User talk:Brenwikiedit

May 2010
You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved, instead of writing it yourself, as you did at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your band, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest.

Creating an article about yourself is strongly discouraged. If you create such an article, it might be listed on articles for deletion. Deletion is not certain, but many feel strongly that you should not start articles about yourself. This is because independent creation encourages independent validation of both significance and verifiability. All edits to articles must conform to No original research, Neutral point of view, and Verifiability.

If you are not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines, creating an article about yourself may violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a personal webspace provider and would thus qualify for speedy deletion. If your achievements, etc., are verifiable and genuinely notable, and thus suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later. (See Wikipedians with articles.) Thank you. Erpert (let's talk about it) 19:06, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI conflict of interest guideline
Welcome to Wikipedia. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia in Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, User:Brenwikiedit/Sandbox, or other articles, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
 * see also: Wikipedia is not a soapbox and Wikipedia:User pages
 * 1) editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
 * 2) participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
 * 3) linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. You may also wish to consider changing your username, to avoid giving the impression that your account is to be used for promotional purposes. Regardless, doing so does not exempt you from the proscription against editing articles in which you have a conflict of interest. Thank you. – Athaenara ✉  22:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because your username, Brenwikiedit, does not meet our username policy.

'''Your username is the only reason for this block. You are welcome to choose a new username (see below).'''

A username should not be promotional, related to a "real-world" group or organization, misleading, offensive, or disruptive. Also, usernames may not end in the word "bot" unless the account is an approved bot account.

Please choose a new account name that meets our policy guidelines. However, do not create a new account if you wish to credit your existing contributions to a new name through a username change. To request a username change:
 * Add on your user talk page. You should be able to edit this talk page even though you are blocked. If not, you may wish to contact the blocking administrator by clicking on "E-mail this user" on their talk page.
 * At an administrator's discretion, you may be unblocked for 24 hours to file a request.
 * Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a list of names that have already been taken. For more information, please see Changing username.

If you feel that you were blocked in error, you may appeal this block by adding the text below, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. Daniel Case (talk) 03:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm having trouble telling from this request what your plans for future editing are. So far, all of your edits have been related to your own organization. Under the conflict of interest guidelines, we all agree to avoid writing about our own organizations. Do you have plans for editing other subjects in the future? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:11, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm doing my best to respond to the various instructions, and I admire the way administrators provide feedback in a timely manner. It's amazing how that works. However, the process itself is not working.

The penultimate block message I received (from Daniel Case said that I was blocked only-- ONLY, that is--because my user name did not follow the guidelines. Took me a couple of time to get it right, not because I was stubborn but because I wanted to be able to remember it. Finally I changed it so that it absolutely follows the guidelines, and now I am told by Fisher Queen that I cannot be unblocked because I have shown no intention of editing other sections. To which I can only say that, should I have information/knowledge/expertise relevant to editing other sections in future, I will do so, though I did not realize that a commitment to ongoing, regular editing was a criteria for contributing to Wikipedia. The post also said so far, all my edits had been related to my own organization. But that, of course, is because I began editing by trying to get a page up, and all of my edits have been made toward, hopefully, one day, accomplishing that.

I also don't understand the conflict-of-interest guideline. Yes, I do work at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, but the entry I drafted (after changes) is entirely factual and not the least promotional. It is neutral, encyclopedic and, at present, very brief. I would flesh it out with more useful information if I could get unblocked. Every other school that is similar to ours has an entry. How did they do that? I rather doubt that they are written by someone who has no affiliation with the school whatsoever but just couldn't resist adding an encyclopedic entry about them. I suppose if I were to write from a computer somewhere else, this would not be an issue, is that so? I'm not interested in circumventing the rules, but rather in understanding how they work and ensuring that I am receiving reasonable treatment within them.

I think that if you send a message saying that the ONLY reason for the block is a bad user name and the user name is fixed, then you as the Wikipedia management group should honor your own guidance rather than a new administrator coming back with new reasons -- beyond the ONLY reason -- given for blocking the account. I can't find a way to contact that administrator either. I went to her page, and then to her talk page and tried to edit it, but I'm locked out.

