26SDWriter
Welcome 26SDWriter!
I'm Ad Orientem, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.
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The best way to learn about something is to experience it. Explore, learn, contribute, and don't forget to have some fun!
{{My sandbox}} on your user page. By the way, seeing as you haven't created a user page yet, simply click here to start it.July 2018
editIt is almost never suitable to copy content from another web site to Wikipedia, for more than one reason, the most important being copyright. When you post anything to Wikipedia you release it for anyone in the world to reuse it, either unchanged or modified in any way whatever, subject to attribution to Wikipedia. It is very rare that the owner of a web site licenses content for such very free reuse, and in those few occasions when they do so, we require proof of the fact. We don't assume that content is freely licensed on the unsubstantiated say so of just anyone who comes along and creates a Wikipedia account. For that reason, the page User:26SDWriter/sandbox has been deleted. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
If you are connected to someone or something you have written about (a few examples are writing about yourself, your business, your band, a member of your family, your client) then you should be aware that Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline discourages you from writing about that subject. The main reason for that is that experience over the years indicates that editors with such a connection to a subject they are writing about are likely to find it very difficult, or even impossible, to stand back from their writing and see how it will look from the detached perspective of an outsider, so that they are likely to write in ways that look promotional to others, even if they sincerely think they are writing in a neutral way. Also, if your editing forms all or part of work for which you are paid, whether as an employee, as a contractor, or in any other capacity, the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require you to state who is paying you, and what your connection to them is. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
If you continue to add promotional material to Wikipedia, or to post material which appears to infringe copyright, you may be blocked from editing.
It is clear that your purpose here is to use Wikipedia to publicise a political campaign. Editing for the purpose of promoting, publicising, or advertising anything is not permitted by Wikipedia policy.
All content posted to Wikipedia must be either in the public domain or licensed for free use in terms compatible with the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 License and the GNU free documentation license. Wikipedia policy is that it is the duty of the person posting the material to provide proof that it is so licensed. Since most of the content which you have repeatedly posted to a sandbox is published on a web site which shows the copyright notice "All content © Copyright 2000 - 2018 KWWL Television. All Rights Reserved", it is unlikely that the material is suitably licensed, and if it is then you may like to contact the owners of that web site to ask them to remove their inaccurate statement about ownership of the content. I also direct you to Wikipedia's guideline on conflict of interest, which I have already mentioned above. Please make sure that from now on your editing is in line with that guideline. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. Yes, we are trying to create a page for Mr. Bjorkman. Every other candidate for Congress has such a page. The fact that his has been deleted twice, and his name removed from a page about the 2018 South Dakota congressional race has raised our eyebrows. Why is only Tim facing such scrutiny and attempts to remove his name and bio? Others have less compelling bios — but their pages are untouched. Why was his very name removed from a page? How can we not suspect political mischief? We have permission to use this content. In fact, I wrote much of it! I will check on why the TV station claims it is the author; that is false. We do quote some media outlets, since Tim has had extensive press coverage — dozens of articles in newspapers and on TV and radio stations. He was the subject of a report from ABC News this week and next week he is talking with the Wall Street Journal. But some folks keep insisting he is not a noteworthy person, despite twice being elected a judge, authoring a well-received book, writing numerous legal reports, including an insightful and heavily researched piece on the social costs of poverty, addiction and crime. Now, he is the Democratic candidate for Congress, the only seat SD has in the House. Can anyone legitimately claim this is not a newsworthy person? There are numerous pages on other candidates for office with far less impressive resumes. I did attempt to disclose my connection to Tim and freely admit it. Have you inspected the pages of other candidates? I seriously doubt that, sir. I will no longer be creating the Wikipedia page for Tim. We shall seek someone who better understands the intricate and rather confounding rules and process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.186.187.7 (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
- No, I haven't "inspected the pages of other candidate". There are well over 5 million articles in the English language version of Wikipedia, and I can "inspect" only a tiny minority of them. If you can point to specific examples of other articles which don't comply with Wikipedia's polices then I can look at them.
- It is, unfortunately, true that there has recently been a huge increase in the number of politicians employing people to try to use Wikipedia to promote their campaigns. It has been suggested that this is due to a recent change in the way that Google chooses what to put at the top of searches. Whatever the reason, however, it makes it much more difficult for us to keep track of such promotional pages and remove them.
- Over the years I have discovered that it is very common for people who come to Wikipedia for promotional purposes to assume that everyone else is here for similar reasons to themselves, so that anyone who opposes anything they do must be an opponent trying to scupper their actions for their own nefarious ends: in the case of people here for commercial promotion, it must be their competitors, and in the case of people here for political promotion it must be their political opponents. In fact, in the overwhelming majority of cases that is not so. If you spend even two minutes checking a selection out of the 142,867 edits I have made and the 66,787 administrative actions I have made since becoming a Wikipedia administrator in 2010, you would see that scarcely any of them relate to United States politicians, which might lead you to doubt your assumption that I am secretly acting to promote my own political agenda. Also, although it would take far more than a couple of minutes, if you did search through and find some more of the very small number of edits I have made on that topic, you would find that they do not favour any one political view. I certainly have my own political opinions, but I do not let them influence my work as a Wikipedia administrator, and I have deleted unsuitable articles about politicians I would support just as often as ones about politicians I would oppose. You may like to carefully consider how my actions would have differed from what they actually have been if I had honestly been doing exactly what I have claimed I am doing, i.e. enforcing Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
- It is actually not very relevant whether the owners of the web site where I found the content you copied own the copyright or not: someone owns the copyright, and the fact that the content has been published elsewhere means that, in line with Wikipedia's copyright policy, we cannot accept the text unless and until we have evidence that whoever owns the copyright has released it under a suitable license.
