Eliassonwriter
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Caution about conflict of interest
editHello Eliassonwriter. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.
All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about following the reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.
If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:
- Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
- Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
- Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
- Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.
Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.
For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. To supplement the language of the template, I must caution you that the skills most valued in a copywriter are those least useful in a Wikipedia editor. We abjure and reject all the arts of the advertiser: peacock words, gratuitous addition of links to your sites, violations of neutral point of view, spin-doctoring, SEO: all these are spurned, and many are deemed tantamount to vandalism. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
- A single mass overhaul such as this is the worst possible way to change an article in your circumstances. Let's discuss the changes one by one on the talk page of the article, and implement them gradually. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Orange Mike, I looked for the discussion tab on the Wisconsin Cheeseman site, and the only thing I could find was "Discussion." When I clicked on that tab, it only brought up information about The Wiki Project Wisconsin, and I could find no way to engage in a conversation about changes to the entry. This is why I gave a very detailed Edit Summary when I submitted the changes. Where do I find the talk page for the article? Thanks again for your help. :0) Eliassonwriter (talk) 21:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- Reasonable question! You were at the talk page for the article; all you had to do was click the little '+' or 'new section' tab at the top of the page, give it a useful title, and then start typing as you do here at this page. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)