User talk:GunnyRet

Welcome!
Hello, GunnyRet, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or and a volunteer will visit you here shortly. Again, welcome! Anupmehra - Let's talk!  00:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
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Help me!
I need your help in restoring my access to create books. I work for a government agency and also volunteer in a number organizations. One of those, is putting together a program on Monday for Human Resource professionals and I was trying to create a book that I could distribute to that end.

I have never used this feature in the past, and I was prompted to create an account. I thought I was creating a user account that others in my group could come to for the same purpose; creating books using Wiki content. I was simply experimenting and said this is my first post, and created a link to our organization. I had no intention of this becoming a "public contribution". Apparently, someone blocked my I.P. address and now I am afraid to attempt to use the book creator tool again for fear that this work will be examined as a work I created for worldwide use.

Can you coach me along? I am not trying to promote our organization in anyway on Wiki. I simply want to use the content to help others.

I don't want to be penalized because I don't understand how to use the tools. The site is very complex and quite frankly slightly intimidating - even for me- and I'm a retired U.S. Marine.

Can you just explain things in elementary terms (I don't mean that literally) so I don't get busted again?

Thanks so much for your time!

Sincerely,

GunnyRet (talk) 17:44, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello GunnyRet, can you tell us what exactly the blocked IP address is, or what the block message said? This account itself is not blocked, but if you try to edit from an IP that recently way blocked, that will indeed be a problem. If you provide the IP address (and/or the name of the account you previously used, if any), we can look into the issue; right now there's not enough information to do so.
 * There is another possible problem, though: "a user account that others in my group could come to for the same purpose". Wikipedia explicitly does not allow shared use of accounts. Accounts are for individuals, not for groups, and if multiple members of your group want to use an account, each of them should create a separate one. Huon (talk) 20:16, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * In response to your email: While your previous account will remain blocked, I have lifted the autoblock. That should have expired on its own long ago, though. If you still cannot edit from this account, please provide the explicit error message.
 * Regarding the book, I've never created one myself, but it's my understanding that creating the book (ie collecting Wikipedia articles into a single PDF, including the option to download it) should be possible even without an account. The account is needed to save the book on Wikipedia so you (or others) can modify it at a later date. A saved book will indeed be publicly visible if one knows where to look, as is everything else saved on Wikipedia. For an example of a short saved book, see Book:République-class battleships. Huon (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)