User talk:CobbInstituteMSU

Blocked
Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames which give the impression that the account represents a group, organization or website, I have blocked this account; please take a moment to create a new account with a username that represents only yourself as an individual and which complies with our username policy or request a change of username. It also appears that your account is intended to be used for the purpose of telling the world about an organization, person or cause that you consider worthwhile. Unfortunately, many good causes are not sufficiently notable for their own Wikipedia article, and all users are discouraged from editing in any area where they have an inherent conflict of interest. You may wish to consider one of these alternative outlets. Additionally, if your contributions to Wikipedia form all or part of work for which you are, or expect to be, paid, you must disclose who is paying you to edit. If your username does not represent a group, organization or website, you may appeal this username block by adding the text at the bottom of your talk page. You may simply create a new account, but you may prefer to change your username to one that complies with our username policy, so that your past contributions are associated with your new username. If you would prefer to change your username, you may appeal this username block by adding the text at the bottom of your talk page. Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names. Thank you. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 18:12, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid that our policies do not permit multiple people to share an account, nor user names which make it appear that the account is shared, or is a "role" account, that is an official account representing an institution or business. Each account must be controlled solely by a single individual person. However, an account name such as User:John at CobbInstituteMSU (or User:Jane at CobbInstituteMSU) is perfectly acceptable, provided only John (or Jane) uses the account. If you request unblocking in order to change the account name, it would normally be granted. Or an individual may simply create a new account, with a name indicating that it is an individual account.

Any person associated with the Institute who edits articles about the institute or its activities, under any name, has a conflict of interest and must be careful to comply with the guideline at WP:COI. Any perosn who so edits as a part of his or her job responsibilities (including as an intern), or for direct compensation is considered a Paid Editor and must disclsoe this in accordance with our policy on paid editing. This is absolutely mandatory, no exceptions are made to this policy.

I am sorry if this all sounds less than friendly. I attended MSU myself many years ago, and would love to welcome people from the institute editing here, but only in conformance with our policies and guidelines, which I am responsible for helping to enforce. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 18:23, 12 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you - this is all new to me, so I appreciate your comments and suggestions. My only reason for doing anything with this page is because the content on the original was uniformly incorrect (including the title, which should be "Cobb Institute of Archaeology" in order to link to various other Wikipedia pages) and I didn't want the Institute to be misrepresented. My job involves public outreach and maintaining our web presence, so this is exactly the kind of thing that I was hired to do.


 * Just to clarify: it is ok for me to edit the page if I create a new user name . . . does it violate the terms of service or website policy to edit during non-work (non-billable) hours? Thank you CobbInstituteMSU (talk) 19:11, 12 November 2019 (UTC) D


 * Since as you say you are considerd a paid editor and that is true regardless of whether your hours are specifically billed, or whether you edit during normal buisness hours or not. However, it does not violate the ToS for you to edit (with a changed name) provided that you disclose your paid status fully in compliance with WP:PAID. The most usual way to do this is to place paid on your user page, for example an employe of ACME could place
 * on his or her user page. Other details can be found at Template:Paid
 * In addition, connected contributor (paid) should be placed on the talk page of the article(s) edited by a paid editor. I will do this for the one article involved so far.
 * If you wish to have this account unblocked in order to requet a change of user name, place  at the bototm mof this page, and supply your proiposed new name and your reason for the request.
 * If in future you wish to draw my attention to a comment on this page, you may WP:PING me by including  or   as part of a signed comment. The ping will not send me a notification unless the comment is signed with four tildes  when it is first made -- adding a signature latter does not trigger the notification. The same method can be used to notify any other user, just use that user's user name instead of mine. I hope the above is helpful. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 20:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)