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Hello! Can you please provide a link to the guideline(s) you're referencing? I have never heard of such a rule, but do not want to violate it here or elsewhere! Shockrider1 (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I suppose by those guidelines I do have a minor conflict of interest - I'm a student. I am confident I am still able to write impartially given I provide reliable sources for all material - I consider myself more a subject matter expert than COI case, but of course I'm inherently biased. How do you recommend I best disclose this while not completely abandoning the page? Shockrider1 (talk) 20:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thx for following up on this. Being a student is more than just a "minor" COI, but it should not hold you back from improving the page. I suggest you follow the suggestions on the page I referenced, above. Note that "you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly"; that means the way to go is to propose your edits on the WPI article's talk page, that is the indirect route. Do not use references which were generated by WPI; use external sources. The student newspaper is somewhat external, but of course not optimal. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 06:10, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noted. I appreciate that. I understand and concur that it is definitely a significant COI. I just have a unique perspective in that a lot of things that don't hit mainstream news outlets are clear for me on the inside. I appreciate the advice on external sources - how does that apply in a broader context? Certain facts and figures are not available beyond internal reports - a fact I've noticed in other articles as well.
WP:reliable sources is a good place to start. Writing about universities can be tricky because they can be insular worlds unto themselves. The book-length histories about a given school are usually written by insiders, and the school homepage is of course anything but neutral. Often it is just about advertising and public relations. So waht you need to do is find writing by people who have no vested interest. The very best thing, of course, is to find sources from different camps or different perspectives which claim the same thing. That is a sign of reliability. Student writing is ok but is often written by beginners who are in their own world. Hope this helps. I think it's great that you are writing for Wikipedia. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 15:39, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already excited about Wikipedia, you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field when making edits to pages.