User talk:Translated1

November 2017

This is your only warning; if you use Wikipedia for soapboxing, promotion or advertising again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Rayman60 (talk) 21:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

How dare you accuse me of 'soapboxing', 'promotion' or 'advertising', none of which I have done on the page you mention. How dare you remove so much neutral information from the article too. Loads of poets on Wikipedia have awards and grants and other achievements listed so what gives you the right to think you can just delete an entire list of such? And why aren't you going in and doing the same with hundreds of other writers? Why keep picking on the same page? User:Translated1.

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. Rayman60 (talk) 01:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I now regard your persistent tinkering and commentary as harassment (to which, be mindful of Wikipedia's harassment guidelines as linked near to the top of the COI page). And yes, I do regard all this as tantamount to defamation, that is not a 'legal threat', it is a genuine observation that that is what you are in danger of. Instead of taking heed, you decide to open up the matter on the COI page instead. And you say you have no ulterior motive!? I find that increasingly difficult to believe. Again: ethical consistency!? Why are you not likewise editing other pages that really are promotional instead of constantly picking on this page? Translated1

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia, socking

Hi Translated1. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Your edits to date, as well as those of Yorkshades (for whom you signed here and here for example), are all about Alan Morrison (poet) and do not comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. As others have pointed out to you, there is an apparent conflict of interest here. 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.

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. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• do your best to comply with 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).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. 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 Alan Morrison, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works.

Additionally, it is fairly obvious that you operated the Yorkshades account and are now using this one. If you lost the password for the Yorkshades account and so created this one, that is totally fine, but you should disclose that, and make it clear that you will not use the Yorkshades account anymore. There are some additional steps to take as well, but would you please let me know what is going there, as a first step?

Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 01:22, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog Thank you for your measured and diplomatic intervention here, which is appreciated, since it makes a big difference to be spoken to in a courteous manner, in stark contrast to the generally sneering tones of Rayman60 and AdventurousMe. I sincerely wish to brush up on the protocols of Wikipedia editing and will admit that I am something of a novice, so if I have breached any rules in the past then I want it on record that it was not a calculated thing. In terms of disclosure, yes, I forgot the password for Yorkshades, and previously forgot the password for my old Translated1 identity, but then recently recalled it, hence why I reverted to Translated1. Again, there was nothing calculated in this, and I did not try to conceal any link between the two, hence why it was spotted so easily by others. I do know the subject of the page, hence why I've been privy to some bits of knowledge that others without any 'connection' would not be. Had the tones of the comments made on the Talk Page by AdventurousMe and Rayman60 not seemed to me to be disrespectful, condescending and belittling of the subject, I would have been cooperative with them. But what I have not liked about their comments has been their seeming tendency to sneer at and undermine the achievements of the subject, a poet who is a long-time outsider of the British poetry mainstream, not due to lack of importance (he has a high critical reputation in many quarters), but due to his poetry and politics being 'against the grain' in many respects. These are cultural nuances -by no means unique to this subject- which neither of the aforementioned contributing editors demonstrate any grasp of, hence why I feel they are unqualified in this particular area to make the sweeping edits they have made. Thank you for your equanimity. Translated1 Translated1 (talk) 19:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting - when you reply to someone, you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia (we often abbreviate that as "WP") software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense. And at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~~~~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit. That is how we know who said what. I know this is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, let's deal with the multiple accounts issue first. Would you please write on this user page (User:Translated1) "I formerly edited under the username Yorkshades but I lost the password for that account, and opened this one. I will only use this account from now on" (you don't have to indent or sign, when you write on your own your userpage) I will take care of doing that on the Yorkshades page. Once this is done, we can talk about the conflict of interest aspect. Thanks.Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

(User:Translated1) I formerly edited under the username Yorkshades but I lost the password for that account, and opened this one. I will only use this account from now on. Translated1 Translated1 (talk) 19:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I initially misunderstood what you meant, but have now understood and done as requested. Translated1 Translated1 (talk) 19:35, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

It's OK, I appreciate you working with me. You will figure out all the logistical stuff with time...

That takes care of the multiple accounts issue. Now for the conflict of interest issues.

Thanks for disclosing that you "know the subject of the page". Your relationship with the subject has created a very clear conflict of interest for you, here in Wikipedia.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure to your user page? Just something simple like: "I know Alan Morrison (poet) and have a conflict of interest with regard to Wikipedia content about him" would be fine. By the way, if you want to add anything else there that is relevant to what you want to do in WP feel free to add it, but please don't add anything promotional about Morrison (see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I have added a tag disclosing your COI to Talk:Alan Morrison (poet), so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done. (Our general practice is that conflict of interest disclosures are done locally, at the relevant article, as well as at the userpage)

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is a form of "peer review"-- prior review, really. 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 voilà 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 real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors. Which is what has happened here recently.

What we ask of editors who 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 through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page with the Template:Connected contributor tag, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) 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

(i) disclose at the Talk page of the article with the Template:Connected contributor tag, putting it at the bottom of the beige box at the top of the page; and

(ii) propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. Just open a new section, put the proposed content there, and just below the header (at the top of the editing window) please the {{request edit}} tag to flag it for other editors to review. In general it should be relatively short so that it is not too much review at once. Sometimes editors propose complete rewrites, providing a link to their sandbox for example. This is OK to do but please be aware that it is lot more for volunteers to process and will probably take longer.

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.

But understanding the mission, and the policies and guidelines through which we realize the mission, is very important! There are a whole slew of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior here in Wikipedia. Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of what Wikipedia is and is not (we are not a directory or a place to promote anything), and for an overview of the content and behavior policies and guidelines. Learning and following these is very important, and takes time. Please be aware that you have created a Wikipedia account, and this makes you a Wikipedian - you are obligated to pursue Wikipedia's mission first and foremost when you work here, and you are obligated to edit according to the policies and guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege that is freely offered to all, but the community restricts or completely takes that privilege away from people who will not edit and behave as Wikipedians.

