User talk:JJuatai
October 2007
[edit]
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, adding content without citing a reliable source, as you did to Victor E. Renuart Jr., is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are already familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources please take this opportunity to add your original reference to the article. Thank you. Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 14:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, such as in User talk:Ioeth, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button 
located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 14:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the edits that you made to USNORTHCOM are verifiable, but when you change a substantial amount of an article, you need to include the reference in the references section. Additionally, the changes that you made are a direct copy of the USNORTHCOM "About Us" page. This is blatant copyright infringement and the text does not conform to the style and tone of an encyclopedia article. --Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 14:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- I see and understand where you are coming from (and am jealous of your job ;-)), but there are a few things that you have to consider in this case, even though USNORTHCOM is a government entity. The first is that it is generally discouraged to use public domain works as a source of sentences, rather than a source of information. This goes hand-in-hand with the policies that Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a webspace. The USNORTHCOM "About Us" page already hosts the information that you were adding to this article, which is supposed to be an objective encyclopedia article created and maintained by the community, not verbatim text from USNORTHCOM.
- This also brings up the conflict of interest guideline and neutral point of view policy. While I have no doubt that you could expand the article significantly, your status as an employee of USNORTHCOM means you have a conflict of interest when dealing with this article. Any time that there is a conflict of interest, it is likely to be manifested as a biased point of view; According to Jimmy Wales, maintaining a neutral point of view is "absolute and non-negotiable." As is explained on the CoI page, compliance with the guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages before you make them.
- Make no mistake, I am not trying to discount what USNORTHCOM and NORAD do for our country; on the contrary, I am sure that they have done more for our security than the public will ever know. My point is simply this: Wikipedia is not USNORTHCOM's webspace; it is (ideally) an independent, neutral encyclopedia. You are more than welcome to open up a discussion on USNORTHCOM's talk page regarding improvements that you would like to make to the article, which I look forward to participating in and (most likely) supporting. But please, do not replace an article's contents with verbatim text copied from a non-encyclopedic source. Thanks, and please don't hesitate to leave me another message if you need anything else. --Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 15:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)