Gufmar

Welcome!

Hello, Gufmar, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay.

I will stay, and will try to make it a place full of information that can by liked by much more than just me. Gufmar (talk) 10:48, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi Gufmar. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Your edits to date are all about Cardano and have been promotional. The editing community has been watching cryptocurrency articles pretty closely, as they have been subject to promotional pressure during this period of intense public and financial interest in them. We have a lot of people who are part of communities around them, and who hold them, showing up and trying to promote them in Wikipedia.

I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below. Please do be aware that holding a cryptocurrency creates a conflict of interest when editing about it here in Wikipedia.

Hello, Gufmar. 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. 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, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• 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 must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

Comments and requests

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. Unmanaged conflicts of interest can also lead to people behaving in ways that violate our behavioral policies and cause disruption in the normal editing process. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with the Cardano community or its originators, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it and if you hold the currency, please disclose that. After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 06:27, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Your statement that all my contributions exclusively concern Cardano is almost correct. That it is advertising is an assertion. In my opinion, users should contribute to Wikipedia where they think they know their way around AND where there is still a need. Most of the articles in my professional fields have been well described for many years. I think it is inappropriate to rephrase sentences just so that I appear somewhere, and also not fair to those who have created the real content. In addition, English is my third language, so I would rather contribute in other languages first.

However, there are relatively new, as yet largely unknown, unanswered and above all unclear subject areas with regard to crypto currencies, also on Wikipedia. So it is first about the English content, and then about translations. I'm not talking about whether coin B or E or L or C (no PR, you know) is the only best thing, and certainly not which of it should rise or fall in the exchange rate. On the contrary: I personally hate traders and players who are only here to make quick profits without really making a contribution.

For example, what I'm interested in: already from the outside I had considerable reservations about crypto currencies and my gut feeling has been confirmed the more I've dealt with it in the last few months. It is not just about fundamentally un-ecological and nature-damaging things like PoW, which - in my opinion - should not simply be accepted as being given without alternatives. I am also interested in giving information to citizens interested in crypto-currencies, which makes them ask more questions than blurred price gains and cryptokitty toys. e.g. whether there are more energy and environmentally friendly solutions? Where their challenges lie and of course who is working on them. In my opinion, it would also be important to point out there that it should not be a "first-to-market with a MVP" common in the software industry, but that comprehensive thematic and social thought processes and research work are needed before these blockchains can become something that can at some point become an important historical and economic development step in our society. Or whether it really is just a temporary hype, and some youngsters are currently pushing off their horns and at some point realize that they have imagined it all much easier than it is de facto.

I have looked at many different cryptocurrencies, both from a technical, conceptual and ethical point of view. If influential miners influence the development because they see their high profits endangered then actually some alarm lights should come on. Just as the obvious price drivers and manipulations certainly cannot be a basis for what has once been proclaimed as the benefit and goal of these currencies. e.g. "bank-the-unbanked". Above all, however, I find it fundamentally dangerous when a relatively large amount of money passes into the hands of a few decision-makers via ICO financing, who then alone decide according to which rules and principles an economic further development of our existing financial system should take place. In astonishingly few crypto projects I have found solutions that have, for example, thought about sustainable financing of development (not just mining). Above all, few who at the same time also focused fundamentally on security and scalability without losing sight of the decentralization concept.

I was impressed that you really read my substitute source and then shorten my contribution to the real content. That's OK, because the source really don't say more about it, and the original source that best describes the topic, (because it's new and probably unique) may not be used according to the rules you mentioned. (self-sourced)

In order not to submit a longer text for you to read here, I would like to draw your attention to some of my contributions in the Cardano Forum, which already prove how and what I think about the crypto-universe. I am also fully aware that these things must first be discussed, that all those involved (including myself, of course) can learn and experience new things, and that there is no single truth that everyone else should accept. Wikipedia summarizes these diverse opinions and gives the self-confident readers the possibility to form an extensive picture and an opinion. At least it should if new content is allowed to build up.

Ideas for Commercial Applications (think about real worlds use cases)

A-solution-to-the-ada-whale-fears (first of multiple contributions to an intersting thread about democratic/economic voting power)

Cardano Raodmap update (my feedback and concerns about ethics, and non technical fundamentals)

last but not least there is a very long reading thread about ethics, economics, voting power, whale effects and many more.

