User talk:Bobbtheman

Welcome!

Hello, Bobbtheman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You may also want to take the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit The Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi Bobbtheman. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Your edits to date are all about Ethereum Classic and somewhat emphasized the etcdev team. I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Bobbtheman. 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 COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic, and it is important when editing Wikipedia articles that such connections be completely transparent. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, we ask that you please:

avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your family, friends, school, company, club, or organization, as well as any competing companies' projects or products;
instead, you are encouraged to propose changes on the Talk pages of affected article(s) (see the {{request edit}} template);
when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or to the website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must 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 WP:PAID).

Please take a few moments to read and review Wikipedia's policies regarding conflicts of interest, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you.

Comments and requests

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with the Ethereum community or any of the development teams, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. (ALT: Here in Wikipedia such disclosures must be made explicitly. Would you please disclose any connection you have with XXX? ) After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you posted on my talk page here. If you want to reply to the above, you can do so here. If you want to talk about article content, we can do that at the article talk page. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jytdog

In reference to your question regarding the COI complaint, which i'm fairly familiar with, I would like to first start by thanking you for your contributions to the WP mission. It's a difficult task and I'm thankful that talented and dedicated individuals, such as yourself, are dedicated to the cause.

My edits, as you noted, have been exclusively related to the ETC Ethereum classic page. I am a new user here on WikiPedia. My interest in editing that page has to do with the bounty put out by the ETC project (link below). However, it would be more appropriate to call it by how I believe Wikipedia would classify this event ... a board reward (which includes monetary compensation).

Because of the nature of the public call to action anyone is eligible to claim that bounty that contributes to the editing of the page in question. This would include yourself, as your edits are just as eligible as mine. If misconstrued this could lead some to believe that everyone who edits the page would be immediately banned as they have an implicit COI. Obviously, at least in my opinion, this would be an erroneous conclusion and an appropriate application of "reward board" policy.

In this scenario, there is no explicit payment guaranteed to any one specific individual ... and from anyone specifically. Lastly, while I don't feel its appropriate for me to divulge my personal and private decisions It appears you have placed me into this situation unwillingly, I am not certain and haven't considered if I would opt to claim any reward if by some chance I happened to win.

I've consulted with others on the COI board who believe that my particular circumstances places me outside of any COI. While I do not feel it is appropriate for me to argue my innocence here in the public commons I would be happy to speak personally via telephone or private chat.

If you have any questions please reach out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reward_board

https://www.reddit.com/r/EthereumClassic/comments/6mcvbz/wikipedia_improvement_bounty_5_etc/ Bobbtheman (talk) 21:27, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting - when you reply to someone, you put a colon ":" in front of your comment, and the WP software converts that into an indent; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons "::" which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense.

You seem to already understand this part, but... at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~~~~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages. That is how we know who said what.

I know this system of indenting and signing is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for explaining that. Man thats a lot to grasp but I'll try my best. Look forward to any replies. Warm regards. Bobbtheman (talk) 22:02, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for disclosing that you are editing the page in order to claim the bounty. That makes you a paid editor - the Terms of Use describe someone who has been paid, or who expects to be paid, as being subject to the disclosure obligations.. I was unaware of the bounty and do not care about it and do not expect to be paid. The only way that anybody can claim that bounty and follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is to suggest edits on the talk page, as I am about to explain.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page (which is User:Bobbtheman - a redlink, because you haven't written anything there yet). Just something simple like: "I am pursuing a bounty put out off-Wikipedia to improve the Ethereum Classic article, and have a conflict of interest with regard to that topic" would be fine. If you want to add anything else there that is relevant to what you want to do in WP feel free to add it, but please don't add anything promotional about the company (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to the article's talk page, so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is a form of peer review. This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.

What we ask editors to do who have a COI and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:

a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and

b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. You can make the edit request easily - and provide notice to the community of your request - by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. I made that easy for you by adding a section to the beige box at the top of the Talk page at Talk:X - there is a link at "request corrections or suggest content" in that section -- if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request. You can also add a {{request edit}} tag to flag it for other editors to review.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies. (which I will say more about, if you want).

I hope that makes sense to you.

Will you please agree to follow the peer review processes going forward, when you want to work on the Ethereum Classic article or any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. And if you want me to quickly go over the content policies, I can do that. Just let me know. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 22:06, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will forfeit any chances at claiming any bounty. Even though I never made a final decision to accept this bounty, by me stating publically that I will not claim any bounty if i was chosen, this should dissolve my COI, correct?

Your statements seem to be at odds with others within the COI admin group that I have spoken to who indicate that this situation falls within the board reward (even though its external). How should I proceed? I believe it would be best to bring in additional admins for the review of this issue for a final determination.

its worth mentioning, as I alluded to earlier, that by your judgement ... no one could edit this page without being considered a COI as the ETC bounty program is public, shared on social networking, is is clearly viewable to anyone editing the page. You CANT edit the page (and view the comments as anyone who edits it should) without being aware of the bounty. Bobbtheman (talk) 22:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you are not going going after the bounty, that would take care of that aspect. You have not stated whether you are part of any dev team or other group associated with Ethereum Classic or have any other financial interest in it.... The bounty only creates a COI for a pursuing who is pursuing it and intends to claim it. Jytdog (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not work with in any way shape or form ETH or ETC. I dont know anyone in their dev teams. I dont hold any ETC coins. This is my first contribution. The template added to the ETC classic wikipedia page indicates I have received compensation for my contributions. That is inaccurate. I have received no such compensation. Your conclusion here is at odds with other administrative members. As the Reward Board clearly indicates, financial compensation for contributing to a wikipedia page isn't prohibited, rather its promoted. The COI details specifically have a clause for this exact scenario. Someone else will seek to edit this page and seek to claim this bounty. These individuals, assuming no other underlying COI, should not be labeled as a default COI because of such bounty. Could you clarify your stance on the bounty as it relates to COI? Are you claiming the bounty, for anyone seeking to claim it, automatically creates a COI? Is your interpretation of the board reward different than mine? Bobbtheman (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying the other kinds of COI possible. Please be aware that the on-WP rewardboard has nothing to do with transactions made off-WP. Are you pursuing the bounty posted on reddit, or not? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Jytdog, i havent determined if I will seek the bounty or not. I would however like to review and possibly add more content to this page. Do I add the content changes/additions here for you to review? Bobbtheman (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note. Please propose content on the article talk page. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:09, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]