User talk:Amiralexander

Welcome![edit]

Hello, Amiralexander, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Amir Alexander, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
The five pillars of Wikipedia
Contributing to Wikipedia
Tutorial
How to edit a page and How to develop articles
How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Brianhe (talk) 07:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sock-puppet[edit]

Sock-puppet of Amir Alexander.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.174.38.31 (talk • contribs) 09:00, 19 June 2015‎

I think what the user above is trying to say (AGF) is please, if you are Amir Alexander himself as described at WP:REALNAME, would you mind adding a note to your userpage saying so, so we can be more sure someone else isn't impersonating you. There will probably be further discussion of policies on autobiographies at that point. Thanks. — Brianhe (talk) 05:11, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for adding the note to your user page. I'm going to add a boilerplate conflict-of-interest message in a moment but don't let it scare you away. We really aporeciate and need expert editors like you, there are just some rules and policies you should know about. There should be another, more welcoming message coming along soon after. — Brianhe (talk) 06:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Getting started[edit]

Thanks Brianhe, I noticed someone started a page for me and decided to update it. I'd be happy to fix it as necessary.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Amiralexander (talk • contribs) 07:01, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there, I replaced the generic welcome message above with one containing some specific info you should check out on COI. I'd recommend holding off on further editing on the article Amir Alexander for at least a few days because you are about to get a dump of procedures that apply to everyone in your position, i.e. you have several books on the market and any editing around them could give the impression of promotion. The best thing to do if there are serious biographical errors that need fixing soon, instead of editing the article directly, is post the details on the talk page Talk:Amir Alexander and an editor will reply soon. Again, we value your expertise and want to help you get started here. — Brianhe (talk) 07:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Brianhe:Hi Brianhe, it was not my intention to write an autobiography or even to create the "Amir Alexander" entry, and I do not want people visiting the page get the mistaken idea that it was. I would be happy to remove some or all of my edits to have the "autobiography" boilerplate taken down. Please advise! Thanks,Amiralexander (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, it is getting worked through but you have to give the process some time. I expect the notices will be gone by next week. By the way I fixed your indent ... with Wiki markup you use colons not spaces to indent. Brianhe (talk) 17:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Brianhe, problem solved. Amiralexander (talk) 20:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia[edit]

Hi Amir. I work on conflict of issues in Wikipedia. You've directly edited the article about yourself, and this is generally not OK in Wikipedia, outside of making noncontroversial (broadly defined) factual changes, and removing vandalism. Please do read our policy on WP:Biographies of Living People, especially the part about working on an article about yourself here, as well as the part of our COI guideline discussing Writing about yourself and your work.

I've cleaned up the article, and I'm providing you with formal notice of our COI guideline and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Amiralexander. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:

Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies. Note that Wikipedia's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you.

Comments/requests[edit]

Wikipedia highly values contributions by subject matter experts; at the same time, experts have some special challenges when they first start editing here. Please see the essay with advice for experts, WP:EXPERTS, which discusses both sides of that coin.

One of the challenges is related to conflicts of interest (COI). You may be familiar with that concept from your real world work, but it has some interesting twists here in Wikipedia, since we allow editors to be anonymous here. Wikipedia is a scholarly project, and like all scholarly endeavors, managing COI 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.

You have already disclosed who you are, so the first part is done. Going forward, please do not edit the article about yourself directly, but rather offer suggestions at the article's Talk page. You can do that easily - and provide notice to the community of your request - by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. I made that easy for you by adding a section to the beige box at the top of the Talk page - there is a link at "click here" in that section -- if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request. Would you please do that going forward?

You can reply here with answers to those two questions. I am happy to talk, if you have any questions or want to discuss anything, you can write them below. I will see them, as I am "watching" this page. Best regards, Jytdog (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jytdog:Thanks Jytdog, will definitely do as you suggest going forward. Amiralexander (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great! I hope you apply your expertise elsewhere in Wikipedia - we do love experts here and are always grateful for their contributions (but please be careful about citing your own work - if you do decide to work more widely, please be generous in citing others :) ). Jytdog (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request[edit]

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

Would like to add a thumbnail of image at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amir_Alexander.jpg.

Also some minor corrections: In the box on the right, (B.S. 1998) should be (B.S. 1988), as it says in the article text. In the first paragraph "a professor of physics at the UCLA and Hebrew University" should be "a professor of physics at UCLA and the Hebrew University" Would like to add birth date, April 7, 1963. Thanks! Amiralexander (talk) 21:56, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your notice, I will address this further in a little bit unless someone else has already taken care of it. — Brianhe (talk) 22:04, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. Amiralexander (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested changes all have all been made. The birth date is marked 'citation needed' and could be properly deleted by another editor. In future, the edit request should go at Talk:Amir Alexander. -- Brianhe (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Brianhe. Could you also change (B.S. 1998) to (B.S. 1988)? Amiralexander (talk) 02:26, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, missed that. Fixed now. Shalom — Brianhe (talk) 05:06, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Much appreciated. Shalom -- Amiralexander (talk) 05:34, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ORCID[edit]

Please see Wikipedia:ORCID/About you. Best wishes, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]