User talk:Msknight

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 * Also specifically for you see:
 * Your first article
 * Biographies of living persons Nja 247 07:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edits
Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 07:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

April 2009
This is just a reminder of the discussion we've had on my talk page relating to conflicts of interest, biography page inclusion criteria, reliable sources and notability. Cheers. Nja 247 08:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Should edits on personal articles be banned by the person who the article is about?
The policy of restricting edits on articles on whom the article is about is somewhat puzzling to me. The aim of Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and to my mind, the encyclopedic nature of the article is not linkable to the individual on whom it is concerned.

While there are obviously some difficulties with preventing deletion of material that the individual concerned may not like to be seen, the articles are missing out on beneficial material which can be supplied and verified by the very person most likely to have it; namely the subject of the article.

Thus, to my mind, any encyclopedia about a person has much to gain from the inclusion of material from the subject, or people related to the subject, and a considerable amount to loose.

Far better, in my view, to enforce the encyclopedic and factual nature of the entries than to try and block the people most knowledgeable from posting. A submission section could be made for transfer of pictures of documentation to a closed and select area of editors for any facts which the chief editors believe need evidence in order to stand in the article.--Msknight (talk) 13:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC) After said editor has looked at and confirmed the document, it is then deleted automatically. --Msknight (talk) 13:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone raised your bio at one of our noticeboards. Couple of points:

1) you need to change almost all the uses of Michelle to "Knight", we have a manual of style and we don't use first names in articles beyond the lead where we give the full name.

2) The draft on your page lacks reliable sources. If you tried to move that to article space in it's current form it would be deleted. You need multiple independent reliable sources - so magazines, newspapers etc used as sources in the article. If those don't exist, the article can't exist. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You should probably put your draft at a subpage of your user page rather than directly on it. Please see: What may I have on my user page Jezhotwells (talk) 18:15, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Done for you, moved to User:Msknight/Draft and updated links. Nja 247 20:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Our more or less blanket prohibition on autobiography has two main underpinnings. One is neutral point of view. It is impossible to be genuinely impartial about oneself, try though you may. The other is conflict of interest: you have a vested interest in having yourself seen in the best light possible. A close third, I might add, is verifiability: autobiographical articles tend to be full of assertions which are not sourced to reliable sources. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  20:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Nja, thank you for moving my writing to where it should be.

To further the discussion, I offer the following ...

The editors are in charge of the editing. If someone is being overly positive or untruthful, the editors are charged with catching and correcting this. It happens in all forms of article ... so why should an auto-biography be any different? The editors can demand verification for any change so made or presented to them ... why is this different for an auto-biography?

I have a vested interest in having myself seen in the best possible light ... true ... but the editors are present to both ensure that I do not post anything which is untrue or unverifiable, and also there to prevent me from removing anything which is verified, against me.

The tasks of the editors are no different in any article ... so why should the individual concerned be different from any other contributor ... all must have proof of what they say, and the subject of any biography has the right to approach the editors about any edit which they believe is not true.--Msknight (talk) 20:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The wider problem is this - unsourced BLP (Bibliographies of living people) articles can have unsourced content removed at will. Your article as it currently stands would be reduced to your name and maybe a line saying you own a website and post to another website. It wouldn't survive in article space for more than a couple of minutes... --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a note: I'd keep as much of the relevant bits of the discussion on the noticeboard, that way things are in one place for the community to see. Nja 247 20:31, 25 April 2009 (UTC)