User talk:Pauld848

Welcome![edit]

Welcome to Wikipedia, Pauld848! Thank you for your contributions. I am DRAGON BOOSTER and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 15:59, 15 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia[edit]

Hi Pauld848. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Your edits to date are blatantly promotional with regard to MD Intellectual Holdings. I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Pauld848. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

Comments and requests[edit]

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. Unmanaged conflicts of interest can also lead to people behaving in ways that violate our behavioral policies and cause disruption in the normal editing process. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with MD Intellectual Holdings, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Get your content correct then! Catherine Hettinger didn't invent the Fidget Spinner. She invented a finger hat! Scott McCoskery invented the Fidget Spinner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauld848 (talk • contribs) 20:21, 13 March 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. Three things:

In Talk page discussions, new comments go at the bottom.
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. Jytdog (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We can talk about content after we establish the foundations. Would you please disclose any connections you have with MD Intellectual Holdings? Jytdog (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am the CEO of MD Intellectual Holdings LLC and MD Engineering LLC. I am also a long time user and supporter of Wikipedia. I would like to see correct and valid content on Wikipedia. Always. Catherine's invention was decades ago and it is not possible to fidget back and forth. It fails the test to be a fidget spinner. She never produced a product! Scott's invention is responsible for the sharp rise in Fidget Spinners and the USPTO agrees.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauld848 (talk • contribs) 20:38, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying. I have indented and signed for you. Please be aware that indenting and signing are as fundamental to day-to-day etiquette here as "please" and "thank you" in the real world; continuing to ignore this convention will lead people to think of you as simply rude. You will of course do as you will with regard to that.

You discussed content again - after it is clear that you understand the "ground rules" here I will be happy to discuss the content you want to change, but first things first.

Thanks for disclosing that you are CEO of MD Intellectual Holdings LLC and MD Engineering LLC. You have a conflict of interest with regard to topics related to those companies here in Wikipedia.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Pauld848 - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I am CEO of MD Intellectual Holdings LLC and MD Engineering LLC, which make fidget spinners, and have a conflict of interest with regard to those companies and related topics" 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, or make claims about IP rights in the real world (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to Talk:Fidget spinner, so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is a form of peer review. This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.

What we ask editors to do who have a COI or who are paid, and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, 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 (paid) 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 (paid) tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the 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. (There are good faith paid editors here, who have signed and follow the Wikipedia:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms, and there are "black hat" paid editors here who lie about what they do and really harm Wikipedia).

But understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important! There are a whole slew 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.

I hope that makes sense to you.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content. If you are not sure if something is uncontroversial, please ask at the Talk page.

Will you please agree to learn and follow the content and behavioral policies and guidelines, and to follow the peer review processes going forward when you want to work on the fidget spinner article or any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

this was pretty obviously you or someone else affiliated with your company, editing while logged out. Please don't do things like that. Jytdog (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please reply here? You have not added the disclosure to your userpage, and your post here shows that you have not taken the time to read about the content policies and guidelines at user:Jytdog/How. Please let me know if something above was not clear. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:17, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have provided you with a starting point for you to correct the inaccuracies in the Fidget Spinner page. Your rules and regulations regarding communications on this site are far more than I have time to learn. You have the information, you have links, you have an indisputable patent number. Please correct the fidget spinner page on wikipedia to resemble fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauld848 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pauld848l. If you don't have patience to learn how to edit, another option for you would be to pay someone to try to make these edits for you; part of what you will pay them for, will be to explain to you what will fly and what won't fly in Wikipedia. If you check Wikipedia:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms you will find paid editing companies that have agreed to follow WP's policies and guidelines. I can recommend MaryGaulke and FacultiesIntact as paid editors who are good citizens.

If you continue to be as disdainful as have you have been, you are going to find your editing privileges restricted or removed for being here solely to promote your company. Jytdog (talk) 01:24, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]