User talk:Kross305

The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

I wanted to disclose that the subject of the article is my father. My name is Karl Ross and I am son No. 2 from marriage No. 2.

I am doing this to help preserve my father's legacy as a civil rights and peace activist and to provide a reference for his poetry, songs and other artistic pursuits. Some of his friends and admirers are putting together a collections of his poems for possible publication.

Like my dad and older brother (Sean), I am a trained journalist with a degree from the University of Missouri and 15 years professional experience (Miami Herald, et al.). I have been employed in the public sector for the past 14 years as an ethics investigator.

I'd be happy to answer any questions this might raise. Thanks,

Hello, Kross305, and

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.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

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

Hi Kross305. Let clarify a couple of things about the template I added above and Wikipedia in general.

1. Since your dad is, well, your dad, you would be considered to have a conflict of interest with respect to anything written about him on Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't expressly prohibit COI editng, but it does highly discourage it because it can (and does) often lead to some serious problems. The best thing for you to do would be to take a look at Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide and follow what's written on that page as closely as you can.
2. Having a COI doesn't mean that there cannot ever be a Wikipedia article written about your dad. If he's able to satisfy the criteria listed in
   Wikipedia:Your first article. If you want some more specific advice, try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography
   .
3. you're editing for the wrong reasons
   .
4. You sorta kinda
   user page instead; there are a couple of ways you can do, but once again on User:Kross305 is where you want to do it. The Template:Connected contributor should be added to the top of the talk pages of any articles you are editing in which you have a COI. In this case that would be to User talk:Kross305/sandbox
   . You should follow the instructions given in the template's documentation and compete the template parameters as best as you can.
5. You need to understand that you will not have an
   WP:MINOR
   ) made to the article.
6. Some of the image files you uploaded to Wikimedia Commons have licensing problems. Although Commons and Wikipedia are part of the same Wikimedia family, they are separate projects with their own policies and guidelines. Commons will only accept content which complies with c:Commons:Licensing, and "own work" only applies to photos that you yourself have taken. As explained at Wikipedia:Help desk#Trying to upload photos, please assist, it is the permission of the original copyright holder which needs to be verified for Commons to keep a file. Please see c:User talk:Kross305 for more information on what is needed for Commons to keep the files you uploaded.

I hope at least some of what I posted above is helpful. If you've got any questions about any of it, feel free to ask below. If you've got any general questions about Wikipedia, feel free to ask at the

WP:SIGN your posts. -- Marchjuly (talk

) 02:22, 27 August 2019 (UTC

Kross305 (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Marchjuly and thank you for the input. This is all new to me and a bit confusing, but I am enjoying becoming a Wikipedian. It has been a while since I've written anything for mass consumption. That said, I'd be happy for you or any other editor to have a look at my submission and to get some additional feedback. I do have an inherent conflict (love, not money), but I am trained to be objective and to write in a neutral style. That doesn't mean I won't quote other people -- i.e., Carl Bernstein, James Meredith -- who have nice things to say about my dad. That is also why I have taken pains to document and source as much of the content as possible. I believe there are more than 30 citations from eight to 10 independent sources, including the New York Times, Washington Post and other mainstream publications.

My biggest challenge, frankly, is learning all the conventions for interacting with other Wikipedians like yourself, but I am willing to learn so thank you once again for your interest and please do have a look at my draft article. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks, Karl Kross305 (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Karl. Even though you're editing out of love, you'd still be considered to have a COI with respect to anything written about your dad and thus be expected to adhere to relevant COI policies and guidelines whenever you edit.

If you'd like to submit you're draft for an

WP:IMPERFECT. The project could probably benefit from someone with your experience simply picking random articles and trying to fix any problems they might have. Not only will the project benefit from you doing this, you will also benefit in that you will see how other more experienced editors apply relevant policies and guidelines, which in turn you can than apply to the draft you're working on. Even if you make edits which others end up reverting, you should at least learn why your edit was probematic. Expanding your contributions to things other than the draft will also show other editors that you're really here for Wikipedia and not just for you.

Once again, if you've got any questions about any of this, feel free to ask below or at the Teahouse. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:30, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Kross305 (talk) 20:30, 28 August 2019 (UTC) Thanks again, Marchjuly I appreciate the input, and will make further revisions based on your comments. I can substitute "best known for his role in publicizing" the March Against Fear as opposed to "lauded" if that sounds more appropriate. I could argue that "lauded" is not an exaggeration when considering that Meredith himself stated: "The Mississippi March Against Fear was a big deal primarily because of him ..."[reply]

However, I understand that it is best to be understated at times. I couldn't tell if you read the entire article or just the top of it. Are you suggesting I should, for instance, remove the reference to MLK thanking him for his efforts on behalf of racial equality? I could also remove the reference to him growing up down the street from Shel Silverstein if that might be viewed as gratuitous.

Yes, my dad did know a lot of people, but I'm not including certain prominent individuals for the sake of name-dropping.

I don't think there's much doubt my dad will meet the notability test. I have received some favorable responses from collaborators on a Wikipedia chat group, as far as that is concerned. And like I said earlier, he's been featured in numerous mainstream publications.

I'm also thinking about asking Aram Goudsouzian to review the draft article since he is perhaps the leading authority on the "March Against Fear," and he interviewed my dad extensively in researching his book "Down to the Crossroads." Perhaps he can lend some additional insight. Whereas I readily admit I have an inherent conflict as it relates to my father, I would not be submitting an article about him if I did not truly believe that he made a significant contribution to humanity and that his contribution(s) should be shared with others.

That said, I am eager to continue with the editing process and expect that further revisions will be made. As you are probably aware, I did "Submit for Publication" an earlier draft. Should I also request an AfC review concurrent with that?

I do find the process confusing, but am trying to navigate as I go. I am also interested in collaborating with Wikipedia in other ways, but am still trying to get my legs, so to speak. I figure that the experience gained from my present submittal will assist in that respect. I was a journalist for 15 years, and I do enjoy the process of pulling together research into a coherent article.

Lastly, I am in the process of trying to obtain rights from the Associate Press for the photos of my dad tending to Meredith's wounds after the shooting. Those photos were taken by Jack R. Thornell, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for the photo of Meredith on the pavement. I have confirmed this with an AP photo editor in Miami and she referred me to the AP Images office in New York for further guidance.

I'm also trying to identify the origin of the other two photos that have been in our family's possession all these years. The AP editor said it is likely they were taken by United Press International (UPI), which sold all its images to Corbis in 1991. Corbis is managed by Getty Images, so I will reach out to them to see if somebody there can identify the rightful owners.

In the meantime, I can upload more recent photos that were taken by friends or family (with their permission, of course). Still, it would be nice to have the photos of my dad and Meredith since those are the ones of greatest historical significance.

I hope I am on the right track, and do appreciate your feedback. Please advise as to how to improve the proposed article and move the process forward. When I submitted the article for publication I received a message this could take six to eight weeks. Will I be hearing from an assigned editor at that time? If not, what's the best way to continue to collaborate in this process?

Thank you, Karl

Hi again. If you can obtain the exclusive copyrights to the images you want to upload to Commons per some sort of

WP:HERE. This is another reason why I think branching out a bit and working on things besides the draft will end up being to your benefit. Some other editors looking at your contributions history may wonder whether you're simply going to stop editing altogether once the draft has been resolved one way or the other, and thus they may be less willing to help you. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:30, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Your thread has been archived

Hi Kross305! You created a thread called Trying to upload photos, please assist at archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please create a new thread . Archival by Lowercase sigmabot III, notification delivery by Muninnbot, both talk) 19:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply ]

August 2019