User talk:Wikiuser114489

Welcome!
Hello, Wikiuser114489, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Crumbl Cookies, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article.&#32;Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * Best practices for editors with close associations
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
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 * Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using 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 ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Valereee (talk) 00:57, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Valeree,
 * Thank you for providing helpful context here. I am employed by Crumbl Cookies as Director of Social Media. I am not receiving compensation for my contributions to this article. Is there a way that I can still make edits? I'm happy to send you a draft to review. It is definitely my priority to stay objective and only state facts. I feel that the current Crumbl Cookies article is in fact quite biased, as it's only discussing isolated events where the company has received negative attention in the press. I feel these contributions may have been made by individuals with ill intent, as it dramatically understates the overall reception of the Crumbl concept. I'd love to add additional content that gives objective, factual information on the history of the brand, products we offer, locations, corporate governance, partnerships, etc. similar to other brands' pages like Starbucks or McDonalds. I think it's important that this type of information is provided by a Crumbl Corporate employee, as we can assure the accuracy of the facts. I can assure you that our intention is not to promote, whitewash, or sell, as stated in the best practices article.
 * Please let me know what the best way to proceed is. Like I said, I'm happy to send over a draft that you or another editor could proofread for accuracy and transparency.
 * Looking forward to hearing from you.
 * Wikiuser114489 (talk) 22:23, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You're employed by the company whose article you are making edits to in a PR/marketing role, so you are receiving compensation for your contributions. Furthermore, the nature of your edits thus far have not been encouraging in your ability to stay objective and add facts in an encyclopedic manner.  I'll give some examples:
 * You added an external link to the company's Instagram page in the article's introduction, in violation of WP:EXT (you don't see external links in the Starbucks or McDonald's articles except in the sidebar or External links section)
 * You added unreferenced information to the page with a promotional tone, e.g. "All cookies are packaged in Crumbl's famous pink box." (see WP:RS and WP:PROMO)
 * Information added to the page must be referenced with ideally secondary and independent sources. Unsourced information or information supported by the company's website or social media itself is inappropriate.  Additionally, the Starbucks and McDonald's articles you allude to are not created, maintained, or edited by the companies or representatives of the companies themselves, but rather by unpaid and neutral volunteers who edit according to Wikipedia's policies.
 * I highly recommend you cease editing of the article and instead create an edit request on the article's talk page to request changes. You can learn how to do so here: Edit requests.  I'm also leaving you a notice below to inform you as to how you can disclose yourself as a paid editor. Uhai (talk &middot; contribs) 22:53, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

September 2022
Hello Wikiuser114489. 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:Wikiuser114489. 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. Uhai (talk &middot; contribs) 22:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)