Randy Talley

Conflict of Interest in USAO article

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam); and,
4. avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for businesses. For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines. Thank you. -steventity (talk) 00:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Randy. The above notice is correct, but if Wikipedia guidelines are met in your editing, there is really no problem. After all, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, so you're free to edit it, and if someone doesn't like your edit, they're free to change it or say so. But it's also important to remember that Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia, so we have to be written with a clearly neutral and non-promotional tone, which can be hard to do when you're involved with the subject of an article, so it's important to be careful. I did notice that part of your requested edit had something a little questionable in tone: "USAO has served the same original liberal-arts-focused mission since its founding"— it's borderline, simply because it's unnecessarily redundant in terms of information and comes off as a tad promotional. That being said, I would say that what you propose is generally alright as long as there is a source to go with it. This is how to keep something on Wikipedia; without a source, someone could remove your edit for really anything, even claiming a conflict of interest (which I see has already happened). A primary source like the school website would be insufficient to cite the claim you propose, but better than nothing. What would really help us out is a secondary source or two from an outside organization that 1: distinguishes USAO's recognition as a strictly "liberal arts college," and 2: confirms that it is the only one in Oklahoma with such distinction. I have tried to find such a source in the past, but to my disappointment, didn't have much luck. If you have access to something like that, I would be ecstatic. If you need help with citations, you can tell me how to find the source and I’ll take care of it (you can also find information here: Wikipedia:Citing sources). Thanks in advance for the help, and thanks for the interest. Okiefromokla ^questions? 04:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)