I left several comments there and if you're interested in my point of views I consider to give it a view

will-ada-whales-ever-give-up-their-power

Even if all of this is related to Cardano only I'm also looking, reading and discussing on other platforms and solutions. I have bought some ADA but it's less then what I earn in a week from my real worlds business. It's just to understand how it works, do some test transactions and learn to use the API. This already should answer your next question regarding COI.

No I'm not involved directly, not an employee, I don't get any money or whatever else the below paragraph and points imply.

Gufmar (talk) 10:48, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not getting paid for any of my community activities. Not in FIAT or digital currencies. Not here and not on other platforms.

As I already wrote I hold sone ADA as well as other cryptocurrencies that I found interesting to test them out. The amount is less than I earn in a week, and their corresponding FIAT value is going up and down like a roller coaster. I wouldn't mind if the values of this currencies remains as low as they are at the moment because I'm not absolutely not not never ever interested in any investment gains. I bought this coins because I'm intersted in the use cases the effective transaction throughput and APIs that could be used for example to integrate it into web based online shops. See here one of my initiatives crowd-performance-test-proposal

Our next tests are planned as soon as shelley nores became available.

Btw: I donated more to Wikipedia then I hold in crypto's!

I'm in direct contact with some community members because we want to build up and translate German and Italian versions of this page. It turned out there is already more content than on the english one. So we look for a larger group of possible contributors (also native English writers)

I'm in direct contact with people from cardano foundation because I asked them if and how we could contribute to their homepage translations.

You can verify this here https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardanodocs.com/issues/75

There are different other activities related to technical questions and answers, like this https://github.com/input-output-hk/daedalus/issues/508#comment-354446685

Gufmar (talk) 07:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Here's another thing I'm interested in. Imho too many people associate blockchains with greedy trading, but there are much more thinfs to consider https://forum.cardano.org/t/questions-about-treasury-system/6738

For example if you look at the wp bitcoin page there is no argument/section regarding a sustainable government. The handover from Nakamoto to Andresen happened several years ago. Now who decides the direction of future developement? Elected representatives? VIPs? Miners? Aristokrats? Dictators? Why only miners and not developers and contributors get paid in such a system?

I don't want to bring up negative or missing things on their side. I look up for projects who are willing to bring together solutions for a lot of the challenges.

That's also why I mentioned only the DAO hack. DAO as a company has failed due to deficiencies in the existing solution and their own errors. You changed this and mentioned Ethereum in Cardano's wp page. Isn't this negative PR? I would recommend to mention DAO only. Ethereum can still show how they solve the issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gufmar (talk • contribs) 08:08, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies above.

Quick notes on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. First, please don't write inside other people's comments. Please just reply underneath them.

In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone (under their comment), you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense.

And at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~~~~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit. That is all how we track who said what to whom and when. I know this is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks again for your long messages above. I did not go read the stuff on Cardano forums - I have no interest in doing that.

You do make it clear that a) you hold ADA; b) you are active in the real world promoting Cardano and ADA; c) you are coordinating with other people to do that, in English Wikipedia and others.

I will address each of these...

c) - Dealing with c) first, as it is the most serious... if you are coordinating with other people off-Wikipedia and then you and the other editors come here, you are not acting independently. If you all behave as though you are independent and team up with each other to push content in, this is not OK per our sockpuppet policy -- specifically the meatpuppet section -- see also WP:GANG. Even if you disclose that you are working together, if you team up to force changes in, that is also a problem.

To avoid problems, if people with whom you are all coordinating with are already here editing or if they show up later, each of you should:

A) disclose that you are coordinating both at your individual user pages and at the article talk page so that the coordination is clear

B) avoid coordinating to force content in (in other words, if one of you adds something, and someone else reverts it, another one of you should not then restore it)

a) and b) - these two make it clear that you do have a conflict of interest. Holding ADA gives you a financial COI, however small, and you are clearly part of the community promoting the platform (many cryptocurrencies and their platforms are supported by a community that develops and promotes it).

So you have a conflict of interest here in Wikipedia, in my view. I am pretty experienced with these things. If you disagree, we can take this to the conflict of interest noticeboard and get further input there. Do let me know.

