User talk:Wathirstproject

February 2021
Hello Wathirstproject. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Thirst Project, 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:Wathirstproject. 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. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:33, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Response 1
Hello ToBeFree! Not sure if this is where I am supposed to respond, but here is some information. I run a chapter of Thirst Project known as Williamsburg Area Thirst Project. We operate to raise money for Thirst Project's cause of ending the water crisis, however I did not post information on the Wikipedia page to promote funds for my chapter or Thirst Project itself. All I added was information to help people learn about the organization as they would on any Wikipedia page for an organization. The main reason I added so much (if that's what has caused you to send this) is that I know a lot of information about Thirst Project that I thought belonged on their page to help people looking for them on Wikipedia. I am not paid by them for adding to their page. Let me know if there is any more information I can provide, or if this is something I am not allowed to do. Thanks! Wathirstproject (talk) 20:55, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, hey . Thank you very much for the clarification.
 * While it may not be mandatory in your situation, please take a moment to disclose the affiliation on your user page, by clicking the red username at the top of any Wikipedia page and turning it blue by creating the page. A short neutral sentence describing the affiliation is fine. Regarding your username, I had interpreted the "Wa" as a name (e.g. "Wolfgang Alexander at Thirstproject"), which would have been fine. However, as the name appears to represent a chapter instead of a person, please have a look at the username policy, section "WP:ISU" ("Implying shared use") and request a change at Special:GlobalRenameRequest. Your user page and this talk page will automatically be moved when the account is renamed.
 * After disclosing the affiliation, feel free to request changes to articles by creating a new section on the article's talk page. If you add the code request edit to your proposal, it will be reviewed by experienced uninvolved volunteers. Please do so instead of directly editing any article that you have a close connection to. This seems to apply both to Water scarcity and Thirst Project, for example. Details and further suggestions are described in the conflict of interest guideline.
 * In articles unrelated to your affiliations, you are always welcome to directly make edits that are unrelated to your affiliations. You may also be bold when doing so. Just topics like Water scarcity and Thirst Project require a more careful approach because of the conflict of interest.
 * Thanks and best regards, ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much for the clarification! I will take those tips into account, although it may be later today when I have a chance to get to them. This has been very helpful, so thank you! Wathirstproject (talk) 22:21, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * One last thing; now that this has been cleared up, is the template message at the top of Thirst Project able to be removed? Wathirstproject (talk) 22:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late reply; feel free to notify me about messages using the code . Why should the message be removed – it seems to be factual and describing exactly what has happened? There have been no substantial edits since your substantial contribution, and you have a close connection to the subject, so the disclaimer seems appropriate. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:20, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I apologize for saying that. I read into the meaning of the tag a bit more and I understand it more now. I thought it was meaning someone close as in connected through payment for the work to the article as oppose to someone close meaning someone who may be biased. I understand the tag now and it seems logical to keep it there. Sorry for continuously bothering you and have a great day! Wathirstproject (talk) 12:53, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a problem,, and do feel free to ask if any further questions arise. :) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:22, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Wathirstproject. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Conflict of interest);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2021 (UTC)