JonVanZile

Welcome!

Hello, JonVanZile, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Introduction and Getting started
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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi JonVanZile. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Based on your edits to date, it appears that you might have a relationship with The Wellness Network. 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, JonVanZile. 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.

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. 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. Here in Wikipedia such disclosures must be made explicitly. Would you please disclose any connection you have with The Wellness Network? After you respond (and you can just reply below), perhaps we can talk further about how COI is managed in Wikipedia, and then I can give you some more orientation to how this place works if you like. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 20:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog,

Thank you for your message! I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia and learning how the editing works. I do have a relationship with The Wellness Network, so will happily follow Wikipedia's disclosure rules (and more importantly, not edit or have anything to do with that post). I value Wikipedia as an information source and don't want to compromise it. Thank you for the heads-up.— Preceding unsigned comment added by JonVanZile (talk • contribs) 15:57, 18 April 2017 (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 - when you reply to someone, you put a colon ":" in front of your comment, and the WP software converts that into an indent; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons "::" 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. That is how we know who said what. 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) 18:38, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for making the disclosure. So you have a COI for The Wellness Network, as we define that in Wikipedia. It appears that you work for them, which means you need to follow the WP:PAID policy.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:JonVanZile - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I work for The Wellness Network and have a conflict of interest with regard to that topic" 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 (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to the The Wellness Network article's talk page, 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 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, 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 propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. You can make the edit request easily - and provide notice to the community of your request - by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. I made that easy for you by adding a section to the beige box at the top of the Talk page at Talk:The Wellness Network - there is a link at "click here" in that section -- if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request. You can also add a {{request edit}} tag to flag it for other editors to review.

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. (which I will say more about, if you want).

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 follow the peer review processes going forward, when you want to work on the The Wellness Network 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. And if you want me to quickly go over the content policies, I can do that. Just let me know. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

First off, thank you for taking the time to explain this! I've looked around and quickly discovered that Wikipedia is not the easiest content management system I've ever seen, so I really appreciate your clear guidance. I updated my talk page with the COI. Also, thanks for the clarification on how editors with a COI can update a page via the peer-review process. I'll likely submit a revision to The Wellness Network page via the talk pages -- factual, non-promotional, etc. One last question: the page is currently marked for deletion for a variety of reasons. Is the talk page an appropriate place to request that no one deletes the page until I have a chance to upgrade it? Frankly, I agree with the original editor's remarks about the sourcing, PR slant, etc., but I'd like time to produce a relevant and informational page before it gets deleted. JonVanZile (talk) 17:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for posting the declaration on your User page! I removed the signature, as the convention here is that only the user can edit his or her own User page, so there is no question of who put content on it. I am not really supposed to edit your User page - I hope it is OK that I did that - just trying to move things along.

So about the existing page.. that deletion discussion is on its own course - they are generally closed after 7 days. The deletion discussion there was opened on April 17, so has several more days to go. If somebody comes to the deletion discussion and presents enough (3 or 4) sources that are a) high quality (are independent of the subject and are reliable -- think New York Times, not some blog) and b) have significant discussion about the subject (not just passing mentions), this will sway people to !vote keep. If you aware of such sources, you can post them there (be sure to declare your COI when you do). Just simply, as you did on your User page - something like this:

• Comment. I am the content manager for The Wellness Network. Here are several independent reliable sources with significant discussion of the company:
  • ref
  • ref
  • ref
  • ref

If the article is kept I intend to work on the talk page with volunteers to generate NPOV content from these sources (sign)

If you want to post links to those refs here, I can help you format them so they are presented in a way that people expect.

That is one option. The other is to simply let that version of the article go, and create a new version via the WP:AFC process mentioned above. Deleted articles get re-created all the time this way - no problem.

By the way, if you want an efficient-as-possible overview of how this place works and the policies and guidelines, please see this thing I created: User:Jytdog/How.

And yes, the content management system here is... difficult. For lots of reasons that are not easy to resolve. Lots of smart people have tried :) -- Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Draft:The Wellness Network

At long last, I have a draft that I'd like to submit through the WP:AFC process. I've been reading up on correctly formatting, etc., and submitted a preliminary draft called The Wellness Network. At this point, I still need to handle some formatting, but the references are included. Is it possible for you to glance at it and give me any feedback? I don't want to formally submit for review yet, but want to know that we're in the ballpark. JonVanZile (talk) 21:03, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Nice beginning! Thanks very much for following the PAID policy and for checking in -- very much appreciate that.

I did some tweaks to the talk page and a bit on the article itself. You can see in this diff that I formatted one of the citations better.

There is an automated tool that will format citations for you automatically - it takes just a few seconds and is way easier than doing it manually. The key things in a citation are the publisher, the author, the date it published, the title, and the link. (The only time the access date is important, is the source is a website that might change with time) If the ref is a press release, please note that it is a press release in the title, like I did in the example.

I am not sure if you followed my advice in new articles. There is content that is not cited and that arose from what you know, rather than how independent, reliable sources describe the company. And there appear to be a lot of press releases.

I know it is really hard to switch gears, but the genre here in WP is "encyclopedia" and the goal is to teach. We are not just a directory or something. Please think about what people can learn from reading about the company.

From a business perspective -- What is interesting in the business model? How does the company make money? What challenges have the people running the company had to overcome to get the company off the ground and to flourish? Where did they fail, that other people can learn from? ( I have no idea and would be interested to learn the answers)

From a video-making perspective, what can be said - how does this fit in the world of video production? What other companies are in this space? Is it live action, animation, etc?

From a medical perspective - what is the focus - behavioral change? Learning biology of disease? Does the company or its customers measure outcomes somehow and if so what it the outcome?

That kind of stuff - encyclopedic, all about learning stuff.

All based on what reliable, independent sources say about the company and what it does, of course.

The content will look really different, if you are writing stuff like what is on your website, compared to what something like a Harvard Business School case study would look like.

Do you see what I mean? Jytdog (talk) 04:45, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll take another pass at it, if that's OK, based on your feedback. I see where you're coming from and it's extremely helpful. JonVanZile (talk) 15:39, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Sure. You are totally welcome to keep working on it, of course. Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Draft:The Wellness Network concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:The Wellness Network, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:The Wellness Network

Hello, JonVanZile. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "The Wellness Network".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. HasteurBot (talk) 23:12, 15 January 2018 (UTC)