Talk:Marchmont Observatory

Persistent warnings

my contribution has had caveats on it since it was created which claim it is an advert - it is not an advert. I work for a university department that gives free advice and guidance on careers and the labour market. A colleague had a similar issue which was resolved by a wikipedia volunteer. Who do I speak to about having these erroneous caveats removed? Ka240 (talk) 08:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Ka240, It seems to me that there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. You see, the template placed at the top of this article doesn't exist for the purpose of attacking the author. To the contrary, it merely states that the word choice and tone used in writing the article don't sound like an encyclopedia should. For example, the first sentence (among many others) "The Marchmont Observatory conducts academic research in support of local government policy formation..." is a direct quote from the Observatory's site. While quotes are valuable things, much of the text seen in this article has been taken directly from a site created with the sole purpose of promoting the Observatory. In an encyclopedic article, the focus should not be the mission statement of the institution. Rather, you should describe what specifically goes on at the Observatory. For example: "In 2010, the Observatory spent $X Million to renovate the...". I believe the person who tagged this article is, in fact, correct. Despite whatever your intentions may be, it does come across like an advertisement. Also, Wikipedia doesn't work like a company. You cannot just call up someone to have an article changed for you. If you believe that a tag is in error, make your point and, if you don't encounter opposition, fix the article. I hope I've clarified things a bit and, while I don't, at the moment, agree with your position, I'd love to hear why I'm not looking at this correctly. Tutleman (talk) 06:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

• I am inclined to agree with Tutleman (In other words, the article kinda reads like an advertisement). The banners at the top of the article are just to let readers (and editors too) know that the article has some issues. If I were you, i would look into some way to solve the issues, so that the banner at the top can be removed and the issues resolved ASAP. If you need help with solving the issues, feel free to ask. Dusty777 (talk) 21:50, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• I can't see the issues stated in the banners apart from evidently needed wikification (the text features multiple url links in its body and numerous "•", which should be eliminated). Specifically I can't see advertising tone. I would suggest the active readers to solve these issues and (after that) remove the tags. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Oftentimes, editors see the advert maintenance tag and have difficulty understanding the issues that need improvement due to a lack of sales and/or marketing information presented in the article. Any article that serves to primarily promote the awareness of an individual, group, organization, or entity outside of encyclopedic tone would be identified with the "advert" tag. I've gone ahead and restructured the article and cleaned up some bare urls. The article does need some copyediting to address promotional tone. While the use of the content from the subject's website has been provided, we still need to make sure the article is neutral in tone and unbiased. The lead section also needs to be rewritten. The purpose of the lead section is to provide an introduction to the subject, presenting why the subject is notable, significant, and/or important, along with a summary of the article's content. At this point, the lead needs to clearly state what the Marchmont Observatory "is". In essence, the information in the article does not correlate to generally understood information about observatories. See Observatory and WP:MOSINTRO for clarification. Tutleman has offered some excellent pointers. I've replaced the Request for Comment tag with the general help tag. If you continue to need assistance, simply follow the directions in the box above. Or you can simply contact one of us directly. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 13:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)