User talk:Jodysdavis3343

September 2018
Hello Jodysdavis3343. The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, such as the edit you made to John Foy and Associates, PC, and that 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:Jodysdavis3343. 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, please do not edit further until you answer this message. Sam Sailor 09:37, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * HERE IS MY ANSWER TO YOUR MESSAGE: I am the Director of Marketing for John Foy & Associates and I receive absolutely no compensation for my edits.  I am an employee of the firm.  I'm trying to make corrections and add basic information about what the firm does so that our Wikipedia page is up to date.  Example-I believe I edited to update the number of employees we have at the firm.  Other information is that the firm markets throughout the State of Georgia as The Strong Arm, a widely recognized brand based on our significant advertising in the area.  I don't believe that i submitted any "articles".  We in no way want to jeopardize our SEO or utilize any black hat practices whatsoever.  This is more an error based on my limited understanding of exactly how Wikipedia works from the inside out.  Please advise what needs to be done to keep the page updated without violation.  38.140.6.187 (talk) 14:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)  Jody Davis

COI
I've just blocked two WP:SPA undeclared paid editor accounts involved in this article. The only reason that you aren't also blocked is that you have sort of declared your obvious conflict of interest. Unless you work for the firm for free, you are a paid editor. As you were told above, 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:. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:   . Please provide the required disclosure. Note that editing with a COI is discouraged, but permitted as long as it is declared. Concealing a COI can lead to a block. Please do not edit further until you respond to this message.

Also read the following regarding writing an article
 * you must provide independent verifiable sources to enable us to verify the facts and show that it meets the notability guidelines. Sources that are not acceptable include those linked to the organisation, press releases, YouTube, IMDB, social media and other sites that can be self-edited, blogs, websites of unknown or non-reliable provenance, and sites that are just reporting what the organisation claims or interviewing its management. Note that references should be in-line so we can tell what fact each is supporting, and should not be bare urls
 * The notability guidelines for organisations and companies have been updated. The primary criteria has five components that must be evaluated separately and independently to determine if it is met:
 * significant coverage in
 * independent,
 * multiple,
 * reliable,
 * secondary sources.
 * Note that an individual source must meet all four criteria to be counted towards notability.


 * you must write in a non-promotional tone. Articles must be neutral and encyclopaedic.
 * there shouldn't be any url links in the article, only in the "References" or "External links" sections.
 * you must not copy text from elsewhere. Copyrighted text is not allowed in Wikipedia, as outlined in this policy. That applies even to pages created by you or your organisation, unless they state clearly and explicitly that the text is public domain. We require that text posted here can be used, modified and distributed for any purpose, including commercial; text is considered to be copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise. There are ways to donate copyrighted text to Wikipedia, as described here; please note that simply asserting on the talk page that you are the owner of the copyright, or you have permission to use the text, isn't sufficient.
 * The above copyright comments also apply to images. If your company claims copyright, it can't be used here

Before attempting to write an article again, please make sure that the topic meets the notability criteria linked above, and check that you can find independent third party sources. Also read Your first article. You must also make a COI declaration as above Jimfbleak - talk to me?  15:20, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for making the mandatory declaration on your user page. If, after reading the information about notability linked above, you still believe that your organisation is notable enough for a Wikipedia article (and that there is significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources), you could, if you wish, post a request at Requested articles for the article to be created. See also guidance for editors with conflicts of interest
 * If you do not wish to go down that route (which is indeterminate in the time you need to wait), I could do a partial restoration as a draft that you would need to continue yourself (I'll block any undeclared paid editor who attempts to create it). There are two problems you will need to address.
 * It's not at all clear to me how this firm meets the notability criteria above. It has just one office, so not exactly Clifford Chance or Irwin Mitchell. All the text told us is that you specialise in PI, your boss has some fairly standard US law qualifications, and you advertise in the state of Georgia. None of these makes the company notable enough for an article. If there is nothing else, you are just one of thousands of high street law firms and other businesses that simply don't meet the requirements for an article here.
 * You are an inexperienced editor with a COI. Although you have made the declaration, you will need to follow the guidance to the letter to avoid further deletions or worse, even if you can show notability.
 * Please consider carefully what I have said, and let me know if you wish to proceed despite those comments. If so, I'll restore the deleted text as an edited draft. Jimfbleak - talk to me?  05:55, 16 October 2018 (UTC)