User talk:Benevans101

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Benevans101. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page International Academy of Ceramics, 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 organizations 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);
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. Thank you. — Trey Maturin™ 12:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Trey Maturin! I'm assuming you're a bot, so I'm not sure quite what to say. I do work for the organization and disclosed this immediately. I pulled the items about the history from its website. But everything is very factual and encyclopedic and not meant as an advertisement. I mostly wanted to make sure inaccurate things were removed and current membership numbers included. I also thought it good to add some history. So I guess somebody else not employed by the IAC should be making these edits? Benevans101 (talk) 13:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not a bot, I'm yer actual human and all that. The best practice for someone who wants to edit their employer's page in our encyclopedia is to make edit requests on the talk page of the article. The main problem with you editing the article yourself directly is that you won't be able to be neutral about it – indeed, you've already added a number of marketing terms to the article, meaning that it is now tagged as looking like an advert. This type of editing has backfired on organisations before – social media users take a dim view of organisation adding marketing language to a free resource run by volunteers and funded by charitable donations because it looks tacky.

My original post to you contains a lot of useful links that you really do need to read. — Trey Maturin™ 13:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Trey! Sorry to think you're a Bot. It was the "TM" logo that tricked me. Thanks also for taking the time to reply so quickly and helpfully! I'll read the links you sent. I wonder, can I just revert the page back to the way it was? Then I can make much more minor modifications (put Geneva in Switzerland, not France, change the numbers delete obsolete project). I'll see if I can find out how to revert...

And again, thanks so much for your excellent response times and help! I'm a BIG fan of wikipedia outside my dayjob and might start editing a bit more if I can. Benevans101 (talk) 14:38, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - Last message, I swear. I've undone my entire edit based on your advice and will try to proceed with caution in future. However, the notices are still there... Maybe they come down automatically? Anyway, again, thanks for your help today. Benevans101 (talk) 14:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]