ComicBookArtist2019

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, OfficialMikeGrell. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the page Mike Grell, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the COI 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 (you can use 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 which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Binksternet (talk) 05:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

July 2019

This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because the username, OfficialMikeGrell, matches the name of a well-known, living person.

If you are the person represented by this username, please note that the practice of blocking such usernames is to protect you from being impersonated, not to discourage you from editing Wikipedia. You may choose to edit under a new username (see information below), but keep in mind that you are welcome to continue to edit under this username. If you choose to do so, we ask the following:

1. Please be willing and able to prove your identity to Wikipedia.
2. Please send an email to info-enwikimedia.org. Be aware that the volunteer response team that handles email is indeed operated entirely by volunteers, and the reply may not be immediate.

If you are not the person represented by this username, you are welcome to choose a new username (see below).

A username should not be promotional, related to a "real-world" group or organization, misleading, offensive, or disruptive. Also, usernames may not end in the word "bot" unless the account is an approved bot account.

You are encouraged to choose a new account name that meets our policy guidelines and create the account yourself. Alternatively, if you have already made edits and you wish to keep your existing contributions under a new name, then you may request a change in username by:

1. Adding {{unblock-un|your new username here}} below. You should be able to do this even though you are blocked, as you can usually still edit your own talk page. If not, you may wish to contact the blocking administrator by clicking on "Email this user" on their talk page.
2. At an administrator's discretion, you may be unblocked for 24 hours to file a request.
3. Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names. The account is created upon acceptance, thus do not try to create the new account before making the request for a name change. For more information, please see Wikipedia:Changing username.

If you think that you were blocked in error, you may appeal this block by adding {{unblock|Your reason here}} below this notice, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. 331dot (talk) 07:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

"Official" accounts are not permitted unless operated by the named individual. If you are not Mike Grell himself, you will need to propose a new username per the lower half of the notice above. Please also read about conflict of interest and paid editing; as you should not directly edit about Mr. Grell(though edit requests are permitted). 331dot (talk) 07:55, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Cordless Larry (talk) 18:06, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Cordless Larry So this account is confirmed as being operated by Mr. Grell? I had thought this user went and created Slegge55 and was a different person. 331dot (talk) 18:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

We were sent confirmation that this account was being operated by Mike Grell, 331dot. I don't have any information about Slegge55. Perhaps the subject pursued both options of confirming and creating another account just to be sure? Cordless Larry (talk) 18:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Cordless Larry That's what I was thinking, especially without other information. Just didn't know if you had any insight I didn't have. Thanks for your reply. 331dot (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

to Cordless Larry and 331dot ... Hi folks, here's clarification. This is Stephen Legge speaking on behalf of Mike Grell. Mike Grell's internet presence (web: www.mikegrell.com & email: info@mikegrell.com) and social media (Twitter: @OfficialGrell) is owned and controlled by him. He directs the content and messages, I am but a simple worker who hits the keys following his directions. Make no mistake, anything that comes from those sources is from Mike; think of me as assistant or 'Secretary' simply conveying his messages. All that being said, I now understand how 'OfficialMikeGrell' editing the 'Mike Grell' page could, despite best intentions, have the appearance of impropriety to wikipedia readers. So we will not proceed with using the 'OfficialMikeGrell' wikipedia account. (We will be deleting/disabling the account shortly.) Instead, I will use my own personal account 'slegge55' for any future edits. In fact, I've been advised that due to my personal relational with Mike, my edits to the content will be rolled back, so instead I will be requesting any desired text edits through the appropriate means. Thanks for your help in all of this. Trying to be a good Wikipedia citizen.

Correctly pinging Cordless Larry (pings do not work unless you sign the same post) 331dot (talk) 19:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

So, to confirm, Mr. Grell was never sitting at the computer operating this account personally? 331dot (talk) 19:20, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

That's correct. Mike and I discuss things regularly in person and through email. Mike sends the content to me, and he instructs me to distribute it through his official internet channels (email, web, twitter). -- slegge55 OfficialMikeGrell (talk) 19:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

331dot FYI, now that this has been clarified, and after several hours (enough time for all involved to see the messages), I will delete the 'OfficialMikeGrell' account as it is no longer needed. Thanks. OfficialMikeGrell (talk) 19:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Accounts cannot be deleted, they can be abandoned, but Cordless Larry might have some questions for you as your identity was verified as being that of Mr. Grell. 331dot (talk) 19:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

331dotThanks for the info. To be clear, Mike instructed me to modify/clarify the content on his wikipedia page. We did so by creating a wikipedia account for him 'OfficialMikeGrell' and later sending an email from his official email address 'info@mikegrell.com' to wikipedia to verify his identity. Let me know if there are any other questions. Again, this account will soon be abandoned/renamed since it cannot be used for the intended purposes. (talk)

At OTRS, we usually treat an e-mail from an official address as sufficient evidence for identity confirmation purposes. If this account is going to be abandoned, perhaps the easiest thing is for me to re-apply the block. Could you confirm that this is what you want, OfficialMikeGrell? Cordless Larry (talk) 20:00, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I have submitted a request to rename the account from 'OfficialMikeGrell' to 'ComicArtist2019' since there are questions about this being an "impersonation" and also since it will no longer represent Mike in any kind of official capacity so it is very misleading to readers. If you could approve/assist with the rename request and then block the account, I think that is the preferable action. Let me know what you think. Thanks. OfficialMikeGrell (talk)

I don't think I have the ability to rename accounts, but I'm happy to block it once it is renamed, if necessary. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi ... the account has been renamed to 'ComicBookArtist2019' ... please proceed with blocking/disabling the account. Thanks. ComicBookArtist2019 (talk)

Done. I have blocked you account indefinitely, per request, on the understanding that you are now using the Slegge55 account. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:58, 12 July 2019 (UTC)