User talk:MeghanChi

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Hello, MeghanChi, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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Article about your new website launched today

Wikipedia is not a notice-board for announcements, it is a project to build an encyclopedia. It is not for advertising or promotion of any kind, and it is extremely resistant to attempts to use it that way.

User accounts must be for individuals only, who are personally responsible for them, and accounts whose names are those of companies or groups are not permitted. One reason for that is that those accounts are invariably here in order to promote themselves, and although they protest that they are writing in a neutral way, often find it impossible not to write in PR-speak or to recognise that they are doing that. For example, I have just removed from your or your colleagues' recent edits to Forbes Travel Guide the adjectives "widely-respected, expert, unique, comprehensive, prestigious, rigorous." To Wikipedia, those are "Peacock terms", unsupported adjectives of praise, typical of press-releases and company announcements, but having no place in an encyclopedia article. A fundamental policy is Wikipedia:Verifiability: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source."

As you popped up on my talk page immediately I blocked User:ForbesTravelGuide, I presume you are employed by Forbes. In that case, you have from Wikipedia's point of view a WP:Conflict of interest - your interest is to boost your employer, ours is an impartial and factual encyclopedia - and you should carefully read that policy and WP:Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest. You should edit with great caution, disclosing your interest, and be aware that your edits will be viewed with suspicion. For any but absolutely uncontroversial edits, suggest them on the article talk page and let uninvolved editors decide.

In regards to the new web-site, one requirement for any Wikipedia article subject is Notability, which is not a matter of opinion but has to be demonstrated by showing "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Significant means more than just listing-type mentions; reliable excludes Myspace, Facebook, blogs, places where anyone can post anything; independent excludes the subject's own website, affiliated ones and anything based on press releases. The test is, have people independent of the subject thought it significant enough to write substantial comment about? See WP:42 for how that is interpreted. As the website was only launched today, that may not yet be possible, in which case it cannot yet have an article: it is not an encyclopedia's job to announce new things, only to report on what is already established, when there has been independent comment from which an impartial article can be sourced.

If you think you can demonstrate notability, what you should do is:

Read WP:Your first article
You may also find User:JohnCD/Not a noticeboard helpful as background
Forget about the article I deleted, which was quite unsuitable - it was obviously written as an announcement from the company, went into unnecessary detail about the hotel ratings (material for your website, not for a general encyclopedia), duplicated a lot of the Forbes article, made claims like "celebrities at the top of their fields", and was unencyclopedically chatty: "We’ll also get a glimpse into their work and their lives... "
Make a draft in your user space - to start it, go to Help:userspace draft
In writing it, take the utmost care to avoid any hint of promotion. Make a conscious effort not to think of yourself as writing for the company. You are writing for Wikipedia, about the website. If you find yourself writing a glowing adjective like "prestigious", and indeed for every claim, imagine a hostile critic looking over your shoulder saying "Who says? Can you prove it? What's your source?" In fact, I advise avoiding adjectives altogether. What is required is plain facts, neutrally stated, verifiable from reliable sources.
When it is ready submit it at WP:Articles for creation, where either it will be accepted or you will be given more feedback.
Be aware that you will not own any article - others can and will edit it, and you will not be able to insist on you preferred version.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]