Welcome!

Hello, Michieldewit, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, like PerfectView, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted (if it hasn't already).

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Bongomatic 04:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

edit

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited IgHome, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Mike Sutton. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Managing a conflict of interest

edit

  Hello, Michieldewit. 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. In particular, please:

  • avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
  • instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
  • when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
  • avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or 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 familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 06:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Re: COI

edit

Hi Tokyogirl79, thank you for your quick reply. I understand it may seem there is a COI here as I have an external relationship to start.me. Still, that does not warrant speedy deletion citing A7. I believe my article about start.me is neutral. I consider myself an expert on the field and have written articles about similar services (e.g. IgHome and Symbaloo). The field of start pages is rather small and apart from me there are few Wikipedians willing to document. Michieldewit (talk) 07:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

  • The reason it was deleted as A7 was because there were no sources in the article to show how the service was notable enough to pass criteria. They were all WP:PRIMARY, which means that they were sources released by the company. These sources will never be able to establish notability on Wikipedia, which was why the article was deleted. In order to establish notability in an article you need to show where the company/service (since this is a service offered via a company) has received coverage in independent and reliable sources. You listed some of these here at DGG's talk page, however I will say that they do have some issues, which I'll go into in a bit. The basic gist though is that you created an article that lacked sourcing that would establish notability per Wikipedia's guidelines and the claims in the article were not major enough to where it'd pass speedy criteria on that basis alone.
As far as the COI goes, you absolutely do have a conflict of interest here. You are one of the co-founders of start.me and as such, you stand to gain something by it having an article on Wikipedia. I do think that the article was fairly neutral, but the main issue here wasn't that it was promotionally written. Rather the issue is that one of the company's co-founders created an article on Wikipedia that lacked coverage to show where the service/company is notable. It's possible that DGG may restore the article, especially after you posted potential sourcing on his userpage, but at the same time you still need to understand how you directly editing an article about your business is seen as a conflict of interest. You make your living through start.me and having a page on Wikipedia can raise the company's visibility, which means that you stand to earn more money by having an article on here. That's the definition of a conflict of interest on Wikipedia. As far as you being an expert in the field, if you were to edit articles on the general topic then that wouldn't be a bad thing as long as you do not insert mentions of your company/service into other articles, do not try to insert your own writings into Wikipedia except for very specific circumstances, and do not write disparaging things about competitors. In other words, you can edit on related topics as long as it's not promotional or can be seen as an attack. However being an expert in the field does not automatically mean that things that you write would show notability for start.me - these writings would be seen as WP:PRIMARY at best since it's well within your best interest to write about things in which you stand to gain from financially. As far as you inserting your own writings into Wikipedia, that needs to be done with caution since trying to add a general paper you wrote to Wikipedia can be seen as self-promotion since you would stand to gain a better reputation from being a cited source. There are so many pitfalls with editing about COI topics that it's easy for newer editors to make a fatal mistake, which is why it's frequently discouraged.
Now as far as the sourcing you posted on DGG's page goes, here's a rundown:
Sources
  1. This Forbes link only briefly mentions the service. This would make it a WP:TRIVIAL source on Wikipedia and could not show notability.
  2. N24 is something that would be seen as a reliable source. This isn't in English, which is why I mentioned that sourcing in other languages may exist that I didn't find. My main concern though is that the article is still fairly brief and it looks like it was heavily based on a press release, given the link's tone. (I viewed it via Google Translate.) If it is based on a press release this would make it a WP:PRIMARY source and would not be able to establish notability. Sources like this tend to be heavily scrutinized and it doesn't help that it doesn't identify who wrote it. This, along with the promotional tone, is usually a big sign that it's based on or is entirely taken from a press release.
  3. ProductHunt would not be considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. First is because it's ultimately a self-published source, given that there appears to be little to no editorial oversight on the page and it appears to be a forum-esque site. I also note that you started the discussion yourself, so this would make it primary at best. Anything that is written by you, the company, or people affiliated with the service would be primary and unable to establish notability.
  4. The Denver Post can be a reliable source, however this is a question and answer column. These sort of things tend to be greatly depreciated as sources because they're usually the personal opinion/advice of the person who runs the column and it's rare that these would be the type of thing that would show notability. If this was taken to AfD, I can guarantee that this would likely be considered non-usable for notability giving purposes. The service is also fairly briefly mentioned, so that doesn't help much either.
  5. Buzzfeed is generally not seen as a reliable source per discussions like this one. The problem is that some of their articles tend to come across as advertising. However that is somewhat of a moot point since the article in question is just a list of various services and doesn't go into enough depth for this to be a notability-giving source.
  6. iGoogleAlternatives would not be seen as a RS on Wikipedia since it's a self-published source. They do list their criteria for picking things, but they don't actually have anything to show their editorial oversight. It is mentioned as good in a NYT advice column, but we'd need a lot of coverage to really show that they're seen as an authoritative source.
  7. Domain.me would be seen as a primary source because they host your website/service on their domain. It's well within their best interests to not only write about start.me, but to write about it in glowing terms. This would not establish notability on Wikipedia.
  8. This is a Blogspot blog. Blogs are seen as self-published sources and per their nature, they almost never go through any sort of editorial oversight. Like sites with a lack of clear editorial oversight like iGoogleAlternatives, a blog can be seen as a RS if it's routinely mentioned as reliable in other RS, but this needs to be very heavily established. Offhand I don't see where this blog would be one of the exceptions.
  9. The ComputerIdee page looks to be a routine database-esque listing, especially as the content in the page is very brief and written like a press release. Most websites that offer free downloads do not write the material themselves and instead rely on the publisher to submit their own prose to accompany the download. Whether it could otherwise be used as a RS is up for debate - this would mostly rely on whether or not the magazine offers people the chance to get more coverage via marketing packages, which is common with many publications nowadays.
  10. The NYT is usually seen as a RS, however this runs the same issue as the Denver Post in that it is part of an opinion/advice column. As stated above, these are rarely seen as notability giving sources. I also note that the source only briefly mentions start.me. It does mention iGoogleAlternatives, which can help establish that the site may be reliable, but we'd need far more than one newspaper mention in order to really establish this.
  11. The last link you gave actually required that I download the page. Anything like this will raise red flags because you shouldn't have to download something to verify it. When I did open it in my browser, it didn't contain any information and as such, I cannot say that this would be seen as a RS. The only thing I could make out was something about e-mail in the background with some sparse details about the service like the website and owner/founder names, which lead me to believe that it might be a routine database listing. The default with unverifiable articles is that they are seen as non-notability giving, even if the publication is seen as a RS in most situations.
The end result is that none of these sources firmly establish notability and if this went to AfD with this sourcing, it's very likely that it'd be deleted. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 08:57, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • @Tokyogirl79: Thank you for your thorough review of the sources I provided. And thank your for confirming that the article is, as I intended, indeed "fairly neutral" in tone. Let me not respond to all your remarks on the article (most of which I think are just), but for the following: I believe the mere volume of all these sources does indicate some level of notability. Not too many major sources have written about start.me. Two of them, however, I think you dismissed of too easily: N24 and Consumentenbond (Michieldewit (talk) 11:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)).Reply
  1. N24 is a major news channel in Germany and their article was not based on a press-release issued by start.me (start.me hardly ever issues press releases and never in German). It appears N24 used a release from the DPA news agency (the same article is published in HNA and WZ, among others)
  2. Consumentenbond is a major consumer organization in The Netherlands. Their bi-monthly Digitaalgids is highly esteemed and does only post quality content, which is why we were very happy to get coverage. The Digitaalgids is a printed magazine, which is why I attached a digital copy of the article.
  3. Furhtermore, start.me has a fairly high Alexa ranking, ranking it #11,436 of all websites on the Internet. SimilarWeb even assigns it rank #6,748. That in its own way should make it notable. For comparison, Lulu has a rank of #10,574 and Itch.io #14,821, both are covered on Wikipedia and both seem just as relevant as start.me.
  4. And finally, about a year ago start.me partnered up with Pale Moon (as announced in our press release). Pale Moon, being a major fork of the Firefox browser is considered notable, so it would seem the start page service it uses would be (more) notable, too.

