Ben.lipsey

Welcome!

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

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Benjamin Smith (executive), 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:

• Best practices for editors with close associations
• 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! — Marchjuly (talk) 20:59, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. The thread is Benjamin Smith (executive). The discussion is about the topic Topic. Thank you. — Marchjuly (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks - I replied on your talk page. Also, I'm happy to disclose the fact I work for AFKLM - how do I do that? Did not mean to imply anything underhanded!

thanks Ben.lipsey (talk) 11:52, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Pinging Marchjuly. TSventon (talk) 14:55, 23 April 2021 (UTC).

Hi Ben.lipsey. I saw your post on my user talk page, but I'm going to respond here to try and keep everything in one place and also just in case someone else may want to participate in the discussion. First of all, thank you for clarifying your connection to Smith. Although Wikipedia doesn't expressly prohibit conflict of interest editing it does highly discourage it because it sometimes leads to other more serious problems and can create issues between editors. It's recommended that you formally declare any sort of formal connection you may have to the subject of an article and there are examples given in WP:DECLARECOI as to how you can do that. The tricky part is sometimes assessing whether a conflict of interest is financial in nature because the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use do expressly prohibit undisclosed paid editing. So, you will have to do a bit of self assessing per meta:Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure and determine whether WP:PAID applies to your situation. Try to be a honest in your assessment as you can because if others feel differently you might have problems editing down the road; in other words, the more transparent you are about any WP:APPARENTCOI, the less likely the possibility of others assuming the worst.

The best way for you to try and make improvements or corrections to the article about Smith is to follow the suggestions given in WP:COIADVICE and WP:PSCOI#Steps for engagement. By proposing any major changes you want made to the article on its corresponding talk page, you will give others a chance to assess whether they are in accordance with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You can find out more about how to go about doing this at WP:EDITREQUEST.

As was pointed out in the discussion about this at the conflict of interest noticeboard, the Smith article was nominated for deletion and is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Smith (executive). The issues which led to article being nominated for deletion probably predate any edits you might have made; so, it's not as if you're the sole reason why the article ended up at WP:AFD. You're more than welcome to participate in the deletion discussion but before you do you might want to look at WP:BIO, WP:SIGCOV, WP:ATA and WP:AFD#Contributing to AfD discussions for some general ideas on what the discussion is likely going to focus on and how to participate in said discussion.

Finally, please excuse all of the mumbo-jumbo looking short-cut links I used above. The words in blue are actually links to other Wikipedia pages (or sections of pages) where I think you'll find useful information. It's easier to simply link to this information than to try and copy-and-paste it all here for you to read. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:11, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Marchjuly - appreciate the context. Everything that has been posted is verifiable from multiple independent sources, so hopefully that should suffice. Also, how do we remove the "This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments" banner? Thanks! Ben.lipsey (talk) 15:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding how do remove the "This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments" banner?, you don't and neither should you nor anyone associated with the company or Smith try. Attempting to do so will only likely result in more suspicion and misunderstanding. The best way to go about getting it removed is probably to declare your COI (including whether you're being compensated to edit) on your userpage, and then add the template Template:Connected contributor or Template:Connected contributor (paid) to the bottom of the article's talk page header. You might also consider posting something on the article's talk page further explaining that you were unaware of Wikipedia's position on COI and PAID editing and meant no harm. Stating that you now understand what is allowed and that you plan to follow relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines will probably go a long way in removing any further suspicions about your edits. Finally, I would also recommend that you stop referring to yourself as "we" in your posts since that tends to be something that might make it seem as if you're editing as part of a "group" or on behalf of "group"; it's better to avoid such a thing since it can make other editors concerned about your motivation. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Marchjuly - will do. Just to clarify, by 'we' I meant collective 'we' as in those editing Wikipedia, not referring to any 'group' or anyone else. I'm not being paid to edit, but there is indeed a connection given I work there, so I'll make sure that's clear on my talk page. Thanks for the heads up, I'm still getting the hang of this :) Ben.lipsey (talk) 16:24, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying and disclosing your COI. For reference, it's probably better to place {{UserboxCOI}} on your user page than here at the top of your user talk page. Just click on the red link for your username and move the box there; once you create any Wikipedia page, the link color changes from red to blue. You may also add additional information to your user page if you like as well as long as you do so in accordance with WP:UPYES.

Thank you for also clarifying your paid-editing status; just for reference though "paid" isn't always seem by some as being "direct monetary payment for making actual edits". For example, if as an employee part of your job description (i.e. the primary reason why you're being compensated) is to work on improving or maintaining your company's public image (e.g. PR department, social media department) and that extends to the company's executives, then be advised that many members of the Wikipedia community do consider this to be a form of "paid-editing" even if you're specifically not being told to go and "update" Wikipedia articles by your boss. In such a case, you might want to err on the side of caution and follow WP:PAID because others might see trying to split hairs too finely in such a case as a form of WP:GAMING. I'll remove the {{Undisclosed paid}} template from the article based on your above post since I was the one who added it, but further discussion may be needed if it's re-added by another editor.

Finally, thank you for clarifying your use of the word "we"; just try and remember that it can be a word whose use in posts like yours above may cause concern, particularly when the context isn't quite clear. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Ben.lipsey. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Smith (executive), you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. scope_creep^Talk 16:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)