User talk:GBGB333

March 2020
Hello GBGB333. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Karen LaMonte, 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, and if it does not, 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:GBGB333. 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. John from Idegon (talk) 23:08, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked at the named article above; the issue is your addition of material about the subject of the article to various other articles. You must disclose your relationship to the subject. If you are employed by her, you are paid. If you work for an individual or organization who provides her a service, you are paid. If you contract with her to provide a service, you are paid. The nature of your edits, along with specific edits you've made, clearly indicate some sort of relationship. Since that's out of the norm, and the potential for inaccurate or promotional information is a valid serious concern for Wikipedia's reputation, abswering this enquiry isn't optional and must be done prior to ANY further edits. John from Idegon (talk) 23:44, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Dear John from Idegon: I’m sorry for the confusion here! I am not paid by the artist, but I am a great fan and proud supporter, and have enjoyed finding creative opportunities to include her in Wikipedia articles where it’s felt appropriate, and where doing so enhances the article itself. I am also very new to editing Wikipedia and apologize if the number of edits seemed excessive - please chalk it up to a fan’s enthusiasm, and my own newbie excitement as a Wikipedia editor. (This is certainly a learning experience....)

If you recommend I do so, I would be happy to remove any edits/updates that seem excessive or inappropriate, and am also happy to further edit or enhance any that could use more work or clarification. If, for example, the Cumulus, Robot, or Kimono articles could benefit from wider mentions of additional artists whose work is relevant to the topic, I would enjoy researching and adding that content. And if some of the edits or content that I’ve created simply need greater context or more information, I can do that as well. I want to get this right. But as a connoisseur of Karen’s work, I would hate to see appropriate, respectful, and much deserved mentions of her art disappear simply because I got carried away.

Again, my sincere apologies for inadvertently setting off warning lights here. Please let me know how we can work together to rectify the situation. (Also, apologies in advance if I am slow to reply moving forward. Everything is upside down because of the virus and I will do my best to continually respond in a timely manner.)GBGB333 (talk) 18:52, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * All of your additions of Karen to various articles other than the article about her have been reverted. Please do not restore any. The addition of mention of other artists to Kimono, Robot, etc. would only compound the error. David notMD (talk) 00:26, 8 April 2020 (UTC)