User talk:BartVanLierde

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by LaMona was:

This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources are required so that information can be verified. If you need help with referencing, please see Referencing for beginners and Citing sources.

 The comment the reviewer left was:

The article must be built from information found in third-party sources (newspapers, magazines) that are independent of the subject of the article. Those sources must be referenced in-line with the text they support. No un-referenced material is allowed.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Predictive engineering analytics and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

LaMona (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! BartVanLierde, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! LaMona (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Predictive engineering analytics, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

• If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk.
• If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:24, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm MrOllie. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions have been undone because they appeared to be promotional. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted; Wikipedia articles should be written objectively, using independent sources, and from a neutral perspective. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. MrOllie (talk) 23:51, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello BartVanLierde. The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:BartVanLierde. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=BartVanLierde|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. MrOllie (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello MrOllie, Thanks for reaching out, and nice meeting you. I will try to be brief, yet complete. But if I am not, feel free to come back with more questions/remarks. I am always happy to learn from, and interact with experienced editors like yourself.

My connection to the subjects where I am currently making edits, is that I work in simulation-based engineering for manufacturing industries since 20 years (as a professional engineer, as indicated in my user page). About 8 years ago, Siemens Digital Industries Software became my employer, after acquiring the company I was working for (LMS International). So in that sense, I have indeed a professional relation with some edits I am currently making. In fact, I also flagged that in a public declaration on my user page when I created my most recent page.

I am however not paid by my employer to be here, and I also do not expect any particular compensation for it. I just noticed that in this broader area (all that is related to mechanical engineering and related commercial software packages, finite elements, CFD, Digital Twins etc.) a lot of information is either incomplete, or outdated, or unbalanced. That is of course because this is an area that is currently evolving enormously fast, with the rise of IoT, smart products and more. But especially where Siemens products are mentioned, the current representation no longer reflects the reality. One of the reasons for that is probably that the Siemens offering in that area is one that originates from numerous acquisitions of smaller companies, that no longer exist, but had there own Wikipedia presence (along with their competitors). I am trying to correct that, and regret this created the impression that I am a 'paid advocate' who is here for promotional purposes.

I have no interest in violating the Wikipedia neutrality policies, or in using Wikipedia for any other than being a reliable source of information, such as being a vehicle for SEO or advertisement. But I do think that when products or applications are within my knowledge and experience, and described either outdated, incorrect or unbalanced, I am well positioned to make adjustments. To give you concrete examples, based on the edits you reverted:

- On Teamcenter, 'Siemens PLM Software' is not the name of the company anymore. This has changed into Siemens Digital Industries Software last year. Probably even the name of that page should be changed. (https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/siemens-plm-becomes-siemens-digital-industries-software)

- The product SAMCEF on extended finite element method, that has a page on its own, was first acquired by LMS International in 2011 (https://www.scientific-computing.com/news/lms-international-acquires-samtech), and then one year later by Siemens (https://www.scientific-computing.com/news/siemens-acquire-lms-international). Since over 4 years, this solver is part of the Simcenter portfolio, and is indeed called Simcenter Samcef

- On list of finite element software packages, NX Nastran also doesn't exist anymore. Since 4 years, this is simply called Simcenter Nastran.

- Siemens acquired TASS International in 2017 (https://tech.eu/brief/siemens-acquires-tassinternational/), and MADYMO is indeed now called Simcenter Madymo (https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/global/en/products/simcenter/madymo.html)

I personally think that with none of the edits you reverted, I (intentionally) violated any Wikipedia policy. But I am interested to listen to your experienced advise if you think differently.

In addition to this, I'd like to emphasize that unlike most Wikipedia members, I am using my own real name as a username. I have intentionally created my profile in this way, exactly to display my friendly intentions (in the sense: not hiding any of my background)

Kind regards, Bart — Preceding unsigned comment added by BartVanLierde (talk • contribs)

You are employed on Siemens's marketing staff, that is 100% what the paid editing guidelines have in mind. I understand that you are not paid specifically to edit, but you are paid to do marketing communications and the Wikipedia community clearly believes that qualifies as paid editing. You aren't currently in compliance with the disclosures required by Wikipedia's terms of use (please read the linked policies again carefully), and in particular you should not be doing things like writing advertisements about your company's products as you did at Simcenter, you should not be adding external links to your employer, even as references, and so on. Use the WP:AFC process for new articles, and use the {{requestedit}} process for edits to existing articles that reference your employer or their products from now on. - MrOllie (talk) 13:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MrOllie, what I currently do at Siemens is writing technical documentation and white papers, because I like writing (that is also the reason why I am here). And that content creation falls under marketing. But I am not 'doing the company communication' in the sense that I look for advertisement space, and that I am personally rewarded for that. I am also still a professional engineer with large knowledge in this field, and in the related industries. I guess all contributors to this particular area of Wikipedia work somewhere in related companies.

Concerning the Simcenter page: without questioning your experienced judgement, I am surprised you perceived the Simcenter page as a product advertisement. Compared to many pages I read, it simply explains what Simcenter is, what solutions are in, and what it is for. It did not include qualitative statements, competitive benefits, or uniqueness claims or similar. I did add links to our company, and I am okay to take those out. But I just did that because I also saw it on lots of pages that describe competitive products (like Ansys or MSC Software, just to name 2). If I did violate any policy there, my apologies, but I thought I was okay with the public declaration on my talk page. So I hope we can sort this out by simply doing the necessary corrections.

