User talk:Mpatrickwalton

Welcome!
Hello, Mpatrickwalton, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article.&#32;Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * Best practices for editors with close associations
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
 * Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using 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 ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:47, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Jim, thanks for the feedback. You are right, the article I wanted to write is about my dad, but I read the Wikipedia policies on requirements for independent, reliable sources and thought I could write a neutral article based solely on those sources. By the way, he is deceased, but I am a beneficiary of his trust, so I guess there is a connection, albeit small. He definitely fits the notability requirements based on the number of independent sources written about him and his books. I am pretty new, but thought this would be a good project to help me get a little deeper.
 * I read the best practices for editors with close associations and just wanted to check that I understand correctly: if I want to write an article about a family member, I can draft it and request review. I shouldn't try to publish it but reviewers can publish it once they think it is sufficiently neutral. Is that right? Mpatrickwalton (talk) 23:44, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems that you wanted to talk to, but yeah, pretty much. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 00:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I dream of horses, thanks for ping. Mpatrickwalton, I'll post further guidance below

More
As we've established, you must declare your obvious conflict of interest, please also read the guidance below:


 * When you write about a person, you must provide independent verifiable sources to enable us to verify the facts and show that they meet the notability guidelines. Sources that are not acceptable include those linked to the person or an associated organisation, press releases, YouTube, IMDB, social media and other sites that can be self-edited, blogs, websites of unknown or non-reliable provenance, and sites that are just reporting what the person claims or interviewing them. Note that references should be in-line so we can tell what fact each is supporting, and should not be bare urls.
 * You must write in a non-promotional tone. Articles must be neutral and encyclopaedic, with verifiable facts, not opinions or reviews.
 * There shouldn't be any url links in the article, only in the "References" or "External links" sections.
 * You must not copy text from elsewhere. Copyrighted text is not allowed in Wikipedia, as outlined in this policy. That applies even to pages created by you or your organisation, unless they state clearly and explicitly that the text is public domain. We require that text posted here can be used, modified and distributed for any purpose, including commercial; text is considered to be copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise. There are ways to donate copyrighted text to Wikipedia, as described here; please note that simply asserting on the talk page that you are the owner of the copyright, or you have permission to use the text, isn't sufficient.

Before attempting to write an article again, please make sure that the topic meets the notability criteria linked above, and check that you can find independent third party sources. Also read Your first article. If you are writing about yourself, or someone you know as a friend, colleague, client, employer or relative, you have a conflict of interest, and you must disclose the nature of that COI. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:55, 31 May 2023 (UTC)