Urielscott

Paid Editor Disclosure

Urielscott (talk) 23:25, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Urielscott, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Urielscott! 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 AmaryllisGardener (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Urielscott. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest 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 (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest 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 please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:49, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: Understood. I will do my best to abide. Btw Chicagomint is I believe the account of <redacted> and so also may have a COI. Urielscott (talk) 18:44, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that's something else we need to talk about. You have chosen to use your own name. That's your choice, but Wikipedia's outing policy is rather strict, you should never try to out other users who have chosen not to use their real names unless they have themselves stated, here, on Wikipedia, who they are. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:10, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Whatever, when I wrote "I believe" it would've better been put as "I'm essentially certain" based on all sorts of knowledge and documents in my possession. If you choose to ignore another potential COI, that attempted to introduce false information on a page, that's up to you. Urielscott (talk) 19:31, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: Ah, actually I just noticed you did issue a COI to Chicagomint. My bad. Cheers. Urielscott (talk) 19:39, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I really am trying to help here, please stop escalating

Notice of edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Isingness (talk) 23:25, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

As I just noted on your talk page, which really need not be repeated: you have exhausted most, if not all, the benefit of the doubt on your behalf by making material misrepresentations on the issue. I am responding to that in an appropriate manner. If you want to "de-escalate," so to speak, you should start by being more truthful. Also, to whatever extent I have engaged in edit warring, you have also arguably been engaging in similar conduct to about the same degree, if not more. Urielscott (talk) 23:51, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

July 2019

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 31 hours for edit warring, as you did at User talk:Isingness. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  Bbb23 (talk) 00:07, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Request for unblock

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Urielscott (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

User:Isingness has misrepresented (intentionally or not) the situation in the comments he (or she) made in the report. (a) I do not work for DigitalMint, which I had previously made clear to User:Isingness. Refer to the relevant history on User:Isingness's talk page (it has been deleted but should be available as a prior version). I am now a passive equity holder only, am not an employee nor a contractor for that company, and that has been the case since mid 2016. User:Isingness nonetheless for some reason persists in trying to portray me as an employee or similar, which if need be is provably false. (b) There is no user User:DigitalMint, contrary to what he assumed in his comments. (c) In our interactions on his talk page, he apparently misrepresented his intent regarding further edits to the article. Immediately after I raised the paid editor issue (more on that below), he stated he would leave the article alone. However he then requested a speedy deletion. (d) User:Isingness did not apparently have a good faith reason for requesting speedy deletion. Refer to comments made by the admin who granted my request to revert deletion. (e) He claimed he was not the one who requested deletion even after presented with the fact the revision history showed he was indeed that person. (f) I had good reason to believe based on pleadings filed by the company (and in particular not by me) in the Cook County, IL Law Division court that User:Isingness is in fact a paid editor on behalf of DigitalMint. Those pleadings claimed the company hired a consultant to create the article, and that consultant published the first version on 7 March 2019, which corresponds exactly to User:Isingness in the revision history. (g) After I initially submitted the paid editor warning on User:Isingness's talk page, he proceeded, as described above and as can be seen in the corresponding communications, to respond evasively to reasonable follow-up questions after he initially denied being a paid editor on behalf of the company. Such evasiveness (if not outright deception) of his responses, intentional or not, led me to believe it was proper to issue follow-up warnings, since I had sincere doubts about his credibility.

Urielscott (talk) 03:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Decline reason:

You have not addressed the reasons for your block. Please review WP:REMOVED and WP:OUTING. If you believe a user is an undeclared paid editor that requires analysis of off-wiki information, please email paid-en-wpwikipedia.org. Sasquatch t|c 04:26, 1 July 2019 (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.

@Sasquatch: Well actually I did at least partially address it, based on the best of my knowledge at the time of the numerous Wikipedia policies (some of which are only really guidelines). To put it briefly I was merely responding in a good faith manner based on all the information I was aware of at the time. That apparently led me violate a "3 revert rule." What I find fascinating is that while you are fixated on that, you have no apparent concern for the various mistruths that User:Isingness included in his report and in his interactions with me. That is entirely different than simply ignoring correspondence. Okay, I will do my best going forward not to violate this 3 revert rule. You also included WP:OUTING. At no point did I post or threaten to post any personal information about the person. I do not know anything about the user personally. I guess I made some minor elaborations on the observation that individual is likely a paid editor. Anyways I am doing my best to follow all these various policies/guidelines, while on the other hand "being bold about editing," or words to that effect as the site encourages. If you continue to deny the unblock then I have no doubt my inability to edit for another 25 hours or so will be a great benefit to the site. 05:16, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Where did I even mention the three revert rule? You were edit-warring on a talk page. A user can remove discussions on their talk page per WP:REMOVED. You haven't shown that you understand that at all. I'm just giving you a heads up on WP:OUTING as you are walking close to the line. It is generally not ok to bring in any off-wiki information about an editor. Use the email to report a problem. Sasquatch t|c 06:16, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The 3 revert rule may have just stuck in my mind because User:Isingness sort of got a hair up his ass about it. It is also rather prominently mentioned when I read the docs regarding edit warring just now. I will avoid bringing up any off-wiki info going forward. I shall assume it's a hard rule, as opposed to one of the numerous guidelines. Urielscott (talk) 06:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Paid contributions