- I take note of the fact that you intend to employ somebody to create an article on your behalf to promote your candidate. I advise you that Wikipedia's policy on sockpuppetry is such that if a user of an account recruits someone else to edit on their behalf to try to evade policies, both accounts are liable to be blocked from editing.
I assure you that, contrary to what you appear to think, I have acted in good faith, my only motivation being to try to ensure that Wikipedia policies and guidelines are followed. My advice is that editors who, on finding that posting their desired content to Wikipedia is not as straightforward as they thought it would be, try to understand what the policy issues involved are, and seek advice and help from more experienced editors, are far more likely to finish up succeeding in achieving at least part of what they wish to than those who angrily attack everyone who they see as getting in their way. I suggest that you may like to think on that point, and reconsider your approach. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I will not attempt to match that torrent of words. Instead, I will stick with a brief summary of the undisputed facts. Only Tim Bjorkman, the sole Democratic candidate in this race, has had two pages deleted and his name removed from a page on the 2018 South Dakota congressional race. Coincidence? In light of the 2016 online chicanery, it seems suspicious. I have not suggested you were partisan in nature. But someone may well be, based on the above note. I believe Judge Borkman’s impressive career and noteworthy status as a serious contender for Congress, backed up by dozens of reports from South Dakota and national media, make him worthy of a Facebook page. I would ask your assistance, as an expert in the arcane ways of this process, in creating and sustaining such a page. I believe he is indeed worthy of it. Thank you for your time and thoughtful responses. Tom Lawrence
- Naturally, you see this in terms of trying to get your candidate elected, and see the presence of articles about other candidates and the absence of articles about other candidates in terms of getting publicity for some candidates and not others. However, I have to look at this from a completely different perspective: that of what complies with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Getting publicity for political candidates is no part of Wikipedia's remit, and as a Wikipedia administrator I do not and must not take that into account. The criterion for determining whether a particular subject is suitable to be the topic of a Wikipedia article is whether that topic satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Rightly or wrongly being a candidate for office is not regarded as constituting notability. I had no part in making the relevant guideline, but that is the situation. Looking at other candidates, I see a state senator, the secretary of state of South Dakota, a US representative, and so on. Those people easily satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines, with flying colours. Nothing I have seen indicates that Tim Bjorkman does so. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
So a state senator, elected by a smaller group of people that Judge Bjorkman, who was twice elected to the Circuit Court, is more noteworthy? Even after Bjorkman is the nominee for a seat in Congress? Really? Seriously? I doubt your “colours” as an expert in American politics. Numerous, numerous other candidates for Congress have pages, often created by themselves or a staffer. But with Bjorkman, well, there is a different standard. I notice you have avoided commenting on the fact Bjorkman’s name was removed from the page on the race. Removed. Why? Any explanation for that? Please respond. You need to calm down, cool down, and consider the facts, please. I seek fairness and accuracy. That should be Wikipedia’s goal, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:48F8:22:B7E:DCB:9CB0:5167:5080 (talk) 12:01, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Interesting to see a page for Neil Tapio, a state senator — that means someone elected from a county in South Dakota to a four-year term, while a circuit court judge is elected by a much, much larger area for a seven-year term — but you knew that, right? That is why he is “noteworthy” and Bjorkman, who is paid 10 times as much as a state senator and has much more authority than one of 35 part-time state senators, is not, right? I believe your ignorance of American government is glaring. Do you know what “state senator” means? Tapio finished a distant third in the Republican primary for the House. His page included a photo taken by KoncurrentKat, a wikipedia editor who seems close to him, since he was in Tapio’s garage when he took it! Should he be posting? Is that a conflict of interest? Or was that user not honest, as I have been throughout this process, and admitted his connection? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neal_Tapio_in_Watertown,_South_Dakota.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:48F8:22:B7E:DCB:9CB0:5167:5080 (talk) 12:18, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
- OK, here are my final attempts to help clarify things for you. I neither deleted the article on Tim Bjorkman nor took part in the discussion that led to its deletion. Contrary to what you evidently think, I have never made any attempt to assess whether he is "noteworthy". I did, however, try to help you by explaining the reasons that people other than me decided that he did not satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines (not mine), however much you or I or both of us may disagree with those guidelines. (And for what it's worth I do personally disagree with a number of aspects of them.) How much someone is paid, how large an area their responsibility covers, how long a term they serve, and for how many terms they have been elected do not feature anywhere in Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Maybe they should, but there is no point haranguing me about the fact that they don't. I didn't create those guidelines. I haven't "avoided commenting" about anything. It is not up to me to defend, justify, or explain actions taken by other editors. There are, unfortunately, many people who come here and edit in violation of the conflict of interest guidelines. If you know of one you are free to make a report at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. In view of the increasingly hostile tone you have taken in response to my good faith attempts to clarify the situation with respect to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (not to express any opinion or judgment of my own) I think I have finished trying to help you. I have already spent far more of my time in trying to do so than most people would have done. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)