User talk:RoderickMacKinnon

Welcome!
Hello, RoderickMacKinnon, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:


 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 14:12, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest editing in Wikipedia; username
Hi RoderickMacKinnon. I spend time working on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. I am not an administrator.

Your edits to date are all about Roderick MacKinnon, which matches the name of this account.

With respect to the WP:USERNAME policy, specifically WP:IMPERSONATE, would you please review that section and take one of the actions advised there? If you don't we may need to soft-block this account until the issue can be resolved. Thanks.

If you do happen to be the real world Roderick MacKinnon.... 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. I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below. This is a separate but possibly related issue to the one above.

Hello, RoderickMacKinnon. 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 COI 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, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must 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 WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

Comments and requests
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).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. As mentioned above, you are editing here under the name of a real world person, and once we resolve the IMPERSONATE issues, that will be somewhat resolved, but we would still need you to explicitly declare your relationship with Roderick MacKinnon, if there is one. Would you please disclose any such relationship?

After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, looking for your response up here next... this is the bigger bucket to deal with and leads to the broader orientation. Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Please do finish working through these basic things here before turning to the article about you. I did some reading and I think I understand your concern now, but before you go back to the page you should be grounded on the COI processes here, and also how we think about article content. Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Edit war warning
Your recent editing history at Roderick MacKinnon shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing&mdash;especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring&mdash;even if you don't violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Jytdog (talk) 14:19, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Ambox notice.svg There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Jytdog (talk) 14:23, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

August 2018
This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because the username, RoderickMacKinnon, matches the name of a well-known, living person.

If you are the person represented by this username, please note that the practice of blocking such usernames is to protect you from being impersonated, not to discourage you from editing Wikipedia. You may choose to edit under a new username (see information below), but keep in mind that you are welcome to continue to edit under this username. If you choose to do so, we ask the following:
 * Please be willing and able to prove your identity to Wikipedia.
 * Please send an email to info-en[[Image:At sign.svg|15px|@]]wikimedia.org. Be aware that the volunteer response team that handles email is indeed operated entirely by volunteers, and the reply may not be immediate.

If you are not the person represented by this username, you are welcome to choose a new username (see below).

A username should not be promotional, related to a "real-world" group or organization, misleading, offensive, or disruptive. Also, usernames may not end in the word "bot" unless the account is an approved bot account.

You are encouraged to choose a new account name that meets our policy guidelines and create the account yourself. Alternatively, if you have already made edits and you wish to keep your existing contributions under a new name, then you may request a change in username by:
 * Adding below. You should be able to do this even though you are blocked, as you can usually still edit your own talk page. If not, you may wish to contact the blocking administrator by clicking on "Email this user" on their talk page.
 * At an administrator's discretion, you may be unblocked for 24 hours to file a request.
 * Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names. The account is created upon acceptance, thus do not try to create the new account before making the request for a name change. For more information, please see Changing username.

