Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock

Welcome!

Hello, Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was James N. Weinstein, 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 another 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.

One 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.)

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
• Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using 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 your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Joseph2302 (talk) 15:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out. I am still trying to figure out the best ways in which to make edits. I have read the conflict of interest pages, and believe I have created my user name and included my affiliation on my user page so that I meet the disclosure requirements in one of the handful of ways noted. Is it better form for me to make notes on the talk page and hope that someone else will make the actual edit to wiki page? Appreciate the advice. Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (talk) 15:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and welcome to Wikipedia. Your addition to James N. Weinstein has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.

• You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and a cited source. You can read about this at Wikipedia:Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
• Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. (There is a college-level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
• Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Wikipedia:Copyrights. You may also want to review Wikipedia:Copy-paste.
• If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. However, there are steps that must be taken to verify that license before you do. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
• In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are public domain or compatibly licensed), it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at the help desk before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
• Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you can, but please follow the steps in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Simply put, you cannot copy the entire text of another website, in this case [1]. Thank you. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

If I am (or work for) the copyright holder, does that still invalidate me from using those phrases here on wikipedia? In order to allow for consistency of information, that is what the subject of this particular bio of a living person would prefer. I am acting on his behalf, and have stated my affiliation on my user page. Does this mean that if a volunteer or random person made the edits instead of me there would be no problem? Again, appreciate the advice. Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (talk) 15:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

You still cannot, because the text still doesn't have the right copyright license for Wikipedia (see WP:MYTEXT). The copyright holder can donate the work to Wikipeda (see WP:DCM), however Wikipedia strongly prefers secondary sources to be used, as these tend to be more reliable and neutral. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:53, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, so if the reference was from a bio attached to a journal article or some other source - and paraphrased vs "copied" - that would be preferred? But will any and all edits from me be flagged even though I have disclosed my affiliation? Thanks. Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The Conflict of Interest discourages users from editing where they have a conflict of interest, and suggests posting changes on the article talkpage instead, so someone can verify them. However, this isn't a firm rule, so if you do add/change content, you need to make sure it has appropriate sources and in particular is not promotional. Currently the article is terrible, as it has no sources, so as long as the content isn't a copyright vio or promotional, and has sources then it should be improving the article. Usually as a rule you shouldn't remove sourced content from an article, but this isn't an issue here, as nothing is currently sourced. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

OK - will look for outside sources that can be referenced, and will suggest the changes first on the Talk page. Do editors such as yourself monitor these talk pages for suggested edits regularly? Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I've got it on my watchlist, which means I'll know every time the article or talkpage is edited. I'm also going to post a summary of this conversation at the conflict of interest noticeboard WP:COIN asking for people to watch the page. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

So I've now put a notice up at WP:COIN, so people should take more interest in the page (officially I have to notify you of this, so this is the official notification)-I also added a note on the article talkpage linking to this discussion.

Also, as for finding sources, I did a quick Google search of his name, and there seemed to be lots written about them, which is good. So hopefully some of them should verify the information. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Appreciate the help and will work towards getting the content updates noted on talk page with outside sources as available.Danielle at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)