TUOwls

Welcome!

Hello, OSTDE, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Best practices for editors with close associations
• Plain and simple conflict of interest guide
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
• Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Fiddle Faddle 15:40, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Colleen Davis

I'm going to hazard a guess that OSTDE stands for "Office of the State Treasurer of Delaware"? If that's the case, then you can submit her headshot for us, but it has to go through WP:OTRS. You can see the directions of who to email it to at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

OSTDE, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi OSTDE! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Lectonar (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:03, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

March 2021

Hello OSTDE. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Colleen Davis, 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:OSTDE. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=OSTDE|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. Fiddle Faddle 15:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

You replied on my talk page while logged out. This reveals your IP address and might result in your being identifiable to those with a curiosity.

Being employed by the department (which you, or an IP user purporting to be you stated) is WP:COI, and is broadly construed as receiving a reward for editing articles where you have a COI. Indeed you are barred from editing such articles, and may only use {{Request edit}} to request edits. We construe reward very broadly.

You do need to make the declaration on your used page

Your username is also against policy in that it is very strongly related to the organisation for which you work. Please investigate Wikipedia:Changing username. Please do this as a matter of priority. There is a very real risk that you are blocked for a username being against policy.

There are many pitfalls for the new user. The temptation to edit pages related to one's employer is right up there. Fiddle Faddle 15:37, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank yo for getting to grips with this. Paid editing in the broadest sense is a major bugbear on Wikipedia. It was not many years ago that it was banned entirely. Today one may create a Draft article, but, as soon as it is a full article one may not edit it directly.

It's refreshing to meet someone who understands this

I'm looking forward to your change of user name. It looks straightforward.

You are considered an "ordinary editor" for all articles unconnected with your employment. Editing Wikipedia is a great hobby, so I hope you avail yourself os the fun Fiddle Faddle 18:08, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Well done on sorting all that out. It was a lot to handle all in one go. I've tidied your user page. That was me taking liberties, so I am telling you what I have done. I've also added on your behalf {{Connected contributor (paid)}} to the Colleen Davis talk page, again telling you what I have done because I have done it on your behalf. Fiddle Faddle 22:41, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

User name

Thank you for your transparency, I have read the interaction you've had with Timtrent and am satisfied as to your good intentions. Unfortunately, I have to do one more thing to make your editing difficult here. You need to change your user name. It purports to represent a group of people (Acronym for Office of the State Treasurer of Delaware). User names are required to belong to an individual, and not a group. I realize that there is only one person behind the account, but the username is disallowed per policy. Please consider changing it as soon as you can, and I'm sorry you've had a bumpy introduction to editing here. We really do want you here improving the encyclopedia. All the best, 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 19:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

78.26, (talk page stalker) they are attending to that. See Wikipedia:Changing username/Simple where the application has hit a minor bump in the road and will proceed ince that is sorted out Fiddle Faddle 19:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)