MichaelGaryWallace

Hello, MichaelGaryWallace, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field with your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! – Ronz (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: Edit a page • Upload and use images • Create your first article Intuitive guide to Wikipedia • Article Creation Wizard Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Help desk: A Wiki Styled page to ask questions on Help directory: A comprehensive list-style help contents page Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons List of policies • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • List of guidelines Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Simplified manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Peer review • Featured content Miscellaneous User pages • Talk pages Awards a registered contributor can achieve and award Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

An extended welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia. I've added a welcome message to the top of this page that gives a great deal of information about Wikipedia. I hope you find it useful.

Additionally, I hope you don't mind if I share some of my thoughts on starting out as a new editor on Wikipedia: If I could get editors in your situation to follow just one piece of advice, it would be this: Learn Wikipedia by working only on non-contentious topics until you have a feel for the normal editing process and the policies that usually come up when editing casually. You'll find editing to be fun, easy, and rewarding. The rare disputes are resolved quickly and easily.

Working on biographical information about living persons is far more difficult. Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy requires strict adherence to multiple content policies, and applies to all information about living persons including talk pages.

If you have a relationship with the topics you want to edit, then you will need to review Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, which may require you to disclose your relationship and restrict your editing depending upon how you are affiliated with the subject matter.

Some topic areas within Wikipedia have special editing restrictions that apply to all editors. It's best to avoid these topics until you are extremely familiar with all relevant policies and guidelines. As you might expect, articles related to climate change have such restrictions per this decision.

I hope you find some useful information in all this, and welcome again. --Ronz (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Conflict of interest policy

Hello, MichaelGaryWallace. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places, or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic, and it is important when editing Wikipedia articles that such connections be completely transparent. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, we ask that you please:

• avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your family, friends, school, company, club, or organization, as well as any competing companies' projects or products;
• instead, you are encouraged to propose changes on the Talk pages of affected article(s) (see the {{request edit}} template);
• when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or to the 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 take a few moments to read and review Wikipedia's policies regarding conflicts of interest, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you. --Ronz (talk) 17:46, 25 August 2016 (UTC)