Welcome

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Hello, Cekesner2! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking   if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)Reply
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Warning: Multiple violations of Wikipedia policies

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Sir: With your message on my talk page, you have violated a host of Wikipedia policies. First of all, by identifying yourself as an advertising director for MystiCon, you have admitted that you seek to promote your conference through a Wikipedia page. This is a blatant violation of Wikipedia's anti-spam policies (as set forth on this page), and grounds enough on its own for the article for the article to be deleted immediately, and for those involved to be blocked from editing articles.

Second, you have attempted to claim ownership of an article. No one owns any article at Wikipedia, particularly those with which they have some soft of association with the subject, as set forth in this policy. You seem to be under the impression that Wikipedia is like Facebook, that you can use it for your own promotional purposes. That is not so.

Third, you have made threats toward another editor for attempting to take some sort of action on an article. This sort of action is taken very seriously by Wikipedia management. You may make no demands of any kind whatsoever that any one refrain from acing on an article, unless you are a Wikipedia administrator, which you obviously are not. Fourth, you have claimed that you have a "right" to this article is absurd on its face. No one has a "right" to anything on Wikipedia in relation to the inclusion of an article. The First Amendment does not apply here, as Wikipedia is not an agency of the United States Government. Wikipedia is free to set its own policies on what is included on its site, and enforce those policies as it sees fit. So don't go claiming any so-called "rights."

I strongly suggest that you read this page, and familiarize yourself on how Wikipedia operates — that is, assuming you are not blocked for editing for the violations you have already committed. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 19:59, 3 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

April 2011

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  This is your only warning; if you use Wikipedia for soapboxing, promotion or advertising again, as you did at MystiCon, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 20:00, 3 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia is not for advertising or promotion of any kind

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  Hello Cekesner2. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

  1. editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
  2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
  3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations.

Explanation: you have evidently not understood what Wikipedia is. It is a collaborative project to build an encyclopedia. It is not a notice-board site like Myspace for people to write about themselves and their organizations; we consider that a conflict of interest and it is strongly discouraged because of the requirement for a neutral point of view. Nobody can demand to have an article. You can learn more about Wikipedia from the WP:Five pillars, and the links from the paragraph above. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 21:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

Your recent edits

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  Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four halfwidth tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button   located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 03:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

A fundamental lack of understanding about how Wikipedia works

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It is has become quite clear that you do not know how Wikipedia operates. As a new user here, that's expected to a certain degree. Let's break down your issues, roughly in the order in which they were presented:

1. Identifying yourself as the "advertising director" for MystiCon, and then saying you were not using this article to promote or publicize the convention, flies in the face of logic and common sense. Why were you pushing for an article, then, if not to promote it? Furthermore, your involvement goes against Wikipedia's policy against conflicts of interest.

2. As for a comparison with other sci-fi conventions with their own articles, I will review the list to see which of them might not also meet notability standards. Some have likely gone through article-for-deletion procedures in the past; those which were judged to be kept will remain. Others will be evaluated one by one. The only prejudice I have is that I have a suspicion — and nothing more than that right now — that individual sci-fi conventions may get undue coverage at Wikipedia simply because sci-fi enthusiasts are typically better oriented toward technology, such as Wikipedia. To branch off a comparison I made earlier: Organizers or fans of a sci-fi convention which attracts 500 or so fans are more likely to post a Wikipedia article about it than, say, organizers and/or fans of an annual district Barbershop Harmony Society convention, whose attendees are typically older and less knowledgeable of technology. See my point? Why is a sci-fi convention with the same number of attendees and similar press coverage any more notable than a bunch of barbershop quarter singers, or Gospel quartets, or model railroaders, or whatever else — again, just as an example.

3. It's an old Wikipedia policy that is shortened to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS: Just because one subject is covered in a Wikipedia article, doesn't mean another similar subject is also deserving of an article. In other words, just because AggieCon (for instance) has an article doesn't mean MystiCon should. AggieCon has been around for more than four decades, whereas MystiCon is brand now; AggieCon apparently has more attendees and a broader area of coverage than MystiCon; and so on.

