User talk:Tim Shelsea

Welcome!
Hello, Tim Shelsea, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Eugene, Oregon. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

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 should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 00:46, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

May 2020
Hello Tim Shelsea. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Albany, Oregon, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, 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. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged 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:Tim Shelsea. 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. ''It appears you may have a conflict of interest with RNO PDX Bus Lines. If so, your editing will need to change. '' tedder (talk) 01:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not being directly or indirectly compensated for any of these edits.Tim Shelsea (talk) 04:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Great! Often accounts that only edit in one topic appear to have a conflict of interest. I hope you stay and edit in more areas. tedder (talk) 04:19, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Similar edits were made through Wikivoyage. There is a definite smell of conflict of interest. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * please see voy:pub. This may be more serious than a COI. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Edits have been removed on a precautionary basis. Follow-up to occur. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:01, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for advertising or promotion. From your contributions, this seems to be your only purpose. If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page:. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Are you employed by RNO PDX Bus Lines? 331dot (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * More specifically, how are you connected to RNO? A conflict of interest is wider than "hey, I get paid directly". tedder (talk) 22:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not employed. I'd simply heard of them from a former coworker of mine and wanted to share. I don't receive any compensation and would've worked on other topics here, but I was blocked before I had any chance to do so.Tim Shelsea (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It's just so weird, because you came here and added the bus line to what, a dozen pages, and .. there's no indication it even exists. No articles, no mention on their site about ownership, business/bus licenses, nothing. In what world is it a service for Wikipedia to link to something that doesn't seem to exist? Especially something that might be seen as helpful to travelers? I'm missing something here. tedder (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you're missing. It was on Facebook in a bus driver group. Video of a bus getting worked on. Talking about the busing biz these self-employed guys trying to do. I thought I'd put it on Wikipedia to help people find them.Tim Shelsea (talk) 03:43, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

What are the names of these self-employed guys? Is there a link to the video? Is there any way any of it can be independently verified? tedder (talk) 03:47, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * And now it's even more odd; I was looking at the website, following the links, wondering about the same things (what sort of business is this?) and suddenly the whole site became inaccessible to me, a 503 error. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 03:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Tried to send you a link to the video but it won't let me without logging into that Facebook group. Oh well.Tim Shelsea (talk) 04:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

When I find out how to link to that video I'll put it here. Doesn't seem possible right now but we'll see.Tim Shelsea (talk) 06:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You say they're "self-employed", yet their LinkedIn page claims they have 1000 employees (which seems like an awful lot for a small bus company with only one main route). You act like they're an "established business", yet their website's domain name was only registered in March, and their encryption certificate is days old and is only valid for 3 months. No one has found anything we could use to verify that they exist&mdash;no phone number, no email, no USDOT or MC number, no certificate of incorporation&mdash;and those who have gone looking have all had the website block them from further access. Even if you provide a video, which I doubt you will, it will take more than that to convince us this is a real business and not a credit card scam. --Bigpeteb (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I'm not going to continue wasting my time defending someone else's bus service on Wikipedia. And they're not an established business so that probably explain a lot.Tim Shelsea (talk) 00:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)