I hope that makes sense to you.

Will you please agree to learn and follow the content and behavioral policies and guidelines, and to follow the peer review processes going forward when you want to work on the Morrison article or 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. Best regards Jytdog (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I will do my utmost to adhere to the guidelines you have provided here, to the best of my ability. I will declare an 'interest' in the subject on my Talk page but feel saying a 'conflict of interest' is somehow stating I have knowingly put up info that is in some senses biased or over-promotional. I don't feel I have put up such info in the main. I mean, I have not put up positive critical comments on the subject on this page as that is perceived as promotional -whereas I have read such things on other poets' pages (so am again a bit confused as to why some pages seem to be able to include things that other pages get penalised for!?). I do not see how providing more detailed info on the contents and aims of a particular book by the subject, or updating a list of grants/awards/nominations, is 'promotional' or 'inappropriate', so am genuinely confused here. For instance, the subject's latest book was nominated by its publisher for a major poetry prize -now am I to understand that if I listed that nomination -and numerous poets list not only prize wins or shortlists but also nominations- that would be deemed 'promotional' or 'inappropriate', simply because of my knowing the subject? Rayman60 never responded to my comments on the fact that RLF and Arts Council Awards are based on literary merit, but persistently removed that list, until another contributing editor reinstated it. I'm genuinely trying to understand all this in terms of ethical consistency. Very best, Translated1 Translated1 (talk) 20:51, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

So what conflict of interest does, is causes bias, without the person even being aware of it. That is the insidious nature of it, and why conflict of interest is managed in knowledge-producing and knowledge-publishing organizations worldwide, as well as in well-run companies and governments. Your editing unambiguously reflects conflict of interest. I came here to help you understand this, and ask you to stop editing directly but instead make proposals.

Because, in addition to your conflict of interest, you are not working from a strong foundation of understanding the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia (of this place), the page as it currently exists violates several of our policies and guidelines.

The people about whom you wrote bad things in your opening statement above are not any kind of trolls or bad people -- they were trying to bring the article in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I don't think you are a bad person either -- you just don't understand the policies and guidelines, and were working with an unmanaged conflict of interest.

This is all fixable, but it starts with you seeing what is going on.

I am very glad that you are willing to follow the COI guidelines, and hope you will sit back and allow the community to bring the article in line with the policies and guidelines - this may even involve its being nominated for deletion. You can possibly learn a lot if you watch and try to understand, as a Wikipedian first and foremost. You will, right? Jytdog (talk) 21:30, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I do not think I have said anything particularly 'bad' about Rayman60 and AdventurousMe, these were simply criticisms in response to their very insensitive comments. I'm sure they are not 'bad people', however, I maintain that the tone and manner of their comments have been provocative and unnecessarily disrespectful towards the subject, and in those senses, deeply unhelpful. Just as I have learned some humility from my mistakes on this page, I sincerely hope and trust that the aforementioned contributors will also learn some humility from their own tonal misjudgements... It is, as you will note, another contributor who has used the term 'trolls', not myself, though I know where he is coming from: I too have found some of their comments tantamount to what would be called trolling in other forums. I'm rather puzzled by your mentioning the possibility that this page could be 'nominated for deletion'!? Why would this be? The subject has passed GNG, and if the rest of the text is 'brought into line' with WP standards, I'm puzzled as to why anyone would suggest that? I'm sure length of time isn't a primary factor in this, but it's been up on WP for nine years -it'd seem a great pity if it were to disappear, especially since the subject is still publishing and growing in reputation (therefore 'notability')... Translated1 (talk) 22:30, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I fixed your indenting again. You indent one more time than the person for you, so your edit is indented one time from the one above. I know this probably seems petty to you but it is as basic as "please" and "thank you" and people consistently doing this wrong is generally taken as a sign of disdain. Jytdog (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

(and here is the outdent thing). The length of time a page has been in Wikipedia has nothing to do with whether the subject is actually notable, as we define that here. I have nominated pages for speedy deletion (!) that have been on WP longer than 9 years, and they were indeed swiftly gone. There are millions of pages in Wikipedia - many of them are great, and many of them should not be here.

In any case, what i said was "don't be surprised" if the page is nominated for regular deletion (see WP:AFD. So please don't be surprised. People who try to bring this into complicance might judge that there are not "sufficient independent sources with significant discussion of the subject" and might nominate it for deletion.

I have said all that I can think is sayable now. I do hope that you step back and let others clean up the article. If after they are done there are suggestions you have, you are more than welcome to propose them. In the meantime I do hope you consider contributing more broadly, and will be careful to follow the policies and guidelines of WP as you go. Jytdog (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I think I've got the indent thing now, apologies but I'm a slow learner with this type of thing, am doing my best. I understand all you say. I know longevity isn't a factor in terms of whether a page is eligible to remain, but what I meant was during those nine years the subject's publications and critical reputation have significantly increased, which should be demonstrable in the expanding sources, and so it would be ironic if it were to be removed at a point that it is arguably more 'notable' than before. Now that I understand the WP rules better, I will from now on suggest any significant new additions to the article in the Talk page first. Thanks for your help. Translated1 (talk) 11:26, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

CS1 error on Alan Morrison (poet)

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Alan Morrison (poet), may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "bare URL and missing title" error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can (bot)&section=new report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 12:40, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

CS1 error on Alan Morrison (poet)

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Alan Morrison (poet), may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "bare URL and missing title" error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can (bot)&section=new report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 12:53, 7 May 2023 (UTC)