User talk:Adeptinitiate

June 2020
Hello, I'm Beetstra. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. Dirk Beetstra T C 05:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This is your only warning; if you insert a spam link to Wikipedia again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. Dirk Beetstra T C 06:03, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Beetstra I am trying to include John Anthony West's work in Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools hosted by his student Anyextee. It was video series from 2015 that has not been added to this Wikipedia page. His appearance is authenticated by the international movie database and I've cited an article on AdeptInitiates blog publicizing his appearance. How is any of this inappropriate for an encyclopedia or qualify as spam? Thank you.Adeptinitiate (talk) 06:13, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Beetstra I am attempting to add John Anthony West's work credit for the video/filem series, entitled Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools under the WORK > VIDEO section again, because I do believe you made a mistake. John Anthony West credit and involvement with the series entitled, Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools, a video series from 2015 has not been listed on wikipedia to date and absolutely should be as it is a part of his body of work just as the other video currently listed is also. In my previous edit I included a link to IMDB (International Movie DataBase) with John Anthony West's credits in the film series and I also provided a citation for an article publicizing his involvement with the work. I am attempting to edit without the citation and external links as to avoid violating any external link policy or any spam acquisitions, but i stand by my position that it is imperative to add this credit. Adeptinitiate (talk) 06:34, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Your involvement with the sources used in your edits
Hello Adeptinitiate. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to John Anthony West, 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 egregious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat SEO.

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:Adeptinitiate. 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. Doug Weller talk 09:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Doug Weller

Please be advised that I am not a paid advocate. You are mistaken. I am not being directly or indirectly compensated for my edits.

Contrary to your assumption, I am not being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests.

In fact, I’m currently unemployed and much of my work is performed as contribution, pro bono and philanthropic.

With all due respect, the allegations made against my account are purely speculative and I suspect they are reactionary.

I am a fan and a student who wants to improve information on particular topic of interest — in this case I would like to improve the Wikipedia article on John Anthony West to include his work on the series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools, the last video series he worked on before his transition into death — because this information is missing and so I decided to become an editor in order to contribute to a source of free knowledge and improve the article with this information.

The fact that you are making a point about the series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools being monetized at the website: AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com has no practical value. Most albums, books, and videos by most content creators are monetized on some platform. The prevailing video work currently listed on the John Anthony West article entitled Magical Egypt: A Symbolist Tour of Egypt is monetized on the website: MagicalEgypt similar to how the video series Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools is monetized on AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com. Just because a product is monetized on a site by the same name does not warrant removing that title from the authors wikipedia page.

Further, I did not even include a link to AncientEgyptMysterySchools.com in my original edit. What is the practical value of including your point that the video series attributed to John Anthony West is monetized on a website by the same name?

As a new editor, if I have made an error or violated Wikipedia policy please do enlighten me as I would be happy to immediately remedy and fix any errors or violations. My intent is not to violate the policies of Wikipedia.

In the interest of fairness, if John Anthony West body of work includes the video/film series, ‘Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools’, why then is it being prevented from being added to his work on the Wikipedia page? Adeptinitiate (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Reactionary? Please read assume good faith. Let me put my question another way. Accepting that you are not paid, do you have any relationship with Adept Expeditions? Or Adeptiniates.com? See WP:COI. Even if you don't (I assume you do), you, like most new users and many older users, don't understand the External links sections. Please read WP:EL. Also, we would  never call even the best academic work well-researched, etc. See WP:NOR.  Doug Weller  talk 10:40, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Doug Weller Thank you for sharing. As explained in the policy even when doubt is cast on good faith, such as the doubt cast on my work, according to the guidelines of wikipedia, you should continue to assume good faith yourself when possible. This includes being civil and follow dispute resolution procedures, rather than attacking editors or edit-warring with them.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not?

