User talk:Scottzona

A belated welcome!
Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Scottzona. I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:
 * Introduction
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * How to write a great article
 * Editor's index to Wikipedia

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes ( ~ ); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on, consult Questions, or place helpme on your talk page and ask your question there.

Again, welcome! Nat Gertler (talk) 00:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Your edits at David Ogden Stiers
I appreciate you taking the effort to improve the article David Ogden Stiers. However, the material you are adding has been extensively discussed, and current consensus is that it does not belong in the article. You can review that discussion at Talk:David Ogden Stiers. Please do not re-add the material until achieving consensus on that Talk page first. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:22, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, tacking onto 's comment above I would add that if you submit content and notice later that it has been removed, please check the article's edit history to find out why. Click the "View history" link, which is typically found in the upper right area of the page. By doing so you would have noticed my edit summary directing you to the article's talk page. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:52, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

License tagging for File:IPS 2018 Quindio Colombia.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:IPS 2018 Quindio Colombia.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

License tagging for File:IPS 2018 Tochecito Colombia.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:IPS 2018 Tochecito Colombia.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

License tagging for File:IPS 2016 Gardens by the Bay Singapore.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:IPS 2016 Gardens by the Bay Singapore.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

License tagging for File:IPS 2022 Private garden Hilo Hawaii.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:IPS 2022 Private garden Hilo Hawaii.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 14:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

License tagging for File:IPS 2022 Biennial Hawaii.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:IPS 2022 Biennial Hawaii.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 14:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Scottzona. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page International Palm Society, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest 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, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the edit COI template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see );
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see );
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to 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 Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

October 2023
Hello Scottzona. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to International Palm Society, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are  required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Scottzona. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:19, 7 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Dear Doubleglazing:
 * I have no conflict of interest with my edits to the International Palm Society (IPS) entry. I have been a dues-paying member of the IPS for many years and am the UNPAID VOLUNTEER co-editor of the IPS' journal. My long-term membership in and service to the IPS give me knowledge of the Society, but that is not in conflict with my contribution to the Wikipedia page. [The paid employee, noted in the infobox summary of the organization, is the PalmTalk forum moderator, and I am not that person.]
 * I am happy to add the Connected contributor template declaration to the top of the page. I have done so while the page is in Draft, and I would appreciate your checking to see if I did it correctly. I reiterate that I receive no direct or indirect compensation from the IPS for my Wikipedia contribution. I removed the paid contributor template as it does not apply.
 * As you are more experiences at this than I, please let me know if there is anything in the IPS entry that should not be there, that is not neutral, etc. I gather my most recent edit to the page, the addition of a paragraph on International Palm Day, triggered your review. If you feel that information is not relevant, not accurate, or not neutral, please delete it so that the IPS page can be removed from Draft space. Thanks for your help. Scottzona (talk) 09:56, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * Thank you for disclosing your status.
 * However, as you may have seen already, I removed the connected contributor template from the draft page, as this should go on the draft talk page instead.
 * I have also suggested that you might use the conn.con. paid template instead. (Hence why I removed it, rather than simply moving it to the talk page myself.)
 * Regarding that point about your paid status or otherwise, obviously only you know what arrangements you have with the society, but just to explain, you don't need to be paid explicitly to edit this Wikipedia article for it to count as paid editing; it's enough if you do that as part of your overall job.
 * Also, even if you role is an unpaid one, that can still come under the paid editing policy: as explained in WP:PAID, for example unpaid interns are included in that.
 * There is no major difference in which type of COI (and it is a COI, either way) you declare; either way the implications are the same (eg. that you cannot publish the article directly, but must go through the AfC review process). Personally, I would want to err on the side of caution and declare paid editing even if you strictly speaking don't need to, rather than declare the 'lesser' COI when you should actually declare paid editing. But either way, I will leave it for you to decide which disclosure better matches reality.
 * HTH, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:08, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, DoubleGrazing!
 * Thanks for correcting my mistake. Yes, the connected contributor declaration should be on the talk page. It's right there in bold in the instructions, and I still missed it!
 * I am in no way paid for this work. ALL of my service to the IPS is voluntary and unpaid. Ironically, I pay the society in the form of annual dues. The society never pays me! Therefore, the connected contributor is the appropriate declaration.
 * What else can I do to make this transparent? And how can the page be released from Draft status? I am very new to this, so your guidance is much appreciated-- Scottzona (talk) 10:36, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks.
 * Now that you've disclosed your status, you don't need to do anything more (although if you want, you can also add a COI disclosure on your own user page, but that's really belt & braces then). I have removed the undisclosed paid editing tag from the draft.
 * Now, on to the main matter at hand: notability. According to the general notability guideline WP:GNG, for an organisation (or pretty much any subject) to be notable, which is a core requirement for inclusion in the encyclopaedia, we need to see significant coverage of it in multiple secondary sources that are reliable and wholly independent of the subject. The Draft:International Palm Society draft cites mostly sources that are primary and non-independent (close to the subject). Therefore you would need to find sources that meet the GNG standard, and cite them in your draft. (Ideally, you should write the draft by only summarising what such sources have said, but we're somewhat past that point now unless you want to throw this draft away and start from scratch.)
 * When you feel that you have sufficient sources, you can then submit your draft for pre-publication approval by clicking that blue 'submit the draft for review' button. An AfC reviewer like myself will then take a look at it (which, I should mention already now, can take anything from a few minutes to a few months!), and either accept it, or decline it with their reasons.
 * Best, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:48, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply and action.
 * I'll keep looking for sources and add them to the draft. At some point soon, I hope to submit the draft for review.
 * Again, thanks for your help. I'm a total newbie-- Scottzona (talk) 11:14, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

