Welcome!

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Hello, AmberGrape80, 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) 17:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Other accounts, conflict of interest

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Hi AmberGrape80. Have you edited under other accounts here in Wikipedia, and if so, would you please disclose them?

Also, would you please disclose any connection you have with Keven Tracy or any of the companies or institutions with which he is affiliated? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

I am an employee of Northwell Health and knowledgeable of Kevin's achievements. (AmberGrape80 (talk) 17:59, 2 November 2018 (UTC))Reply
Thanks for your reply. So you are a paid editor (see WP:PAID) Would you please answer the question about other accounts? Jytdog (talk) 18:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I have not edited under other accounts.— Preceding unsigned comment added by AmberGrape80 (talkcontribs) 18:11, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for replying. I fixed the "indenting" of your comment, and "signed" it for you. Please see the section below, about using talk pages.. Jytdog (talk) 18:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Indenting and signing

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Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, 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 so on, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. Threading/indenting 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.

Please be aware that threading and signing are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).

I know this is unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. More to come in a moment... Jytdog (talk) 18:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Working in Wikipedia as a paid editor -- two step process

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Hi AmberGrape80. Thanks for disclosing above that you work for Northwell.

I spend time working on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing, which is mostly about health and medicine. I am not an administrator.

Lots of people come to Wikipedia with some sort of conflict of interest and are not aware of how the editing community defines and manages conflict of interest. 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, AmberGrape80. 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 which forms all or part of work 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

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. Managing conflict of interest well, also protects conflicted editors themselves - please see WP:Wikipedia is in the real world, and Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia for some guidance and stories about people who have brought bad press upon themselves through unmanaged conflict of interest editing.

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. which you have started.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:AmberGrape80 - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I work for Northwell Health and have a conflict of interest with regard to that company, its affiliated hospitals and schools, and their employees and faculty" 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 Northwell or yourself (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to the Talk:Kevin J. Tracey page, so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done. Then we can move on to what you should do as a paid editor, and then I will explain a bit about what kind of content is OK, here in Wikipedia. Please do reply here, once you have posted the disclosure on your userpage (don't forget to indent and sign, when you post here! You don't need to sign on your userpage - nobody but you should ever post anything there) Jytdog (talk) 18:32, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for this helpful information. Iposted my disclosure on the userpage. (AmberGrape80 (talk) 18:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC))Reply
Thanks! OK I will open a new subsection to save scrolling....Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

2nd step

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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 of editors 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 (this is already done at Talk:Kevin J. Tracey); 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 on the talk page, put the proposed content there formatted just as you would if you were adding it directly to the article, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) place 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.

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 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. (and please read user:Jytdog/How). thanks Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! I think I completed this process and posted on the page for peer review. (AmberGrape80 (talk) 19
35, 2 November 2018 (UTC))