User talk:WestDevOffice

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Hello, WestDevOffice, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
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Westminster School
Thanks for your comments. I'd encourage you to learn more about Wikipedia, via some of the above links. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if I'm a member of the school community or not, but like many editors I do have an interest in improving this and other articles. Ideally, editors shouldn't be too close to the subject of the article; if they are they can sometimes be seen as not adopting a neutral point of view (refer WP:NPOV). Similarly, editors who edit only one article or topic can raise suspicion regarding neutrality. In this regard, your username probably isn't helpful, as it could be harder to convince the Wiki community of neutrality. School articles can become prone to these issues, and in the worst case can lead to concerns regarding "ownership" (refer WP:OWN).

As far as editors are concerned, very few have "official roles" (I don't) and that is irrelevant to their editing behaviour. I have no issue with those close to the school checking the content and editing appropriately. Certainly, all school articles regrettably attract a good deal of vandalism which needs correction. However, I'd encourage editors close to the school community to ensure that content added is verifiable by independent sources. To this end, sources close to the school (eg its website) shouldn't be relied on - not because they might not be factual, but because they're not independent of the topic (refer WP:SOURCES).

I've found in general with school articles that edits won't be challenged if the content is notable and that it doesn't have a marketing flavour or one which overly paint the school in a totally pristine light. Murtoa (talk) 13:31, 28 October 2009 (UTC)