International Palm Society moved to draftspace
Thanks for your contributions to International Palm Society. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability and you may have a possible Conflict of Interest. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:21, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:International Palm Society has a new comment
 I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:International Palm Society. Thanks! DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:22, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: International Palm Society (October 18)
 Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Johannes Maximilian was:


 * Can I please get a little clarification? I was originally advised that there were not enough external sources, so I have added references and links to pdfs, newspaper articles, and websites. Are there specific links that concern you? Or are you suggesting that ALL external links need to be removed? Scottzona (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * When we talk about external links in the body of the article, we're not talking about numbered references, but about links that go directly from the main text to an external web page. You have a couple of those in your Conservation initiatives section, and they're generally considered a no-no. Those links should be removed or, if they point to information that supports the statement, reformatted as references. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:18, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * cheers! I'll reformat them as refs. Scottzona (talk) 16:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Done & resubmitted for approval. Scottzona (talk) 15:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.


 * If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:International Palm Society and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
 * If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
 * If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk/New_question&withJS=MediaWiki:AFCHD-wizard.js&page=Draft:International_Palm_Society Articles for creation help desk], on the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Johannes_Maximilian&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:AfC_decline/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Draft:International_Palm_Society reviewer's talk page] or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 13:48, 18 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Done! External links removed from the body of the text. I hope the draft can be approved now. Scottzona (talk) 10:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You will, I believe, have to resubmit it for approval. (I'm not one of those who reviews such things.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nat! I have resubmitted. I'm just not very patient with waiting... Thanks for your help. Scottzona (talk) 15:51, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: International Palm Society (November 7)
 Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by WikiOriginal-9 was:

The comment the reviewer left was:

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.


 * If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:International Palm Society and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
 * If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
 * If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk/New_question&withJS=MediaWiki:AFCHD-wizard.js&page=Draft:International_Palm_Society Articles for creation help desk], on the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WikiOriginal-9&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:AfC_decline/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Draft:International_Palm_Society reviewer's talk page] or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 02:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: International Palm Society has been accepted
 International Palm Society, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as C-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. This is a great rating for a new article, and places it among the top of accepted submissions — kudos to you! You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the  [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk/New_question&withJS=MediaWiki:AFCHD-wizard.js&page=International_Palm_Society help desk] . Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider.

Thanks again, and happy editing!  Qcne  (talk)  15:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much!!!!! Scottzona (talk) 15:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, Scottzona. Thank you for your work on International Palm Society. MtBotany, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with. Please remember to sign your reply with ~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

🌿MtBotany (talk) 23:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Feel free to clean up. My toes are safe. Actually, I could use your help with the Goldstein reference (#3 and 6). I tried several times to get it to cite it once and then re-cite it (following the instructions), but I just can seem to get it to work. I'm embarrassed that it appears in the references twice. Cheers Scottzona (talk) 11:41, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I updated the reference using the Template:Cite magazine. To cite a reference again you just need to add the code at the start of the reference to name it. Change any to  when using the text editor and then hit the "show preview" button at the bottom. Then you will be able to insert a reference using the "named references" menu at the top of the editing box where whatever you named it will be listed. If you look at the code for the page you'll see where I changed the first reference and named it "Tropical Garden". 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:27, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much! Scottzona (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Not a problem. Always happy to help people working to improve science knowledge on Wikipedia. I just updated another of the citations to Template:Cite journal. That is even easier than the magazine one because of the handy citation template. In this case I searched the internet for the paper name "The roles of dispersal and mass extinction in shaping palm diversity across the Caribbean" with quotes and found it on Research Gate. Even if the full paper was not there there is the DOI number 10.1111/jbi.13225 right there at the top. Put that into the journal template and hit the magnifying glass button next to it and it fills in all the authors, titles, etc. A very handy tool for science interested editors. I love DOI numbers so much. Then just a little bit of checking to make sure it is correct, add in the URL and access date and it looks so pretty. The DOI for "A monograph of Hydriastele (Areceae, Arecaceae) in New Guinea and Australia" is also on research gate, want to give it a try? 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This template sounds easy. I shall give it a go. Thanks! Scottzona (talk) 13:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)