User talk:DowntownRalph

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, DowntownRalph. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places, or things you have written about in the article Yoko Ono, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic, and it is important when editing Wikipedia articles that such connections be completely transparent. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, we ask that you please:


 * avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your family, friends, school, company, club, or organization, as well as any competing companies' projects or products;
 * instead, you are encouraged to propose changes on the Talk pages of affected article(s) (see the request edit template);
 * when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or to the website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please take a few moments to read and review Wikipedia's policies regarding conflicts of interest, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you. freshacconci talk to me  18:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

July 2016
Please do not add or change content, as you did at Anthrax (American band), without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Mlpearc ( open channel ) 18:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Please do not add unsourced or original content. Doing so violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. If you continue to do so, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Jim1138 (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
Hi, I note you were given advice 4 days ago about conflict of interest policies and paid editing. It seems you continued to make edits without addressing the concerns raised. I suggest you (re)visit the guidelines on WP:COI. Also note that the publishing company of an artist generally isn't encyclopaedic and as it seems quite likely that there's a link between an organisation you may represent and the edits you're making, it seems these edits are promotional in nature. I suggest you check the guidelines and respond here before attempting further edits of a similar nature. For any help, please feel free to ask for assistance at WP:Teahouse. Rayman60 (talk) 22:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

July 2016
You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you add unsourced material to Wikipedia, as you did at Doc Watson. Sundayclose (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for advertising or promotion. From your contributions, this seems to be your only purpose. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by first reading the guide to appealing blocks, then adding the following text to the bottom of your talk page:. Ron h jones (Talk) 01:02, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I personally would like for you to address your understanding of WP:COI. While sourcing is necessary for editing, it is not always sufficient. You clearly are here to promote a business, regardless of whether you source. You lack objectivity in some of your editing. For example, in John Lennon, you placed your promotional edits in the WP:LEAD even though it was not notable enough to be included there. The edit was sourced, but it was still promotional. You were cautioned about COI editing twice, but you continued the same pattern of promotional editing. Wikipedia is not your free venue to promote this business, and I think you need to clearly state that you will carefully follow all of the precautions stated in WP:COI, and be specific. Now that you have been warned and blocked for promotional editing, there are other editors watching your edits. If you continue promotional editing, you are likely to be blocked again. Sundayclose (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - Based on the user's name and activity, and activity related to linked articles in the past, it seems very much so that the company involved is asking interns to add information to every artist they're linked to (something that I think was confirmed in dialogue by a prior editor in a similar situation, and with a similar username), and this information is unencyclopaedic in nature, i.e. publishing deals. For example it is not relevant to put an artist's agent, management or publishing company in their article, although this is something that is often done by COI editors who represent those companies. Look at articles by Lady Gaga or Britney Spears and notice the lack of such information, and similarly the informative and definitive encyclopaedic content curated by a multitude of seemingly more neutral editors. So to me the inherent issue is not one regarding primary sources, but about an SPA with a link to a company making COI edits that are promotional in nature and unencyclopaedic. Rayman60 (talk) 14:58, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I personally find your explanation and understanding of COI inadequate at best. Whether you are paid is irrelevant to COI. You are affiliated with the organization; that is enough for COI to apply. Furthermore, Wikipedia is not the place for the company to assist its constituents about publishing information for artists. Wikipedia is written for general readership. If the information added to an article meets all Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and coincidentally allows a particular group of people to find information, that's fine. But often that is not the case. This is especially true of many of your edits. You clearly failed to grasp (or follow) the policies applicable before making your edits. If you had more general interests in editing Wikipedia rather than a single purpose account, such errors for newcomers are tolerated although pointed out and corrected. In your case, however, you were focused on adding information for one purpose only: to advance the needs of the company you intern for. And even after you were asked to pay attention to COI policies twice, you plowed ahead undeterred as if you owned Wikipedia. And you still don't seem to understand that just because it's sourced doesn't mean that it can be added to an article. You have done little to convince me that you understand and are willing to abide by COI. I'll make one strong suggestion and then let others comment. I suggest that you agree to placing your suggested edits on the talk page of each article, including a statement about where you plan to place the edit. If enough people agree with you, it likely is not a COI problem. If you can't agree to that, I'm not convinced that you will stop trying to put promotional edits in articles in the hopes that they will go unnoticed by the Wikipedia community. Sundayclose (talk) 15:58, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with here, very concise response to the unblock request.   Mlpearc  ( open channel ) 16:40, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I would also like to say that a huge number of linked articles have quite transparent COI issues ranging back to 2010. It seems Ralph is but a semi-innocent minion is a much larger systemic abuse by the upper echelons of Downtown - there are so many examples of SPA & COI editors responsible for so many similarly promotional, unencyclopaedic and non neutral edits ranging way back to 2010. Some of these have been rather transparent but others have been seemingly clandestine to outsiders, but having clicked through the web of linked articles and their history, it seems the abuse has been long-standing and quite unashamedly knowingly breaching numerous wiki guidelines (with the creaking weight of evidence against, I refuse to accept the plea of ignorance from the higher powers even with a most generous application of Assume good faith). So I hope this episode brings a line under Downtown's COI editing. This will no doubt be discussed at a high level within the company, and I really hope that the guidelines of wiki are acknowledged and respected from here on in.Rayman60 (talk) 01:21, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

It will be up to an administrator to make the final decision, but if you don't edit any articles related to Downtown (including their artists or articles in any way related to their artists or other clients, because that's COI) I don't think you have to submit non-COI edits to talk pages unless you do that for your own benefit. But carefully follow any admin's instructions. Sundayclose (talk) 20:41, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you prepared to accept a topic ban on Downtown, embracing their artists, productions, affiliates and publishers? Note that a topic ban includes talk pages as well as article pages.--Anthony Bradbury"talk" 21:29, 30 July 2016 (UTC)