Shassafrass

Your submission at Articles for creation: Rick Griffith (June 15)

Your recent article submission has been rejected. If you have further questions, you can ask at the Articles for creation help desk or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help. The reason left by Scope creep was: This topic is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia.

scope_creep^Talk 15:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Shassafrass! Having an article declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! scope_creepTalk 15:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Paid editing

Hello Shassafrass. 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:Shassafrass. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Shassafrass|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) 16:49, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Theroadislong:, I understand. No, I am not a paid editor, and have no financial stake in this at all in any way whatsoever. I am simply a long-time admirer of Rick Griffith, and was his student once a long time ago. In my opinion, he is overdue for the kind of attention he is finally getting, and I anonymously created this page last year in an attempt to celebrate him for his achievements, and had planned to notify him of the page on the occasion of his birthday. I have been disappointed ted to be repeatedly stymied in this pursuit over the last year, and had difficulty understanding why when far less accomplished designers have approved entries.

20 years later, I now teach graphic design at the University at Buffalo, and it has become deeply important to me that my students of color have role models and heroes that look like them. African-American graphic designers are in woefully short supply, and as a white professor, it is incumbent upon me to make sure that they understand that they have wide-ranging career possibilities and have models that they may pattern their own careers after.

The Wikipedia page is one important way to establish legitimacy for such figures, and that is my stake in this endeavor. That my work on this would be misconstrued as having a financial stake is ironic. It did seem to me that only people with connections, sway and power were able to get their profiles approved. I had thought Wikipedia was a democratic enterprise, and have been financially contributing regularly to this foundation myself for quite a few years.

I thank you for your attention and quick reply.

Shassafrass (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2022 (UTC) (originally posted last year, without proper procedures)

Hi there @Theroadislong:, wanted to update you on my progress. I'm currently participating in the AIGA Scholars Wiki Education group so as to better understand the accepted procedures and guidelines. I will attempt to rectify all of the issues with my proposed Rick Griffith article when I've gained a sufficient amount of understanding to do so. Thanks again! Shassafrass (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, Shassafrass, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing.

Handouts
Editing Wikipedia, a guide for student editors Choosing an article to edit Add images to articles Citing sources on Wikipedia
Additional Resources
You can find answers to many student questions in our FAQ.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Ian (Wiki Ed):! I'm excited to be learning more about this amazing resource and how to better contribute, and I thank you for your kind welcome! Shassafrass (talk) 19:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)