User talk:Mja butterfly

November 2008
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Sswonk (talk) 03:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Since Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by some search engines, including Google. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. Sswonk (talk) 03:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Sswonk (talk) 03:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi SSWONK- I apologize for the inappropriate link usage. Please know that it is not our intent to "spam" or "increase traffic." The site we have added to certain artist pages is unique content with photo galleries, reviews, interviews and more. The site does not garner any revenue through click tracking and does not make any money. It is simply a labor of love. Every artist on our site has agreed to be included on the site. We do not create any artist page without the individual artist's consent. Please advise where this link would be best served on the page. Thank you for your help with this misunderstanding.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate encyclopedic contributions, but some of your recent contributions seem to be advertising or for promotional purposes. Wikipedia does not allow advertising in articles. For more information on this, see If you still have questions, there is a new contributor's help page, or you can write   below this message along with a question and someone will be along to answer it shortly. You may also find the following pages useful for a general introduction to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Feel free to write a note on the bottom of if you want to get in touch with me. Again, welcome! Regardless of your intentions, and the relevance of your site, your addition of links to your own site violated the guidelines which are linked above. Please read the guidelines and understand that they are meant to protect the encyclopedia from commercialization of any kind, and to preserve a neutral point of view. It is possible that your sites may be non-commercial, and that you have agreements with artists. However, you also have advertisements for Amazon sales on your sites. You added links to these sites on your own. For example, if I found an interesting photo gallery or concert review on a magazine website, I may chose to link to it and possibly not have it removed by another user if they agree that it benefits understanding of the subject. But, if I worked for that magazine, I would be in violation of the conflict of interest policies of Wikipedia and be compromising my status as a Wikipedia editor. You are welcome to continue providing edits with third-party sources but it is against the guidelines to add links to your own privately edited content. I hope that helps. Sswonk (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
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You have been blocked indefinitely from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy because your account is being used only for spam, advertising, or promotion. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text below.

I am absolutely shocked that I have been blocked. I am a new user to Wikipedia (just registered this evening) and thought I was contributing to Wikipedia's database by adding what I believed to be relevant content. I had no intention of spamming or being coniving in any way. I simply did not understand that I could not add content that is self edited. Once this was explained to me, I immediately stopped and took action by sending the following note: "Thanks for your help Sswonk. The guideline usage you explained certainly makes sense and I appreciate Wikipedia protecting content for users. We will remove the links we have added. Have a good night.(Mja butterfly (talk) 04:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC))" The fact that Wikipedia has taken such an extreme measure in what was simply a misunderstanding shows a level of restriction that is completely appalling. I am highly disappointed to learn that these are the extreme measures your editors take when dealing with a cooperative, well intentioned individual.
 * Hello Mja. The problem was that this apparently wasn't an individual, but a shared account (presumably by members of your company), as evidenced by your multiple use of "we" in previous edits explaining your actions. You can be "shocked" that you are blocked, but the bottom line is that accounts that are created by an organization, shared by members of the organization, and used to promote the organization, are not allowed here. You say that you are not trying to make money from this, that it is a "labor of love", yet you have advertisements of Amazon sales on this page. You added links to close to a dozen pages before responding to the warnings above. Sorry, but this is clear advertising. This "level of restriction" protects Wikipedia from being overwhelmed by advertising, spam, and promotion. This isn't an "extreme measure", in that it isn't necessarily forever and it certainly isn't reversible. I noticed that instead of using the unblock request feature as I mentioned in my block notice, you simply left an "I'm appalled" message. Perhaps you would like to use the unblock request template, and a third-party admin can review this request and act accordingly. Let me know if you need any help with the technical aspects of this. Tan   &#124;   39  05:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I started this website five years ago and have made a total of $39 on Amazon links in five years. Those links are used primarily for the benefit of the artists we profile, whom we only profile with their cooperation and approval. If you look at the timeline of when the links I entered occurred, you'll see that it was all within an hour period. I was going through the artists on our site and adding their respective artist pages all at once. This has not been a prolonged, collaborative effort to create advertising dollars. Once I noticed I had a message, I immediately replied to it. Once Sswonk explained the guidelines, I immediately looked at each artist I had added a link to so we could remove it (though the editors had already done so). There is no need to go through an unblocking request process. I will not be adding Wikipedia links in the future. I just wanted to voice my side of things to protect my reputation. I understand there are many ill intentioned, self promoting people who probably attempt to use Wikipedia in a self serving way. I am not one of them. I am simply someone who did not understand the guidelines for self edited content. You can choose to believe this or not. I simply wanted to state my case.
 * Fair enough, I'll buy your explanation (no joke intended, advertising... never mind). You have been unblocked. There's a lot of fun and intellectual growth here to be had by editing Wikipedia; please consider staying and positively contributing to the project. We deal with hundreds of promotional usernames every day, so my apologies if you felt personally slighted by the block. It is simply Wikipedia's policy that there is zero tolerance for advertising. Let me know if I can help you out, point you in certain directions, or anything of that nature. Tan   &#124;   39  06:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your understanding. I realize you must deal with advertising and spam on a constant basis and as a user of Wikipedia, I appreciate the "no tolerance" position. I have always been very active in the personal position I've taken on my website regarding not wanting any content to be pushed onto a visitor. I guess this is why I was so upset that the editors at Wikipedia felt I was doing this. From here on out, I will keep all self edited content to myself and contribute only in ways that adhere to the guidelines. Sorry for the confusion and thanks again.
 * Sure. I'm going to leave a standard welcome template on your page below; don't be taken aback. It has a lot of useful links for learning the ropes of editing Wikipedia. Another thing you may want to do is leave a signature after your responses - type four tildes, like this: ~ . This will put your username and timestamp, like at the end of my messages. Again, let me know if you need any help, or have any questions. Tan   &#124;   39  06:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops, someone else already left this above. Ah well, never mind. Going offline to get some sleep! Tan   &#124;   39  06:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia
Tan  &#124;   39  06:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)