User talk:Jm1106

Welcome
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. The following links will help you begin editing on Wikipedia:
 * Welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Editing tutorial
 * Picture tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style


 * Please bear these points in mind while editing Wikipedia:
 * Respect copyrights – do not copy and paste text or images directly from other websites.
 * Maintain a neutral point of view – this is one of Wikipedia's core policies.
 * Take particular care while adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page and follow Wikipedia's Biography of Living Persons policy. Particularly, controversial and negative statements should be referenced with multiple reliable sources.
 * No edit warring or sock puppetry
 * If you are testing, please use the Sandbox to [ do so].
 * Do not add troublesome content to any article, such as: copyrighted text, libel, advertising or promotional messages, and text that is not related to an article's subject. Deliberately adding such content or otherwise editing articles maliciously is considered vandalism; doing so will result in your account or IP being blocked from editing.

The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Shirt58 (talk) 10:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

August 2011
You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for spamming or advertising. From your contributions, this seems to be your only purpose. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Unblock request
This is third-party unblock request (I'm assuming that's permissible; if not, forgive the technical error and I'll pursue another venue). This editor was pretty clearly blocked by mistake. What happened is this: this brand-new editor (Jm1106) started his editing career by adding a bunch of external links to articles in towns in eastern Massachusetts. The links were perfectly fine and enhanced the articles, I think any fair-minded person would say. They were to the page for that town in the Patriot Ledger, the paper for the small city if Quincy, Massachusetts. It's a respected paper, a pretty good paper for a small city, and it's been around since at least 1916. Here's a sample of one the links added, the others are all similar. If you look at the linked page, it's pretty decent. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it does seem to be the sort of thing that someone reading the article would fine useful -- a short history from a respected source, a list of the town officials, some pictures, that sort of thing. Maybe it's not a good link for some reason I'm not seeing, but that's something that reasonable people could discuss, I would think.

But the thing is, the new editor (Jm1106) added a bunch of these links, and he's not autoconfirmed, so that set off some flags. Fine, we all know that that's a warning sign and we know why it is. But in this case, it was a false warning. It's likely that Jm1106 was all "Hey, I'll contribute by looking up and adding a bunch of useful links" and unlikely that's he's an agent of the Patriot Ledger engaged in some nefarious scheme (and even if he was, so what, really, since the links are good). User:SchuminWeb blocked him anyway (with no warning BTW), and OK, a simple mistake; it happens. We're busy, we have to make fast judgements, easy enough to undo once this is pointed out. And I did point this out to the blocking admin (another editor did also), in what I think was a reasonably cogent and reasonable way, if a bit acerbic (I don't like to see potentially good new contributors pissed away in this manner).

But the blocking admin doesn't seem to take the point. (Relevant discussions are here and the thread below). Instead, he refused to undo the block, refused to explain his reasons ("I stand by my decision to block, and believe that this is was a properly-executed block" is not an explanation), closed his talk page threads off to further discussion (!) ("That's the end of it"), and removed from the user's talk page my message welcoming him and explaining the we were working on getting him unblocked (!!).

