User talk:Vdressle

Welcome!
Welcome!

Hello, Vdressle, and welcome to Wikipedia! I have noticed that you are fairly new! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. I also see that some of your recent edits, such as the ones to the page Canal Fulton, Ohio, show an interest in the use of images and/or photos on Wikipedia.

Did you know that ...
 * ...Wikipedia has a very stringent image use policy?
 * ...most images from Flickr, online news websites, and other web sources are copyrighted?
 * ...Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously?
 * ...freely-licensed images should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, a central location for images where they can be used on all Wikipedia projects?
 * ...we recommend that new users use our "files for upload" process – at least until you get the hang of things?

If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type  on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Magnolia677 (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * Manual of Style

Sanborn Fire Insurance map
Why are you adding Sanborn Fire Insurance maps to so many articles? Magnolia677 (talk) 19:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

We digitized these at my job last year and we think people might find these easier on a Wikipedia page and have interest in using the digital scans for research Vdressle (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah I see. So this is part of your job? Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep! We were inspired by a project at Toledo public library doing something similar and thought we'd try it out too :) Vdressle (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it puts you in a conflict of interest. Moreover, the maps are pretty unnecessary on most of the articles you added them to.  I'd suggest you stop until this gets straightened out. Thanks for your understanding. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

How is it a conflict of interest? We will not update any more records, though I don't see the conflict Vdressle (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

January 2022
Hello Vdressle. The nature of your edits 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 serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

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:Vdressle. 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. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I am not receiving compensation for these posts. I am a digital librarian doing these edits on my own time using freely available images (which have undergone copyright review) Vdressle (talk) 20:30, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, I don't think the Sanborns are decorative or unnecessary. They are used in a number of ways for research and historical home renovations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanborn_maps My thought was adding these to the town/city name would be the best place for interested parties to find out more. The images are free to use and are in Wikimedia. I believe a conflict of interest would be if I was editing a page like the place of my employment. There is no financial gain in sharing these resources, but attempting to better connect people with these fascinating maps. Vdressle (talk) 21:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Help me!
Please help me with... Can someone help- I updated my user page with my employer as requested (though I am completing the edits on my own time and not getting compensated). I would like to add in images with historical maps that are really useful in research to town and city pages in Ohio from the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. These have all ungone copyright review, and have been harvested from our digital library of America (DPLA) content into wikimedia. Any advice would be appreciated. It looks like all of my edits were undone, example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adena,_Ohio Vdressle (talk) 13:47, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a content dispute (based on the edit summary), so you should discuss the matter further at Talk:Adena, Ohio. If you want more help, change the help me-helped back into a help me, stop by the Teahouse, or Wikipedia's live help channel, or the help desk to ask someone for assistance. Primefac (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Sanborn maps
Hello again. I am talking to you now outside of the WP:COIN discussion. I have also messaged you on Commons. I hope you can see that a historic map is not necessarily appropriate for an article about a small town in Ohio. These articles tend to be short and about the current situation. A Sanborn map interjected looks disruptive and confusing, even if nominally placed in a section labelled "History". Generally, they do not belong in Wikipedia articles; even, Cleveland doesn't have a historic map directly in the article. Akron, Ohio does, however, I think you can see it is carefully placed. So, assuming you are not discouraged, feel free to message me for help in your future Wiki adventures. Cheers, --SVTCobra 03:16, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Your map images are useful.
Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that your public domain map images are useful, even if they can't commonly be used on Wikipedia. I've been categorizing them over on commons so they can be easily found by those looking for media on a specific city, town, or village.

Thank you again! --Mbrickn (talk) 02:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)