User talk:ThomasDoerr

July 2024

Hello, ThomasDoerr. 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 conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for article subjects for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{edit COI}} template)—don't forget to give details of reliable sources supporting your suggestions;
disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § How to disclose a COI);
avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam § External link spamming);
do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. JBW (talk) 22:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear James,

First of all I want to clarify the issue regarding the conflict of interest. I am a former member of Round Table. Round Table has an age rule and in Germany they have a maximum age of 40 years. I am 43 years, so since more than 3 years already not a member of this organization. But yes, I am still passionate towards Round Table, but I'm really not sure, why there should be a conflict of interest only because I was in the organization in the past. Does an Ex-Member has a COI?

The article was written for Round Table Great Britain and Ireland only and you can see this. My intention was to "internationalize" it, so that it fits for whole Round Table. The article had an advertisement flag and I discussed this topic with another wikipedia administrator (Diannaa). I think you can see that in the history. I checked the articles of the other Service Clubs like Rotary and changed the article that this has no advertisement impression and she was happy with the changes. So I am confused why now so much was deleted.

If you think that I have an COI, I will not further work on the article. If you allow me to continue, I will take care about more external sources to improve the article

Cheers

Thomas ThomasDoerr (talk) 07:09, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JBW: I am not sure if you read this message, therefore the tag. I hope you will take the few minutes to get back to me. Thanks a lot

Thomas ThomasDoerr (talk) 20:16, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Thomas, I've looked back at your editing, and thought about it carefully. You have edited the article Round Table (club) twice. On 17 July you added some images. That was fine: I see no problems with that editing at all. However, you also edited the article on 28 June, and on that occasion what you wrote was certainly not written from a neutral point of view: it had the tone and character of an attempt to impress upon readers that the Round Table is a good and noble cause. I am sure that you were editing in perfectly good faith, without any intention to do anything wrong, but when one is writing about something in which one has a personal involvement (or, in your case, in which one has had a personal involvement) and for which one has a high regard, it can very often be difficult to stand back from the subject and see how one's writing will look from the detached perspective of an uninvolved outsider; a consequence of that is that one may write in a way which looks promotional to others, even if one sincerely intends to write in a neutral way. That is, in fact, one of the reasons why Wikipedia's guideline on "conflict of interest" discourages writing about a subject in which one has a personal involvement, and for that reason yes, being an ex-member who still feels passionate about the organisation does mean that you have what Wikipedia calls a "conflict of interest". (Another reason for the guideline taking that line is that we get large numbers of people who post outright spam, but I'm sure that doesn't apply to you.)

In this kind of situation I am sometimes asked to point out particular aspects of the writing which seem promotional. In the case of outright spam, that is usually easy to do, but it is not easy for writing of the kind that you have done, because it is a question of the overall character of the writing as a whole, rather than of specific details. Partly it is a matter of selection of what you say, and emphasis on how the organisation sees itself. Partly it is a matter of the tone in which it is written; you said above that you are "passionate" about the Round Table, and your passion comes through loud and clear. Obviously the ability to write with a sense of passion for a subject of this kind can be highly beneficial in many situations, but when it comes to writing for an encyclopaedia which seeks to present subjects dispassionately and from a neutral point of view, it is not an advantage. JBW (talk) 22:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you and I understand the issue. I think you are right, that I am not the right person to write it in an encyclopedia(n) way and somebody independent, without passion and with much more Know How of an encyclopedia writing should take care. ThomasDoerr (talk) 08:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]