User talk:Dcbennett2

Welcome!

Hello, Dcbennett2, 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:

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Disambiguation link notification for December 19

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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited TAL effector, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Gene editing. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Great work on genome editing page

Hi,

I love the information you've added to the genome editing page, and your copyediting has made it much clearer! There's a wikipedia-specific stylistic point to note. It's often best to write assuming that the wording will still have to be accurate after a decade. Consequently it's best to avoid phrases like "recently" (I used to do it a lot which is why I notice them now!). E.g.:

Physicians at the Great Ormond Street Hospital recently announced the first clinical use of TALEN-based genome editing.

could be better written as something like:

The first clinical use of TALEN-based genome editing was at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Putting the more important topic near the beginning of the sentence can also help skim-readers. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing any future edits. It's very useful to have a scientific write helping out! You might also be interested in the WikiProject Molecular and Cell Biology community.

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest in Wikiepdia

Hi Dcbennett2. I work on conflict of interest issues, along with my regular editing about health and medicine. Your edits of late have focused a lot on Cellectis and its spinoff, Calyxt, and principals of those companies, like Dan Voytas. I found this dif to be especially... odd. 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. I hope you will work through this stuff with me.

Hello, Dcbennett2. 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. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, please:

avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or 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 for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, 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 any of the subjects you have edited? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. (and you seem to be in contact at least with Dan Voytas....) After you respond (and you can just reply below), we can take it from there. Please reply here - I am watching this page. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 09:43, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

Thank you for your message. I do apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

I work for a small US-based company that provides scientific editing, primarily of proposals and publications for academic clients (Wikipedia pages are not among our typical assignments). If it is possible, I would like to withhold any additional information, as the small size of the company, in combination with other clues, would likely be enough to personally identify me.

A contact from Cellectis SA requested editing support for Wikipedia pages, including the Cellectis main page and those for Dan Voytas and Andre Choulika. This support was paid. We are more than willing to work within the established procedures and hope that we can move forward resolving any issues that may have arisen here.Dcbennett2 (talk) 18:34, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for being gracious and straightforward here. I appreciate that very much. I am not sure you are aware, but paid editing is a very controversial issue, both within the Wikipedia editing community and in the real world. As a result of some major scandals (which reached the mainstream media) the Wikimedia Foundation (which owns the Wikipedia servers and the Wikipedia trademark, etc) updated the Terms of Use for all Wikimedia properties to require anyone editing for pay to disclose their employer and client for each edit they make for consideration of any kind. That happened in June 2014.

So I am very sorry but you must disclose the name of the company you work for. If you will not, then you will have to stop editing Wikipedia or face an indefinite block. I am sorry about that, but that is the deal here in Wikipedia. If you want to verify what I am saying, the relevant policy is WP:PAID and the relevant guideline is WP:COI. The relevant part of the Terms of Use is the last bolded item in this section. If you would like background, please see the Wikipedia article, Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia (the two scandals that drove the change to the ToU concerned Wiki-PR and Banc de Binary) and you may also want to read WP:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms.

Please let me know what you would like to do. If you want to disclose and continue being a Wikipedian (and there is a place for paid editors here - not necessarily a comfortable one - but a place.... and we do get some great contributions from paid editors) let me know, and I can help you get better oriented. If instead you choose to walk away, please let me know that too. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 18:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and by the way, please do not refer to yourself as "we". Each Wikipedia account can only be used by one human being. There is no such thing as a "corporate account" in Wikipedia. So if multiple people have been using this account, that needs to stop. This is explained in the username policy (which is also the account policy): WP:USERNAME. I'll assume that I am talking to one person going forward; please do not abuse that trust. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:49, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thank you for the links. I will read these over, and I will get back to you shortly.

This is my personal account, and while the contact with Cellectis was made through the company, I have been doing all the edits (and participating in this conversation) myself.Dcbennett2 (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks. I look forward to hearing from you. Jytdog (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good morning Jytdog. I just wanted to follow up with you here. I work for a company called "SciWri Services" (though a quick Google search tells me that there are a few organizations that use this name). SciWri Services was contacted (as disclosed yesterday) by representatives of Cellectis SA to edit Wikipedia pages relating to their company. Dcbennett2 (talk) 13:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so you have chosen the disclosure path. Great. So let's figure out how to make your initial disclosure. I don't know if that is all the paid editing work you have done in Wikipedia, nor whether you intend to do more. Here is an example of the disclosure you could put on your userpage, assuming you intend to do more, and that Cellectis has been your only client so far...

