User talk:Cozumel1973

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Happy editing! POLITANVM talk 21:34, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Bill_Zimmerman image upload.
upload the photo to wikicommons first .. making sure to comply with Creative Commons requirements and then link it to wiki page. STC1 (talk) 22:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Bill Zimmerman - activist
I noticed an article about me on Wikipedia. It was very brief and incomplete. I made extensive edits to it before coming across a notice that I should not have because autobiographies are not allowed. Please advise where I should go from here. My edits were saved, but now a "Problem" notice appears at the top of the article. Should it be removed entirely? Is one of your editors interested in expanding the material that first appeared based on my edits? Please advise as to what I should do from here. Thank you.

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Cozumel1973. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Bill Zimmerman (activist), you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Conflict of interest);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. S0091 (talk) 20:02, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Additional advice
Hi Cozumel1973, since you have a serious COI I strongly suggest you cease editing the article directly and certainly do not remove the COI notice (aka tag) from the article. That will get in you trouble, which may lead to your account being blocked. One of issues I have is that you have included a substantial amount of content about Z&M, however, the article is not about Z&M. I am going to post a note on the COI noticeboard to get some other eyes/opinions from other editors. In the meantime, in addition to reading through the material linked in the COI notice above, I suggest reading the following policies/guidelines: Bilography of living people, Neutral point of view and guide on using talk pages. S0091 (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * A question about your photo. Generally the photographer is the one who has the copyright. It does not appear you took the photo but are claiming it as your work.  Do you know who took the photo (just generally, no names or anything)? (It is good photo, btw). S0091 (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for helping with this. Can you tell me to which article you refer. Some of the articles refer Zimmerman as an individual but describe work he did with Z&M. Also, the photo was taken by a friend of a friend, who is known to me. It was just a snapshot, never copywriter or registered, and I have his permission to use it. I thought I did upload to the Commons. Did I err in doing so? Thanks again. Cozumel1973 (talk) 23:18, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Cozumel1973
 * The article to which I am referring is Bill Zimmerman (activist) and is the only article you have edited extensively (at least with this account). Is there another article?  As for the photo, you will need your friend of friend to give Wikipedia permission to use it.  Giving it to you is not sufficient for Wikipedia (i.e. you are a single person, granting it to Wikipedia means you are granting permission to the world).  Do you think you an have them upload the photo to Commons and releasing any copyright cliams (CC BY-SA/public domain}?  Copyright is a legal matter to which both Wikipedia and the uploader is responsible to follow the applicable laws so need to be real careful. S0091 (talk) 23:47, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Or to not have to go through all the hassle, you could take a selfie or have a person close to you take/provide one then upload it under their account. Also, you may have noticed I have given the article quite a trim but more needs to done.  Take a look at the talk page.  You are welcome to engage in the discussion.  However, before you do, please raed through the material I linked as it should help you.  Please also give reliable sources as read as well and be cognizant of the fact that Wikipedia generally does not care what an article's subject says about itself so anything attributed to your words or close associations is largely unusable.  What is needed are independent sources. S0091 (talk) 00:02, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Understood. There is only one article. I thought you were referring to one of the reference articles I included. I will try to take care of the photo as you suggest, but all the references included refer either to the subject (Zimmerman) or to the company which bears his name. If there are specific references that trouble you, please indicate them and I will remove them. Thanks. Cozumel1973 (talk) 23:54, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Cozume1973.

I read over the material you linked and have a somewhat better understanding of the problems the article had. Specifically, I see that many of the references I included were interviews with Zimmerman, and that constituted a self-referential cite, which is not allowed. However, I still have some questions. You trimmed out a lot of material that still seems to me to be appropriate. For example, the LA Times article entitled, MoveOn's Brains Aim Straight for the Heart, seems to clearly indicated that Z&M was operating as MoveOn's media consultant and making numerous TV spots for them. Yet you cut it. Wh? The LA Times article entitled, TV Drive for Nuclear Freeze Measure Opens, clearly states that ZGF did their media, but it too was cut. The articles in the Chicago papers talk about Zimmerman doing the TV spots for Harold Washington, one even has his picture, but that too is gone. There are other examples, the Rose Bird effort, the Countdown '87 campaign, Gary Hart's presidential primary in California, but I won't go on. Apparently, there is a principle I am missing, because these are all legitimate news sources, they all document that statements made in the article, and they all mention the names of Zimmerman as an individual and the firm he worked for. I do see why you cut much of the stuff you did, but can you please explain why you cut some material that seems to me to fit the guidelines. Thanks. Cozumel1973 (talk) 03:37, 28 June 2021 (UTC)Cozumel1873.
 * I appreciate the effort in at least trying to understand Wikipedia's policies (admittedly, it's a lot). The article is about Zimmerman the person, not his firms, so content attributed to his firms' activities does not belong. However, if the sources go into depth about Zimmerman, that content may be appropriate.  If you believe either of the firms meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, you can submit an article (see WP:YFA for guidance).  As far as the article about Zimmerman, you are welcome to make edit requests (instructions linked in the COI notice above).  Please do be succinct, though and keep in mind we are all volunteers. I suggest starting with small/easy to implement changes first.  If you have questions or need help, you can ask at the Teahouse.  Thanks again for engaging. S0091 (talk) 19:09, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I have made a few edits trying to comply with your recommendations. I will await additional feedback before making any others to see what I have done so far is in compliance with your guidelines. Thanks for whatever feedback you can give me. Cozumel1973 (talk) 20:52, 14 July 2021 (UTC)Cozumel1973
 * I am never on Wikipedia in the middle of the week but just happen to be today. Really, the guidance is that you not edit the article yourself, as I stated a couple times.  Rather, per guidance, you should make edit requests on the article's talk page.  Also, writing in caps is interpreted as shouting, which I do not think you intend.  What I recommend at this point is not making any additional edits and submitting an edit request on the talk page asking someone to review the edit you just made. Also, please do read WP:INDENT as some editors will get annoyed and its best to that it not to become a distraction to the overall discussion.  In the interim, I still recommend obtaining a photo of you that is copyright compliant. S0091 (talk) 21:32, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I will try to comply. Cozumel1973 (talk) 22:34, 14 July 2021 (UTC)Cozumel973
 * I placed the edit request template for you. Without the template, no one will see the request.  Next time, you can try the handy WP:Edit Request Wizard/COI. S0091 (talk) 14:41, 15 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Much appreciated. I take it that I need do nothing more, just wait for a response. And next time I will use the template you sent.
 * Look at you indenting! :) Just to warn you, there are currently about 135 COI edit request waiting and only a handful or so volunteers willing to entertain them so it may take a while. If you are super bored, check out WP:Village pump (policy) where a discussion is ongoing about how to handle them and feel free to pipe in. S0091 (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2021 (UTC)


 * You're my sherpa. Thanks again, I will check out the discussion