TheTinman
Welcome!
Hello, TheTinman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- Tutorial
- How to edit a page
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion 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 {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Wizard191 (talk) 13:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
July 2009
editHello, and welcome to Wikipedia!
I hope that I don't seem unfriendly or make you feel unwelcome, but I noticed your username, and I am concerned that it might not meet Wikipedia's username policy for the following reason: Your username is promoting or advertising TM technologies (http://www.tinmantech.com/index.php). Please consider changing your username to something that is non-advertising.. After you look over that policy, could we discuss that concern here?
I'd appreciate learning your views, for instance, your reasons for wanting this particular name, and what alternative username you might accept that avoids raising this concern.
There are several options available to you:
- We can talk about it, here.
- If we can't resolve this on our own, we can ask for help through Wikipedia's dispute resolution process, such as requesting comments from other Wikipedians. Wikipedia administrators usually abide by agreements reached through this process.
- You can keep your contributions history under a new username. Visit Wikipedia:Changing username and follow the guidelines there.
Thank you. Wizard191 (talk) 13:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- Provided that user:TinmanTech is "Kent White, Founder & President" of TinmanTech and the account isn't shared around inside the business, then I wouldn't see a problem with this username. Obviously a note clarifying this on user:TinmanTech would save a lot of potential confusion. Our policy isn't against usernames associated with businesses, they're to maintain personal accountability by avoiding "group accounts". Andy Dingley (talk) 14:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- Technically I could report this name to UAA and get the account blocked per WP:ORGNAME, because the policy states: "Explicit use of a name or url of a company, group or product as a username will result in your username being blocked." However, I feel that this user is trying to productively contribute to Wikipedia, so I don't want to do that. Instead I would rather just see this person change usernames. Wizard191 (talk) 14:14, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Andy & Dustin. I'm Renee and I work for Kent White at TM Technologies which is the company that Kent White owns. I am the person who was responsible for choosing the name "TinmanTech" so I apologize if this created a problem. I wanted to use the username "Tinman" (as Kent is known around the metalworking education circles by this nickname). But the user name "Tinman" wasn't available so I chose TinmanTech (seemed logical). We'd be happy to change the name if it's a problem. We would like to find some way to include the name "Tinman" as Kent is widely known by this name, and as one of the leading experts on metalworking and welding, and the nick-name immediately lends credibility to what he posts (people who can't remember the name Kent White will actually look for "The Tinman" when they search for his articles). Kent is VERY committed to metalworking education, and sees Wikipedia as a wonderful resource for people looking to find go general information. He hopes to post many informative articles on metalworking, welding, etc. on Wikipedia over the next few months. Anyway, our intention is to be cooperative. Thank you for your guidance. If we are doing anything wrong it is only because we are just posting for the first time and do not understand all the rules as yet! Thank you for your help and suggestions. Renee p.s. what's a "group account?" (sorry for our ignorance) User:TinmanTech (talk) ````
- There's scope for interpretation there and your more stringent view is probably more robustly defensible than my own more lenient one. However that policy quote is in relation to "promotion" of the business, and I'm not even seeing this as promotion. Anyway, it's all moot - move down the page. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- A "role account" is an account used by more than one person, especially one which represents a collective entity such as TM Technologies. Only individual human beings can have accounts here. So Renee the human being could be an editor here, but "TinmanTech" cannot. (And of course if you, Renee, wanted to edit here, you'd be advised not to insert links to TM Tech stuff, for the reasons explained in the template and links below this note.) --Orange Mike | Talk 16:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Oxy-fuel welding and cutting, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
- editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
- participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
- linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.
For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines. Thank you. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- Why can't I edit Wikipedia?
Because Wikipedia does not allow any form of spam or other promotion of people, products, companies or other groups (even non-commercial or charitable ones). Using Wikipedia for such purposes will result in the blocking of the account involved. Please read Wikipedia:FAQ/Organization and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for our policies about this.
In addition, user accounts are for individuals only, not for companies or groups or other collective editing. Your username should reflect this. Usernames that appear to be promotional (such as those that make reference to a company or product) violate our username policy and are typically blocked to enforce that policy.
- What can I do now?
If you have no interest in writing about some other topic than your organization, group, company, or product, you will not be allowed to edit Wikipedia again. Consider using one of the many websites that allow this instead.
If you do intend to make useful contributions about some other topic, you must convince a Wikipedia administrator that you mean it. To that end, please do the following:
- Add the text
{{unblock|Your reason here}}below this message box. - Replace the text "Your reason here" with your reason to be unblocked. In this reason, you must:
- Tell us what new username you want to use. Please make sure that your new username does not violate our username policy and check that it has not already been taken (click here to search).
