User talk:Richard Jeffs

Harold Baim
Hello Richard Jeffs. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

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 following the 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:


 * 1) 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.
 * 2) 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.
 * 3) Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).
 * 4) 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. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:57, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion
There is a discussion on the conflict of interest noticeboard regarding a dispute at the Harold Baim article, you are encouraged to participate. Thank you. --  At am a  頭 23:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

August 2011
This is your only warning; if you remove or blank page contents or templates from Wikipedia again, as you did at Harold Baim, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. --  At am a  頭 16:50, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A note, you cannot own an article on Wikipedia. You must work with other editors. That is a requirement. No single person can dictate the information on an article. In addition, when you contribute information to an article, you are giving that information away to Wikipedia, see Terms of use, so trying to blank it out won't be effective. I again encourage you to participate in the discussion about the article, either on the article's talk page or the conflict of interest noticeboard discussion I linked above. Any further attempt to control that article will lead to your block. --  At am a  頭 17:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Re: Harold Baim

Hello. I don't know if this is the correct place to type this.

My name is Richard Jeffs.

I have owned the copyright works of Harold Baim since 1998.

I created a Wikipedia page which contains facts about The Baim Collection and the film making of Harold Baim. It seems to me that as I work alone with the collection people will have to take my word that what I write is correct.

I have never used the Wikipedia page to promote sales of the films, or to earn any money. People I know like to read about the Collection and what is being done with the films. I have taken care to list the films being shown on Sky and BBC4 - mainly after the event.

An editor changed my page (which had been there for a while) with no reference to me and without ever asking to see the films of confirm what I had written. Ugly banners appeared at the top of the page saying "Needs Cleaning" and "Needs Citation" - which makes it look at if the article I had written is untrue. I didn't like that. The editor also made links in the article to other Wikipedia pages that did not exist, meaning red names and words appeared after their un-asked-for edit and addition of the banner the page looked like it was full of errors.

If you don't want an accurate informative article on Harold Baim then that's OK I guess. I'll be sad. What I don't want is editors changing things because they think "I have a conflict of interest". Well, by owning the films and saving them and restoring them and wanting to let people know what I'm doing through a Wikipedia page can only be a conflict if as the owner of the films I am probably the only person who can write such an article. If that's outside your rules and you don't want to publish my article them please delete it and I'll live with that. If you find someone to write an article that tells Harold Baim's story I'd be interested in reading it.

All this seems an awful waste of your and my time - sorry, but it does and it makes very very sad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Jeffs (talk • contribs) 18:47, August 17, 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Richard. Thank you for responding. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your actions and motivations. I think I need to explain a few things myself, about how Wikipedia works and how we're supposed to create and maintain articles.


 * Wikipedia is a collaboration. Every page, in fact, is a collaboration. So anything you create can be deleted, expanded, or changed by someone else. Everyone is here to improve the encyclopedia, so when you create or add information to an article, someone else will change it to make it better.


 * All articles on Wikipedia must be verified using reliable sources. Reliable sources, for the most part, usually consist of information that has been officially published somewhere and checked by experts. They can vary widely, from web sites to books to magazines to newspapers to television programs to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Verifiability is the only claim Wikipedia has to accuracy. All information is only as reliable as the sources used to verify it, and the faithfulness in which we are able to use those sources.


 * We don't allow original research. Wikipedia can't be the source of information, only a collection of previously-published info (that's all any encyclopedia is). That's why we actually don't allow Wikipedia to be a source itself for articles. Any information presented must be neutral in tone; we don't make judgements in our articles about how good or bad something is, although we can cite the opinions of others who do make such judgements (again referencing our reliable sources).


 * As to your conflict of interest, generally we are cautious when a person edits a topic where they have a close connection. This might be due to the subject being a friend or relative, or an employee, or their own biography. That also applies when a person adds links that point to a web site that they are affiliated with. As the owner of the films, you most definitely have a strong conflict of interest. Keep in mind that we don't forbid editing with a conflict of interest. We ask that editors exercise caution, and we prefer that editors with conflicts of interest limit themselves to simple changes, or making suggestions on the article's talk page rather than editing the main page itself. Those are merely suggestions, not requirements. When it is shown that an editor with a conflict of interest is being disruptive in the way they edit an article (such as not allowing others to change it, or changing the language to make something seem excessively positive or negative, or trying to promote something) then that editor might be banned from editing the page if other editors can agree that the ban will help prevent further disruption.


 * The reason why tags were added to the top of the page was because the article had a couple of problems (and still does). The article needs to be rewritten somewhat to fit with Wikipedia's tone, and also needs wikilinks for certain terms (see how I turned the word "wikilinks" into a link? click it!). That's the purpose of the "cleanup" tag. The other tag was to show that the article needs references, as it lacks citations with reliable sources (and I explained before how all articles need those references to verify what is there). Those tags aren't meant to criticize you, or Baim, their only purpose is to alert people that those are ways that the article needs to be improved. You should work with other, more experienced editors, to help you address those issues.


 * One final thing, I moved your message to this page, which is your user talk page. Your user page is a place where you can add some information about yourself which might be relevant to Wikipedia (what you do, what you're interested in, etc.). Your user talk page is where people can leave messages for you, and where you can respond to those messages. More information can be seen at WP:UTP.


 * I have a "watch" on your talk page here, so if you leave a message I'll see it. If you have any questions or there is anything I can help you with, feel free to ask. I'm not on the site 24 hours a day so it might take me a bit to respond, but I will. I will caution you about undoing much of the information on the Harold Baim article, because it is causing some controversy, and while I don't intend to block you at the moment for it, I will if that's what I have to do to allow other people to improve the page. And I can't guarantee that another administrator might not block you. --  At am a  頭 22:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Richard, I'm the editor to whom you refer above; and I left the top message on this page. I did both with the intention of assisting you, and improving Wikipedia. I do accept that that Wikipedia can be daunting for new editors (we're working to change that), but it will be worth your while to read the guidelines. As you can see, I recognise my own potential conflicts of interest, and declare them. I've started lots of articles about things on which I am expert, or at least have detailed knowledge, and they have been heavily rewritten - and improved - by others. That's how Wikipedia works and it works well on that basis. Your contributions are most welcome, but we reasonably expect everyone to work collaboratively. Please join us in doing so. You will find Wikipedia editing much more enjoyable that way. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Due to you conflict of interest, please do not edit Harold Baim again, without first discussing your proposed changes on the article's talk page, and obtaining consensus there. Please also note that we do not, generally, remove "red" links to articles which we reasonable expect to be created in due course. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)