I work for a company called SciWri Services that provides scientific writing services to clients. I have edited the following articles as part of my work there:

Cellectis (client, Cellectis)
Daniel Voytas (client, Cellectis)
André Choulika (client, Cellectis)
Meganuclease (client, Cellectis)
TAL effector (client, Cellectis)
Transcription activator-like effector nuclease (client, Cellectis)
Hepatocyte (client, Cellectis)
Stem cell (client, Cellectis)
Cardiac muscle cell (client, Cellectis)
Genome editing (client, Cellectis)
Genome engineering (client, Cellectis)

If that is all the articles you edited for Cellectis, and if Cellectis is the only client you have done work for in Wikipedia (don't know if you have other accounts or anything), then that would do it, for your Userpage. I listed the articles roughly in order of your effect on them, btw) Once this disclosure piece is done, we can talk about next steps. But please let me know about the stuff above. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK - All set. This is indeed the entirety of my editing history to date. Cellectis had discussed additional edits, but those are on hold for now until we take care of this. To confirm, Cellectis has been my only client, and I have not made any other edits (for compensation or otherwise) under other user accounts or anonymously. I did see that there was some activity several years ago from my static work IP address, but that was not me.

Thank you for your time in helping work through all this. Dcbennett2 (talk) 20:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, and again I am grateful to you for being so gracious and forthright. This can be so easy, but sometimes it gets ugly. I am happy it is easy. :)

OK, so now I am going to do some things. We have a template we put on the Talk pages of articles that have been edited by folks with a COI. (two of them actually). {{connected contributor}} is used when there is some nonfinancial COI (like the subject of an article edits the article), and {{connected contributor (paid)}} which is used in this situation. I am going to add that template to the Talk pages of each of those articles, so that your disclosure is made locally as well, so editors working on those articles are aware. This is best-process disclosure. I will also add the {{COI editnotice}} template to those articles for you to use -- more on that in a bit. Next, I am going to create a posting at WP:COIN making it clear that you didn't know about the policies and guideline around this before and have come completely clean now, and listing these articles, so that editors who are experienced in reviewing articles that are the product of conflicted editing can help review them for compliance with the content policies and guidelines. This review is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia. I am sorry to say this, but some of those people might be mean. (as I noted above, paid editing is controversial and we have some members of the community who hate it. There is nothing I can do about that and again I apologize in advance). So you can expect some changes to those articles to be coming.

Before I do those things, I want to make sure you understand and see if you have any questions.... Once that is done, I'll have some more to tell you about COI management in WP, and then if you like some quick notes on editing that should be helpful to you going forward. Pausing now... Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Sounds good. Ready to move forward.Dcbennett2 (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've added to the Talk pages of all the articles, and filed the COIN case, which is here. OK, the first step of disclosure is done. Time for the 2nd step, which I will do in a new subsection, as this one is getting too long... Jytdog (talk) 05:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Step 2 - peer review

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is what I call "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 viola 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 RW).

What we ask of editors 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, disclose your COI on the Talk page using the appropriate template, and then submit the draft article through the WP:AFC process 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 an "edit request" section to the beige box at the top of the Talk page of each of the articles you have already worked on - there is a link at "click here" in that section -- if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request.

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.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content.

Will you please agree to follow the peer review processes going forward, when you want to work on 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) 05:13, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. These guidelines make perfect sense, and I will be sure to follow them moving forward. Thanks once more for your attention here, and I have found this entire discussion to be very helpful.Dcbennett2 (talk) 14:27, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, great. I am going to leave with one last section of advice, about how to edit and how to build an article. Generally, i find your editing to be very good. It is somewhat biased by your relationship with and importantly - prior knowledge of - your client, but generally it is pretty good. the stuff i tell you below may help you better deal with those issues. Jytdog (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to say that I've been very impressed by how well this has been handled by both Jytdog and Dcbennett2. COI and NPOV can be contentious and heated issues, so I've been very heartened to see this discussed so maturely. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How to edit

Here is some very general stuff about WP, followed by an outline of how to build a great article. I think you already know a bunch of this.

The first thing, is that our mission is to produce articles that provide readers encyclopedia articles that summarize accepted knowledge, and to do that as a community that anyone can be a part of. That's the mission. As you can imagine, if this place had no norms, it would be a Mad Max kind of world interpersonally, and content would be a slag heap (the quality is really bad in parts, despite our best efforts). But over the past 15 years the community has developed a whole slew of norms, via loads of discussion. One of the first, is that we decide things by consensus. That decision itself, is recorded here: WP:CONSENSUS, which is one of our "policies". (There is a whole forest of things, in "Wikipedia space" - pages in Wikipedia that start with "Wikipedia:AAAA" or for short, "WP:AAAA". WP:CONSENSUS is different from Consensus. ) And when we decide things by consensus, that is not just local in space and time, but includes meta-discussions that have happened in the past. Those are the norms. We call them policies and guidelines - and these documents all reside in Wikipedia space. There are policies and guidelines that govern content, and separate ones that govern behavior. Here is very quick rundown:

