User talk:Addie Sheek

Welcome!
Hello, Addie Sheek, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited 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.&#32;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.)

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:
 * Best practices for editors with close associations
 * 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 Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
In this edit to Thornwell Orphanage, your edit summary stated: The previous page had inaccurate information and did not fully support the depth and bredth (sic) of our organization. (Emphasis added.) Clearly, you are associated with this organization, which represents a conflict of interest. Please read the relevant guidelines about how you should proceed regarding this topic.

Furthermore, your edit copied text verbatim from Thornwell's website. This constitutes a copyright violation; Thornwell's content is copyrighted by them and may not be reused here at Wikipedia.

Finally, the content you added included an "About Us" section, implying that Thornwell owns the Wikipedia page about them. They do not. Such promotional content is fine for Thornwell's own website, but has no place at Wikipedia.

I would recommend that, rather than editing the article directly, you address any concerns about the currency or factual accuracy of the article at the article's talk page. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello Dan -

It was only an "About" not an "About us". That is fine. Also, are you telling me that I cannot make changes to the Thornwell wiki? This article as it exists grossly misrepresents the organization and contains information that is inaccurate and even harmful to the kids and org....ie: the kids dug the swimming pool? No ability to talk about the existing school? Also, since I wrote the Thornwell website and it is being cited throughout, what would you recommend in order to factually update the site?

Thanks.
 * I'm not telling you that you can't (I have no authority to do so); I'm telling you you shouldn't, based on Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy. Again, my recommendation is that if you feel there are inaccuracies on the page that misrepresent the organization, you should edit the article's talk page and request specific changes to correct those issues. (See Wikipedia's requested edits process.) WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid editing
Hello Addie Sheek. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Thornwell Orphanage, 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:Addie Sheek. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. 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. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 14:56, 26 August 2021 (UTC)