4. You say you do not claim ownership of your article page, yet you clearly refer to it as "our" page, and vehemently defend any attempts to delete it. In Wikipedia terms, that constitutes ownership, and is not allowed. Anyone may edit any article as they see fit, and may also propose an article for deletion (see below).

5. Your claims as to what the First Amendment does and does not do indicate a misunderstanding that many people have of it. As a working journalist whose ability to function freely is almost totally dependent on this amendment, I have more than a passing interest. Allow me to quote the full amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This specifically enjoins Congress from quashing free speech, but does not prevent any other private entity from enforcing whatever standards it sees fit, especially when that organization is itself a vehicle for speech. Since Wikipedia is a private organization, it may publish what it likes, and allow others to use its services under policies it deems appropriate. The amendment does indeed apply to everyone, but only in that the government may not censor what its citizens say. Private organizations may restrict speech within its own facilities as it bloody well pleases. The old First Amendment argument just doesn't fly here.

6. You claim you are going to complain to Wikipedia's "editorial board." There is no such thing as an editorial board at Wikipedia. I will assume good faith that you simply do not have a full comprehension of how Wikipedia works — and as someone who just signed up for a user ID a week or so ago, you would not be expected to. I have been an active editor at Wikipedia for nearly six years, with edits numbering in the tens of thousands. For most of that time, I have been a regular on new-page patrol, which involves checking newly-posted articles to see if they are suitable for inclusion. (That's how I encountered the MystiCon page, largely by luck of the draw.) As such, I have quite a bit of knowledge about how Wikipedia works, and I know for a fact that there is no such thing as an editorial board, never has been, and likely never will be. Any editor may nominate any article that he or she deems fit for deletion, by using a three-step process: a) speedy deletion, where articles are quickly and summarily removed for obvious reasons; b) proposed deletion, where an article is marked with a notice, then deleted after seven days if no one objects by removing the notice; and c) an article for deletion discussion, where an article is formally nominated by an editor, who states his or her reasons why the article should be deleted. Other editors then post votes (not votes in the traditional sense, as it is not a numerical outcome which determines the final result) stating why the article should go, stay, or undergo some other fate like merging with a related article. That is the place where we are now. This process goes on typically for five days — fewer if the outcome is obvious, more by relisting if a consensus is not reached, in the opinion of admins. At the end, an admin ultimately determines the article's fate: delete, keep, no consensus (defaults to keep, may be re-nominated), merge, or something else. As the person who nominated the article, I do not have the final say in whether the article stays or goes. That task falls to an admin. It does not involve anything amounting to an "editorial board." No such beast exists here.

7. You claim that I bear animus toward yourself or MystiCon. I could care less about the event. I never even heard of it until I came across the article while on new-page patrol. My only bias against the article lies in the fact that it clearly violates longstanding Wikipedia policies against promotion of some entity, especially one with which an editor has some connection, as well as what I argue is a lack of notability by Wikipedia standards. As for animus toward you, I have none, though your heavy-handed attitude is testing that.

I apologize for being long-winded, but there is much ground to cover here. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 04:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

 
Hello, Cekesner2. You have new messages at JohnCD's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

WP Guidelines

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You asked at the AfD for help understanding the policies and guidelines we operate under here; as I think WP:COI has been focused on too much, I've added a Welcome template that links to many useful pages. Good luck! --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

We take efforts to publicize any subject very seriously here

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Your involvement in the discussion of this article, and your failure to understand the concerns of other editors, have considerably increased the probability that the article on MystiCon will be deleted. Somebody involved with an organization or event is the worst possible person to be creating or editing an article about it; and the publicity director is particularly unlikely to maintain the necessary neutral point of view, and particularly prone to promotional attitudes and approach. Nobody "owns" an article in Wikipedia, least of all the subject of the article. Deal with it. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)Reply