User talk:Okeeffemarc/Archives/ 21

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

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Pat O'Keefe, 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, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

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! —C.Fred (talk) 03:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Pinging and signing
There are a various ways to "ping" another Wikipedia editor, but the way you're trying to currenlty do this is not working because you're not doing it correctly. Please read Notifications to find out how to properly do this. Although "pinging" can be helpful when you want to let another editor know about a new post or something else which they might find interesting, you should be careful not to over do it. Most editors are watching pages they are interested in so they will be aware when something new is posted. You should also keep in mind that all editors are volunteers who basically edit for fun and may not be online 24/7 to instantly respond to every ping they receive; moreover, in some cases they may not want to respond to a ping. So, try not to be the person in the hotel lobby who continues to ring the bell non-stop until someobody responds because it will likely make people less willing to help you.

The other thing you should try and do is to remember to properly sign your talk page posts. Like "pinging", there are a number of ways to do this as explained in Wikipedia:Signatures. Sigining is important because it makes it easy for someone to know who posted what and when. Not signing a post will not mean immediate banishment from Wikipedia and there are bots which go around adding signature like this one did for you here, but continuously not signing might lead others to question your ability to make a positive contribution to Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:08, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank for the barnstar, but typically they are added to the user talk page of the recipient, not the giver. This doesn't mean you need to rush off and move it to my user talk page; just thought you should know for future reference. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Difficult question, but something which needs to be asked
There's no real good way to ask this, so I'm just going to ask it. Are you by chance also, or did you ask another person to create the account and comment to help speed up the process of verifying the name change? The reason this is being asked is because whenever a competely new account (i.e., one with no history of editing at all) suddenly appears out of the blue to comment in a content discussion/dispute, experienced edtiors watching the page tend to be a bit suspicious as explained in WP:QUACK. The general principle with respect to Wikipedia editing is "one account per person", except under certain specific conditions as explained in WP:MULTIPLE. Any attempt to create and use multiple accounts to influence the outcome of any discussion, even if the intent is good, will be seen as an attempt to circumvent/hinder the dispute resolution process and likely lead to a sockpuppet investigation to verify any connection between the suspected accounts (Wikipedia:CheckUser). Sock puppetry is really something that the Wikipedia community doesn't consider appropriate under any circumstances and quickly will lead to accounts being blocked when verified. The same goes for asking others to register accounts just to try and establish a consensus in favor of one particular version of and article ( i.e., your preferred version); this is called meatpuppetry and is something the community also does not find acceptable.

If none of the above applies to you, then just consider it another new thing you learned about Wikipedia. If, however, any of it does apply to you and it was just another innocent mistake made by a new editor (who does have a COI as well), then people are going to be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Just clarify things and say it was a newbie error and that it won't happen again. Trying to deceive other editors in any way by pretending to be someone else is never a good idea and those who have been editing for years and years almost always know how to spot such things. It might not happen right away but someone pretty much always figures it out, and the editor-in-question wakes up one day to find their account has been blocked (sometimes even indefinitely) for the inappropriate use of multiple accounts or asking others to engage in meat puppetry.

The name dispute is moving towards a resolution; it may take a little more time, but others are involved now and are trying to help. Just be patient and let the process run its course. If the name has been incorrectly spelled by so many over the years, a little more time can be taken for Wikipedia to get it right. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello. No im not pretending to be someone else, i do however know Ben, he will probably be highly bemused at being labelled a meat puppet(what a        name!). I just asked him to take a look too, he doesn't share my second name so be deemed a conflict of interest to the article, i didn't instruct him to add anything etc. However i can see now why it would appear this way. I certainly don't want to appear dodgy or dishonest, so apologies if i have come across that way. Okeeffemarc (talk) 17:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying this. Just for reference though, a conflict of interest is not something that just has to do with sharing the same surname as the subject of an article. As it says at the very beginning of WP:COI, "any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest". The fact that someone who has never edited Wikipedia before creates an account to participate in a discussion is not in and of itself a problem; however, the fact that they might have done so based upon the encouragment/urging of one of the other editors participating in the same discussion might be seen as an inappropriate form of Wikipedia:Canvassing and a potential or apparent COI. You both probably should just be careful from here on in with any edits made to any article related to content about Pat O'Keef(f)e, take a close look at WP:DISCLOSECOI and consider adding something to your user pages just to try and be as transparent as possible to help avoid any misunderstandings by others in the future. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)