Content policies and guidelines

WP:NOT (what WP is, and is not -- this is where you'll find the "accepted knowledge" thing)
WP:OR - no original research is allowed here, instead
WP:VERIFY - everything has to be cited to a reliable source (so everything in WP comes down to the sources you bring!)
WP:RS is the guideline defining what a "reliable source" is for general content and WP:MEDRS defines what reliable sourcing is for content about health
WP:NPOV the content that gets written, needs to be "neutral" (as we define that here, which doesn't mean what most folks think -- it doesn't mean "fair and balanced" - it means that the language has to be neutral, and that topics in a given article are given appropriate "weight" (space and emphasis). An article about a drug that was 90% about side effects, would give what we call "undue weight" to the side effects. We determine weight by seeing what the reliable sources say - we follow them in this too. So again, you can see how everything comes down to references.
WP:BLP - this is a policy specifically about articles about living people. We are very careful about these articles (which means enforcing the policies and guidelines above rigorously), since issues of legal liability can arise for WP, and people have very strong feelings about other people, and about public descriptions of themselves.
WP:NOTABILITY - this is a policy that defines whether or not an article about X, should exist. What this comes down to is defined in WP:Golden rule - which is basically, are there enough independent sources about X, with which to build a decent article.

In terms of behavior, the key norms are:

WP:CONSENSUS - already discussed
WP:CIVIL - basically, be nice. This is not about being nicey nice, it is really about not being a jerk and having that get in the way of getting things done. We want to get things done here - get content written and maintained and not get hung up on interpersonal disputes. So just try to avoid doing things that create unproductive friction.
WP:AGF - assume good faith about other editors. Try to focus on content, not contributor. Don't personalize it when content disputes arise. (the anonymity here can breed all kinds of paranoia)
WP:HARASSMENT - really, don't be a jerk and follow people around, bothering them. And do not try to figure out who people are in the real world. Privacy is strictly protected by the WP:OUTING part of this policy.
WP:DR - if you get into an content dispute with someone, try to work it. If you cannot, then use one of the methods here to get wider input. There are many - it never has to come down to two people arguing. There are instructions here too, about what to do if someone is behaving badly, in your view. Try to keep content disputes separate from behavior disputes. Many of the big messes that happen in Wikipedia arise from these getting mixed up.
WP:TPG - this is about how to talk to other editors on Talk pages, like this one, or the Talk page of any article, policy, etc.

If you can get all that (the content and behavior policies and guidelines) under your belt, you will become truly "clueful", as we say. If that is where you want to go, of course. I know that was a lot of information, but hopefully it is digestable enough.

SO... Anytime you want to create an article, here is what to do.

look for independent sources that comply with WP:MEDRS for anything related to health, and WP:RS for everything else, that give serious discussion to the topic, not just passing mentions. Start with great sources.
Look at the sources you found, and see if you have enough per WP:Golden rule to even go forward. If you don't, you can stop right there, and you can tell your client that it unlikely that the community will accept an article, and trying is not a good use of their money at this time - it may be that with time they will develop NOTABILITY. Please also be aware that you will build a reputation here over time, and if you submit a bunch of bad articles, that will make things harder for you...
Read the sources you found, and identify the main and minor themes to guide you with regard to WP:WEIGHT - be wary of distortions in weight due to WP:RECENTISM
Go look at manual of style guideline created by the relevant WikiProject, to guide the sectioning and other style matters (you can look at articles on similar topics but be ginger b/c WP has lots of bad content) - create an outline. (For example, for biographies, the relevant project is WP:WikiProject Biography)
Create the article in draft space. Create the talk page, and disclose your COI there. If you have any difficulties with this, please let me know and I can help.
Start writing the body, based only on what is in the sources you have, and source each sentence as you go.
Make sure you write in neutral language.
When you are done, write the lead and add infobox, external links, categories, etc
Consider adding banners to the Talk page, joining the draft article to relevant Wikiprojects, which will help attract editors who are interested and knowledgeable to help work on the article.
The completed work should have nothing unsourced (because the sources drove everything you wrote, not prior knowledge or personal experiences or what the client wanted; there is no original research nor WP:PROMO in it.
Submit your article for review via the WP:AFC process - again I can help there if you like. You will get responses from reviewers, and you can work with them to do whatever is needed to get the article ready to be published.

There you go! Let me know if you have questions about any of that. I doubt you will :), so that is pretty much everything I wanted to go over with you. Thanks again.

Oh, by the way, now that we are done working through this, I will probably start reviewing the articles you worked on. (Above I said that things get messy when content and behavior issues get mixed up. I focused first on working with you on the COI stuff, so you know what to do going forward, and we could focus on that. Now that this is done, I can work on the content, and you won't be alarmed or thinking I am making a personal attack to try to "win" a content dispute. This is what I mean about keeping content and behavior discussions as separate as possible...) Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]