User talk:Paul Whittaker Inovar

March 2013
Hello, Paul Whittaker Inovar. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you should consider our guidance on Conflicts of interest and take a look at the Plain and simple conflict of interest guide.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:


 * Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
 * Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
 * Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).
 * Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Personal note
Hey, Paul, I gave you a templated message above with a table that gives you several helpful links to important Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I'm glad you have decided to edit, and I'm especially glad that you're an expert in your field. We need contributors like that. I see that Guy Macon has already introduced you to our guidelines on COI editing, so I won't say much about that, other than just make sure you're here to contribute constructively and improve the encyclopedia. I'm sure you'll be extra careful about that. Anyway, if you need any help with anything, please feel free to drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll see what I can do. Good luck editing. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Alternate account?
Is the Inovarcommunications account yours? If so, you might want to review WP:SOCK and WP:SOCK. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Deleting of my content and links
(Moved here from my talk page --Guy Macon (talk) 20:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC))

Guy, I’m struggling to understand why you seem to have systematically removed all my references and any links to external information that i have posted on Wikipedia. The information i refer to is on the Powder Metallurgy page and 3D printing page - the external links I added provide completely free information and in no way can be seen as spam. If any one is interested in the technology then they will value the information provided on the linked sites.

As editor of the printed magazine 'Powder Metallurgy Review' and International Powder Metallurgy Directory website and news service, I feel that I am somewhat qualified to make additions to the text on these pages and provide links to interesting a relevant free articles that appear on our site.

I notice you have not removed obvious 'commercial' links from some of these pages - why is this?

I look forward to your response and to understanding what you object to in my posts.

Paul — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Whittaker Inovar (talk • contribs) 10:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Because you are the publishing Director of Inovar Communications Ltd and an editor of Powder Metallurgy Review, you may have a conflict of interest regarding any links to the Powder Metallurgy Review website.


 * All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy.


 * If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:


 * Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).
 * Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
 * Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
 * Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.


 * Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, and verifiability of information.


 * For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations.


 * Your links are spam and have been removed. If you wish to make an argument that they are not spam (hint: you need to read WP:SPAM and WP:COI and make an argument as to why you think they do not apply) I will be glad to listen, but while you do, do not re-insert the links or you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:17, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Guy,


 * Yes, I am editor of Powder Metallurgy Review as you point out - and as such i am very close to the subject (without being 'close to the subject' I wouldn’t know anything about it and be able to edit any Wiki pages!) The magazine is a free Powder Metallurgy industry B2B publication, and the website provides the most comprehensive source of information on the subject in the world - even more so than Wikipedia - and all completely free. The way of the world states that I must pay my mortgage and feed my family (!), so the only commercial aspect as such is that our web site includes sponsored banners.


 * We are not selling anything to anyone who may visit via Wikipedia, the information on our site that I link to is written by very well respected industry and academic professionals. The content is copyrighted by us, but I have extracted some of this to improve certain sections of the relevant Wikipedia pages where i think necessary (see the Hot Isostatic Pressing page as a good example). Surely if i quote from this work it should be cited as such?


 * The linked articles are far more specific than the general Wiki pages they link from, but would be of great interest to anyone wanting more detailed information on the subject.


 * Please do advise if this is the wrong ethos for Wikipedia - I agree it shouldn't become a promotional tool for business, but where the information that is linked to is of such interest shouldn't that be viable?


 * Paul — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Whittaker Inovar (talk • contribs) 13:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, Paul, I was glad to see the above, and will be happy to work with you on this. As you have seen, what you tried at first did not work -- multiple Wikipedia editors deleted it on sight. I am going to try to explain to you what does work on Wikipedia.


 * Let's start with something simple. (Which is also a test to see if you can follow instructions. Sorry if that seems harsh, but a lot of people show up at Wikipedia who can't or won't follow instructions.) Have you noticed that some words on this page are colored blue? Those are links. Whenever you write something on a Wikipedia talk page and the reply has a blue link, that link is important, and you really need to read and understand it. That's how the rest of Wikipedia communicates things with you without typing the same thing over and over for different users.


 * Now look at any of your posts above, and compare the very end of your posts (the part with your name) with mine. See the difference? Yours have the words "Preceding unsigned comment added by..." and mine don't. Do you see any words in blue? The word "unsigned" is in blue. That is a link to something you are doing wrong. Click on the link any you will see a page explaining what you need to do differently. It's a fairly long page, but everything you need to know is in the box at the top that says This page in a nutshell. Look at the box, figure out which part you are doing or not doing, and start doing it. See how easy it is? Now you are a better Wikipedia editor, because you sign your posts.


 * OK, back to the subject at hand. You can contribute to Wikipedia in areas where you have a conflict of interest, and in fact we encourage it, but you have to do it right. If you click on this link (it's an older version of the page you are reading) you will see how I helped an editor who is being paid by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council to get material added to our Palm oil page. Now I could explain in detail what he is doing right that you should also do, but remember what I said about blue links? All that information is at the blue links from me previous replies. Set aside some time, click on each link, read the pages, and do what they say. I will be glad to answer any questions you might have.


 * As for your specific points above, let me address each of them


 * "The magazine is free": Doesn't matter. While we all like free sites, that is not a requirement for inclusion in Wikipedia. Of course if we have to choose between two equally good sources and one has a paywall, of course we would pick the free one. This is all explained at WP:CONPOL. (There's one of those blue links, and in this case it contains more blue links you need to read, especially the ones titles "What Wikipedia is not". "Verifiability" and "Neutral point of view").


 * "The website provides the most comprehensive source of information on the subject in the world": Doesn't matter. While we all like comprehensive sources of information, that in itself is not enough for inclusion in Wikipedia.


 * "Our web site includes sponsored banners" and "We are not selling anything to anyone": Doesn't matter. We have no requirement that a site cannot make money with ads or any other method. Of course if we have to choose between two equally good sources and one has click-through ads and many pop-up ads while the other just has has a few banners, of course we would pick the less annoying one.


 * "I notice you have not removed obvious 'commercial' links from some of these pages - why is this?": Because we have no rules forbidding commercial sites if they meet our other qualifications.


 * "Written by very well respected industry and academic professionals": This one does matter. See WP:RS for details.


 * "The content is copyrighted by us, but I have extracted some...": At the top of every edit page is this notice:


 * Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed by anyone -- subject to certain terms and conditions.


 * Again, the blue links in the above text are important.


 * Wikipedia does not violate US (where we are based) copyright laws. Period. You didn't have to prove your identity or even give us an email address to register, and in fact you could have edited without registering. So how do we know that you are who you say you are and that you own the copyright to the material you copied to Wikipedia?


 * The best way to deal with this issue is this: if you would like to copy something to Wikipedia from a website you control, go to the website and release that section under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license (CC-BY-SA) license.


 * Again -- and I cannot stress this enough -- everything you need to know has already been given to you. you just need to click on some bluelinks and read it. Look for the words "please see our frequently asked questions for organizations" in the above posts for an especially useful blue link. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Guy, I will work my way through all the blue links and hopefully understand the running and editiong of Wikipedia in more detail! Hopefully you wont mind if i ask a few more questions as they arise.. paul


 * I you have any questions feel free to ask. There are some folks on Wikipedia who think nobody with a connection to a topic should contribute to that topic, but my view is that that's exactly who we should get involved. We still need to make sure that bias doesn't creep in -- we don't want the editor of the Journal of Astrology to rewrite our Astrology and science article according to his point of view -- but neither should we discourage editors who want to improve Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)