User talk:Saslos

Welcome!

Hello, Saslos, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion 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! - Jytdog (talk) 01:23, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
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Conflict of interest in Wikipedia
Hi Saslos I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia. Your edits to date are all about Matthew Dunster and Anna Fleischle 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.

Hello, Saslos. 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. In particular, please:


 * avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
 * instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

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).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. 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. 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 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. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with Dunster or Fleischle? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, with please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), perhaps we can talk a bit about editing Wikipedia, to give you some more orientation to how this place works. You can reply here - I am watching this page. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I have edited the critics circle theatre awards page. I have corrected wikilinks on Mathew Dunsters page without adding any editorial writing as such. I have not edited the Anna Fleischle page other than to remove one wrongfully placed coi template and one old template about primary sources. I therefore don't know why you asking about my conflict of interest. You have removed parts of pages which I did not add. I only corrected some links. Why would you do that rather than add sources to what is there? It would be pretty easy and what you have done seems destructive and not in the spirit of Wikipedia. If everyone did what you have just done and turned their attention to getting rid of anything unsourced Wikipedia would be goin backwards pretty fast. Why did you not add a template asking for sources rather than simply deleting? There are plenty of lists of work on other pages such as the critics circle theatre awards which are unsourced. I notice you have not removed them? Why is that? Do you actually feel I have added any biased material here? Saslos (talk) 20:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying and I would be happy to discuss the article content - we can do that at either article's talk page. I opened this discussion on your Talk page in order to explore conflict of interest with you.  Would you please disclose if you have some connection with Dunster or Fleischle?  Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 20:38, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There is no conflict of interest here. Saslos (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying, but you are fairly new here and are unlikely to understand how we define "conflict of interest" in Wikipedia which is not like other places.  That is why I asked you to describe any relationship that might exist, so we (you and me and the wider community if necessary) can determine whether you have a COI related to topics you have been editing, in Wikipedia.  Would you please respond?  Thanks again, very much.  (and again, just to clarify in case you are worried; editors who want to work on topics where they have a COI can be part of the community; there is just certain things we ask them to do.)  Jytdog (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no connection. Saslos (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Quick note on Wikipedia logistics, or maybe better, etiquette. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting - when you reply to someone, you put a colon ":" in front of your comment, and the WP software converts that into an indent; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons "::" which the WP software converts into two indents, 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.  That is how we know who said what.  Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 22:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That you have no relationship is difficult to believe. Your account is a WP:SPA (please read that) and this edit "corrected" the theatre where one of Dunster's works was performed (I put corrected in quotes, because without a source being provided, it is impossible to WP:VERIFY whether the old content or your change is correct).  There is no source there, so you are working off your own knowledge.      You also have edited a bunch under an IP address, per Special:Contributions/92.7.145.44 and added a bunch of unsourced content updating awards to the Critics' Circle Theatre Award article.   Based on your edits, you are at minimum a "fan" of London theatre, or you are friends with or work for someone/some entity on the London theatre scene.  I don't mean for this to be some kind of interrogation and it is unfortunately getting to be like that because you are not giving an answer that makes sense.   This doesn't have to turn into some big drama - please just answer in a way that makes sense of your editing, so I can let you know what you need to know so you can be productive in WP and have a nice peaceful time here.  Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 23:05, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I am a fan of theatre and happen to have seen that play but I did check on the plays page (you may not consider that a reference) just in case I was mistaken and the play had its premier somewhere else. I did think that would be unlikely however as the playwrite is probably too established to be making shows in Western Australia. i do find this strange as I haven't actually altered any content on the Fleischle or Dunster pages that could in any way be considered biased. I started editing some of the Dunster page after I noticed the name John Ford listed as a playwrite. When I wanted to know more I opened the link to find it linked to the wrong John Ford (film director) from there I noticed how much of the information was not well linked to relevant Wikipedia pages. Being quite good at mundane routine tasks I set about repairing and linking. Looking at the template:coi page do you not think the most important thing here is whether or not you actually see any bias? I have seen many other similar pages of people in theatre that seem to have similar information and more 'puffery' but they are left unnoticed. Saslos (talk) 00:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

