Talk:Epic Systems/Archives/2020

Class project and inadvertent advertising

@A.Hausker and Tuphoff1: Hello. Regarding User:Tuphoff1/Epic Systems Draft and the duplicate User:A.Hausker/Epic Systems, please be aware that article content must have consensus withing Wikipedia, not merely within members of a specific off-site project. Who, exactly, is reviewing this draft? By creating "private" drafts for the article and then adding that content to the main project, you are bypassing the spirit of Wikipedia's policies. I accept that your intentions were good, but this is not appropriate for multiple reasons.

The draft(s) had far too many promotional details supported by niche sources, churnalism, press releases, and promotional material from Epic itself. As a reminder, Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion, and this is true regardless of whether or not you have a conflict of interest. (If any of you do have conflicts of interest, you must follow Wikipedia:Conflict of interest to comply with Wikipedia's terms of service). The way to maintain a neutral point of view is by using independent sources to demonstrate due weight.|

Another thing that, unfortunately, I should bring up is Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. The second draft was a copy/paste without any attribution, which makes a mess of Wikipedia's licensing. This is another reason this approach is so messy. I appreciate that you clearly attributed the changes in edit summaries, but these summaries need to link to the correct draft, otherwise it's merely copyright theater. Grayfell (talk) 23:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi,

My partner and I have been drafting a new version of this article for about two months now for a WikiEducation class. We have reached the point in the assignment where we will begin transferring out edits to the live article, so we wanted to give a heads up as to what edits and changes to expect. First, we added new sections, like "Select Customer Wins," "Social Responsibility," and "Awards and Recognition." Additionally, we expanded information in some of the pre-existing sections, specifically the Lead and the "Product and Market" and "Concerns" sections.

We will be transferring these edits gradually, so please feel free to leave comments/suggestions on this talk page for us to discuss further.

--A.Hausker (talk) 23:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@A.Hausker:. Did you read anything I wrote above? You do not get to decide that this gets added to the article, your additions have been challenged, so now you need to work to gain consensus. See Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Information about "Select Customer Wins" is especially inappropriate. Wikipedia is not interested in your opinion about which "wins" belong here. We use reliable sources to "select" which information belongs, and we do not obfuscate the company's history by lumping information into congratulatory sections. You will need to resolve the serious issues before you add this content to the article, not after. Grayfell (talk) 23:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Thank you for these suggestions. My partner and I will review our proposed edits with your comments in mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A.Hausker (talk • contribs) 23:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for slowing down and responding.

Please also be aware that there were several technical problems with your edits. As just one example, this edit introduced duplicate citations to the same ref, as both "Glaze" and "Glaze2" are the same citation. Your edit removed the archive link to that source for no obvious reason, as well. The way this was previously handled was much simpler and cleaner for readers. When a citation is named, if can be reused by name, such as with <ref name="Glaze"/> in the above edit.

This edit introduced some useful new information, but it was unevenly sourced, and used editorializing language. Where does "many Danish physicians" come from? This is likely true, but it is vague and unsupported.

I stress that these are only examples, and this is not an exhaustive list. By themselves, these would be easily fixable, but doing all of this as one big copy/paste creates needless work for other people. This is why editing in a "bubble" can be a problem. Grayfell (talk) 23:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• I have restored some of your changes to the Denmark section with some adjustments. Specifically for WP:TONE. Hopefully this is helpful. Grayfell (talk) 00:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Grayfell, A.Hausker, and Tuphoff1:. In answer to some of the above questions, this article is part of a WikiEducation course for this semester, for which I'm the supervisor. The drafts were created using the WikiEducation built-in activity interface, which I think is why they didn't appear properly attached to this page, and why they were only reviewed by other students rather then by Wikipedians at large! This has been very much a learning experience for all of us, myself included, and your Wikipedia-experienced guidance is much appreciated. If you've got any questions about WikiEducation, or what else is going on regarding it, please get in touch, and I'll see if I can help. That aside, working through the BRD cycle from the initially bumpy start seems to be going (more or less?) as designed; so thanks again for your patience, and I hope the result will be a substantive, well-sourced improvement to the page. M.hin.ck (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@M.hin.ck: Thanks for this explanation. This article has had a history of overtly promotional activity, so to be honest, my initial concern was that this was paid editing or similar. Clearly, I was mistaken, and I apologize for my harsh response.

