Tom at MassAppCt

Welcome!

Hello, JohnAdamsCourthouse, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Massachusetts Appeals Court, 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.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

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! shoy (reactions) 17:33, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Shoy.

Hi Shoy.

Thank you for your message. As you can guess, I'm brand new at editing on Wikipedia, and I'd like to discuss my first post (two actually) on the Massachusetts Appeals Court that you flagged. I am an individual user, and I am a public employee who works for the court in question. (In fact for many years I've worked as an editor on legal opinions.) I was asked by my superior to review the page for completeness, citation support, and the like, the thinking being that the page could use a little housekeeping. So I opted to sign up as a user with a related nickname rather than proceed just as an IP address. Please understand I did not intend to conceal or mislead. I would like to take whatever steps are needed to comply with Wikipedia's disclosure requirements; if you could please advise me further on that I would be grateful. (I believe that the edits I did make were factual, neutral, supported by references, and served to improve the article. If my edits need to go through an approval process I have no issue with that, please let me know how I should retrieve a copy of my edits and how I submit them.) Thank you very much for your time, Shoy.

Regards, JohnAdamsCourthouse (talk) 21:56, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Your username

Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that your username, "JohnAdamsCourthouse", may not comply with our username policy. Please note that you may not use a username that represents the name of a company, group, organization, product, service, or website. Examples of usernames that are not allowed include "XYZ Company", "MyWidgetsUSA.com", and "Foobar Museum of Art". However, you are permitted to use a username that contains such a name if it identifies you individually, such as "Sara Smith at XYZ Company", "Mark at WidgetsUSA", or "FoobarFan87".

Please also note that Wikipedia does not allow accounts to be shared by multiple people, and that you may not advocate for or promote any company, group, organization, product, service, or website, regardless of your username. Please also read our paid editing policy and our conflict of interest guideline. If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please request a change of username, by completing the form at Special:GlobalRenameRequest, choosing a username that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you. 331dot (talk) 07:57, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

You should also read about making edit requests, as that is how you will need to edit about anything related to your conflict of interest(posting edit requests on the article talk page). Feel free to show this message to your superiors. 331dot (talk) 07:58, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you 331dot.

Hi 331dot, thanks for your message. As you suggested, I obtained a username change, to "Tom at MassAppCt." Please let me know if you think that is acceptable.

I would also like to know more about how to get my edits to the Massachusetts Appeals Court article approved under the conflicts protocols. Specifically, I would like to export the already-made edits into a form suitable for posting as an edit request (without reinventing the wheel as it were; my edits were numerous (though I don't believe controversial)). I'm not sure how to produce that export, or then how to post it as a proposed edit. Am I able to use this guide -- Simple conflict of interest edit request -- or is this situation not amenable to that? On the more detailed page you referenced on making edit requests, there was talk of templates and I'm not sure which I should use in the circumstances. Please let me know what you think, any guidance or advice is appreciated!

Thank you, Tom at MassAppCt (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

If you've made edits and they have not been removed, I would just post a regular statement on the article talk page explaining your situation and why you made the edits you did. When you make an edit request, you should use {{request edit}} (as it appears when you are viewing this page) to start your request, then detail your proposed changes below it.

You may also want to be aware of the instances described at WP:COIADVICE where you are permitted to make direct, uncontroversial edits. If you make an edit under one of those criteria, it is a good idea to cite the relevant one in the edit summary. 331dot (talk) 18:03, 1 October 2019 (UTC)