User talk:Meriville

Welcome![edit]

Hello, Meriville, 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:

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

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 Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 06:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia[edit]

Hi Meriville. Thanks for your note at my talk page, and for your note at Talk:Paolo Casali. In that note, you disclosed that you are "a colleague of Mr. Casali." Thanks very much for making that disclosure. Would you please disclose if you are being paid or expect to be paid for working on the article, or if you are doing this as part of your job? Answering yes or no will not change management of the conflict of interest (which you seem to understand already) but you are obligated to disclose specifically, the paid editing aspect. Once you reply, we can go over a few things to make sure we have a shared understanding, before work begins. You can reply here. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 06:16, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for such a quick response. Those are pretty direct questions so I will give you direct answers. I am not doing this as part of my job nor am I being compensated in any way. As a colleague we regularly discuss various aspects of the job and life and Wikipedia came up. After he told me about the issues he was having, I offered to help if I could as I am a little more technologically advanced. Although, I will likely make him buy me a beer next time he's in town if I am able to help (sorry, a little humor). --Meriville (talk) 04:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was also able to upload a photo of him but I do not want to add it directly to the article as I feel it would violate everything I have read about conflicted editing on Wikipedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paolo_Casali_Photo.jpg).

Quick question as well. I see that after I left a message on the talk page of the article, someone left yet another tag at the top of the article that says it was edited for undisclosed payments. I am wondering if this is common and seemed strange since I was asking for the removal of some of the notices but another one was left just shortly after my request. Please forgive all the questions as I am trying to learn what I can here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Meriville (talk • contribs) 04:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. (your next test of tech-savviness!)

In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone, you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense. And at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~~~~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit. That is how we know who said what to whom and when.

Please be aware that threading and signing are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).

I know this is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 05:32, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note, and for disclosing that you are a colleague and are not being paid.

After it is clear that you understand the "ground rules" here I will be happy to discuss the other stuff you mentioned above, but first things first.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Meriville - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I am a colleague of Paolo Casali and have a conflict of interest with regard to the article about him" would be fine. If you want to add anything else there that is relevant to what you want to do in WP feel free to add it, but please don't add anything promotional about the company or yourself (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to the Casali article's talk page, so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.

So, I think you understand the COI management process here -- disclose, and put content through prior review instead of editing directly.

Concretely, what we ask is:

a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page with the Template:Connected contributor tag, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and

b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to

(i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page (I've already done this at the Casali page); and

(ii) propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. Just open a new section, put the proposed content there, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) please the {{request edit}} tag to flag it for other editors to review. In general it should be relatively short so that it is not too much review at once. Sometimes editors propose complete rewrites, providing a link to their sandbox for example. This is OK to do but please be aware that it is lot more for volunteers to process and will probably take longer.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies.

But here is the part I want to communicate to you. Understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important! There are a whole bunch of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior here in Wikipedia. Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of what Wikipedia is and is not (we are not a directory or a place to promote anything), and for an overview of the content and behavior policies and guidelines. Learning and following these is very important, and takes time. Please be aware that you have created a Wikipedia account, and this makes you a Wikipedian - you are obligated to pursue Wikipedia's mission first and foremost when you work here, and you are obligated to edit according to the policies and guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege that is freely offered to all, but the community restricts or completely takes that privilege away from people who will not edit and behave as Wikipedians.

It is sometimes hard for experts to understand how different working here, is from normal scientific writing. WP:EXPERT may help you adapt.

I hope that makes sense to you. Does it? Jytdog (talk) 05:43, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Talk about information overload. But yes, it makes perfect sense. I read up quite a bit before I even came here which is why I started on the talk page and then went to leave you a message. I don't want to promote him in any way and don't even really want to expand the page from where it is. Let me make the disclosure on my page as you requested and I will then leave another message. --Meriville (talk) 19:31, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. The more I read the more I wonder how long it takes someone to truly become a regular editor here. There are quite a few more rules than I anticipated so let me know if fail at anything here as I don't want to disrupt anything. I just made the disclosure at your request and hope that it is sufficient. If not, please let me know and I can amend it accordingly. So my basic purpose here is simply to get an image added to his page (which I already uploaded - see link above) and then offer whatever information is needed to help clean up the notices at the top of the page. Please let me know what I need to do. From what I read, two of them (the connected and paid editing templates) would likely be removed based on the extensive editing you did in March. If I misunderstood the purpose of those tags, please let me know. That would leave the notices about tone and sources. I can supply sources necessary if you can point me in the right direction. --Meriville (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, we seem ready to go. I just want to note... let's see how shall I say this... I don't much believe that you know him or are a colleague. It is bizarre that you referred to him as "Mr. Casali" on the article Talk page. I believe you are probably being paid to work on this one way or another. The doubt bothers me, because if you are being paid you should be honest about that with me and the community, but I have no way to check. Functionally it doesn't matter, since you have agreed to follow the COI guideline and not edit directly, which is what matters most (it is the exact same restriction as a paid editor has. Exactly the same.)

In any case, the next step is for you to propose whatever changes you would like to see, on the article talk page, as the instructions above explain. Please be sure anything you propose is well sourced. See you over there. (oh, i am going to remove the quotes around the statement at your userpage. They aren't needed). Jytdog (talk) 03:08, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your reservation. I don't call him Mister in real life although he may prefer it sometimes (just joking). Calling him Mister here is more formal as I am not sure anyone else on Wikipedia knows him by his first name. Anyway, I would feel better communicating knowing that we fully trust each other, but I understand if you don't. --Meriville (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I am going to go there now and leave some information. --Meriville (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]