Ilovebrains123

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Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi Ilovebrains123 I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing, which is mostly about health and medicine. Your edits to date are all focused on Arthur W. Toga and his various projects. 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.

Hello, Ilovebrains123. 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 Toga or USC, 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. After you respond (and you can just reply below), if it is relevant 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) 04:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, let me know what the peer review process involves, thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilovebrains123 (talk • contribs) 2:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone, 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 how we know who said what to whom and when.

Please be aware that threading and signing are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).

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) 19:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Please disclose your connection. Please disclose if you created the page as part of your job. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, will do my best to abide by talk page etiquette ... would prefer not to disclose specific connection to protect privacy, the creation of the pages was not meant to be promotional, merely factual, and I welcome peer review or edits. I do have a working relationship with Arthur Toga. Please advise on how the review process works. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilovebrains123 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 23 April 2018 (UTC) Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for disclosing that you have a relationship with Toga. That is helpful. You are still not making it clear if you are editing as part of your job. If you are doing this as part of your job, you must say so, and you must disclose your employer. That is not optional. Please stop editing until this discussion is done. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:25, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

And please sign your posts. As I noted above, not doing so is simply rude here. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I thought that was clear from my previous post - the answer is yes. I am employed by USC. Please let me know how to proceed with the peer review process. Thank you.Ilovebrains123 (talk) 23:47, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. Disclosures need to be explicit, sorry about that. OK! Now we can move forward...am opening a new section as this one has started to sprawl and needs too much scrolling. Jytdog (talk) 04:39, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Next steps

Thanks for your note, and for disclosing your relationship with USC and the Toga lab. So you have a COI for USC and things related to Toga, as we define that in Wikipedia.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Ilovebrains123 - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I work for University of Southern California and work with have a a working relationship with Arthur W. Toga. I have a conflict of interest with regard to those topics and related ones." 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 USC, Toga, or yourself (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I've tweaked or added tags to the relevant articles' talk pages, 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 (this is what we now have started, with the new page); 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 paid editors here, who follow the WP:PAID policy and WP:COI guideline, and there are "black hat" paid 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 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. And please do have a read of User:Jytdog/How. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 04:49, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! Will do. Ilovebrains123 (talk) 17:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your patience and graciousness in working through this. Now that you are oriented, I am going to review the pages you have directly edited for USC and Toga. I will probably do a bunch of trimming. If you disagree with any of the edits, we can discuss on the relevant talk page. If you would prefer that people other than me (or in addition to me) review them, I can post at the the COI noticeboard 9WP:COIN) which will pull other independent editors in. Let me know! Jytdog (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Note

In view of your preliminary disclosure above, I have moved the article to draft space. It is now at Draft:Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network. This needs a bunch of work before it goes live... we can discuss after the discussion above is done. Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network (May 29)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by NotTheFakeJTP was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{db-self}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)