User talk:Marinamano/subpage

Latest comment: 7 years ago by Bri in topic Quick note

Quick note

edit

One of the things that you don't seem to understand, is that you have several levels of conflicts of interest (COI) here. COI is what happens, when you have external interests that conflict with your local obligations.

The first obligation of every Wikipedia editor (and anybody who edits WP is a WP editor) is to the en-WP community and its mission, policies, and guidelines. That is the "local interest" in this case.

The first level COI is that as you note, your friend works at Decibel - you of course like your friend and you say clearly that you think the company is doing cool/important things --things that are not even reported in public anywhere. You are an "insider" there. These are exactly the kinds of external interests in subject matter, that make it difficult to be objective about the content and to edit per NPOV like a Wikipedian. You also decided that the company "must" be important enough for a Wikipedia article, but I don't see where you really stopped and engaged with the Notability guideline and authentically asked yourself, as a Wikipedian, if the company is notable, as the en-WP community defines that. And the latter shows the COI really clearly. The key driver on the subject matter here, is your "liking" of the company and your friend, not understanding and following the policies and guidelines of WP.

The second level of COI is the entire background of the classwork here. This is all being done in the context of taking a course and getting a grade. Your presence here is not about improving any article or the project, but instead are about your getting a grade, finishing school, and getting on with your life. Nothing to do with WP. (In your case, "Doing the work assigned and getting a grade" are driving the conflicted behavior. In the case of say a paid editor, or somebody who worked at the marketing department of company and was here to promote it, the editing would have been driven by getting paid. The actual editing of somebody with a COI, looks pretty much the same, regardless of the COI. This is why people asked you if you work for the company or something) In any case, this context creates a conflict of interest.

The third level of COI is akin to the issues involved with any anthropologist entering any community and perturbing it, in order to study its reaction. These are in fact really fundamental ethical issues in the field of anthropology and are something to which you don't seem to be aware. Even this more "noble" goal of learning about X, poses a conflict of interest with regard to the inner workings of X itself and has nothing to do with making X itself thrive.

I am pretty frustrated; I volunteer here and have wasted an hour of my time trying to understand what happened here, and other members of the community have done so as well. Volunteer time is the lifeblood of Wikipedia... I have left your instructor a note as well. Jytdog (talk) 20:13, 7 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Agree with everything jytdog wrote above. Your note "I don't have a conflict of interest; I'm writing about my best friend's company" (paraphrased) is truly incomprehensible. Also frustrated for what feels like a deliberate waste of our collective time. - Bri (talk) 02:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)Reply