User talk:Lawrence N Jones

Welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia. Take a look at the welcome page. To stay in Wikipedia, an article has to be about something notable, that is, of general interest. Click on Notability for an explanation of what that means, and on Notability (organizations and companies) for more detail. Also, it must be verifiable from reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Articles that don't meet these requirements are likely to be deleted.

For advice about creating articles, read the Introduction and the Guide to creating your first article.
You should not write articles about yourself, your band, your group, your client, your boss or your best friend - that's a conflict of interest.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advertising service or business directory. Please read FAQ/Organizations before you write about your own product or organization.
For experiments, please use the sandbox.

JohnCD (talk) 15:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest - answer to your questions

I must first explain, in answer to your question "how am I supposed to contribute if people edit this when they do NOT know what UKFast is all about?", that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a listing agency, and that nobody owns any article - see WP:OWN. Anyone can edit any article. At the bottom of every edit screen it says:"If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it". If you want an article about your company which you will control, Wikipedia is not the place for it.

For that reason, I have removed your signature from the articles - Wikipedia articles are not signed, because they are not owned. Individual contributions are recognised in the edit history, which is preserved.

Second, in writing about yourself and your own company you have a conflict of interest and such edits are strongly discouraged, because of the danger (however careful and impartial you think you are being) to the neutral point of view which is one of Wikipedia's key content policies. If you edit about subjects with which you are connected, the safest policy is to propose on the article talk page changes you would like to see, and see whether a consensus of neutral editors agree. If you edit yourself, you should follow the advice in User:Uncle G/On notability#Writing about subjects close to you:

When writing about subjects that are close to you, don't use your own personal knowledge of the subject, and don't cite yourself, your web site, or the subject's web site. Instead, use what is written about the subject by other people, independently, as your sources. Cite those sources in your very first edit. If you don't have such sources, don't write... Similarly, if you are writing about your company, then use independent articles written about your company as sources, not your company's autobiography and press releases. If there are no such sources, don't write about your company.

For more advice, please read carefully the guideline on Conflict of Interest and the FAQ/Organizations.

The internal link to MANOC did not work because that article was input as "Manoc" - I have corrected that.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 16:47, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you johncd, that is really useful. I misunderstood the signature thing and I wrongly assumed I had to add this at the bottom of each edit! Good job you stopped me when you did.

With regards to impartiality, I agree with Wikipedias sentiment. It is difficult to remain impartial when emotionally attached to a business, however I understand the principals of Wikipedia and I will use the guidelines to ensure I portray UKFast as in a factual and interesting fashion.

Thank you for your help. Also thank you for fixing and explaining the internal Manoc /MANOC linking problem.

Regards --LJ 21:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)