PaulDavid701

Welcome!

Hello, PaulDavid701, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, your edit to Oklahoma City Police Department does not conform to Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy (NPOV). Wikipedia articles should refer only to facts and interpretations that have been stated in print or on reputable websites or other forms of media.

There's a page about the NPOV policy that has tips on how to effectively write about disparate points of view without compromising the NPOV status of the article as a whole. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, to ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Below are a few other good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  Grayfell (talk) 05:27, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello PaulDavid701, and welcome to Wikipedia. Your addition to Oklahoma City Police Department has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.

• You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and a cited source. You can read about this at Wikipedia:Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
• Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. (There is a college-level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
• Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Wikipedia:Copyrights. You may also want to review Wikipedia:Copy-paste.
• If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. However, there are steps that must be taken to verify that license before you do. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
• In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are public domain or compatibly licensed), it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at the help desk before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
• Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you can, but please follow the steps in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 09:16, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Hello. I appreciate your hard work expanding the Oklahoma City Police Department article. One of Wikipedia's core policies is that all info should be verifiable from reliable sources. This means that Wikipedia is not a platform for what's known as original research (OR). OR includes things that you may personally know, but for which you haven't provided any reliable way for someone else to double-check. You've added a lot of very useful info on OCPD, but most of the sources are just links to the main department's website: http://www.okc.gov/okcpd/ That's not really all that helpful for verifiability, since the site is large (and the site's search function doesn't seem to work all that well). I don't want to discourage you from continuing to work on the article, but please be more diligent in citing reliable sources, such as the actual pages where the information is hosted. Additionally, if you happen to be part of OCPD, you must read about having a conflict of interest: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide may also be helpful). This wouldn't mean you cannot edit, but it brings with it pitfalls you need to be aware of. Thank you again for your hard work. Grayfell (talk) 23:44, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 27

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Oklahoma City Police Department, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Media. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:17, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

December 2015

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. In the future, it is recommended that you use the preview button before you save; this helps you find any errors you have made, reduces edit conflicts, and prevents clogging up recent changes and the page history. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 10:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi there! Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

When editing Wikipedia, there is a field labeled "Edit summary" below the main edit box. It looks like this:

Edit summary (Briefly describe your changes)

Please be sure to provide a summary of every edit you make, even if you write only the briefest of summaries. The summaries are very helpful to people browsing an article's history.

Edit summary content is visible in:

• User contributions
• Recent changes
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• IRC channels
• Related changes
• New pages list and
• Article editing history

Please use the edit summary to explain your reasoning for the edit, or a summary of what the edit changes. Thanks! Grayfell (talk) 10:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

You're invited to the Teahouse.

Hello! PaulDavid701, you are invited to the Teahouse, a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors. Please join us!  Seagull123  Φ  23:39, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 3

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Oklahoma City Police Department

added links pointing to K9, Bootlegging, Pawn, CSI, Hit & Run, Lawmen and Missing Persons

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:02, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Referencing and possible conflict of interest.

I appreciate your effort to be diligent in sourcing all statements. Redundant sources can and should be consolodated under the same name, and if a source is used multiple times to support an entire paragraph, it can generally be placed at the end of the paragraph. Having dozens and dozens of identical references peppered throughout the article doesn't help readers much, and just adds clutter. You may find Help:Referencing for beginners#Same reference used more than once helpful.

You have also added massive amount of routine, flattering info to the article, as well as repeatedly tried to remove unflattering info which is well-sourced. For this reason I am going to add a boilerplate message about editing with a conflict of interest. I apologize that it's impersonal, but it's so much more comprehensive than if I tried to explain it on my own. It's very important that you understand what this means. I remind you that I am a real person, and I am more than willing to answer questions or discuss edits. Engaging on talk pages goes a long way towards assuaging fears that you're here to use Wikipedia as a WP:SOAPbox, instead of to build an encyclopedia. Do you understand what I'm saying, and understand why that's a problem? Grayfell (talk) 02:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, PaulDavid701. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. People with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, see the conflict of interest guideline and frequently asked questions for organizations. In particular, please:

• avoid editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, its competitors, or projects and products you or they are involved with;
• instead, propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• 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, the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing, and autobiographies. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 02:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, PaulDavid701. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)