- Convince us that you understand the reason for your block and that you will not repeat the edits for which you were blocked.
- Describe in general terms the contributions that you intend to make if you are unblocked.
{{unblock|Your reason here}} below this message box and replace the text "Your reason here" with the reason why. See also Wikipedia:Appealing a block for more information. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
TheTinman (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))
Request reason:
Hi Orange Mike -- Sorry if I messed up. We are DEFINTELY not intending to misuse Wikipedia for promotional purposes or spamming!! As soon as I was notified that our username was a problem (I was not aware what I had done was an issue) I immediately requested that the username be changed from TinmanTech to TheTinman - which is the nickname that Kent White, the author, normally uses when he posts articles. As we are just (today!) getting started on Wikipedia, and trying to learn the ropes here, and trying to find content that Kent already has written that can be posted, we need a little time just to understand what is allowed and what isn't. Kent really wanted to get in and edit a bunch of the information on the oxy-acetylene welding section as well as various fabrication sections, and I was just getting the account set-up for him and trying to learn how to post related articles. We are by no means attempting to manipulate the system. Kent just asked me if I could set it up for him and figure out how to post info and then explain it to him so he could start going onto the site to write materials. So please do not penalize him for my ignorance! We are happy to remove anything that is a possible conflict. All we are trying to do is provide people with accurate information on metal fabrication, gas welding, automotive and aircraft repair -- of which there is much mis-information floating around on the web. Thanks Orangemike. Please let me know what we need to do to correct the situation further. I have already submitted the username change, and will do whatever else is needed. I only need guidance. Thank you!
Decline reason:
I'm not confident you understand the purpose of Wikipedia, and you display a strong conflict of interest. I understand you and your company are here in good faith, but Wikipedia is not a place to publish your research/ideas about your field or to create any links at all to your company web siteâeven if you view them as strictly informational. It is not possible to overcome your conflict of interest in this matter. Andy Walsh (talk) 17:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
A Modest Proposal...
editLet's ruthlessly hunt down every professional and skilled contributor of content and ban them indefinitely from Wikipedia. After all, we've got to keep this place safe for rap group discographies and pokemon.
Really not impressed with the admin actions here. 8-(
Andy Dingley (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- So what would you suggest we do about the role-account and COI/advertising-Kent-The-Tin-Man-White issues, Andy? I'm trying to be fair to Renee here, who'd doing what her boss told her to do; but we're not here to advertise TM Tech and its owner. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- How about what seemed to be happening already, just a few paragraphs up the page? This block in addition was nothing more than a WP:BITE for the sheer hell of it - they were already talking quite amicably about how we sort things out, so everyone gets content where we need it and no-one has to break any policies.
- Where's the problematic promotion? I'm seeing them adding a bunch of good WP:ELs. I haven't checked their edit history, I'm coming to this from my watchlist and a substantial overlap with the topic between my past edits and theirs, but there's nothing in there that raises flags that needed anything more than a little pleasant introduction to a new editor. Maybe there's a vast spam article somewhere, but it's news to me - there isn't even a user page.
- WP:COI is an issue, and it seems like the only real one. Username gets changed (block it for tidiness if you like afterwards, but doing it post haste is just rude). Role / group accounts just needs a pointer to the policy. Spam hasn't happened where I've seen it (just read my last edit logs - there are half-a-dozen articles on there where I whack the same spamlinks twice a day, but this isn't it).