I now understand your position with respect to using a subjective term like "well-researched". However, at the time of my edit, I was simply following the format of what at the time seemed to be acceptable for the more seasoned editors before me. I followed what seemed to be an acceptable example because it had not been removed. Therefore I incorrectly assumed it was okay to proceed in such a manner. Admittedly, I made a mistake.

How am I not to feel "attacked" or singled-out when in fact, to date, the external link to:

"Uxmal – The Mayan Kingdom" – A well researched photographic eBook on Uxmal and the Maya

has not yet been removed, and yet not only my external link but ALL of my edits to Uxmal were removed.

Perhaps this is by one of those "many older users" you referenced who do not understand the External links sections. So then, why has that edit not been removed? Again, whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

Beestra was already doing a fine job of addressing the matter and followed procedure by issuing me a warning to help me better understand the policies of Wikipedia. Everything was moving along accordingly without need for intervening but you decided to involve yourself, further pressing the issue before I even had a chance to respond and take action. Your response was indeed threatening with implications to block me before I even had a chance to reply. I felt "attacked" and bullied.

With all due respect, what I believe are significant contributions to the Uxmal Wikipedia article were also removed. Rather than merely address the issue with John Anthony West article it seems all of my edits came under attack. Is this not an "editing war"? If so, I want no part of it. I simply want to contribute in order to enhance the information. If not, please define "editing war" as it is used in the good faith section of Wikipedia policy so that I am clear on these terms.

To date, you have not removed the other contributor who used the term "well-researched" from the Uxmal page. Only my edit using the words "well-researched" was removed and not the other more seasoned editor who inspired the formating of my edit in the first place.

For Uxmal, I added a significant, recent archaeological discovery under the modern history section. I cited the Adept Expeditions site providing an external link because the Adept Expeditions article covered the discovery.

Why was this edit removed?

I also added missing information about individual monuments within the archaeological site. In the interest of fairness, I understand that I violated policy by not using quotations for copyright content. As a new user who did this in error, I am happy to fix that, but it seems all of my edits were removed and not just the edit in violation.

I also added a Toponymy section to another article and again used a different article on the Adept Expeditions site as a reference.

The Adept Expeditions site provides an explanation for the Toponmy. The Adept Expeditions site publicized the recent discovery at Uxmal. In fact, it is the only American based website that I came across that actually published this significant discovery when it happened.

If my intent as an editor is to enhance the article by adding the information, including citation about the recent discovery to Wikipedia, then how else should I go about doing this? Adeptinitiate (talk) 16:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Actually it was who gave you an only warning saying " if you insert a spam link to Wikipedia again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice." I didn't threaten to block you and I haven't attacked you. I did give you a templated warning about paid editing, which is a legal issue for Wikipedia. I have Uxmal on my watchlist but have never read the entire article, but I can tell you that it was an IP who made only 4 edits who added that to 4 articles in 2010, so not an experienced editor. It had already been removed from 2 and I removed the other two. Adept Expedition doesn't qualify as a source or an external link. If you want to challenge the link issue you can go to WP:ELN, but they'll just tell you there that we don't use tourist sites. If the archaeological discovery is significant it will have been published reliably elsewhere, why would we want a random website anyway? One further point, reverting non-policy compliant edits isn't in itself an edit-war. If you started reinserting them, then I guess an edit war could start, except that Beetstra and I wouldn't go that far and I hope you wouldn't. If you use sources that meet WP:VERIFY and WP:RS you probably wouldn't be reverted, although reliability is only a necessary element for use, not a sufficient one.


