INTERACT Communication Assistant
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May 2012
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Hello INTERACT Communication Assistant. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but 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 ensuring their edits are verified by 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. Guillaume2303 (talk) 04:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
The articles that you created
editHi, given the COI that you have, it is perhaps not too surprising that those articles are written in an absolutely non-critical way. However, what is even worse is that they have no independent sources and are illegible (unless one is well versed in "Eurospeak"). WP is not a place to advertise EU programs. In stead, it is supposed to be an encyclopedia that should inform in a neutral way. Obfuscating sentences like "These programmes help transform regions located on either side of internal or external borders of the European Union into strong economic and social poles. In particular, cross-border actions are encouraged in the fields of entrepreneurship, improving joint management of natural resources, supporting links between urban and rural areas, improving access to transport and communication networks, developing joint use of infrastructure, administrative cooperation and capacity building, employment, community interaction, culture and social affairs." may have some meaning for Eurocrats, they need translation for all other people in order to be informative. Finally, just given a bunch of links to external websites is not what we call "references", those are "external links". References are something else completely. Please read the guidelines and policies linked in the "welcome" template that SisterTwister posted above. Thanks. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 08:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Dear Guillaume, thanks for your input and after reading through 'conflict of interest' and other policies I fully understand the standpoint and the objections. I should have read it upfront but didnt't come across these prior to submitting an article, my mistake. I am an external resource partially helping INTERACT Programme on some small communications projects, however, if I read the policy correctly, being acquainted with the program means I should restrain from posting on the subject. What would be the best way to get this info up on WP? Submit source materials to 'Requested article' section and wait if someone picks it up or re-work the text to feature solely varifiable facts and ask someone like you to proofread it to ensure neutral point of view? I will take your guidance on this... Not being eurocrat myself I believe that the basic information and facts on European Territorial Cooperation and INTERACT Programme should be part of WP content as they are part of our 'European reality' (just like info on Interreg and other EU programs is featured on WP) but I'm not sure that someone completely not related to the topic will pick it up to write about it. Please give me your thoughts on how to proceed, it will be much appreciated. Eva
- In order to qualify for an encyclopedic article on WP, a subject needs to be "notable", meaning that it must have been covered in reliable sources independent of the subject. Non-controversial information can be sourced to an organization's own website and still conform with our guideline on verifiability, but such websites will not contribute to notability. (BTW: "notability" in the WP sense has nothing to do with "good", "bad", "useful", etc, only with coverage in independent sources). Unfortunately, most articles on EU programs and organizations are pretty bad, full of bureaucratic double talk, lacking independent sources, being written in a promotional way, etc.
- If you wish, you can create a new text in your "sandbox" and I can have a look at it to see whether it now conforms to our policies. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Guillaume, I will try to re-write it in a sandbox and wait then for your feedback. I will make a new registration to WP under my own name and will contact you from my new userpage. thnx and enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Eva