User talk:Trusley Mike

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Trusley Mike. 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 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, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest 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. ViperSnake151  Talk  21:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. ViperSnake151  Talk  21:15, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

May 2019
Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I noticed that you recently added commentary to an article. While Wikipedia welcomes editors' opinions on an article and how it could be changed, these comments are more appropriate for the article's accompanying talk page. If you post your comments there, other editors working on the same article will notice and respond to them, and your comments will not disrupt the flow of the article. However, keep in mind that even on the talk page of an article, you should limit your discussion to improving the article. Article talk pages are not the place to discuss opinions of the subject of articles, nor are such pages a forum. Thank you. MrOllie (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Response to comments about conflict of interest etc.
My apologies if I have posted stuff in the wrong place - you chaps deal with thousands of articles, I have been involved in only two so I find it a bit confusing about what goes where.

I am not even sure if this is in the right place because it seems to be in a "Talk" section about me as a user, rather than about Dongles - even though I clicked on "Talk" while viewing the Dongles page.

I feel a little frustrated that, for whatever reasons, I cannot set the record straight and ensure that the article on dongles is accurate.

I know verifiable "facts" are hard to come by these days, and people tend to hide behind user names so you never know who they really are (I always prefer to deal directly with real people - but I understand this is not possible with Wikipedia), but here are a few verifiable facts:

1) I am Mike Lake (mlake at btconnect.com), a real human being, living in Derby, England. I can provide evidence for my existence (I never thought I would ever have to write that ) and a quick Google search for my name or for trusleymike or trusley_mike will find me.  (I live in the village of Trusley and my name is Mike - hence the user name.)  I think there is a Canadian politician with the same name - but he is not me and I am not him.

2) I am the co-inventor, in the late 1970s, of both the dongle as a physical device and the neologism by which it is known. The other two inventors were Peter Dowson (now a well respected expert on linking all sorts of hardware to aircraft simulators - Google his name to find out more) and Graham Heggie who was an electronics engineer at the time dongles were invented.  I don't know what Graham is doing these days.

3) We developed dongles to protect the Wordcraft word processor running on the Commodore PET. Later we produced versions for serial and parallel ports to provide protection on new computers as they came along.  Our final dongles were for the IBM PC and clones.

4) We supplied dongles to third parties to protect their software. I suppose we sold a few hundred thousand over the few years we developed and manufactured dongles.

5) Wordcraft, and its type-setting derivative, Typecraft, were character-based systems and we decided not to continue development when graphics WYSIWYG word processing came along with MS Word - we didn't have the marketing muscle to take on Microsoft. So, Wordcraft/Typecraft didn't continue beyond the late 1980s

6) We stopped developing and making dongles at about the same time.

So, I have no interest in dongles from a financial point of view and the software they were designed to protect ceased being sold over 25 years ago.

I don't therefore think I have a conflict of interest.

I am retired but, along with a couple of other retired friends from the software/electronics world, we formed ourselves into "Quite Useful Stuff" (QUS) so we can invent and develop quite useful things as the fancy takes us. We meet once a week to discuss ideas and to progress any projects we may be working on. QUS is not a company - it is three guys who prefer product development to playing golf  In the last couple of years we have developed a Bluetooth temperature probe for the fast food market, a Bluetooth remote level (SmartAngle) and a DAB radio conversion kit for classic cars.

I suppose I am a bit like James Dyson who might wish to post about how he invented a new type of vacuum cleaner or Albert Einstein who might want to post about how he came across relativity.

I welcome your advice on the best way to put the record straight. I happen to think the Dongles article is vague and fairly unhelpful for those seeking information - I would be happy to rewrite it for consideration.

Trusley Mike (talk) 06:51, 31 May 2019 (UTC)


 * All of this is very interesting, but we can't use any of the material you've been putting in the articles thss far. If you are writing about yourself on Wikipedia you have a conflict of interest as Wikipedia defines it (please do read the pages on this topic you've been linked to already, it appears you haven't), even if the conflict isn't financial. More importantly, we need sources that meet our guidelines for your claims. They must be independently written and published, so your personal or company sites do not qualify. - MrOllie (talk) 01:28, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Wordcraft version k.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:Wordcraft version k.jpg, which you've attributed to Richard Lagendijk. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either
 * make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
 * Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add OTRS pending to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Non-free content, use a tag such as non-free fair use or one of the other tags listed at File copyright tags, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in [ your upload log]. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described in section F11 of the criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:14, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

This also applies to File:Wordcraft user guide with dongle.jpg — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Diannaa: Richard Lagendijk provided three photos in total: File:Wordcraft user guide with dongle.jpg, File:Wordcraft version k.jpg and File:Wordcraft version k expanded.jpg.

He will be sending an email to confirm his permission using the template you linked to.

Trusley Mike (talk) 15:08, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Deletions on talk pages
Discussion pages are meant to be a record of a discussion; deleting or editing legitimate comments is considered bad practice. - MrOllie (talk) 09:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Deletion pending for File:Wordcraft user guide with dongle.jpg
Hello, Trusley Mike. Some time ago, a file you uploaded &mdash; File:Wordcraft user guide with dongle.jpg &mdash; was tagged with OTRS pending, indicating that you (or perhaps the copyright holder if you did not create this image) submitted a statement of permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Though there is often a backlog processing messages received at this address, we should have received your message by now.


 * If you have not submitted (or forwarded) a statement of permission, please send it immediately to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.


 * If you have already sent this message, it is possible that there was a problem receiving it. Please re-send it to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.

If we don't hear from you within one week, the file will be deleted. If we can help you, please feel free to ask at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 14:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Deletion pending for File:Wordcraft version k expanded.jpg
Hello, Trusley Mike. Some time ago, a file you uploaded &mdash; File:Wordcraft version k expanded.jpg &mdash; was tagged with OTRS pending, indicating that you (or perhaps the copyright holder if you did not create this image) submitted a statement of permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Though there is often a backlog processing messages received at this address, we should have received your message by now.


 * If you have not submitted (or forwarded) a statement of permission, please send it immediately to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.


 * If you have already sent this message, it is possible that there was a problem receiving it. Please re-send it to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.

If we don't hear from you within one week, the file will be deleted. If we can help you, please feel free to ask at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Deletion pending for File:Wordcraft version k.jpg
Hello, Trusley Mike. Some time ago, a file you uploaded &mdash; File:Wordcraft version k.jpg &mdash; was tagged with OTRS pending, indicating that you (or perhaps the copyright holder if you did not create this image) submitted a statement of permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Though there is often a backlog processing messages received at this address, we should have received your message by now.


 * If you have not submitted (or forwarded) a statement of permission, please send it immediately to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.


 * If you have already sent this message, it is possible that there was a problem receiving it. Please re-send it to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and let us know at the OTRS noticeboard that you have done so.

If we don't hear from you within one week, the file will be deleted. If we can help you, please feel free to ask at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2019 (UTC)