Kmcnair1

UM Stadium

Hi, Kelly -

I removed the reference you included to your firm at Michigan Stadium. It was, to my eye, really sort of shoehorned in there (the article would be 2x as long if everyone who had a hand in things were listed), not to mention that the hard-to-escape inference that it's there for promotional, rather than encyclopedic, reasons. It's great that you've disclosed your affiliation - truly it is - but you should read up on the conflict of interest and self-promotion policies here to make sure you don't run afoul of anything. Good luck editing and I hope you enjoy becoming a Wikipedian! JohnInDC (talk) 18:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

UM Stadium

Hi John - Thank you for your comment. I'm still learning and find your input a big help. That was my first attempt at editing and I see your point about having everyone involved would make the article too long. I'll definitely do more reading on the conflict of interest stuff because I'm definitely trying to be unbiased. I also edited the Erie Bayfront Convention if you want to review it. I added a sentence about the Build America construction award that the project won. I put our name as the construction manager there too. Can the award information stay even if the mention of Barton Malow company as construction manager should be removed? Kmcnair1 (talk) 19:15, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, the trick with all of these articles is to figure out whether the article - as an encyclopedia article - is improved or not by the information that you want to add. "Improve" of course does not always correspond to "more" - in the interest of readability, or length, or consistent emphasis, some facts should just be left out. I took a look at your addition to the Erie Bayfront article and while I think mentioning the award may be appropriate, I'm not sure how Barton Malow fits into it. The article is about the convention center, not Barton Malow. If the center won the award, then including it is appropriate. If Barton Malow was critical to that award, then mentioning them may also be appropriate, but if not then it seems like another case of shoehorning. Do read the conflict of interest stuff. What really might be the best would be for you to edit for a bit on subjects entirely unrelated to Barton Malow - just things that interest you - in order to gain a sense of what sorts of things fly and what don't. You will gain experience and credibility as an editor then, so that you will have a better sense of what kinds of edits involving B-M are appropriate; and, so that other editors may cut you a bit more slack in making them. There is, I think, a bit of built-in impatience with "single purpose accounts" that appear to have been created just to promote a particular thing. I guess that's the best advice I can give - learn your way around and make your inevitable mistakes on matters that *don't* involve a COI, and you'll be better off for it! JohnInDC (talk) 15:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)