User talk:Thegumnut

Welcome![edit]

Hello, Thegumnut, 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) 22:01, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Working as a company representative in Wikipedia[edit]

Hi Brynn. Thanks for disclosing here and here that you work for Les Mills International.

I have taken care of using our kind of complicated templates to make that disclosure at the "talk page" associated with the Les Mills article -- it is at Talk:Les Mills International. I have also made the disclosure on your userpage, which is User:Thegumnut. Normally your userpage is only for your use and other people are not supposed to write there - I just took care of getting the disclosure done to save us both hassle. (what you can and cannot put on your userpage, is described here: WP:Userpage).

Before we get started on talk about working in Wikipedia as a company representative, it would be useful if you took some time to get more oriented to Wikipedia - what it actually is and what it is not, and how things work here. Would you please read User:Jytdog/How, and write back here, just below this, when you are done? That is a thing I wrote, to help new people get oriented. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:10, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have completed reading the links that you have provided, I have also saved a link to the cheatsheet for future reference. Im under the understanding that Wikipedia is more of a source of truth apposed to an opinion piece. In terms of my particular problem with the Les Mills International page I believe the biggest problem is that we only have information from our sources, which in turn is not considered a source of truth. This could be complimented by a third party article from a newspaper or a magazine, to help move away from the 'conflict of interest'. Is this sounding better in terms of completing this task? Thanks in advance Thegumnut (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

pasted here from comment left at my talk page in this diff Jytdog (talk) 22:11, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jytdog, After reading the pages you gave me last time, I made changes to Les Mills International but have reverted them again due to a conflict of interest. this conflict is due to me working for the business which I understand but the current information is incomplete. Bill is a co-founder, current board and part owner of Les Mills International and the references that I've provided aren't just publish by Les Mills Asia Pacific but by a series of other third parties. If you could please help me clear this up that would be appreciated. Thegumnut (talk) 22:06, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying. Sorry I didn't reply back on the 11th.

So, tthere are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure which is now done. The second is a form of prior 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. And no author at the top of the page, so that readers know who wrote an article, and can read the article in light of who the authors are. And likewise, no COI disclosures on a given article, as there are in scientific publications. 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.

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. I have already pointed you to do 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.

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 XXX 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) 22:14, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]