User talk:Thewatchfulobserver

Relation to the topic
Wondering what relation you have to the topic?

We have had problems with paid editors on these articles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I noticed someone had edited this page's content. I took it upon myself to restore the page to its original state. Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

The page content was edited because it was promotional and not correct for an encyclopedia. Please stop readding inproperly sourced, promotional content back to this article. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree and will comply. All edits, added content will be supported with proper citing. Thank You Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 23:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

May 2015
Please do not add or change content, as you did at David B. Samadi, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be engaged in an edit war with one or more editors according to your reverts at David B. Samadi. Although repeatedly reverting or undoing another editor's contributions may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, and often creates animosity between editors. Instead of edit warring, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to lose editing privileges. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a loss of editing privileges. Thank you. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. The thread is Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Thank you. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

My apologies, future edits will be sourced appropriately with references beyond press releases. I revisited this page yesterday and saw it had been overhauled abruptly from the previous version that had been on for a long period of time. I thought it was injust to simply delete content from a page as this doctor seems to have many attackers based on google searches. Again, I will comply and abide as close to the wiki policies as possible. All the best, Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

May 2015
Please do not remove maintenance templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to David B. Samadi, without resolving the problem that the template refers to, or giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your removal of this template does not appear constructive, and has been reverted. That maintenance tag was clearly still appropriate. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Would you be able to help me cleanup this page? My intention is to ensure that pages are being filled with accurate and cited content. I am still new to wiki but as you have been a member for over 4 months perhaps you can provide constructive and useful assistance that can be put into action. Joseph2302 Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 02:12, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

COI
Your editing makes it appear that you have some relationship with him, so I am providing you with our conflict of interest notice - I'll have some questions for you below.

Hello, Thewatchfulobserver. 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 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 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.
 * 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. Note that Wikipedia's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

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.

Question
Wikipedia is a scholarly project, and like all scholarly endeavors, disclosure of conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. COI issues get a bit ... interesting in Wikipedia, since we allow editors to be anonymous here. Please do read WP:COI, especially the section on Writing about yourself and your work. As in academia, conflict of interest in Wikipedia is managed via first by disclosure, and then by a form of peer review that I'd like to discuss with you later.

While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by out WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some relationship with Dr. Samadi? (You were asked about this above, but you didn't answer). You can answer how ever you wish, but if there is a COI with regard to Dr Samadi 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. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Jytdog. Although Wikipedia supports ambiguity I don't mind being transparent for the sake of clarity as this page has sort of gotten out of hand with some of my "rookie" editing mistakes. I am a frequent viewer of Dr. Samadi's segments of Fox News. Although Fox News, in general, is known for its one sided views, I have listened and watched and read about Dr. Samadi for a little bit of time. Not all of it has been good. There has been many things he has said that I don't support or believe in. He has said some questionable and controversial things (aka his crack baby comment). Anyone who follows him in any capacity can see that this doctor isn't always right.


 * When I visited his wikipedia page the other day I noticed that someone had completely erased a lot of the content on his page. For me, I felt that I would take it upon myself to replace that content. I made the mistake of simply reposting what was there before without checking to see the credibility of the content and other users have clearly brought it to my attention.


 * Essentially now I plan to do some research and refill David Samadi's page with accurate content, with credible references, as to allow any reader to make their own unbiased judgment on what David Samadi does, and represents. I don't know if me being a Fox News viewer makes me biased. If it does and breaks any wiki rules, I have no problem stepping down and withholding from posting. However, I feel that as a well known Doctor his wiki page should have at least some more information about what he actually does professionally. I've been invited to the TeaHouse and will explore that as well as any suggestions any other users have. Thanks, Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * that's a story that makes sense! Thanks for explaining.  I'll post some notes to help you get oriented into how we do things in a moment. Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

How this place works
OK, as promised....

I am sorry about this, but if you really want to get involved, it turns out that Wikipedia is a pretty complex place. Being an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" means that over the years, Wikipedia has developed lots of policies and guidelines (PAG) to help provide a "body of law" as it were, that form a foundation for rational discussion. Without that foundation, this place would be both a garbage dump of random content and a wild west - a truly ugly place. But with the foundation, there is guidance for generating excellent content and there are ways to rationally work things out - if, and only if, all the parties involved accept that foundation and work within it. One of the hardest things for new people, is to understand not only that this foundation exists, but what its letter and spirit is. (I keep emphasizing the spirit, because too often people fall prey to what we call "wikilawyering")  The more I have learned about how things are set up here - not just the letter of PAG and the various drama boards and administrative tools, but their spirit -  the more impressed I have become at how, well ... beautiful this place is. It takes time to learn both the spirit and the letter of PAG, and to really get aligned with Wikipedia's mission to crowdsource a reliable, NPOV source of information for the public (as "reliable" and "NPOV" are defined in PAG!). People come edit for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that they are passionate about something. That passion is a double-edged sword. It drives people to contribute which has the potential for productive construction, but it can also lead to WP:TENDENTIOUS editing, which is really destructive. WP:ADVOCACY is one of our biggest bedevilments. (I at first thought you might be a fan of Samadi or work for him, but it appears you have a pretty even-keeled view of him. The article about him has been edited by people from his lab or team! So we are watchful)

PAG are described and discussed in a whole forest of documents within Wikipedia that are "behind the scenes" in a different "namespace", in which the documents start with "Wikipedia:" or in shorthand, "WP:" (for example, our policy on edit warring is here: WP:EDITWAR not here EDITWAR). You won't find these documents by using the simple search box above, which searches only in "main space" where the actual articles are. However if you search with the prefix, (for example if you search for "WP:EDITWAR") you will find policies and guidelines. Likewise if you do an advanced search with "wikipedia" or "help" selected you can also find things in "Wikipedia space". The link in the welcome message above the "Five Pillars" points you to our most important policies and I recommend that you read them all, if you have not already and if you intend to stick around! They guide everything that happens here.

With all that in mind, here are some things that I suggest you read (I know, I know, things to read... but like I said, Wikipedia can be complicated!)
 * WP:OR - no original research is allowed -instead...
 * WP:VERIFY - everything must be based on reliable sources (as we define them - see WP:RS for general content and WP:MEDRS for health-related content)
 * WP:NPOV - this does not mean what most people think it means. it means that you read the most recent and best reliable sources you can find, and figure out what the mainstream view is, and that is what gets the most WP:WEIGHT.  Pay special mind to the WP:PSCI section, which is further elaborated in the WP:FRINGE guideline.


 * WP:CONSENSUS - Wikipedia has plenty of policies and guidelines, as I mentioned, but really at the end of the day this place is ... a democracy? an anarchy? something hard to define.  But we figure things out by talking to one another.  CONSENSUS is the bedrock on which everything else rests.   So please talk - please never edit war.  If you make a change to an article and someone else reverts it, the right thing to do is to follow WP:BRD (please do read that) - but briefly, if you are reverted, open a discussion on the article's Talk page.  Ask the reason under policy and guidelines why your change was reverted -- and really ask, and really listen to the answer, and go read whatever links you are pointed to.  Think about it, and if there is something you don't understand, ask more questions.   Please only start to actually argue once you understand the basis for the objection.  If you and the other party or parties still disagree, there are many ways to resolve disputes (see WP:DR) - it never needs to become emotional - because we do have this whole "body of law" and procedures to resolve disputes.

So - that is how things work, big-picture wise. Anyway, good luck! Jytdog (talk) 18:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite a bit! And I'm sure there's more to it so I have a lot more reading to do.

Thanks for the help! Thewatchfulobserver (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)