User talk:Wilsonlee92

Hey,

Wilson here, I wrote the article on TeamWork Online. How can we go about salvaging this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:9:4682:7E00:1998:EA87:19E7:1978 (talk) 19:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of TeamWork Online for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article TeamWork Online is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/TeamWork Online until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. 78.26  (spin me / revolutions) 18:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Wilsonlee92, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to take the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 to ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! JohnCD (talk) 08:19, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Advice
The first thing to explain is that Wikipedia is not a place for people to tell the world about themselves or their own companies. The relevant guideline is WP:Conflict of interest, with more explanation at the Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. In brief, don;t edit directly where you have a COI, but you may submit a draft for review, or make suggestions on the talk page of an existing article, for uninvolved users to review.

Note that you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use ("Paid contributions without disclosure" under section 4), and in some jurisdictions by laws against covert advertising, to disclose your interest in any edits where you have a COI.

The next thing to explain is why the deletion discussion at Articles for deletion/TeamWork Online decided to delete the article. Wikipedia is not for advertising or promotion of any kind, and (because everyone sees it is a free publicity noticeboard) is very sensitive about that. Also, Wikipedia is not a business listing directory and does not expect or want to have articles about every company that exists. The inclusion criterion used is called Notability, and is not a matter of opinion but has to be demonstrated by showing "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Significant means more than just listing-type mentions; reliable excludes Myspace, Facebook, blogs, places where anyone can post anything; independent excludes the subject's own website, affiliated ones and anything based on press releases. The test is, have people not connected with the subject thought it significant enough to write substantial comment about?

That has the advantage of being a more objective test than "Do we think it's important?" and also of ensuring that there are independent sources for the article. It is quite a tough test, and many worthy organizations, especially new ones, cannot pass it. That is not at all to their discredit, but it means they are not suitable subjects for a global encyclopedia.

As a general rule, a suitable page will be best written by someone without Conflict of Interest; it's not impossible to do it properly with a COI, but it's more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of what you want to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know. Keep in mind that the goal of an encyclopedia is to say things in a concise manner, which is not the style of press releases or web sites, which are usually more expansive.

Think hard about notability. See WP:ANS for what it means. If you cannot find independent sources to establish it, you will be wasting your time and effort. If you want to go ahead,
 * Read WP:Your first article
 * Click on Help:Userspace draft and fill in the title. That will start a draft page in your "user space" where you can work on the article, with a link to good advice and a "Submit" button which will send the article, when it is ready, to WP:Articles for creation, where an experienced user will look at it, and either accept it or give you feedback.
 * When writing, make a strong effort to think of yourself, not as writing for the organization, but as writing for Wikipedia about the organization, from outside. You are not addressing a potential customer, but a general encyclopedia reader. Don't use ad-speak words like "premier" or "unique" - see WP:PEACOCK. Bear in mind the WP:Verifiability policy: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source", and when writing any glowing adjective, or indeed any claim, imagine a hostile critic saying "Who says? Can you prove that?" Don't talk about the organization's aims and hopes for the future, or its mission statement, but about what is has achieved. No opinions, only facts, neutrally stated and cited to reliable sources. Write in your own words, without copying from the website.

Realise that this will not be your article: as soon as you post it, it becomes Wikipedia's article. Nobody "owns" a Wikipedia article, not its first author and least of all its subject. Others can and will edit it, and you will not be able to insist on your preferred version. If you want an article about your organization which you can control, this is not the site for you.

By now you are thinking "This is much harder than I thought, all I wanted to do was to tell the world about us!" I apologise that (because we are anxious not to put new contributors off by making them read a lot of advice) Wikipedia does not make clear at sign-up time that it is not a "notice-board" site like Myspace or Facebook, which are set up for people to do exactly that; but if Wikipedia is a more valuable resource than Facebook, it is only because we have standards and rules on notability, verifiability and conflict of interest.

I have gone into all this at length not because I wish to discourage you, but to help you understand what is involved, and to avoid the common situation where a new contributor expends a lot of time, energy and emotion on what was always a hopeless cause. If you decide to go ahead, you will find many people willing to advise and assist you. There is a WP:Tutorial and a WP:New contributors' help page, and you can also ask for help by putting  (two curly brackets each side) at the bottom of your talk page with your question below it.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 08:27, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

John,

Thanks a lot for clarifying this. This makes a lot of sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.15.105.33 (talk) 03:43, 5 July 2015 (UTC)