User talk:WLDiffusion

September 2014
Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that your username, "WLDiffusion", may not comply with our username policy. Please note that you may not use a username that represents the name of a company, group, organization, product, or website. Examples of usernames that are not allowed include "XYZ Company", "MyWidgetsUSA.com", and "Trammel Museum of Art". However, you are invited to use a username that contains such a name if it identifies you personally, such as "Mark at WidgetsUSA", "Jack Smith at the XY Foundation", and "WidgetFan87".

Please also note that Wikipedia does not allow accounts to be shared by multiple people, and that you may not advocate for or promote any company, group, organization, product, or website, regardless of your username. Moreover, I recommend that you read our conflict of interest guideline. If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please create a new account or request a username change that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you. —Sladen (talk) 15:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

 You appear to have a close connection to the subject of the article Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits that raises concerns about a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. Anyone with a conflict of interest must avoid or exercise great caution when:
 * 1) editing articles related to you, your family or colleagues, your organization or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
 * 2) participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors,
 * 3) linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam);
 * and you must always:
 * 1) avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

For more details about what constitutes a conflict of interest, please see Conflict of Interest. Thank you. —Sladen (talk) 18:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

To whom it may concern
To whom it may concern: Hello, My name is Arnaud, and I recently contributed to the Wikipedia articles concerning Compagnie des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) and its most famous luxury train: the Orient Express. I am in charge of archives and digital images of CIWL at Wagons-Lits Diffusion in Paris. Many contributors to Wikipedia have taken the opportunities provided by Wikipedia to promote their version of the history of our company. The result is that some article do not represent the real picture of a company that has existed for more than 130 years and had many activities and achievements all over Europe and beyond. CIWL and Wagons-Lits Diffusion have been late to realize the importance of Wikipedia, and we now take time to make sure the articles in Wikipedia are not biased and tell the neutral and checked history of CIWL. Also that CIWL (c) and TM are not abused. While doing this effort, it seems that to our great surprise, we receive notices suspecting us of doing exactly what we are fighting, that is biaising Wikipedia. Every contribution we make can be truly and honestly verified. We would appreciate to be honestly challenged and proved neutral. And thus make sure our comments and modifications are 100% ok. But we are lost in the Wikipedia process concerning 'Watchlist', 'three-revert rule' or other 'conflicts of interest'. Therefore, as we can't make out of we should proceed, we publish the present statement, hoping to be contacted and prove that our intentions are only to represent the real and verified history of CIWL, as is asserted by the many serious books and academic works concerning CIWL. We are of course willing to be questioned and challeged as much as needed, in order to prove our intentions. If needed, alter some contributions if they are judged partial or incomplete. Wikipedia can be the best open information source in the world. It can also become a nightmare, when you realize that some people or organizations have taken the initiative and published somewhat distorted articles, so difficult to correct afterwards.

Arnaud Paris, Sept 5th, 2014 To whom it may concern: please contact me at: arnaud@wagons-lits-diffusion.com

please don't hesitate to contact me in order to solve suspicion arisen from some last contributions that I made to Compagnie des Wagons-Lits history

— Preceding unsigned comment added by WLDiffusion (talk • contribs) 08:44, 5 September 2014‎


 * Welcome Arnaud, and thank you for getting involved with improving Wikipedia. With access to a wonderful historic library and archive, you have a lot to contribute, in particular the many missing trains on Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits where the CIWL archive at Wagons-Lits Diffusion will hold the answers.


 * One must be clear about what Wikipedia is. It is an encyclopaedia, one that is libre and designed to be shared.  The content must be libre (free as in freedom), neutral, and well cited with references.  Wikipedia is not an advertising medium, or the yellow pages.  The content is a summary (synopsis) of existing academic and reference works—each pointing to where the original paper can be found.  Everything is credited (including links to its source), but Wikipedia is not for promotion. The edits you have contributed so far are visible at Special:Contributions/WLDiffusion, Special:Contributions/78.203.115.18 and commons:Special:Contributions/WLDiffusion.