But before you react, please understand what we ask people with a conflict of interest to do, and not do. I am going to write that in a new subsection below, as this one has gotten long and is a lot of scrolling. Please do review it before you react. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

You made some reply here but you inserted it inside of mine, rendering the discussion difficult to work through, so I reverted it. Please stop inserting your comments in the midst of mine. Please reply under this one. I am interested in what you have to say but I have other stuff I want to do and do not have time to keep figuring out what you are doing. If you cannot learn the basic norms of working here, it is going to be a problem for you. For you. Jytdog (talk) 00:26, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

What we ask

You have disclosed relationships that constitute a conflict of interest in Wikipedia with respect to Cardano.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Gufmar - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I hold ADA, the cryptocurrency on Cardano (platform)‎, and am active in promoting that platform. I have a conflict of interest with regard to that platform and related topics" would be fine. If you want to add anything else there that is relevant to what you want to do in WP feel free to add it, but please don't add anything promotional about the company or yourself (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag at Talk:Cardano (platform), so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is a form of peer review. This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.

What we ask editors to do who have a COI or who are paid, and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:

a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page with the Template:Connected contributor (paid) tag, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and

b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to

(i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor (paid) tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page; and

(ii) propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. Just open a new section, put the proposed content there, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) please the {{request edit}} tag to flag it for other editors to review. In general it should be relatively short so that it is not too much review at once. Sometimes editors propose complete rewrites, providing a link to their sandbox for example. This is OK to do but please be aware that it is lot more for volunteers to process and will probably take longer.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies. (There are good faith conflicted editors here, and there are "black hat" conflicted editors here who lie about what they do and really harm Wikipedia).

But understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important! There are a whole slew of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior here in Wikipedia. Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of what Wikipedia is and is not (we are not a directory or a place to promote anything), and for an overview of the content and behavior policies and guidelines. Learning and following these is very important, and takes time. Please be aware that you have created a Wikipedia account, and this makes you a Wikipedian - you are obligated to pursue Wikipedia's mission first and foremost when you work here, and you are obligated to edit according to the policies and guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege that is freely offered to all, but the community restricts or completely takes that privilege away from people who will not edit and behave as Wikipedians.

I hope that makes sense to you.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content. If you are not sure if something is uncontroversial, please ask at the Talk page.

Will you please agree to learn and follow the content and behavioral policies and guidelines, and to follow the peer review processes going forward when you want to work on the Cardano article or any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

this is sarcastic and unhelpful. I have tried to explain that all of our crypto articles are getting blown up by people like you, who are associated with them and come here wanting to promote them. it is an actual problem.

WIth regard to your last comment about "experts" please read WP:EXPERT. What matters here is not what expertise people say they have (see Essjay controversy for what happened when the community went down that dumb pathway), -- instead it is what sources you bring. There are ways that expertise can be very helpful, namely knowing the literature and being able to bring it to bear. Personal knowledge is actually very often a problem for new users, because they want to write what they know, not what sources say. What sources say, is the basis for everything in WP. There is a learning curve to working here - it is not some blog. Please do read User:Jytdog/How which explains how Wikipedia -- this place -- works. Jytdog (talk) 22:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

As above , you made some reply inserted into mine. I am interested in your response so please post it below here, so I can find it and read it. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:26, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit war warning

So you really don't understand how Wikipedia works yet, but you are proceeding aggressively anyway. Please see the notice below.

Your recent editing history at Cardano (platform) shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Jytdog (talk) 00:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

2019 US Banknote Contest

	US Banknote Contest
	November-December 2019
There are an estimated 30,000 different varieties of United States banknotes, yet only a fraction of these are represented on Wikimedia Commons in the form of 2D scans. Additionally, Colonial America, the Confederate States, the Republic of Texas, multiple states and territories, communities, and private companies have issued banknotes that are in the public domain today but are absent from Commons. In the months of November and December, WikiProject Numismatics will be running a cross-wiki upload-a-thon, the 2019 US Banknote Contest. The goal of the contest is to increase the number of US banknote images available to content creators on all Wikimedia projects. Participants will claim points for uploading and importing 2D scans of US banknotes, and at the end of the contest all will receive awards. Whether you want to claim the Gold Wiki or you just want to have fun, all are invited to participate. If you do not want to receive invitations to future US Banknote Contests, follow the instructions here

Sent by ZLEA at 23:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk)