User talk:Melaniegray

Welcome!
Hello, Melaniegray, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:


 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 15:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest and paid editing in Wikipedia
Hi Melaniegray. I spend time working on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. I am not an administrator. Your edits to date look like digital marketing. Lots of people come to Wikipedia with some sort of conflict of interest or in order to do marketing work, and are not aware of how the editing community defines and manages conflict of interest. I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Melaniegray. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

Comments and requests
Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. Unmanaged conflicts of interest can also lead to people behaving in ways that violate our behavioral policies and cause disruption in the normal editing process. Managing conflict of interest well, also protects conflicted editors themselves, as well as their clients - please see WP:Wikipedia is in the real world, and Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia for some guidance and stories about people who have brought bad press upon themselves through unmanaged conflict of interest editing.

As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. You ~appear~ to be editing under what could be your real name, but we don't assume such things here. If you choose to edit under your real name that is your choice (see WP:REALNAME), but if you choose to keep that private, that choice would be strictly protected by our WP:OUTING policy)

What does matter, is disclosure of the external relationships. Would you please disclose if you have some connection with any subject about which you have edited (including publishers of citations, like inspirery.com), directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it, and if you are editing for pay or the expectation of being paid, you must disclose that, explicitly.

After you respond (and you can just reply below), if it is relevant I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)