User talk:DotPone
July 2017
[edit]Hello, DotPone, and welcome to editing Wikipedia. I would like to think you will have a successful time here, making useful contributions to the encyclopaedia. However, there are a couple of problems with the editing you have done so far, which you should know about, and there is also another matter which, to judge from your editing, may apply to you, in which case you need to know about that too.
- It is almost never suitable to copy content from another web site to Wikipedia, for more than one reason, the most important being copyright. When you post anything to Wikipedia you release it for anyone in the world to reuse it, either unchanged or modified in any way whatever, subject to attribution to Wikipedia. It is very rare that the owner of a web site licenses content for such very free reuse, and in those few occasions when they do so, we require proof of the fact. We don't assume that content is freely licensed on the unsubstantiated say so of just anyone who comes along and creates a Wikipedia account, for the simple reason that very often people come to Wikipedia and falsely claim to have copyright rights that in fact they don't have. Also, even on the rare occasions when there is no copyright problem, content from an organisation or business's own website is not usually suitable for a Wikipedia article, as it is almost invariably written in terms designed to promote the organisation and give a good impression of it, rather than presenting it from a neutral point of view, as required for a Wikipedia article. Such promotional editing is not permitted by Wikipedia policy. For both those reasons, copyright and promotional editing, the page you have created (bot copies of it) has been deleted, in accordance with Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion.
- If you are connected to someone or something you have written about (a few examples are writing about yourself, your business, your band, a member of your family) then you should be aware that Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline discourages you from writing about that subject. The main reason for that is that experience over the years indicates that editors with such a connection to a subject they are writing about are likely to find it very difficult, or even impossible, to stand back from their writing and see how it will look from the detached perspective of an outsider, so that they are likely to write in ways that look promotional to others, even if they sincerely think they are writing in a neutral way. Also, if your editing forms all or part of work for which you are paid, whether as an employee, as a contractor, or in any other capacity, the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require you to state who is paying you, and what your connection to them is.
My advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. Of course, if you have not interest in making other contributions to the encyclopaedia, but are here only for the purpose of using Wikipedia to publicise your organisation, then that advice will probably not seem helpful to you, but in that case Wikipedia is not the right place for you anyway, as Wikipedia is not a medium for publicising, advertising, or promoting organisations. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:37, 18 July 2017 (UTC)