User talk:LaGrangePatch

Hi, welcome to WIkipedia. I hope that I can answer your questions. Many people when they first edit here have misunderstandings as to what the encyclopedia is for, so the community has developed a number of policies and guidelines to help you with your editing. I'll highlight some so that you can see why I removed the material that you added. Firstly, your user name suggests that you are involved with La Grange Patch—so please read our conflict of interest policy. As you will see from this policy, it suggests that you should not write at all about the subject that you are have an interest in (i.e. La Grange Patch). Secondly, please study our external links guidelines. As you will see, the external links that you added to the La Grange, Illinois and La Grange Park, Illinois do not meet the criteria for inclusion in these articles, and also external links should not normally be used in the body of an article. So even if the material that you added stayed, the external link needs to go. Thirdly, please read about what Wikipedia is not, particularly the section that states that wikipedia should not be used for promotion. Whilst it is not uncommon for Wikipedia articles on places to have a section on the local media, it looks to me that La Grange Patch was established the day before you added information on it to the article—I could find no reliable third-party sources—per our verifiability policy—that mentioned La Grange Patch, meaning that at this stage it is not suitable for inclusion. —Jeremy (talk) 04:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I commend your honesty in being open about your affiliation to La Grange Patch, however, an important principle at Wikipedia is that people edit as individuals and not as representatives of an organization. For this reason we generally discourage people from selecting a username that is the name or URL of a company, group or product (as you will see here). A better way to be honest about your affiliation is to create a user page for your account and state any potential conflicts of interest there (a good article on dealing with conflicts of interest can be found here). WIth regards to when to include La Grange Patch in the La Grange article, the important thing is that Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia (and therefore a tertiary source), should not be the first place to publish this information—you need to be able to cite a reliable published source that has no affiliation with La Grange Patch that states that La Grange Patch is a daily online newspaper that covers news in La Grange. —Jeremy (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]