Butkusmi

Your username and our conflict of interest policy

Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that your username, "Butkusmi", may not comply with our username policy. Please note that you may not use a username that represents the name of a company, group, organization, product, or website. Examples of usernames that are not allowed include "XYZ Company", "MyWidgetsUSA.com", and "Foobar Museum of Art". However, you are permitted to use a username that contains such a name if it identifies you individually, such as "Sara Smith at XYZ Company", "Mark at WidgetsUSA", or "FoobarFan87".

Please also note that Wikipedia does not allow accounts to be shared by multiple people, and that you may not advocate for or promote any company, group, organization, product, or website, regardless of your username. Please also read our paid editing policy and our conflict of interest guideline. If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please request a change of username, by completing this form, choosing a username that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you. --Ronz (talk) 01:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I don't think you need to change your username. My apologies for not looking into this in more detail before leaving you the warning. I'm going to start a new section about handling conflicts of interest below. --Ronz (talk) 04:17, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

December 2017

Hello, I'm Voidxor. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added to Exakta have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. – voidxor 03:17, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

There is a link on the Exakta page "Comprehensive site on small-format Exaktas" which goes nowhere. As I have found and know, many web sites of film cameras have never been updated since early 2000. When you get to that link, the message is garbled as it was formatted wrong. Is that information ? My site provides information on the many makes of cameras, without ads.

So I have to find someone to add links to my site rather then doing the work myself ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butkusmi (talk • contribs) 04:26, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

You might want to start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Photography to get editors who specialize in camera-related articles to look at the situation. I'm still looking for discussions about the links. I'll let you know what I find. --Ronz (talk) 05:36, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I am an "editors who specialize in camera-related articles". See my point below under #Conflict of interest policy -Lopifalko (talk) 09:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

There's no discussion about the suitability of the links that I can find. What mentions there are treat the site favorably.

Skimming some general discussions I'm finding about similar archives of user manuals, I'm seeing regular concerns about copyrights, and positive comments to having external links to manuals when they apply specifically to the subject matter of the article. --Ronz (talk) 05:50, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Upon further inspection of the edit in question per a request on my talk page, I now see that you merely labeled the link and did not add it. I have partial self reverted. I apologize for the false accusation. However, I do agree with Ronz that you have a conflict of interest. – voidxor 01:19, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't know who would spend a few hours to add this information, I guess a camera person that has a lot of time on his hands ? I did fix a few links that I found going to the wrong folders on my site. I did fine MANY links on pages to camera sites that are now gone, would you like me to check and report broken links ? I did read the item about the "new photography template", but there are two other film/digital camera only wiki sites. There used to be one, but a friendship dissolved and now there are two. One very Ad generative http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Camerapedia and Camera-wiki.org (no ads). I believe that was the argument, having ads that broke the site up. I do realize lots of people are trying to make sites and use them to generate income by ads. I have refused to put ads on my site. I don't even go to the camerapedia.wikia.com site.. way too much nonsense. That should be a consideration these days for links, sites with pop-up, Like us on facebook.. do this, do that. My site is not hurting for hits. I am referenced several hundred times, also in various countries. I even got mentioned in Pop Photography a few years ago, before they closed. I have a UK domain name too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butkusmi (talk • contribs) 23:33, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of interest policy

Hello, Butkusmi. 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 COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. 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, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• 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 must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

That should give you all the information you need to manage your conflict of interest. Basically, don't add your website directly to any article, rather make a request on the article talk page and let someone else add it if there is consensus to do so. --Ronz (talk) 04:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

My impression is that butkus.org provides computer manuals for old cameras that are otherwise hard to find, in a manner that is not self serving to the web site or person hosting them. I assumed that the addition of the external links in question sidestepped concern of a potential conflict of interest by User:Butkusmi (assuming their username indicates a relationship to the site), as well as concern that the links might be overly promotional. However I have not looked closely at butkus.org and perhaps I should. I am suspicious that the external links were added with a claim they led to orphancameras.com, when in fact they led to butkus.org, hence I amended each of them that Butkusmi added to reflect that, however orphancameras.com does redirect to butkus.org. -Lopifalko (talk) 07:32, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I have had my "camera manual" site since 1997 (abet I had 4 manuals at that time). I own the domains butkus.org, butkus.us and orphancameras.com just go to the folder of the camera manuals. No ads on the site, so bringing traffic to my site does not generate ad support (as many sites now do). OrphanCameras.com is Butkus.org/chinon.. just using a forwarding. Just using a more memorable domain name to remember. OrphanCameras.com goes to Butkus.org just the folder /chinon where the camera files are stored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butkusmi (talk • contribs) 23:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that you are trying to promote your own websites, which is spam from the perspective of Wikipedia. Whether or not you monetize your websites through ads doesn't really matter. You are clearly not here to build an encyclopedia, as is evidenced by your own comment above, "So I have to find someone to add links to my site rather then doing the work myself?" – voidxor 04:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I guess my 40 years in education, Elementary Ed Certification, Librarian Certification, Masters in Educational Media +30 credits must be meaningless. I have provided information to people most of my life. And yet most schools do not allow Wikipedia as a reference source.

Moving forward - copyrights

Butkusmi, what have you done with respect to copyrights of the materials on your website? --Ronz (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Let me tell you about Craig Camera, in the early 70s he sold Zerox copies of camera manuals all over the east coast. I saw him at many of the camera shows (yes there used to be camera shows), also in the 80s, also in the 90s. He had Ads in the major photo magazines where you could call him to order a copy of any camera manuals and mailed to your home. He offered that for 30 years, in various camera magazine. In 2000 he opened his web site craigcamera.com and still sold copies of every camera manual possible. No one ever bothered him. I have had my camera site since 2000, so for 17 years no one ever contacted me about anything. Neither did the other 100+ web sites that copied their personal camera manuals to post on line.

Most of my manuals are from non existent companies. I send people to oldtimercameras.com that want a printed camera manual, they have been around for years, advertise on line. NeatPhoto has been around since 2005 on Ebay selling copies of hundreds of manuals. If any of these camera companies cared the least about any copyright, they would have showed some interest. Actually I received an E-mail from Kodak stating they are sending people requesting copies of old Kodak camera manuals to my web site as they don't want to be bothered. So, they don't care and never have. I do not have any copies of HOVE books, they were made in the 90s and they are still around. Now writing about how to use digital cameras. I would say half of the links to photo sites have some form of instruction manuals on their site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butkusmi (talk • contribs) 23:44, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to make of that response, nor how to move forward based upon it. I've asked for help at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#External_links_to_camera_manuals_from_Butkus.org_and_Cameramanuals.org

In the process I found cameramanuals.org, which is also owned by Butkusmi. Butkusmi, are there any other websites involved? --Ronz (talk) 00:37, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

There is ONE website... various names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butkusmi (talk • contribs) 01:08, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Please list all the names. --Ronz (talk) 02:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Butkus.org butkus.us (forwards to camera manual folder on Butkus.org) OrphanCameras.com (forwards to camera manuals folder on Butkus.org) http://www.cameramanuals.org (hosts the actual PDF files) on a different server.

Thank you. --Ronz (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Butkusmi. The original publisher of each manual is the copyright holder of that material. Here at Wikipedia we don't base our copyright decisions on whether or not the copyright holder cares any more or whether or not we think we will get caught. Our policy is stricter than that. We're not permitted to violate copyright law, and we're not permitted to add external links that display material that violates someone's copyright in violation of copyright law. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 20:44, 29 December 2017 (UTC)