User talk:Neurogal913

Welcome!
Hello, Neurogal913, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Draft:Groundfloor, which 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 our use and policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
 * 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! -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:41, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Neurogal913. If you're indeed an employee of Groundfloor as you stated in this Wikipedia Teahouse post, then you would certainly be considered to have a conflict of interest with respect to anything written about the company (or any person(s) associated with the company) on Wikipedia and might possibly even be considered a paid editor as well. So, you really carefully read through the pages mentioned in the above template (the blue page names are links to relevant pages) to familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia policies and guidelines applicable to COI editing. You really should also submit any draft you're working on via Wikipedia:Articles for creation because this will give experienced editors a chance to review the draft and see if it's something suitable for a Wikipedia article. AfC reviewers tend to be quite experienced and very familiar with Wikipedia policies and guidelines and they can provide suggestions are ways to improve the draft if it's not currently considered suitable for article status. This is the best way to ensure that any article eventually accepted about the company doesn't end up being WP:DELETED for one reaosn or another. Just for reference, neither COI editing or paid editing are expressly forbidden by Wikipedia, and many COI and paid editors are able to edit without problems; however, there are specific policies and guidelines which need to be complied with and those editors who don't are typically the ones who end up having the most problems. If you have any quesitons about this, you can ask for assistance at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:03, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Working in Wikipedia as a paid editor
Hi Neurogal913. I spend time working on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing, which is mostly about health and medicine. I am not an administrator. Lots of people come to Wikipedia with some sort of conflict of interest and are not aware of how the editing community defines and manages conflict of interest. Please let me explain....

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 - 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).

You already disclosed at the Teahouse that you work for Groundfloor. I appreciate you being forthright about that! I have added the disclosure at Draft_talk:Groundfloor in the mustard-colored box.
 * First step:

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (User:Neurogal913)? Just something simple like: "I work for Groundfloor, and have a conflict of interest with regard to that company and related topics" would be fine. Please don't add anything promotional about the company there (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

Once you do that, would you please reply here, just below this, and then I can walk you through the 2nd step? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 20:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I have added that COI to my userpage as requested. Neurogal913 (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying!  Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone, you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and so on, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this  in front of your comment. Threading/indenting also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread.  I hope that all makes sense.
 * And you already seem to have this down -- butat the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit.


 * Please be aware that threading and signing are how we know who said what to whom and when and are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).


 * I know this is unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

2nd step
(opening a new subsection to save scrolling...) Thanks for posting the disclosure -- the first step is done.

The second step is a form of peer review. This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.

What we ask of editors who have a COI or who are paid, and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:
 * a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page with the Template:Connected contributor (paid) tag, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and
 * b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to
 * (i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor (paid) tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page; and
 * (ii) propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. Just open a new section on the talk page, put the proposed content there formatted just as you would if you were adding it directly to the article, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) place the  tag to flag it for other editors to review.  In general it should be relatively short so that it is not too much review at once.  Sometimes editors propose complete rewrites, providing a link to their sandbox for example.  This is OK to do but please be aware that it is lot more for volunteers to process and will probably take longer.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies.

But understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important! There are a whole slew of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior here in Wikipedia. Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of what Wikipedia is and is not (we are not a directory or a place to promote anything), and for an overview of the content and behavior policies and guidelines. Learning and following these is very important, and takes time. Please be aware that you have created a Wikipedia account, and this makes you a Wikipedian - you are obligated to pursue Wikipedia's mission first and foremost when you work here, and you are obligated to edit according to the policies and guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege that is freely offered to all, but the community restricts or completely takes that privilege away from people who will not edit and behave as Wikipedians.

I hope that makes sense to you.

Will you please agree to learn and follow the content and behavioral policies and guidelines, and to follow the peer review processes going forward when you want to work on any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 16:57, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * That makes perfect sense. Thanks so much for all of the details :) Neurogal913 (talk) 17:09, 16 November 2018 (UTC)