ACTGNetwork

Welcome!

Hello, ACTGNetwork, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I notice that one of the first articles you edited was AIDS Clinical Trials Group, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or any other editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

The one firm rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! You can also just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello, whenever you add content to Wikipedia it has to come with a reference to the source of that information. You did not do that with this edit. If you need help using Wikipedia I would be happy to assist you. Feel free to contact me as you like. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello Bluerasberry, yes I am in charge of Communications for the ACTG and wanted to update the page with a few more dates to make the history section more current. I am new to Wikipedia and any assistance posting would be appreciated. How can I post these changes without them being deleted? ACTGNetwork (talk) 17:04, 6 September 2012 (UTC)ACTGNetwork

There are two relevant policies about adding content. One is verifiability - if you add information, cite your source just like you would in a college class. This is how people can know that what you are adding is correct. The second one you can call either notability or reliability. In terms of notability, information is notable when entities other than article's subject publish about it, so when you cite your source, the information is only "notable" if it is someone talking about ACTG and not ACTG talking about itself. In other words, self-published sources are not "reliable" because they are biased, and sources published by ACTG about ACTG are forbidden except for the most boring and mundane information. You added a list of projects - do you have sources for this published by entities not funded by ACTG? Reviews in scholarly journals, interviews of PIs published in magazines, and reviews of the research in newspapers are all ideal. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry. So of the five edits I had originally made to the page, I was able to find third party sources to verify the information for two of the points. I posted these two points in the history section of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group page with a link to the third party website right after the information. Is that the correct way to post? Thanks again for your guidance! ACTGNetwork (talk) 19:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)ACTGNetwork

This is a step in the right direction! The references you gave were plain URLs. Just as those would not be accepted as a citation in an undergraduate university class, those are not acceptable here. Try to make proper citations and if you have trouble then I or anyone else will help you. This time I made them for you. If you want to learn it for yourself then go here.

From the PLoS source you said, "In 2005 the ACTG opened its first multinational AIDS clinical trial in 16 sites around the globe". I do not see that stated anywhere in the source.

From the NIAID source you make the statement "In 2006 the network was funded..." but I do not see that anywhere in the text. Can you confirm that the statement you made came from this source?

Are you familiar with the concept of citations? The standard usage is to provide source media by means of which a reader can verify an assertion. It seems to me that you are providing references which add to the statements you are making, but do not verify them. I was hoping that you would be able to identify sources which verify your statements. Can you comment? Thanks a lot! I appreciate your interest. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry. I greatly appreciate your assistance with the citations. I will refer to the guide you mention in the future. The PLoS source mentions the sites, the findings and the dates of the study that I reference in that update to the ACTG history. The study began May 1, 2005, which can be found in the Statistical Methods section of the PLoS page. The sites are listed in the Methods section and in the Discussion section the findings about the ARVs being safer for women participants are stated.

The 2006 update to the ACTG history is referenced in the NIAID source. If you look in the top right hand corner of the NIAID page, the date of the entry to their page is June 29, 2006. Then if you skip down the page to question 3, NIAID lists the six networks it supports with the ACTG being listed first.

Today, I just updated the ACTG wikipedia page to spell out some the drug names and to change the opening paragraph to state that we are one of the largest HIV clinical trial networks. The other networks are growing quickly so I don't think we should make the claim of being the largest anymore. Does this information answer your questions? Again, thank you for your assistance with teaching me the correct ways to post to wikipedia.ACTGNetwork (talk) 15:45, 12 September 2012 (UTC)ACTGNetwork

Okay, I see some of this. The PLoS article says that the ACTG opened a multinational trial, but I do not see where that article says that it was ACTG's first multinational trial. Also, the conclusion you presented that the trial's result is "the results of which suggested men and women respond to antiretroviral drugs differently" seems not to be the major finding or stated purpose of the study. Wikipedia's Medical Manual of Style says that editors should use reliable sources for medicine when making claims. In a low traffic article like this one perhaps no one will care, but if you made the claim "the results of which suggested men and women respond to antiretroviral drugs differently" in an article about antiretrovirals or in the specific articles about each of the drugs then this claim would be questioned.

The NIAID article says that the ACTG received an "award for leadership" and you said that the organization was funded. The source covers it, I suppose, but it's too bad that considering the international scope and impact of the ACTG that this is the best source for the statement.

Everything you did is great. I am so glad that you have interest in Google search traffic. If I can ever do anything else with you then let me know. You have my complete support and I would love to give people access to information about HIV-related clinical trials and HIV research in general. I gave you information about references and manual of style just so you will know those things exist, but I would always be happy to just work with you on whatever level you liked. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)