 * When writing, we use past WP:TENSE, and adhere to the WP:Manual of Style. Some material is appropriate, and some is not.  When metadata (such as on images) is provided is should be accurate and allow a reader to track down the original: for example by its catalogue number, date, and author in the Wagons-Lits Diffusion archive.  Note that on images the metadata for the source, author, date, catalogue number, location, copyright metadata must be placed in computer-readable (indexable) form on the image meta page.  Watermarked images are forbidden because this damages the fidelity of the images for future generations and restricts re-usability.
 * Questions
 * "…promote their version of the history of our company." Please use the Talk:Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and Talk:Orient Express to precisely describe the concern, rather than trying to make the edit directly.  You should ideally provide details and links to academic references works such as books and records to allow the article text to be improved.
 * "Wagons-Lits Diffusion have been late to realize the importance of Wikipedia" It is good that you have personally gotten involved and this is very much appreciated.
 * "We … we … we" As noted above at, corporate/shared accounts are not allowed.  If you would like to continue contributing as an individual, then this account will need to be renamed.  User:Arnaud is already taken, but you could use something like User:ArnaudWLDiffusion, or User:ArnaudAnythingElse…, or perhaps you have a nickname.   This will then become your own personal account.  If you do not choose to rename and keep this account in a personal capacity, then the account in the name of WLDiffusion will be blocked and banned.  You are free also to create a new account afterwards.
 * 'Watchlist'. The watchlist allows you to "favourite" certain articles in order to track and see all the recent changes together in one place.  You don't have to use it.
 * 'three-revert rule'. If an edit is undone, please do not simply try to undo it again.  Instead, click "discuss", and "new section" and start a dicussion about why the change needs to be made—once consensus is reached, such as an alternative wording the change can be made.  Simply undoing and undoing again is unconstructive.  Once you have got the hang of the style and what is appropriate it is unlikely you will be reverted—but that applies equally to others aswell.
 * 'conflicts of interest'. Wikipedia is not a tool for promotion, and Wagons-Lits Diffusion both has a lot of reference material, but also an apparent self interest in using Wikipedia for promotion.  The best way is to suggest controversial changes on the Talk: page and allow another editor—unconnected to WL Diffusion—to reword and make any changes.
 * Also that CIWL (c) and TM are not abused. Please raise any concerns on the corresponding Talk: page precisely stating what is wrong.  Note though that (1) metadata belongs on the image page, any caption should be about the picture, not saying where it came from.  (2) Because of the age of material in the CIWL archive a lot of it will be out-of-copyright (which is why Wikipedia has old pre-1920s posters, not newer ones.  (3) Trademarks come into play when something is being "passed off", not during factual discussion of an item or topic.
 * published somewhat distorted articles. Please raise the concern on the appropriate Talk: page.  Everyone is here with a common purpose which is to produce and improve a libre encyclopaedia.
 * Actions
 * Please consider doing the following
 * Use the Prefences→Notifications tab to select Email notifications for your Talk page.
 * Choose a new personal account name and request a rename at Changing username/Simple by clicking the link and filling in, ,  , then saving.
 * When the account has been renamed, and you can log-in again under the new name; please:
 * Go through the images uploaded at commons:Special:Contributions/WLDiffusion and for each image fill in the author/painter, year, date, catalogue number, archive address in Paris and any other information that is on the index card in the archives,
 * Go through the images uploaded at commons:Special:Contributions/WLDiffusion and upload a fresh copy without the watermark text.
 * Consider running an open-day at the CIWL Archive so Wikipedia contributors can come and work from the material held in the archive to improve Wikipedia.
 * Once again, I really appreciate that you wish to get involved. Please ask any further questions you may have, and I will do my best to answer them and to help you contribute and improve Wikipedia.  It must be a real privilege to run a library/archive such as this, and a job I am personally envious of!  —Sladen (talk) 09:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)