Serenest

February 2012

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles or other Wikipedia pages, as you did to Michel Thomas. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. Steve ^T • C 21:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi Serenest. 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 have all been promotional - first for Michel Thomas and now for EGS. 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, Serenest. 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. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. 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. 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 EGS or any institutions running the Thomas teaching method, 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), 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) 22:43, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog

I was a student of Michel Thomas in the 1980's. He passed in 2005. I have no current interest whatsoever in his publication/method what have you nor did I then when I edited the pages. What was posted ( my memory is thin) was wrong, if I recall.. His teaching methods were mischaracterized, and I thought that that would be helpful to put out there. I think it is not understood. But I am slanted, that I agree. Not paid or in any sense part of his organization, but I have his Chinese tapes I use, his Spanish to review, and French to review etc.etc. even these days.

As for EGS I am not paid by them to do anything nor am I their PR agent nor have I discussed this with anyone affiliated in any way with the school. Once again a mischaracterization.

cheers Serenest (talk) 23:15, 15 December 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, 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. 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) 23:23, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again for replying. I asked you questions and made no claims, so there is no "mischaracterization".

Thanks for disclosing your connection to Thomas. I asked you to disclose any connection you have with EGS. You said you are not paid by them and that you have not discussed your editing with them but "connection" is broader than that. Would you please disclose any connection you have with EGS? (e.g. studying there, would be be a connection). Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 23:27, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi there. No I wasn't referring to our conversation but my memory of the Michel Thomas, and of EGS posts as mischaracterization, but I see that it was unclear, sorry. I'll go back and look at Michel Thomas. I have studied at EGS, that is how I know about it. One semester. That I mentioned on the talk page. Serenest (talk) 14:01, 16 December 2017 (UTC)