Concerning the edits: these were all corrections to information that is currently on Wikipedia, and is absolutely outdated and therefor false, as I illustrated to you in the earlier message. Can you tell me which neutrality policy I violated by changing the name of a software product to its correct instance, or by linking between Wikipedia pages? I wasn't planning on making fundamental content changes in favor of my employer, or against competition. So there again, I am a bit surprised about the scale of your concern.

I will obviously take a closer look at the policies again, and make sure I can continue working in a compliant manner. But please note that I am also still learning here

Kind regards, Bart — Preceding unsigned comment added by BartVanLierde (talk • contribs)

Most of the Wikipedia community does not draw those sorts of fine distinctions about who is and is not a paid editor. If you would like more input you can raise the matter at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, but I expect you will hear much the same there.

It is very common for people with a lot of experience in corporate style communications to be surprised to learn that their writing appears to be promotional, it's a culture thing. This is largely why we have processes like request edit and AFC, to ensure that non-corporate eyes are looped in before publication. If you have found other articles that are namedropping particular companies and/or products, that would be a reason to flag that for cleanup on the associated talk pages (per COI you shouldn't remove anything about your competitors yourself), not to add more like that. Wikipedia is a big site and volunteer time is limited, so sometimes inappropriate stuff sticks around for quite a while before someone notices it. - MrOllie (talk) 16:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MrOllie, I am puzzled. This is not about namedropping companies or products... Wherever those names appear (also competitors), they are relevant, and useful information. Especially on a page like 'List of Finite Element Software packages', it is essential information that all of them appear, both freeware and commercial. And they have to appear with a correct and up-to-date name. It is a problem if those types of edits are considered advertisement, because listing them is what the page is about. But also on many other pages, it can be relevant to mention which tools can handle which types of mathematical operation. In this area of engineering science, the boundaries between industry, research, education and software companies are very fuzzy. I haven't been too much in those types of edits, but I did corrections on the way the names appear, because they turned out to be wrong. It makes me a bit sad honestly to receive this stamp of a 'suspicious source of information', exactly based on the edits I did. In this way, the information provided by Wikipedia in this area will always remain incomplete and especially outdated.

Concerning the writing style in the Simcenter article. I am sure I have a lot to learn, but I am indeed surprised that it has been taken down, as in 'irrepairable', and then redirected to a page that is completely out of date. This does not at all improve the overall quality of Wikipedia as a source of information, which is in the end still the main goal. Therefor, if I give it another attempt, try to change the wording in some places, remove certain links, etc. can you help me review so that I can learn from you? I would like to propose quite some corrections and necessary updates, but I feel a bit like I am being blocked to do that. Kind regards, Bart BartVanLierde (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please use the requestedit procedure as I mentioned above, that is what it is for. If you have more general questions have a look at Wikipedia:Teahouse. - MrOllie (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MrOllie, okay, but then what with the Simcenter page? Has it been transferred to any 'request' place? Or did you just delete everything and now it's gone? Do I really need to restart all the writing from scratch after explaining the entire context? BartVanLierde (talk) 21:25, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to add promotional or advertising material to Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing. Theroadislong (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BartVanLierde! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
• The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Wikipedia Help pages

-- 23:52, Tuesday, December 29, 2020 (UTC)

You aren't the first person who, by the nature of his job, is considered to be a paid editor or, at the very least, someone who has a "presumed" conflict of interest with respect to certain topics even if you aren't specifically being paid to edit Wikipedia.

In fact, I would say that just about all currently-employed Wikipedia editors probably have at least one topic that they "could be called on the carpet for" if they tried to edit about it, even if they are not in the company's marketing department. A school employee writing about the school they work at or even about the specific textbooks they use could face tough questions like you are facing, so except for cases like cleaning up policy-violating material (copyright violations, etc.) or making purely clerical edits, it's best for that teacher to avoid those topics or use {{requested edit}} when needed.

People who "work for the marketing department," even in a non-public-capacity like you do, are viewed with even more scrutiny. The same goes for high-ranking employees, corporate officers, board members, major stockholders, and sometimes even employees/officers/etc. of clients and vendors, depending on the nature of the client- or vendor- relationship and the nature of the editor's role within the client's or vendor's organization.

The bottom line: You might or might not technically be covered by the paid-editing rules of the Foundation, but you are presumed to have a "strong" (this is my term, it's not a Wikipedia term) conflict of interest in certain topics and, if not a "strong" one, one that is large enough to "count," in related areas. Editing as if you were a paid editor - with full disclosure, Template:requested edit, and, for new articles, WP:Articles for creation is the best way to edit in any topic in which other editors are likely to think you have a conflict of interest.

There are many topics on Wikipedia which have no conflict of interest with respect to your employer. Assuming you don't have a different conflict of interest (i.e. if your brother has a Wikipedia article, avoid editing it), your contributions are welcome. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 19:58, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi davidwr, thank you for this kind message. I kind of needed that. You actually summarized that very well, although I can also understand the position of administrators who think differently. I'm gonna take a bit of a rest now, and let all the comments do their work in my brain, which is currently a bit overloaded ;-) Have a nice transition to 2021! BartVanLierde (talk) 23:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BartVanLierde! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, How can I have outdated (factual) information corrected efficiently if am considered with a COI?, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to create a new thread. The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} here on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]