I still see a lot of promotional content, both in the draft, and in the original version. By expanding the article without resolving these underlying issues, I'm concerned that the problems will be made worse, not better. Here are some essays and policies that might help explain my concerns, as well as some examples:

• WP:BUZZWORDS - "Social responsibility" sounds great! Who doesn't like social responsibility? How could anyone be opposed to social responsibility? Hopefully my sarcasm is clear, and hopefully it illustrates the problem with using terms like this. Buzzwords tend to be a sign that editors are in a "bubble" and have lost sight of how the outside world communicates. Wikipedia is, of course, for everyone, so we need to use neutral language.
• WP:PEACOCK - This seems to be just okay for now, but has been a problem before. Context is useful, but articles should not promote something without indicating for why it is encyclopedically significant. Any subjective claim should be properly attributed.
• WP:CSECTION - This is a preexisting problem, but is still worth mentioning. Generally, articles should not have "criticism" or "controversy" sections. "Concerns" isn't really any better. If possible, this information would be better if it could be integrated into the rest of the article. If not, it should be named something more neutral. If that's not possible, okay, so be it, but it's likely going to cause future headaches.
• WP:TONE - People have brains and motives, and sometimes people decide things on behalf of companies. Epic is a company, and companies do not have brains or motives. Likewise, AdventHealth cannot "decide to make the five year transition to Epic Systems spanning 1,200 acute-care, physician-practice, ambulatory, urgent care, home health, and hospice sites. Just say what happened without filler.
• Awards cruft - This is about WP:DUE, more than anything. There are several examples in the draft, but for one that is already in the article: What is Healthcare Dive? What is Healthcare Dive's "Health IT Development of the Year"? Is this really important? Is it just another acrylic paperweight? Is this a listicle? Generally, awards such as this need independent sources and context so that readers understand why this matters. The quantity obscure business awards, churnalism, and press releases for these awards is overwhelming. It is not enough for awards to be verifiable, they also have to provide information to readers.

I hope this isn't discouraging, and I certainly don't with to single-out any specific edit or editor. These are just examples which I have noticed. Hopefully this is helpful. Grayfell (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: My partner and I have made specific changes based on suggestions from you, our moderator, and our peers in the course. We changed "social responsibility" to "outreach initiatives" and believe this solves the issue of that section title being a buzzword. Similarly, we changed the name of the "Concerns" section to reflect your suggestions as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A.Hausker (talk • contribs) 17:47, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Really? "Outreach initiatives" is absolutely still a pair of buzzwords, and a fairly condescending euphemism, as well.

The point is not to cram in details and then make them look neutral afterward. The point is to proportionately explain information according to reliable sources.

I don't think you understood my point about criticism sections at all, since you did the exact opposite of what I requested. Again: Generally, articles should not have "criticism" or "controversy" sections. Read WP:CSECTION.

I am trying to be sympathetic that this is an assignment, and things are very strange right now, but please try to tighten your PR-filters a bit. Grayfell (talk) 20:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Even though nobody asked for a third opinion, as a page watcher and Wisconsin local, I'll give it. I applaud Grayfell for his collaborative approach in this scenario, there are many who would nuke the section for only tiny parts that don't conform to guidelines. They've been more than generous in this instance. I also appreciate that a Wiki Ed project has come into this - for the size of the company, it seems semi-plausible that eventually this could be a formal Good Article, but nobody's really taken an interest in getting it there. To A.Hausker and Tuphoff1 - you cannot expect to completely replace what is there with "your own version" as mentioned above. There's a good bit here already that stands as sourced content. The links Grayfell gave are great, but only in the instance that y'all read them. WP:CSECTION says (verbatim) " sections such as "Criticisms and controversies" are generally inappropriate. " A section title that y'all added in? "Criticisms and controversies". Just because you let somebody know on the talk page that it's going to be added doesn't mean it'll automatically stand. Grayfell, myself, and other editors want to see the page succeed just like y'all do, so please be receptive to our feedback and be open to not completely owning the article (which is against policy, anyways.) Please drop a message here or on my talk page if you have any questions. Thanks! Willsome429 (say hey or see my edits!) 21:20, 6 May 2020 (UTC)