User talk:Nikolas Dietis

Welcome to Wikipedia from the Medicine WikiProject!


Welcome to Wikipedia from WikiProject Medicine (also known as WPMED).

We're a group of editors who strive to improve the quality of medical articles here on Wikipedia. I noticed that you are interested in editing medical articles, such as your edits to the article Zefr; it's great to have a new editor on board. In your wiki-voyages, a few things that may be relevant to editing Wikipedia articles are:


 * Thanks for coming aboard! We always appreciate a new editor. Feel free to leave us a message at any time on our talk page. If you are interested in joining the project yourself, there is a participant list where you can sign up. Please leave a message on the WPMED talk page if you have any problems, suggestions, would like review of an article, need suggestions for articles to edit, or would like some collaboration when editing!
 * Sourcing of medical and health-related content on Wikipedia is guided by our medical sourcing guidelines, commonly referred to as MEDRS. These guidelines typically require recent secondary sources to support information; their application is further explained here. Primary sources (case studies, case reports, research studies) are rarely used, especially if the primary sources are produced by the organisation or individual who is promoting a claim.
 * The Wikipedia community includes a wide variety of editors with different interests, skills, and knowledge. We all manage to get along through a lot of discussion that happens under the scenes and through the bold, revert, discuss editing cycle. If you encounter any problems, you can discuss them on an article's talk page or post a message on the WPMED talk page.

Feel free to drop a note on my talk page if you have any questions. I wish you all the best on your wiki voyages! Zefr (talk) 17:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

July 2022
Please do not use styles that are nonstandard, unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles, as you did in Opioid. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Review the MOS for style, practice more in your sandbox, and ask for help at the Teahouse. Zefr (talk) 17:21, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear Zefr,
 * Thanks for your feedback, although I did struggle to understand exactly to which style you are referring to. All I did was added text, photos and references, using the relevant wiki tools. The text I added was clear and at the same style as the Wiki entry (Opioids). To the best of my knowledge, nothing that I contributed was against the "Manual of Style".
 * Please feel free to be more specific if you want to. I do take the Wiki contributions seriously, which is why I appreciate your message fully.
 * All the best,
 * ND Nikolas Dietis (talk) 15:36, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * One example is to not use first- or second-person pronouns, explained in MOS:WE. Zefr (talk) 16:49, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Nikolas Dietis. 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 conflict of interest 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, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Conflict of interest);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Spam);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to 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 Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. MrOllie (talk) 11:21, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear MrOllie,
 * Many thanks for your kind feedback/guidance. As I have mentioned to SandyGeorgia who has messeged me (I believe for the same issue of COI), I believe there is no COI involved, since I do not get paid for the contributions or have no gain in any form, from them. I am an academic-scientist and sure, the content/contributions I place in Wikipedia have to do with my scientific work (references added), which is the essence of our work as scientists (to communicate science). However, there is no profit/payment/compensation involved, the articles I cite are open, fully peer-reviewd and published by secondary sources. I do not write about myself or mention my organization (University), I do not add links outside the references and I believe I abide with all content policies.
 * If it is important that I mention my affiliation (University academic) in the Edit Summary (one of the ways to disclose COI), sure I will do in the future no problem. But I surely believe there is no conflict in what I do (providing an easy-to-understand summary of our third-party published peer-reviewed work is not a conflict of any kind), so there cannot be a COI (in my opinion).
 * Nevertheless, I want to abide by the norm of what Editors are asking users to do, as I have no intention to create a disturbance and I have nothing to hide.
 * So I took your advice and have edited my User page with a COI.
 * Please let me know if you believe I can do anything additional.
 * Once again, thanks for your kind guidance.
 * Best,
 * ND Nikolas Dietis (talk) 09:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Your response here seems to assume that all conflict of interest are financial - the definition used on Wikipedia is more broad than that. The Wikipedia community believes that editing to include mentions of your work or citations to yourself is also a form of conflict of interest. As a subject matter expert, you are no doubt familiar with a wide range of sources of diverse authorship - please cite some of them. If and when you think only a citation to yourself will do, please suggest the change on the talk page of the associated article rather than making it yourself. MrOllie (talk) 11:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply MrOllie.
 * So, just to clarify, if I include as a reference number of diverse sources for a content, including one of my papers, would this be regarded as an accepted option to avert a COI? Please note that I have now updated my page to include COIs.
 * Best,
 * ND Nikolas Dietis (talk) 08:35, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Citing other people isn't a price you pay in return for citing yourself - your primary goal here should be growing the encyclopedia, not including references to your own work. MrOllie (talk) 10:21, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And this COI problem shows in your edits so far, which are not edits that actually improve the article regardless of the source used. Adding statements that amount to "this topic has been studied", or duplicating content or sources already in the article -- just to include a link to your own work -- does not add to the body of knowledge (even less considering that most Wikipedia readers never access the sources anyway). If you want to cite your own articles (and I see only two in Pubmed that may meet WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDDATE), the best way is to use the article talk page to ask someone else to add it.  You might consider the  option to get quicker feedback.  By the way, there are many well-established medical editors on Wikipedia who have large bodies of published work.  Quite a few of them are respected on Wikipedia because they work to improve the project overall-- not to add their own work.  If their own work is worthy of adding, they know someone else will have likely add it, or will add it if requested on article talk.  Wikipedia is a hobby that is enjoyable to many editors because they work outside of their own fields of expertise.   As MrOllie explains, COI is more than financial; it can affect one's judgment as to whether the content one is adding is actually helpful or meaningful to the article and our readers. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  12:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

July 2022
Could you please have a look at WP:MEDRS, and WP:NOT, and WP:COI, and stop adding promotional content linking to sources with Nikolas Dietis as author? Edits like this appear purely promotional and don't add meaningful content; on Wikipedia, this may be viewed as WP:REFSPAM. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  11:57, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear Sandy,
 * I apologise if you believe that the content I have added is "promotional". It is surely not. I am an academic scientist and the content I add is fully covered by rules and guidance of WP:MEDRS and WP:COI. It does not provide any controversy, conflict or disputation. Sure, I am the scientist-author of the references that I add, which I believe is legitimate since its part of my social responsibility as an academic-scientist to communicate science to the public & wider audience. I don't see how is this a COI? The content/references that I mention are open (no profit involved), they have been fully peer-reviewed (evidence-based) and are coming from secondary sources (legitimate science journals). There is no COI involved. Stating the findings of our research in a relevant Wiki page, using a simple-to-understand language and providing full reference, by the scientist him/herself, is the absolute essence of how Wikipedia gets full respect to the wider public. There is absolutely no I don't see where does this contradict the WP:MEDRS or WP:COI?
 * Sandy, I do believe that one of the issues we face as scientists is the lack of our interest in social reach, in science communication and public engagement. One of the many ways I can do that, is to offer the findings of our science in an easy-to-understand knowledge in a relevant Wiki page, where most people go to read first when interested in a particular subject. I believe as scientists we have the responsibility to work with Wikipedia to provide scientifically-sound content for the benefit of the public.
 * If you believe that I did something wrong, I honestly apologise. If I have overlooked a specific rule on WP:MEDRS, WP:NOT and WP:COI, please if you are willing let me know which rules I disregarded. I assure you it was not intentional.
 * All the best,
 * Nikolas Dietis Nikolas Dietis (talk) 08:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)