User talk:Steve Podell

Orphaned non-free image File:OrindaAcademy new-logo-2016.png
Thanks for uploading File:OrindaAcademy new-logo-2016.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:28, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

File source problem with File:Orinda-Academy-Arial-2016.jpg
Thank you for uploading File:Orinda-Academy-Arial-2016.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. Please add this information by editing the image description page.

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Please refer to the image use policy to learn what images you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. Please also check any other files you have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a [ list of your uploads]. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

December 2019
Hello Steve Podell. 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 Orinda Academy, 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:Steve Podell. 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) 18:44, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not an employee of Orinda Academy, I am a parent of a student at the school. Steve Podell (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I saw your reply at my talk. Please respond to messages where they are left, indenting your reply as I have mine here. Any time you leave a message, you need to sign by typing four tildes. That will cause the software to add your username, a link to your talk page and a timestamp. So, you're not doing this for compensation, but you clearly have a WP:COI. I'll mark the page as such. In the future, please propose edits on the article talk page instead of making them directly. If you use the proper template, it will be handled promptly. It's very hard to seperate personal knowledge and feelings about the subject from material paraphrased from reliable sources, which is exactly what is supposed to be in the article.  Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 00:08, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi . I too say your post on John's user talk page and was going to respond there first, but since the post has been removed I will respond here. While I understand your intentions were good and also understand that there are probably some important differences between the schools in that area; it's not really Wikipedia's function to provide such comparisons to those who might be using Wikipedia to research schools. Wikipedia articles are not written for the benefit of schools or on behalf of schools, but rather written about schools based upon what's being written about them in independent reliable sources. Wikipedia articles about schools aren't intended to be a guides for parents trying to determine which schools to send their kids to; that's what a school's official website or other promotional school materials are for and schools have no claim of ownership of any Wikipedia articles written about them. John is one of Wikipedia's more experienced editors when it comes to school-related articles, but there are many others as well who will be more that happy to help improve the article with you as long as the improvements you're suggesting are in accordance with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. So, proposing things at Talk:Orinda Academy and using Template:Request edit is probably the best way to go here; not required, but it's probably the best way.Regarding File:Orinda Academy Blue Jay with white background.png which you uploaded to Commons, unless you are 100% the creator of this logo and copyright over it isn't being claimed by anyone else like is the case here, you cannot upload it and claim it as your "own work". Please take a look at c:Commons:Licensing and c:Commons:OTRS for more on this. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:43, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Marchjuly, Other Schools in the area have logos, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_College_Preparatory_School_logo_2013.gif (where I am the parent of an alum), can I use this type of licensing to update the Orinda Academy logo?  Steve Podell (talk) 22:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi again Steve Podell. If my post was a bit confusing then I apologize. I'm not saying that the article about Orinda cannot have any images, even a logo, added to it. What I was trying to say is that you cannot upload someone else's copyrighted work to Commons under a free license without their permission to do so. Are you the person who created the logo for the school and the person who 100% holds the copyright on it? If your answer is "yes" to both of those questions, then you should email your consent to Wikimedia OTRS stating that you understand and agree to c:COM:L and c:COM:LRV. If the answer is "no" to either of those questions, then you cannot agree to release something that you don't own 100% under a free license. Look more closely at the copyright license of File:The College Preparatory School logo 2013.gif. That file was uploaded locally to (English) Wikipedia as non-free content; it wasn't uploaded to Commons under a free license. Non-free content is allowed to be uploaded to Wikipedia as long as its respective use(s) satisfy Wikipedia's non-free content use policy, but non-free content of any type is not allowed on Commons. If you want to re-upload the file locally as non-free content to Wikipedia, you can mostly do so without any problems. If you're not sure how to do this, please take a look at WP:UPLOAD for more specifics or as someone to do it for you at WP:FFU. Lots of people make similar mistakes when it comes to image licensing; so, it's OK to do so. Just be aware from here on that file licensing can be a bit tricky and not every file is licensed the same way per WP:OTHERIMAGE. Another thing to remember/understand is that Commons and (English) Wikipedia are separate Wikimedia Foundation projects with their own respective policies and guidelines. While there are quite a lot of things that overlap, there are also some very important differences. Commons host files for all foundation projects and it tends to require licensing that works well for all of these projects; Wikipedia, on the other hand, hosts files which are only used on English Wikipedia, so it allows certain licenses that Commons doesn't. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)