- So if these are good WP:ELs and good book refs, then let them be posted and let the community of interest to those articles decide if they're worth keeping. user:Wizard191 has been doing a bunch of good Wikignomery around these articles and he'd probably get to them before I did. Otherwise even a user with serious COI risks (which this isn't) has previously been encouraged to note them on talk: pages and see if anyone else wanted to move them over - which I have no doubt editors would do. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
TheTinman (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))
Request reason:
It seems as if there are a number of administrators involved here, so I apologize as I do not know who to address this to. I understand you feel that we (TinmanTech) has a significant conflict of interest. But I don't think you fully understand what our intention was or is. I work for Kent White. He simply asked me to set-up the account for him, so he could go in and edit articles. I thought this would be okay since Wikipedia's set-up instructions indicated we could switch the account from my email address to his email address after the account was established. I (Renee) do not plan to edit any future articles on Wikipedia that relate to Kent White, nor would anyone else from Kent White's company be editing any articles on Wikipedia (this is NOT a "group account" it was strictly meant to be a personal account for Kent White). We obviously got off totally on the wrong foot because based on other pages I was looking at, I did not understand what was and was not allowed. However, I would think that Wikipedia would want to have one of the leading metalworking instructors and experts in the U.S. contributing to it's pages on metalworking, fabrication, welding, and so forth. As mentioned previously, there is a TON of misinformation on the web, (including on Wikipedia) about these topics. There are also many metalworking pages that NEED authors. For instance -- you have a page called "Metalworking Handtools" which is a "Stub" that needs to be written. Kent recently completed a 10,000 word article for a metalworking magazine on metalworking handtools (NOT a self-promotional article) that he could draw from (including extensive photos and illustrations) that includes all kinds of historical and archival information about metalworking tools in general. He is not interested in promoting an agenda here, he is interested in IMPROVING the information that is out there for people to find. I assume you want to find the MOST credible, knowledgeable people to write your content?? I reviewed some of the content on some of these pages and am finding contributions from people who are nothing more than hobbyists -- with opinions, not actual experience. I assume you want to have the most EXPERT, knowledgeable people in the field contributing and putting out the most accurate information out there? If you block Kent from contributing, you are blocking a person with over 35 years of metalworking experience who has instructed thousands of metalworking students. Which would you rather have contributing to Wikipedia? Some guy who does metalworking on the weekends in his garage and who submits info from some book he read, or someone who is considered at the top of his field with decades of actual experience, teaching, and extensive writing credentials?? To say he has a conflict of interest and should not post about metalworking on Wikipedia would be like saying Julia Child shouldn't be allowed to post information about French Cooking, or that Michael Phelps shouldn't be allowed to post something on Wikipedia about Swimming. I would assume that Wikipedia would want to have the most highly respected authorities in the field posting and editing the articles on the site. I clearly understand we posted some information that referenced back to articles on his companies website, but that was because we saw other writer / metalworkers, (ie. Ron Fournier -- see English Wheel page for this example) doing this exact thing. Which raises this point -- why is Ron Fournier not a "conflict of interest" contributor? Like Kent, he owns his own metalworking company and was referencing his own site from the article he posted. If you are going to block Kent from writing, you would also have to block Ron, as they are considered contemporaries in the metalworking industry. But to have both of them contributing to Wikipedia lends a huge amount of credibility to what is being posted on Wikipedia about metalworking. It would be like having Jacques Pepin and Julia Child posting on French Cooking. I have to say that I think Andy's comment "this is not the place to publish your research or ideas about you field" indicates that he does not understand that the information Kent would be contributing is NOT Kent's "research" or "ideas on metalworking" but is information he has gleaned from industry experts (many now dead) over the past 40+ years, and are widely respected industry practices used in multi-million dollar projects such as aerospace and aviation repairs and restoration -- with NASA, Boeing, etc. All this said, I would appreciate it if you would reconsider lifting our block, even if only temporarily, to see what the quality of information is that Kent might contribute to these articles. If we post something else we are not supposed to post, then I could understand being banned from the site in the future. Thank you for reconsidering.
Decline reason:
Apologies if I missed something in all that, but the main thing I'm getting is that this account was intended for someone else. This is not allowed. If you created this account, it is your account. If Kent White wants an account, he can make his own, or he can request one through WP:ACC; as you saw, the account creation process doesn't take that long.
Also, I think you may misunderstand our conflict of interest guideline; we're not saying he (or you) cannot edit metal working articles; if he is indeed an expert in the field, we could doubtless use his assistance in some areas. What the conflict of interest guideline is asking editors to do is not edit about their own companies, or other subjects where the editor may be similarly biased without intent. To use a similar example to the ones you gave, Bobby Flay could be a valuable contributor on food and cooking articles provided he didn't promote his shows or businesses there; however, he would be working under a conflict of interest were he to edit the articles on said shows, businesses, or even Food Network in general.
I do hope this helps explain some things; if not, please let us know. I'll also remind you that in order to be unblocked, you will need to change your username; our username policy prohibits using company names as a username. Hersfold non-admin(t/a/c) 18:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
Let's try this again...
Welcome!
Hello, TheTinman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- Tutorial
- How to edit a page
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion 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 {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!
I see you've already met WP:COI and WP:ORGNAME...
Unblock request
editIf the user is willing to read WP:COI, WP:ADS and WP:NOSHARE, and promise to abide by these policies, I don't see why they cannot now be unblocked since the username issue has been resolved. Shereth 21:59, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- Has this ever seriously been in question? 8-(
- Worth noting though, the user will have to add an {{unblock}} template again to request this, as I doubt it would happen automatically otherwise. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- In a way I'm hinting to the user that if they explicitly agree to abide by these policies and request an unblock, I am willing to grant that request :) Shereth 15:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- We've resolved this issue by having the account set up properly. I do want to thank the reasonable people who did not "Bite the head off the Newbie" (thank you ie. Wizard191 and Andy Dingley. You were both helpful and kind.) It seems Orange Mike really has it in for the uninitiated. (or perhaps his caffeine intake is just too high). TinmanTech (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2009 (UTC)