Our graduate school is a public nonprofit institution, part of the University of California, which also has an entry. Am I to understand that the person who wrote that entry has no affiliation whatsoever with UC? The Bren School is a well-known institution that people want to know about. It is, in wiki guideline speak, notable. They particularly want to know about the faculty and their research and the building, which is a first-of-kind structure. Wikipedia is a perfectly logical place to look for such information. Would my writing about a faculty member who works here, by saying Professor X studies X and Y and serves on boards A and B and is a member of professional organizations E and F violate conflict-of-interest rules? Did someone other than Daniel Case write his information. I'd just like to present a body of useful, relevant information. I don't want to advertise, promote, pitch, market or otherwise sell. I know people who have their own profiles on Wikipedia, and they wrote them. How did those get on? They certainly didn't wait for someone to write about them.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone, preferably one of the administrators from whom I have already heard, would explain to me in a less-cryptic way how I might proceed and complete this task. Thanks very much.Brenwikiedit (talk) 21:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * First, as new messages must always go at the bottom of the page, I have moved this recent unblock request down.
 * Ok, I've followed this one for awhile, so I will try to respond. Daniel Case's block notice was about a promotional username, which is not too bad UNLESS one violates WP:COI and WP:PROMO with it. When Daniel Case blocked you, perhaps your edits had not been carefully checked.
 * When you post an unblock request, your actions are more closely inspected. FisherQueen notice that your edits directly matched your username - this therefore extends the block to a COI and PROMO block in addition to a username.
 * Because of this, you MUST convince admins that you will not continue to violate these key policies should you be allowed to be unblocked and change your name.
 * So, not contradictory messages - your own unblock request drew attention to your editing pattern.
 * So, you as a person related to the institution cannot complete this task. ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 10:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: I am watching this page. Do not post new unblocks unless you're willing and able to abide by the core policies.  We can discuss further right here - I will know if you have responded. ( talk→   BWilkins   ←track ) 10:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

About the article
... just a few notes as you hopefully start to realize that the article you wrote was purely promotional, and not encyclopedic. ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 11:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * First, is the article a necessary content WP:FORK from the article about UC Santa Barbara? Individual faculties/schools often do not get separate articles.
 * Second, I do not see the school mentioned in the exact wording that you use at the UC S-B article: it refers to Donald Bren School of Environmental Science
 * Third, the version of the article that you wrote included zero third party reliable sources that either confirmed the notability, or anything that was stated. I saw links back to the Bren School and UC S-B's website, but those are not 3rd party.
 * Fourth, I saw no real notability established: not even anything from say, NBC news or Bill Gates saying "this place is awesome"

Thanks for the explanations, though numerous points I raised and questions I asked went unaddressed. I would not have posted another unblock request had I been able to communicate with any of the people who had blocked me. But I was prevented from that on their pages and didn't realize that the block requests were appearing at the bottom of my page and that by editing it I could talk with them. Sorry about that.

I am trying to abide by the rules, but they are not so easy to understand. Each rule has a lot of specific phrasing attached to it. Following the link to the explanation of a phrase leads to more new phrases and another thicket of links and explanations. I know wikipedia works, but it's not so easy to get a hold of as a newcomer. I think what I'll do is re-create the text, now that I have some more guidelines and then resubmit it. There are many third-party acknowledgments of the school's notability, though why a testimonial from Bill Gates, who is decidedly not an expert on environmental science and management, would earn us notability is beyond me. But maybe you are just using him as an example of the type of qualifying higher being, organization, or other entity whose recognition would qualify us for notability. We have those.

The discrepancy in the name of the school arises from the fact that as branding has moved forward we have shortened our rather long name. Our website will reflect that in a few weeks, promotional materials are written that way already, etc. I realize that my article is not yet encyclopedic for the simple fact that there's not enough there. But it is in tone. It's just the facts. It has no point of view. I had thought the page could go up and be added to, but now I see that's not how it works. Perhaps that important guideline lives somewhere in the universe of pages that are meant to explain to users how things work here.

