Eliiotjones95

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Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Eliiotjones95. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the article Zerbanoo Gifford, 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. In particular, please:

• avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
• instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Justlettersandnumbers

Thank you for your comments and I apologise for not inserting the code for citing about conflict of interests. I was a bit confused as to how to word it as that I do work for the ASHA Centre but am not paid or work directly for Zerbanoo.

Last week I spoke to a lady at Wikimedia who helped out on a few questions I had but she said provided me with an email to write to Wikimedia with all the questions we had as I freely admit this is a bit confusing for me as I have started to read the article you have posted for me to read but I seem to be having to click on links in those pages to understand another topic and end up going around in circles. I will copy in the email I sent below with the questions I had and would be very grateful for any advise you could offer.

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Steve and I work at the ASHA Centre founded by Zerbanoo Gifford whose page I would like to talk about.

Please bear with my lack of knowledge regarding the workings of Wikipedia.

A number of years ago a gentleman wrote and published the article on Wikipedia. Recently we noticed that the majority of the article had been removed, which we later found out was due to copyright infringement. The websites that were cited were ashacentre.org which is owned by Zerbanoo and founded it and the Zoroastrian.net site where the information was provided by Zerbanoo. It also flagged up a book ‘An Uncensored Life’ which was written with Zerbanoo’s consent.

We proceeded to re-update the Wikipedia page to find that it was immediately removed with the following reason given - Reverted to revision 709568844 by Justlettersandnumbers: Restore referenced content, rm unreferenced stuff, trivial awards, unduly long quotations and promotional language; this is an encyclopaedia, not an advertising platform.

I understand now after talking to a lady on the phone at Wikimedia regarding the unduly long and promotional language etc. and we can work on our wording and layout. I am a bit confused as he also removed simple things like mentioning in a family section her husband and two sons, one of which also have a Wikipedia page. Also the fact that awards she has received as trivial as one of them was International Woman of the world 2006 presented in India by Zee TV the largest provider of media in India. Also added was the biography that has recently been published by Harper Collins.

I would like if possible clarification on a couple of things so that we can get the page back to normal.

I can appreciate that you need references to clarify facts. But for two examples – Zerbanoo handed in a petition to number 10 downing street with Bishop Trevor Huddleston for the release of Nelson Mandela and although we do have press clippings of this I cannot find reference to it on the internet other than articles written by Zerbanoo for newspapers, blogs etc. The other example is of the International Women of the year award. I can take a photo of the award that sits on her mantelpiece but again can find no reference on the Internet again other than articles by Zerbanoo.

Would this mean that we would have to release her CV into the public domain which she is not happy about doing? Or can we send you a copy of the CV for someone like justlettersandnumbers to use to edit the page correctly?

I have a number of references such as Debretts and Positive News. But these seem to have been removed also.

I would please just like some clarification on what type of citation / reference is need to clarify such things as Awards, working with the then home secretary Jack Straw on a Community Relations Panel, being awarded the freedom of the city of Lincoln Nebraska for her work combating modern racism etc. I can send you a copy of her CV if this is of any help and if you would like to chat my number is below. It is best to try on a Wednesday or Thursday to get me.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Eliiotjones95 (talk) 09:07, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for declaring your conflict of interest, Eliiotjones95. Sorry if the links are hard to follow (they shouldn't be). I'll try to summarise:

• In general, you should refrain from editing the page on Gifford or adding any content relating to your employer. You are, however, always welcome to propose changes, additions and improvements on the talk pages of the affected articles. Requests that are unduly long, or are not supported by independent reliable sources, are unlikely to be accepted.
• For the protection of the owners of copyright (as well as of the Wikimedia project), we do not allow copyright material to be added to our articles; it is completely irrelevant whether or not that material originated with the subject or was published by a place she is associated with
• Our articles are based on what is written in independent reliable sources; we have almost no interest in what people say about themselves. There'd be no point in sending anyone a CV – this is not LinkedIn or a social media or advertising site
• If you have press clippings they can be used as references provided you know when and in what paper they were published; there's no requirement for them to be visible online (though it can be helpful if they are).
• The Zerbanoo Gifford page is already "normal". It is written in a neutral and non-promotional tone, adequately supported by reliable sources, and gives a good deal of information about her (I think – but I wrote it; ask for a second opinion if you like).
• It isn't your wording and layout, it's Wikipedia's; you don't own the article or have any special rights in it through your association with the centre.

If you have questions you can ask them here or – perhaps better – at the Teahouse. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:29, 21 April 2016 (UTC)