 * I've noticed that you haven't said anything about your relationship with any websites you've used. If you want to raise the issue of good faith, I'd say that good faith would be met by you if you answered that question. Not answering it, not so good.  Doug Weller  talk 17:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , that level 4 warning was after an earlier warning. This is a website primarily aimed at selling a product added by a user who carries the same name as the website.  Even if this is just a devoted fan that qualifies as a conflict of interest, and we define spam here as the unsollicited repeated additions of a website.  (and now I am ignoring the publicly available Information about the organisation that the website belongs to and the people who are related to it, and the publicly available information about the 2 IPs that are involved in this situation).  The edits are even concerning if this would be a user who clearly and evidently did not have a relation to this site.  The possible COI is a red herring and not a reason to block, it is the way of editing that could turn into a reason to block.  Seen the involvement of one user and two IPs I would likely not have bothered to block, I would have blacklisted the site. Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:30, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, that would be the best idea. Are you going to do that? It's an obvious candidate. Doug Weller  talk 19:39, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , we seem to have response to the level 4 warning, I haven’t seen any additions since. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Dirk Beetstra, First of all, I want to thank you for informing me. As a new editor, I sincerely appreciate it. I now understand the implications of my username and the way I edited with respect to spam policy much better and you'll notice I have adhered to the policy since your warning. However, I think you may be mistaken. While the website AdeptInitiates does carry the same name as my user name, the site Adept Initiates is not "primarily aimed at selling a product." According to the site description, its aim is to Explore the Ancient Mysteries and Symbolism of Self Initiation. I think you may be conflating the AdeptInitiates site with the AncientEgyptMystery Schools site which does indeed aim to sell the film series which carries the same name. Have you conflated the AdeptInitiates site with Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools or Adept Expeditions? Adeptinitiate (talk) 20:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , no, I am confusing the not-completely-commercial adeptinitiate.com with the completely commercial site that you kept adding everywhere, adeptexpeditions.com. Not that it matters, both sites are involving the same person, whose name you also spread here.  In fact, it is also the owner of ancientegyptmysteryschools.com.  You are still insisting that you have nothing to do with the owner and these three sites? Dirk Beetstra T  C 21:20, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, you were also adding adeptinitiates.com. Dirk Beetstra T C 21:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * and ancientegyptmysteryschools.com. Dirk Beetstra T C 21:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Dirk Beetstra, the concept of a site "primarily aimed at selling a product" is diametrically opposed to the concept of a "not-completely-commercial site". You were mistaken by implying that Adept Initiates is "primarily" aimed at selling a product. Further, I only included the AdeptInitiates site after the initial warning as a source reference for the fact that Adept Initiates publicized John Anthony West's work, Ancient Egypt Mystery Schools. I don't mind if you remove the external link to AdeptInitiates. My intent is not spam links. My intent was to add the title to John Anthony West's catalog of work.

As far as the Uxmal issue goes, from what I now understand about Wikipedia's spam policy I should not make any further edits based on my username, correct? However, The recent discovery of a previously unknown passage inside the Governor's Palace at the archaeological site of Uxmal in Mexico holds significant value for the modern history of Uxmal, which I believe should be included on Wikipedia. Should it not? The Adept Expeditions journalist was the only American based website to report on this discovery, was actually there on-site to cover the story, and the author of the article garnered quotes from the archaeological authorities from INAH about the discovery. If the quotes of the Mexican authorities responsible for the discovery are included in the article at Adept Expeditions, then why not cite AdeptExpeditions? Also, to add to this, AdeptExpeditions is the only site that has photo coverage of the significant discovery at Uxmal. In short, as an editor, I would like to add the recent discovery at Uxmal to the Uxmal WIkipedia page. I believe it would be best to include quotes about the discovery by the archaeologists, quotes that are included in the Adept Expeditions article reporting on the discovery. How do you suggest I go about doing this? Please advise as I do not want to violate any terms. Thank you. Adeptinitiate (talk) 22:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , no, you are wrong completely as I explained on this page earlier. And you did not answer the question.  And the answer to your question has already been given several times on this page. Dirk Beetstra T  C 01:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Doug Weller Actually you did in fact threaten to block me. Please refer to Dirk Beetstra talk page where you stated "I've given them a paid editing message. If they edit again before replying and you notice it, tell me and I'll block them". I've already stated my relationship on the same talk page where you have intervened. According to INAH and the Mexican authorities, the discovery of a previously hidden passage inside the Governor's Palace at Uxmal was, in fact, a significant discovery. The fact that no other American based website reported on the discovery does not negate its significance. I'de say it further demonstrates Adept Expeditions site as a reliable authoritative platform and not just some "random site" as you have implied. Who gets to determine what sites are or are not random? Please let WP:ELN speak for themselves with respect to what or what is not a tourist website. If Uxmal is on your watchlist, why have you still not warned or removed the other editor's external link that used the words "well-researched" or removed MayanPeninsula as a source given the site is described as "guides for your next trip to the Mayan Peninsula and its amazing Archeological Sites with Tips, Recommendations, and much more". Would that qualify as a so-called "tourist site" as well? Adeptinitiate (talk) 20:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)


