Mgendronaugustyn
Paid editing
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Hello Mgendronaugustyn. 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:Mgendronaugustyn. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Mgendronaugustyn|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. Theroadislong (talk) 20:14, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
- I know I cannot create this page because I am connected to Pebble Beach Resorts. Nor can any of those employees do it, so I was hoping to be directed to the right place. I will look at Articles for Creation. Thanks. Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 20:16, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
- You still must declare as a paid editor, please follow the instructions above. This is a Terms of Use requirement and mandatory. 331dot (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
- None of us have made the rules ourselves and we appreciate your acting honorably, as we'd expect a PR professional to do. Thank you for your partial disclosure thusfar. Acting improperly may get your client attention but for the wrong reasons. There are ways to proceed within the rules, however. While paid editors are not allowed to directly edit pagespace, they might add suggestions and sources to talk pages, for example. A paid editor might create an entire article in draftspace and apply through AfC for review and publication, though scrutiny would be high and timeframe out of your control. So long as you declare your conflict and don't edit pagespace directly, you may be acting in accordance with rules for paid editing. After full disclosure, create a list of sources which are independent of your org (or client's org) and meet WP:Reliable sources. These should be articles or books which contain direct detailing of your client. I'm seeing lots of PR stuff in G-news but I have no doubt the subject will be found to have met WP:Notability. I'm willing to provide some assistance so long as you and your client follow the rules. BusterD (talk) 23:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks, BusterD. I have another question: Would it be considered appropriate to the guidelines for a college or grad student to create a page for the experience of drafting neutral content that cites credible resources as long as the individual is acting independently (for a college program and not paid by the subject of the Wiki page)? Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 16:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- It would not be appropriate; it would be introducing meatpuppetry as a charge against your efforts and those assisting you. This would likely make it harder on you, not easier. The wikipedians in this discussion are trying to be blunt and discourage you, and they are are acting correctly in respect to policy and guidelines. If such an article was to suddenly arise from an unknown editor, such work would be held suspicious of sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry and the game would be over, so to speak. Your sole advantage in this situation is that you've been upfront and admitted your goal. I am an administrator on English Wikipedia and I'm required not only to act aggressively when I see gaming the system, but to act as a model for other wikipedians. So I'm constrained enormously by your honesty, for which I'm truly thankful. BusterD (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks, BusterD. This has been helpful. Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 17:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- It would not be appropriate; it would be introducing meatpuppetry as a charge against your efforts and those assisting you. This would likely make it harder on you, not easier. The wikipedians in this discussion are trying to be blunt and discourage you, and they are are acting correctly in respect to policy and guidelines. If such an article was to suddenly arise from an unknown editor, such work would be held suspicious of sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry and the game would be over, so to speak. Your sole advantage in this situation is that you've been upfront and admitted your goal. I am an administrator on English Wikipedia and I'm required not only to act aggressively when I see gaming the system, but to act as a model for other wikipedians. So I'm constrained enormously by your honesty, for which I'm truly thankful. BusterD (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks, BusterD. I have another question: Would it be considered appropriate to the guidelines for a college or grad student to create a page for the experience of drafting neutral content that cites credible resources as long as the individual is acting independently (for a college program and not paid by the subject of the Wiki page)? Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 16:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- To clarify, Theroadislong, I am not a paid editor. I'm in this space to see if I can understand a way to get an entry that should be there since the Pebble Beach-related entries do not convey the full facts of Pebble Beach Resorts. Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- If you were to start splitting hairs, you would find wikipedians less recemptive to your efforts. I'm guessing somebody's paying you to research this "way to get an entry." I'm guessing you don't do this work purely out of the kindness of your heart. If you did we wouldn't likely be having this chat. No offense intended but we should continue to speak boldly. BusterD (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- We have articles about notable topics that have been covered with significant detail in independent sources, asking someone else to create it will incur the same required conflict of interest disclosures, which you still need to make. Incidentally related articles like Pebble Beach Golf Links are stuffed with inappropriate promotional content, which I have been attempting to address. Theroadislong (talk) 16:37, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- So are you saying that we should forget about it and perhaps someday, someone will be inspired to create a page on their own? Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- You are attempting the hardest task on Wikipedia (creating a new article) having a conflict of interest makes it doubly hard, if Pebble Beach Resorts is notable somebody will eventually create an article, it would be best if you were not involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theroadislong (talk • contribs) 16:53, December 6, 2022 (UTC)
- So are you saying that we should forget about it and perhaps someday, someone will be inspired to create a page on their own? Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- None of us have made the rules ourselves and we appreciate your acting honorably, as we'd expect a PR professional to do. Thank you for your partial disclosure thusfar. Acting improperly may get your client attention but for the wrong reasons. There are ways to proceed within the rules, however. While paid editors are not allowed to directly edit pagespace, they might add suggestions and sources to talk pages, for example. A paid editor might create an entire article in draftspace and apply through AfC for review and publication, though scrutiny would be high and timeframe out of your control. So long as you declare your conflict and don't edit pagespace directly, you may be acting in accordance with rules for paid editing. After full disclosure, create a list of sources which are independent of your org (or client's org) and meet WP:Reliable sources. These should be articles or books which contain direct detailing of your client. I'm seeing lots of PR stuff in G-news but I have no doubt the subject will be found to have met WP:Notability. I'm willing to provide some assistance so long as you and your client follow the rules. BusterD (talk) 23:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
- You still must declare as a paid editor, please follow the instructions above. This is a Terms of Use requirement and mandatory. 331dot (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Mgendronaugustyn, are you willing to do a bit of homework? I'd like you to go to WP:Five pillars and start reading there. You should not be looking for an entry point or a way around our rules on PE. I'd like you to demonstrate you're willing to make an investment by doing some basic reading. I have a case study for you to read, but I'd like you to better understand what we're trying to do here first, and why we're motivated to protect the pedia in the ways we do. If you make it through 5P, we can discuss the case of a successful PR professional on Wikipedia User:CorporateM, and how he was able to wrestle inside the system to create pagespace for paying clients and stay within the rules. BusterD (talk) 17:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- I read that, BusterD and it did not answer the question of how a page comes to be. I will drop the subject. Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- I'm sorry to hear it. You should read the individual articles on each pillar. A client like yours is unlikely to ever make a PR move that would risk its valuable reputation. Such a client has reasons to do things properly. Usually we're dealing with somebody's small business they want to promote. Your client is basically Disneyworld for golfers and will inevitably get coverage. I was thinking it might be a worthy challenge to see a paying customer do it honorably. BusterD (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- Well, someone will need to think to do it on their own, unprompted. Thanks for your time. Mgendronaugustyn (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- I'm sorry to hear it. You should read the individual articles on each pillar. A client like yours is unlikely to ever make a PR move that would risk its valuable reputation. Such a client has reasons to do things properly. Usually we're dealing with somebody's small business they want to promote. Your client is basically Disneyworld for golfers and will inevitably get coverage. I was thinking it might be a worthy challenge to see a paying customer do it honorably. BusterD (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
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Problems with upload of File:Go Green 1355 Peachtree.jpg
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