thanks very much! That is a story that makes sense. You are a theatre buff, and you don't fully understand how Wikipedia works. OK then! Some pointers that will help you going forward: Anyway, thank you again for putting up with me. I wish you good luck, and sorry for the hassle. I hope this all makes sense to you.... please feel free to ask me questions about any of this or anything else here. Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 00:48, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * please try to broaden the scope of your editing, so that it doesn't ~appear~ that you are here to promote Dunster or Fleischle.  Everybody starts somewhere -- and you are just getting started - but please just keep that in mind going forward. (for example, we had a bunch of actual conflicted editing on the article about Brice Stratford, his family, his theatre company, the awards they created etc., that could use love)
 * Please be sure to add sources when you add or change content. WP:VERIFY is one of the foundations of Wikipedia.
 * When you add a source, please be sure it is what we call "reliable".  WP:RS is the guideline that describes what is considered a reliable source, and what is not.  (generally, try to find sources independent of the subject, like the sources I added to the Dunster article.   Press releases or bios on a PR agent's website, are examples of bad sources that you should avoid.
 * As you work, please try to keep the big picture in mind. Each article should give a complete view of its subject, with appropriate space given to all the aspects of the subject, good and bad, as those aspects are described in the reliable sources about it.  This is what the WP:NPOV policy is all about - it is how we think about "neutrality" in WP (it is not about "balance" or "saying only nice things" which is what people often think).
 * Thank you. What I would like to know is when not to add a source. For example on the Critics' Circle Theatre Award page there is a list of past winners of awards but they don't seem to me to be verified. Should they be?

Thanks. Saslos (talk) 00:59, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Everything in WP that is not as obvious as "the sky is blue" should have a source, yes! VERIFY explains the details of it, if you want more than that. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I should explain something.  As you have figured out, you can create a wiki-link to any article by writing its title with double brackets around it.  Articles dwell in what we call "main space" where you can just write the title and put brackets around it, and link to it.
 * But there is a whole forest of other documents in Wikipedia, in what we call "wikipedia space". For example, all of the policies and guidelines that the community has created over the years, that govern what editors do behind the scenes, are in "wikipedia space".  We call it that, because all of the documents start with "Wikipedia".
 * The policy that anything that is not obvious needs a source, is here: Verifiability (policy pages that are often cited have shortcuts that unfortunately have all caps - the shortcut for that policy is WP:VERIFY and I think even WP:V works.
 * Likewise, the guideline that defines what a reliable source is, is Identifying reliable sources and the shortcut is WP:RS.
 * And so on. See how all those start with "WIkipedia:" or "WP:" for short?  They are in "wikipedia space".    If you want to know yet more, here is the document that explains what  "policies and guidelines" are, and how they come into being: Policies and guidelines, shortcut WP:PAG.
 * This place is... an anarchy? A democracy? Not sure, but above all it is a community where we work together to create and improve articles.   The community itself created these policies and guidelines to govern itself, and to resolve the disputes that commonly arose as this place was getting started.  The policies and guidelines  evolve all the time, but more and more slowly as they become weathered by all the things that transpire here.  The project is pretty mature, so there are quite a few of them.
 * But the core content-related policies are WP:V, WP:NPOV (which I have already mentioned) and a really important additional one - No original research (abbreviated as WP:OR).  That one says, that you cannot just make things up and add them to Wikipedia.   (instead, everything needs to be based on a source that someone else created...)
 * The other two really important policies are WP:What Wikipedia is not (abbreviated as WP:NOT) - that clarifies what Wikipedia is, and what it isn't. it is a good read.
 * And finally and most important is WP:CONSENSUS - we decide everything here by talking - by consensus that is based on the precedents established in existing policies and guidelines.  There is a whole universe here!    It is kind of beautiful - this world that people built together, to create a free source of reliable information to the public.     Anyway, that was probably way too much information.   But I hope it helps explain all those all-caps wikilinks in what I wrote above.  ... :)  Jytdog (talk) 01:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that you never received the standard welcome message -- it has links that explain a bunch of what I just wrote... Jytdog (talk) 01:23, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Question
Can I ask your opinion on a page such as List of awards and nominations received by Judi Dench which is nearly all unsourced material? I'm just trying to understand how this works because she is obviously high profile but isn't this page an inappropriate use of Wikipedia as a list? Saslos (talk) 17:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I would say yes but please see WP:LIST - it is a genre of articles. Sometimes they are arise because including such a list in the actual article (in this case Judi Dench) becomes clutter and so it gets spilt off into a separate page (see WP:SPLIT).  I think the best thing to do would be to to read the Talk page of the Judi Dench article Talk:Judi Dench and look - including in the archives - to see if there was discussion about splitting off the list into a separate article.  If there was, then you see how it came to be. If there wasn't, you could ask folks there about it and especially about getting it sourced.  Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 19:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for February 2
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