Look, its quite possible that this user wasn't going to contribute anything more after contributing these links (But you never know. He's a better candidate to become a productive contributor than someone who hasn't contributed anything yet.) It's also possible that he's seen his block and is disgusted and will never come back regardless of what we do now. But as a matter of principle, come on, can someone unblock this guy for chrissakes? I don't know this user, don't know or care much about the Patriot Ledger or User:SchuminWeb, and don't have any skin in this game, but aren't we supposed to treat productive new contributors a little better than, you know, indefinitely blocking them without engagement, warning, or an explanation of more than two words? I think I read that somewhere. Herostratus (talk) 08:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC) Um, what happened? I added some links and this whole crazy drama unfolded? I guess that's all the Wikipedia contributions I'll be making. I'm a girl, by the way... Jm1106 (talk) 13:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm likewise a third-party bystander who endorses Herostratus' position. Quite aside from that I likewise don't believe that the dedicated web pages the local daily newspaper devotes to individual towns represent spam, what we have are the assumptions of two editors (one unfamiliar with the area) that they must be.  No attempt at contacting the editor posting those links was made.  No attempt at warning was made.  No attempts at gauging or gaining consensus, on the talk pages of the affected articles or anywhere else, as to the potential validity of the links were made.  Under the circumstances, a block of any kind - never mind an indef block - is a grossly disproportionate response, and for SchuminWeb to brush this off with a tart "Well, I think it's spamming" followed by a "When I said it is over, it is over" edit summary would be considered uncivil behavior in a regular editor, never mind in an admin being asked to explain his actions.   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  11:50, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In any event, I've just reverted the links - oddly enough, SchuminWeb didn't remove many other media links, including those to weekly papers owned by the same media group as the Patriot Ledger and the Enterprise. Since he desires no more discussion of this on his talk page, I have raised none, and invite any further discussion to take place here or on the talk pages of the affected articles, which should have happened in the first place.   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  12:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello. I originally asked Ben Schumin to look into the bulk additions and comment on it since the adds looked odd in so many articles at one time and no other edits had ever been done by the new user. I was and am underwhelmed by the utility of those links inserted although I do read The Patriot Ledger newspaper in my hands. Their template "Answer Book/{town): Everything you need to know" was curious. I looked at the links and drilled down to some items but found myself lost in pop-up advertisements. User:Ravenswing has put all the links back into all the articles which Wikipedia administrator Ben Schumin had reverted out. Curious. And it is curious the user himself hasn't objected or participated in any of these discussions. He just made the 40 +/- adds of that one resource link and disappeared. I am not a new changes patroller: I had been editing the article on Wareham, Massachusetts and saw the add of the link by User:Jm1106. Anyway. So be it, for now. --- Wikiklrsc (talk) 15:37, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, let's take this by the numbers: (1) As far as the utility of the links go, the standsrd "answer page" the Ledger has up links to the town's history, demographics, directories of town officials and departments, houses of worship, hospitals, the town library, the train station, regional resources and recent news articles concerning the town. That sounds rather useful.  As far as pop-up ads go, I have a pop-up blocker, as many other computer users do. (2)The links are not in of themselves violations of WP:EL, and I invite you to examine the criteria of WP:ELNO and tell us which ones you feel they violate.  My opinion is that they violate none of them. (3) There is nothing "curious" about the links being restored; I said I was doing so explicitly, and am within my rights to do so.  What about reverting a bad edit do you find "curious?" (4) Jm1106 created those links YESTERDAY; it hasn't quite been 24 hours yet for the last of them.  Not everyone is a Wikiholic who pops onto Wikipedia several times a day, and you can scarcely expect that a newcomer would.  If he went a week without further edits or communications, that would be another thing, but pillorying him for not getting back to you within hours is quite bitey, never mind uncivil.   ῲ Ravenswing ῴ  18:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, there aren't any "pop-up" advertisements. There are regular advertisements, on the page. But anyway, here's how I see it: the links are fine per WP:ELYES and in fact WP:ELYES could have been written with just these sort of links in mind. But I suppose one could make an argument that they're not good links -- a weak argument in my view, but maybe I'm wrong. But the question is not "Are these links OK or maybe not so good?" but rather "Are these links so unimpeachably, unquestionably, incontrovertibly horrible and destructive that a person inserting them must be blocked, at once, with no warnings, no engagement, no discussion, no explanation, and for the rest of his life?" I don't see how a reasonable case can be made for that. Herostratus (talk) 07:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Jm1106, if you now understand the policy on external links then you can request unblock, by adding the template . -- Matthew Thompson  (alt) talk to me bro! 06:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Nooooooo don't leave. Jm1106, I'm really sorry you were unblocked, it was a mistake in my opinion. Some people feel that you added the links you did in order to promote GateHouse New England papers and that you are probably an agent or employee of GateHouse New England or a related entity. Are you? Herostratus (talk) 16:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

reboot
Jm1106, I've unblocked you; it's possible what you were doing violates some of our anti-spamming policies, but it's also possible it may not; in any case, not something you should be expected to know right off the bat. The way to determine that is thru discussion, not immediate blocking. It appears there are several editors here who would be willing to help; I suggest, if you're still interested in contributing here, that you talk it over with them first before resuming the additions of external links. The links in the welcome message that has now been added to the top of your page might also help make your future editing here be less rocky.

Sorry for the rough start; hope things go better in future. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)