User talk:Rdjohns

Welcome...

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

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.

Also, I reverted your edit at American Bird Conservancy for two reasons: 1. It's a copy and paste from this website,[1] and appears to be the exact text of an ABC press release. 2. You added external links within the article, which goes against Wikipedia style and policy. Please read the links above in the welcome message to learn how to edit Wikipedia. Because of your edit, and similarities with a previous editor to the article, it appears that you might be the same person as this editor—71.166.171.53 (talk · contribs · info · WHOIS). If that is the case, please stop your disruptive editing.

Again, welcome! First Light (talk) 19:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another reminder

As I reminded the previous IP editor at American Bird Conservancy, please read our Conflict of Interest guidelines. I'm not accusing you of having a conflict of interest, but it is something you should be aware of, just in case you are associated with ABC, for example in their Public Relations department. Such a conflict is disruptive to Wikipedia, and has sometimes caused public embarrassment for the companies involved in such conflicts. First Light (talk) 19:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of Interest guidelines

(First two paragraphs copied by First Light from User_talk:71.166.171.53#Potential_Conflict_of_Interest)

Can you email me at bjohns@abcbirds.org. I am trying to understand the issue.

We're all volunteers here, and like many other editors I believe in transparency, so I'll suggest some Wikipedia policy pages to read first. I'll do this over at User_talk:Rdjohns since I'm assuming you are the same editor, and this would be better done at your registered Wikipedia account. First Light (talk) 22:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's apparent that you do have a conflict of interest with the American Bird Conservancy article, I would suggest that you first thoroughly read Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations. Some of the guidelines there which are especially pertinent to the editing that you've been doing are:

You've been edit-warring to keep adding links to your site right in the middle of a Wikipedia article. That goes against several Wikipedia guidelines, from WP:External links, to edit-warring, to conflict of interest, to Wikipedia's manual of style. In future, if you would like to make a change to the article, follow the guideline in the first bullet point above: "...if you feel that there is material within an existing article which is incorrect, or not neutral in its tone, please point this out on the article's talk page. Likewise, if you have content which you think should be added, please discuss this on the talk page." And then wait for non-conflicted editors to respond and add the information themselves, if they think it's appropriate.

Keep in mind that a Wikipedia article needs to be sourced mostly by neutral, third-party Reliable Sources and not by your press releases or content from your website. Further, you should not be using the article to promote your idea of how you think ABC should be presented, or to essentially use the WP article as a mirror of your website, which it seem that you've been trying to do. Again, content needs to be added using neutral, third-party reliable sources. If you disagree with something in the article, take it up on the article's talk page, which is at Talk:American Bird Conservancy.

Ironically, the two editors (one of them myself) who have been reverting your edits are probably extremely sympathetic to your cause, but even more extremely supportive of Wikipedia policies being properly applied to all articles. See Panthera Corporation for an article which I also helped to write and expand, again, using neutral, third-party Reliable Sources. If you can suggest mainstream publications and articles about ABC (not from press releases) at the article's talk page, that would be helpful. If you have any general questions about Wikipedia guidelines, feel free to post them here. First Light (talk) 22:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can only recommend you follow the above suggestions. To sum it up, there are three things that, based no the earlier edit pattern, are especially worth mentioning:

1) Please, NPOV. Wording that resembles advertising *never* belongs on wiki.
2) Third-party reliable sources are necessary. This is even more important when involved in the organization.
3) External links should never be placed in the main text. External links *only* belong in the external link section, or, if used as a source for a statement in the wiki article, in the reference section. In the latter case, attaching the reference to the specific statement it is used for is recommendable. In the most basic format, you can use <ref>THE REFERENCE</ref> at the end of the specific sentence, but more detailed templates are available here.

Finally, I do believe the current version of the article is very fair in presenting ABC. Though this may be the result of my own Neotropical bias, the only obvious omissions are the various non-Colombian projects in South American via e.g. Fundación Jocotoco in Ecuador, Asociación Armonía in Bolivia, Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos in Peru and Fundaçao Biodiversitas in Brazil, but at present I do not have the time to deal with this. • Rabo³ • 19:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]