If you think that you were blocked in error, you may appeal this block by adding the text below this notice, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 14:24, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note -- this person has email enabled and I have reached out to them, and they responded. They don't seem to be familiar with talk pages in Wikipedia, so I pointed them here. Hopefully they will soon start working with us on-WP. Jytdog (talk) 15:04, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Jauerback - in an email this person said that they cannot edit this talk page. Not sure if they don't have talk page access or if they are just having trouble with the interface. It looks to me like they do have talk page access, but would you please confirm?  Thanks.  Jytdog (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * @R. If you believe something should be removed from the page, please explain why exactly this must be removed on article talk page (or on this talk page since you are blocked). My very best wishes (talk) 15:45, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * My very best wishes first things first. 1) Username; 2) Grounding on COI issues, and along with that, getting oriented as to how we make content decisions here.   Only after that, should we deal with the content.  Please don't provoke someone who doesn't understand how we build content to write further things that are not relevant in Wikipedia. It only adds to the difficulties.  Jytdog (talk) 15:49, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, I've figured out how to reply to the Talk feature. Still a little confused on next steps and what else is needed from me at this time. I will retain the same user name, per your guidance, which is RoderickMacKinnon. Do we just wait now for a response from info-en@wikimedia.org? Thanks again. Rod MacKinnon — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoderickMacKinnon (talk • contribs) 16:08, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Wonderful, congrats! Yes, now we wait for a response from those folks.  In the meantime, we can deal with some of the Wikipedia basics. I will open a new section below on the logistics of using talk pages.  Please do review the stuff about COI above, and reply there, and I can help you with that, and then with some important information about the mission of Wikipedia, and how the editing community realizes it... Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * OTRS verified and unblocked . He is the real McCoy. -- The SandDoctor Talk 18:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you. So now can someone help me remove the inaccurate Business Activity section? RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 18:41, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Please, before you turn to think about the content issues, would you please work through the process for managing COI in the section above, and please be patient and let me help you understand how we generate content in Wikipedia? This is always important, but it is especially because you are editing under your real name -- it is very important that you understand how things work, before you try to judge and act. Please. Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I had reviewed the COI information. Is there something else I need to do on the COI part?  I also see that I cannot make changes to the content but that I must request an edit.  Additionally, it might be good to change my user name from my real name, after reading this information.  But I will deal with that on another day.  Thanks. RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Based on your edits, you believe this page is a joke. Yes, it certainly is. You have two choices: (a) suggest your version on this article talk page, or (b) decide that you do not care. My very best wishes (talk) 13:10, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Using talk pages in Wikipedia - indenting and signing
Every page in Wikipedia has an associated "talk page". This is the talk page associated with your userpage which is User:RoderickMacKinnon (it is linked in the tab at the very top, toward the left, where it says "User page"). Similarly, the article Roderick MacKinnon has an associated talk page Talk:Roderick MacKinnon. These talk pages are essential in Wikipedia -- this is where editors talk to each other about things.

There are guidelines for using talk pages -- see WP:TPG.

But for now, here is a 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 - 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. This 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 at 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.

That is how we know who said what to whom and when.

Please be aware that threading and signing 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. Sorry about that. Jytdog (talk) 16:14, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * OK, I think I'm getting the hang of this, but it will take a little practice. RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 16:20, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's fine! Everybody here is patient as long as you are trying to engage.  Thanks for doing so, and for being patient with yourself and with me, as I help you get oriented. Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And I see now the concern of using one's name as their user name. I am not typically active on wikipedia so this is a learning curve. RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 16:43, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

The rest of the COI stuff
I'll just start a new section for the rest.

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second 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, and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:


 * (i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page (I have already done this for you); 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.

There is a separate process if you want to create an article -- we ask you to create it through the WP:AFC process, but I won't belabor that now.

By following the "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.

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.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content. If you are not sure if something is uncontroversial, please ask at the Talk page.

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? Please do reply here and let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 19:00, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. Give me some time to go into the COI info. a bit more.  There is a lot to absorb.  Thanks for your patience.  RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 19:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much. Jytdog (talk) 19:22, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Please, take your time. Wikipedia definitely has a learning curve to it (which is complicated in this case by the conflict of interest...with yourself). We are here if you need a hand with anything. -- The SandDoctor Talk 19:34, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Changing your username
If you wish to change your username, the form where you can do that is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalRenameRequest

Please be aware that you should not use a rename to evade the conflict of interest management process. I do understand that this is somewhat awkward. Jytdog (talk) 19:05, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * No problem. I will not be doing this to evade the COI regs, but because it appears to be recommended by Wikipedia.  RoderickMacKinnon (talk) 19:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I too am satisfied with that commitment. Users can always request a rename, so long as the requested username itself is not a violation of policy and it isn't done in an effort to evade any policies, sanctions, etc. -- The SandDoctor Talk 19:36, 22 August 2018 (UTC)