User talk:Bekeleftw

Welcome!

Hello, Bekeleftw, 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, such as User:Bekeleftw, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may soon be deleted.

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 this 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:Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! TreacherousWays (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of User:Bekeleftw

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on User:Bekeleftw, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the guidelines on spam and Wikipedia:FAQ/Business for more information.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. TreacherousWays (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't apologise - we do not explain as well as we should what user pages are and are not for. I will explain better tomorrow, but I am out of time tonight. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User pages and sub-pages

You do not need to apologise - Wikipedia is a complex site, there are if anything too many pages of instruction, and it is not easy for a newcomer to get to grips with it. One thing we do not exlain well is that we are different from sites like Myspace where people expect to use their user page to publicise themselves, their bands, their companies or whatever.

Wikipedia user pages, with names like User:Bekeleftw, are intended for the volunteers, who are here to build the encyclopedia, to say something about themselves, if they choose, to help communication within the project. They are not intended for substantial content... that is unrelated to Wikipedia.

There are also user sub-pages, whose names look like User:Bekeleftw/sandbox - it's important that they start exactly with your username and a forward slash. They are indeed for the sort of thing you were trying to do - make a test article, try out layouts and so on. You can use that one just by clicking on the "red-link" and then editing, or another way to make a user sub-page is to fill in the form at Help:Userspace draft.

Wikipedia is not for advertising or promotion

One thing that is not allowed even in user sub-pages is advertisement. Wikipedia is seen by many as a free advertising platform, and so is extremely resistant to being used that way. One reason why people with a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest are discouraged from writing about their own organizations is that experience shows that with every good intention they are simply unable not to write in ad-speak and PR-ese.

Your draft was written in the first person: "Our specialty... our experienced and professional staff... Our blend of informal corporate culture..." and full of PR-speak, what we call "peacock terms", unsupported adjectives of praise: "a leader in the design... an unparalleled level of responsive customer support... industry-leading customer service... an innovative leader... a unique organization... "

That is not an encyclopedia article, that is an advertisement, designed not to inform but to persuade. Anything like that is deleted from Wikipedia at sight. It reads like a company website, and I am not surprised, now I check, to find that it is copied from http://www.xes-inc.com/about/ - which would be another reason for instant deletion, as we cannot accept copyright information anywhere, even in user sub-pages, unless a formal copyright release has been made. It is seldom worth doing that, because material written for other purposes is almost always too promotional.

An encyclopedia article is not written from within the company to potential customers: it is written as from outside, to provide information to people who want to know, in general, about the company. It contains only plain facts, neutrally written, cited to reliable sources. Wikipedia's WP:Verifiability policy requires that: "all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source". Anyone writing for WP should imagine a hostile critic looking over his shoulder, constantly asking "Who says so? Can you prove it?"

If you want to proceed

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a business listing directory. Articles have to be of enough general interest for an encyclopedia article: the Wikipedia term for that is Notability, which is not a matter of opinion but needs to be demonstrated by references showing "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Significant means more than just listing-type mentions; reliable excludes Myspace, Facebook, blogs, places where anyone can post anything; independent excludes the subject's own website, affiliated ones and anything based on press releases. The test is, have people independent of the subject thought it significant enough to write substantial comment about? See also WP:Notability (organizations and companies) and WP:42.

The WP:FAQ/Organizations is helpful. I resume you are connected with the company, so you should read WP:Conflict of interest and WP:Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest. Think hard about whether you can show independent references to establish notability. Then, if you want to proceed:

Read WP:Your first article
Fill in the form at Help:Userspace draft to start a draft
Tear up the website spiel and start with a clean sheet. Take the utmost care to avoid anything promotional. Put right out of your mind any sense that you are writing for the company - that is the quick way to deletion. You are writing for Wikipedia about the company, no opinions, plain unvarnished facts all of which can be referenced to reliable sources. Think twice about every adjective, and then take it out.
The userspace draft form has a link to helpful advice, and another to submit it when done; it will be reviewed by other users, and either it will be accepted or you will be give feedback.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]