IslandEchoes

October 2024

Hello IslandEchoes. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Dhidhdhoo (Haa Alif Atoll), 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 employed (or being compensated in any way) by a person, group, company or organization to promote their interests. Paid advocacy on Wikipedia must be disclosed even if you have not specifically been asked to edit Wikipedia. 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 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 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:IslandEchoes. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=IslandEchoes|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. 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. 331dot (talk) 10:22, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

As previously advised, your edits, such as the edit you made to Dhidhdhoo (Haa Alif Atoll), give the impression you have a financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. You were asked to cease editing until you responded by either stating that you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits, or by complying with the mandatory requirements under the Wikimedia Terms of Use that you disclose your employer, client and affiliation. Again, you can post such a disclosure on your user page at User:IslandEchoes, and the template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=IslandEchoes|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. Please respond before making any other edits to Wikipedia. 331dot (talk) 10:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I am not a paid editor, it is just that I am a person from Dhidhdhoo (Haa Alif Atoll) and would like to provide more info to the page and I will edit based on neutral perspectives. The reason for sounding like it's advocacy may be that I am new to Wiki and I would here on try my best to write on a neutral perspective.

Thank you for reminding. IslandEchoes (talk) 10:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

So you're not the manager of or otherwise employed by the government of your community? 331dot (talk) 10:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello 331dot,

Thank you for your follow-up message. To clarify, I am not a manager or employed by the government of Dhidhdhoo or any related organization. I am simply a resident of Dhidhdhoo who is passionate about contributing to the Wikipedia page to provide accurate and comprehensive information about my community.

I appreciate your concern about neutrality and potential conflicts of interest, and I assure you that my intention is to contribute from a neutral perspective. I am still learning the best practices for editing on Wikipedia and value your guidance in this process.

Please let me know if there are specific guidelines or resources you recommend that could help me improve my contributions while adhering to Wikipedia’s standards.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best,

IslandEchoes IslandEchoes (talk) 10:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Just be mindful of neutral point of view. 331dot (talk) 11:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)