User talk:Carlloben

Welcome!

Hello, Carlloben, and welcome to Wikipedia! This is one of the most popular websites in the world, and it's only through the contributions of editors like you. And Wikipedia is not just a collection of articles, it's an active community. The real fun here is contributing to Wikipedia, but don't feel hurt if some of your first few edits get removed, as there are some central guidelines you may not be familiar with.

Some good advice: be bold in your editing, and use the talk pages to discuss with other editors. Be kind to others, because there's a lot you can learn from them, and there's lots they can help you with.

There's lot's of resources to help you become a great editor, from our basic introduction to our in-depth manual. But if you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page. Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. And if you haven't done so, tell us a bit about yourself. Oh, and please sign your name on talk pages and votes by typing ~~~~; our software automatically converts it to your username and the date.

Glad you're here! Jayron32 15:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I have also answered your question at the Wikipedia:Help desk, so if you pop back over there, you can get the answer. Feel free to ask me any more questions you have, using my user talk page (User talk:Jayron32). Welcome again! --Jayron32 15:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Conflicts of Interest

Actually, on the scale of problematic writing, the Kidda article is certainly not the worst I have seen. As a writer-for-hire, however, you certainly have a conflict of interest; the very fact that you are writing the article at the behest of the subject means that will likely color your writing in ways which tend to overemphasize the positive and deemphasize the negative. First, let me say that you have always been up front and honest about your connection to the subject. That is doing it right, and it is what Wikipedia asks from people who have a potential conflict of interest. The article itself, as I said, isn't awful, but it reads mostly like a mashup of his resume with some synopses of positive reviews he's received from various media outlets. At Wikipedia, we do strive for the neutral point-of-view and, while that doesn't mean that all points of view get equal airing, it does mean that all points of view with significant representation in mainstream sources get aired in roughly the same emphasis in Wikipedia articles as they do outside of Wikipedia. For a music artist, that means that there are likely to be negative things in their lives, or in reviews of their music, which are reported. Just pulling some music articles at random, which I think are pretty good, if you look at articles on groups like The Stooges or Rush; it doesn't shy away from reporting problems, negative reviews of their music, or personal troubles in their lives (insofar as those things are reported in the sources themselves). Which is not to say that there is necessarily a lot of that stuff out there on a fairly new artist like Kidda, unlike the volumes and volumes of music press and books, and the like, which have been written about those bands (which is kinda, sorta part of the reason that Wikipedia's notability standards (see WP:N and WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC) exist in the first place, to ensure that there is enough reliable source material to give the article a complete and fair treatment of the subject. I guess, if the article was balanced by a presentation of some sourced critical commentary, which wasn't always a glowing, positive review, it might help to counterbalance it some. --Jayron32 11:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, regarding how people can write articles about others without personally knowing them; I wasn't alive for any part of Plymouth Colony, but I worked very hard on that article, and it's now a featured article and has appeared on the main page as The Featured Article of the Day. I'm not sure anyone here has a personal knowledge of Augustus, but somehow we have lots of stuff written on him. In fact, gobs of Wikipedia is written by people who have no personal or financial stake in promoting anything, and that's kinda the way it is supposed to be. Wikipedia is not designed or intended as a vehicle for promotion of an entity. Augustus Caesar doesn't become more famous merely because he has a Wikipedia page; Wikipedia itself is an insignificant drop in ocean in terms of the worldwide scholarship on Augustus stretching back millenia. On the converse, if having a Wikipedia article would somehow significantly raise the profile of a person then they probably aren't notable enough for an article in the first place. Regarding cleaning up the article; I'm not sure there's much you can do today to fix it up. As I said, its not a terrible article, especially for a first effort. When I say there's not much you can do today; its because given that you have a conflict of interest, it would be best if someone with fresh eyes had a crack at cleaning it up. Let me recommend asking for an outside review, perhaps by posting a note at Requests for Feedback or better yet, ask for help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronic music, which are a group of volunteer editors trying to improve articles about electronic music. Also, today it is unlikely that the article can get much better; I have done some basic research myself of this artists, and it looks like you've fairly comprehensively captured the rather small amount of reliable source material that has already been published about him. So unless and until there actually gets to be things like book-length biographies written about him, and unless and until his albums and songs are regularly part of main article-long expose's in the mainstream music press all the time, it's likely not going to get better. --Jayron32 16:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)