 * No, I said that I would carry out my obligation under our terms of use to block you if you edited before responding to my question about paid editing. It's like a policeman saying to someone beating up another person "If you don't stop, I'll arrest you". It goes with the job.
 * And no again, you did not state your relationship at 's talk page. You did say you were simply paying homage, but you did not say that you had no official relationship with the website, and in any cases it's this page where you need to answer my question directly, which you've avoided doing for the third time. I don't know what happened to my attempt to remove the link at Uxmal, as I wrote above I thought I had. I've removed several links from that page. Why in the world would I warn an IP who last edited in 2010? You also haven't done your research by claiming that "no other American based website reported on the discovery. The Smithsonian did. But we try to wait for official reports before adding the information to articles. The excavation season ended in January, hopefully there will be a report this year. If you really think the website that you may or may not be affiliated with is a reliable sources, go to WP:RSN, don't keep arguing it here. Doug Weller  talk 11:37, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright
Hello Adeptinitiate, and welcome to Wikipedia. Your additions to Uxmal have been removed in whole or in part, as they appear to have added copyrighted content without evidence that the source material is in the public domain or has been released by its owner or legal agent under a suitably-free and compatible copyright license. (To request such a release, see Requesting copyright permission.) While we appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from sources to avoid copyright and plagiarism issues.


 * You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and cite the source using an inline citation. You can read about this at Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
 * Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Close paraphrasing. (There is a college-level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify the information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
 * Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Copyrights. You may also want to review Copy-paste.
 * If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a legally designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. Understand, though, that unlike many other sites, where a person can license their content for use there and retain non-free ownership, that is not possible at Wikipedia. Rather, the release of content must be irrevocable, to the world, into the public domain (PD) or under a suitably-free and compatible copyright license. Such a release must be done in a verifiable manner, so that the authority of the person purporting to release the copyright is evidenced. See Donating copyrighted materials.
 * In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are PD or compatibly licensed) it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at Media copyright questions, the help desk or the Teahouse before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
 * Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you must follow the copyright attribution steps in Translation. See also Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 11:19, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Doug Weller Thank you for sharing the helpful information about Wikipedia and copyright.

I agree that it is very important that contributors understand and follow these practices and I will make best efforts as a new contributor to adhere to the guidelines above.

In effort to improve information on the topics of interests — in this case, the archaeological site of Uxmal — I will copy only a small amount of the source using direct quotation with double quotation marks and cite the source using inline citation. Further I will be sure to put all information in my own words and structure, in proper paraphrase.

As a new contributor if I do this in error I would ask you that you identify the specific error and I will be happy to provide remedy and fix immediately. Adeptinitiate (talk) 16:03, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

June 2020
Hello, I noticed that you may have recently made edits while logged out. Wikipedia's policy on multiple accounts usually does not allow the use of both an account and an IP address by the same person in the same setting and doing so may result in your account being blocked from editing. Additionally, making edits while logged out reveals your IP address, which may allow others to determine your location and identity. If this was not your intention, please remember to log in when editing. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 10:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Doug Weller, Hello, If I recently made edits while logged out, it was done in error. I am aware of the policy now therefore I can pay closer attention in the future to ensure a mistake -- like the one you noticed -- does not happen on my part. Thank you. Adeptinitiate (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2020 (UTC)