put it at the end of your comment, not at the start. Also, when you reply to someone's comment, don't start a new section; just edit the section in question (like I did here), and indent your reply by putting a colon at the start of each line, or if you're replying to a reply, put extra colons to indent deeper.


 * And thanks again for engaging responsibly with Wikipedia! --Slashme (talk) 09:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)