I did not create our page as an intended content fork (having just read that page). I looked for a page under the name of the school and was told it did not exist. So I started it.

Before I do anything else, I am still not clear if I, as an employee here, may or may not write about the Bren School. Or am I ipso facto DQ'd from that.

Finally, you guys might want to lighten up a little on people who are trying to figure this out. Your comments often seem to carry an undercurrent of accusation, as when you said, "I'm watching this page," as if to a child who is not properly respecting his elders. I'm trying to work with you, understand, get it right. A little spirit of cooperation would be nice. Going afoul of your rules is very easy and doesn't mean I meant to.

Brenwikiedit (talk) 23:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, users on Wikipedia normally have a watchlist of pages. Indicating to someone that you're watching their page isn't intended as an insult, but actually as a matter of statement that your page is on their watchlist. —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 03:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm just going to cut to the chase rather than embedding questions in text, because they don't get answered.

1. Am I prohibited from writing about the institution where I work, even if I do so with no "perspective," no promotion, and in encyclopedic terms, with correct references?

2. If yes to 1 above, how did other departments and schools at other universities get written? Are you sure that they were not written by someone at the department/school? And if so, how do you know?

I'm prepared to rewrite this with the new user name, "sustainer1998," but I don't want to do that if it's just going to be blocked.

Thank you,

Brenwikiedit (talk) 15:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether with a different username or not, if you are being paid by the institution that you are writing about, then you have conflict of interest (as per that policy). We do highly recommend that clearly incorrect information should be fixed by someone from the institution, if needed.  Can we 100% guarantee that all articles have not been written by someone from that institution?  No.  Am I sure that someone from an institution has made later repairs to an article?  Pretty much 100% of the time I bet.
 * Let me give you an example: I wrote University of Montana School of Journalism. Yes, I'm a journalist.  But I've never been to Montana, or knew anything about the school in question - it was inside my general sphere of knowledge, it was considered to be a "most wanted article", so I researched and wrote it.
 * That is the way Wikipedia works. ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 16:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Let me add this question, seeing as you have yet to answer it: look at the article I mentioned above - in the lead paragraph, it provides a clear description of what makes it notable, and therefore why it deserves an article. Tell me in 12 words or less what makes this school notable, and why it deserves an article on Wikipedia. ( talk→   BWilkins   ←track ) 16:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

12 words or less doesn't work.: The school is housed in Bren Hall, the first and, to date, ONLY building anywhere to have received two LEED Platinum certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council, one for new construction (2002), the other for operations and maintenance (2009). Bren is among the top four interdisciplinary graduate schools of environmental science and management in the nation (others are Duke, Yale, Michigan; but there is no official source for ranking so I wouldn't put it in the article) and the only one in the UC system or west of the Mississippi. UCSB is rated number one in the impact of publications for ecology and environment, and the scholarly writings of Bren School faculty have a lot to do with that. Our economics faculty are all associates or full fellows at the National Bureau of Economics Research. Most of our scientists are members of the National Academy of Sciences and or the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. One professor is a lead author for the Fourth Assessment, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, which earned IPCC a share of the Nobel Prize, with Al Gore. Another just won the second Microsoft Science Jim Gray award for contributions to data-intensive computing in the context of remote sensing and climate modeling.

I didn't answer this previously because we seem stuck on the conflict of interest.

I am a journalist as well. I understand that you as a journalist writing about a journalism school at which you are not employed is not the same as my writing about the Bren School. However, I just do not believe that all the articles about all the institutions all over Wikipedia were written by people who had no connection (aside from interest) to that institution. Seems to me the article should be allowed to be put up, and if does not to follow the guidelines, it should be blocked (as my first try was before I understood how Wikipedia works).

Brenwikiedit (talk) 21:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC) One more thing: We are a non-profit public institution. There is nothing to be gained by writing something that would not be encyclopedic in tone, content and perspective.

CAn someone please get back to me? Brenwikiedit (talk) 17:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)