User talk:UWMJohnson

Welcome!
Hello, UWMJohnson, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee‎, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article.&#32;Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

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).

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
 * Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:41, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Questions
Hello, thank you for the guidance. I was hoping to update the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee entry with current figures on enrollment, research expenditures, number of faculty, etc. A number of the figures are several years old. Given that I work at the university, what is the best way to accomplish this goal? Instead of making the changes myself, is there someone who I can ask to make the changes? We have current data here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UWMJohnson (talk • contribs) 22:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC+9)

Also, I chose my username because I thought I should be open about the fact that I work at the university. Would a better username just be my name or should my username be something like UWMPIO to indicate that I am the public information officer for the university? Or, should I leave it as is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by UWMJohnson (talk • contribs) 22:46, 22 April 2016 (UTC+9)


 * Regarding the username, you will want to take a look at WP:GROUPNAME and WP:ROLE. In short, accounts belong to an individual, not a role, so "UWMPIO" would violate the username policy. Your current name should be fine. You'll also take a look at the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use and make sure you comply with the disclosure requirements laid out in the section on "paid editing without disclosure".
 * You can propose changes on the talk page if you don't want to edit the article itself; please be specific ("Remove X, add Y after Z, change W into Q"). You can add the code (including the curly brackets) to the talk page to make your proposal more visible. For uncontroversial details such as enrollment figures a primary source such as the university website will suffice; for an interpretation of that data we'd need a secondary source. Huon (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi UWMJohnson. I will try to answer your questions, but before I do some technical things about Wikipedia.
 * Please try to remember to always sign your posts to talk pages, noticeboards, etc. as explained in WP:SIGNATURE per Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. This helps other editors determine who posted and when they posted without having to dig through the relevant page's history. Pretty much everyone forgets to sign a post every now and then and in such cases maybe a bot or another user will add the signature using Template:Unsigned like I did for you, but it's a good habit to develop from the start and can help avoid confusion/accusations in thread where lots of people are posting. The easiest way to do this is to use 4 tilde, but there are others.
 * The markup or Template name is telling the system to only links to the template, not to use the template. You added  which only told the system to link to the Template:Help me page. Since you wanted the system to use the template, you should've have added  instead. I fixed this for you and hopefully you can see the difference.


 * Now, I will try and answer your question. Since you work for the university, you have a clear conflict of interest. COI editing is not expressly prohibited on Wikipedia, but it is something highly discouraged. Most COI editors tend to mean well, but their connection to the subject may make it hard for them to write neutrally about it. Other COI editors are clearly only interested in promoting something and not interested in helping to build an encyclopedia. So due to the latter type, the former's edits often are also viewed with suspicion by others. You can edit the article, but you probably should look at Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide for reference. There are certain expectations placed upon COI editors, but you should be fine if you follow what's laid out in the PSCOI.


 * Regarding your username, promotional usernames are not allowed per WP:ORGNAME. This means that something such as "University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee" or "UWM" or anything else official sounding as if it's intended to represent the university would almost surely be prohibited and could possibly lead to a block. However, personalizing usernames such as like have have done seems to be acceptable. Accounts are not supposed to be shared, but "UWMJohnosn" is distinct enough to identify you from "UMWMarchjuly" or "UWMJanedoe" so I think it should be OK per WP:ISU. You can ask for other opinions at the Teahouse. You can also ask general editing questions, etc. at the Teahouse. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:15, 22 April 2016 (UTC)