Proposed deletion of IgHome

edit
 

The article IgHome has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:28, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Deletion nomination withdrawn

edit

I have decided to withdraw my deletion nomination for Symbaloo. I am not sure whether the subject satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines, but having thought about the matter more, I have decided that whether it does or not, I don't see any harm in keeping the article. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:52, 17 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Your submission at Articles for creation: Start.me (March 14)

edit
 
Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Robert McClenon was:  The comment they 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.
Robert McClenon (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)Reply


 
Hello! Michieldewit, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Robert McClenon (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of List of start page services for deletion

edit
 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of start page services is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of start page services until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. noq (talk) 22:29, 13 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Your submission at Articles for creation: New tab page (August 29)

edit
 
Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by In veritas 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.
In veritas (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Your e-mail

edit

Please contact me on-wiki, on my talk page. Thanks,  Sandstein  17:28, 6 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Your draft article, Draft:Start.me

edit
 

Hello, Michieldewit. It has been over six months since you last edited your Articles for Creation draft article submission, "Start.me".

In accordance with our policy that Articles for Creation 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 edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}} 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. Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 15:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Your draft article, User:Michieldewit/sandbox/New tab page

edit
 

Hello, Michieldewit. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "sandbox/New tab page".

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 edit the submission 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. TKK! bark with me! 19:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Draft:Start.me concern

edit

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Start.me, 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) 01:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Your submission at Articles for creation: New tab page (May 8)

edit
 
Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by ToThAc 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.
ToThAc (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Your draft article, Draft:Start.me

edit
 

Hello, Michieldewit. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Start.me".

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 edit the submission 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. JMHamo (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2019 (UTC)Reply