Hi Urielscott! I reverted your recent edits to the Digitalmint article. Please follow the guidance here to disclose your paid affiliation with the company: WP:PAID and WP:PE. After disclosing your paid status, if you would like to see changes to the article, please follow the conflict of interest edit request process outlined here: Template:Request edit/Instructions. Thank you Orville^talk 02:33, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Orville:As I mentioned just above, I am not a paid editor. To the contrary, the company has made statements in pleadings related to ongoing litigation that it had hired a consultant (not me) to initially author the DigitalMint article. I have not done work, nor been paid by the company DigitalMint for any sort of work, since mid 2016. I have not made any direct edits to the DigitalMint page since I had been informed of the Conflict of Interest policy by User:Beeblebrox, and have since then fully disclosed the nature of my relationship to the company. This is all completely verifiable.

Also, reversion of the DigitalMint article to a prior version has made the article less accurate, in that it omits the majority of founders, and in fact essentially in the state the paid editor (whomever it may be, assuming such a paid editor exists as the company claims) had left it. Urielscott (talk) 03:37, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi again. In your COI disclosure on the article talk page you list yourself as an equity holder. You don't actually have to be paid to edit to be considered a paid editor per Wikipedia's terms of service: "An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder." It's this financial stake in the company that you must disclose, which is a level above the regular conflict of interest disclosure. We all want to improve Wikipedia (including the Digitalmint article), but Wikipedia requires everything be sourced to reliable, third-party sources WP:RS. In this case, the sources available list only two founders of the company. Do you have sources demonstrating additional company founders from independent, third-party sources we can cite in the article? I'm not familiar with the banking industry, but I suspect there must be some type of government filing (does Illinois require LLCs to file operating agreements), is there banking commission oversight where there might be public filings? Did the media mention other founders?.etc. Orville^talk 03:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Okay, then my fault. For whatever reason I had either forgotten, or perhaps did not even initially understand the full breadth of the definition for paid editor. I will thus disclose it in the appropriate manner as soon as I reasonably can (I might still be blocked from general editing as of now). That being the case, according to the company there is another paid editor aside from me.

There are numerous sources accounting for all the original founders, but as far as 3rd party sources the only thing I can think of at this moment would be court filings related to past or present litigation. The media has not AFAIK mentioned all founders, because of the original 5, only 2 are currently actively involved in managing the company, and from what I've seen they (a) either do not mention all the original founders, or (b) portray themselves as the sole founders. Urielscott (talk) 04:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Court filings won't work as they're primarily-sourced, and alleged, until the case is settled (if a public settlement) or ruled on. Without reliable sources that contradict the reliable sources we currently have, the information will have to remain for now as being the most reliable information available to Wikipedia. Is there other information in the article that is inaccurate that you can source changes for, or is it only the issue regarding the founders that you find inaccurate? Orville^talk 05:15, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

That is not true. Perhaps the term "court filings" I used is too narrow, but I also intended it to include various admissions of fact that may be made in response to pleadings (such as may occur in answers to a complaint), well before any settlement or ruling. Those sorts of statements are not merely alleged, cannot be withdrawn willy nilly and are obviously far more meaningful than e.g. some random internet article in which frequently the author simply more or less regurgitated whatever his/her interviewees state. When it comes to such cryptocurrency articles the fact-checking need not be as thorough as the NYT, say. Have you actually looked at "the reliable sources we currently have" in this article? Urielscott (talk) 05:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh and also you asked about the LLC operating agreement(s) and whether it needs to be filed with the state. That is not the case with IL - and AFAIK not the case generally. FWIW operating agreements for the company do exist (it's on at least its 5th) but again they need not be filed with the state of IL. Urielscott (talk) 05:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

As frustrating as this may seem, court filings are still primary, or secondary at best (derived from the subject's statement about themselves, or the subject's statements directly repeated by another). The type of sources we need are third-party, someone else independent of the subject, talking about the subject. Closed court cases and settlements become third-party when the settlement or case is concluded, since a third-party has weighed in at that point. You're correct that some of the sources in the article are weak, but the more reliable sources present in the article concur with the founder information. As for the operating agreement, I suspected as much. I'm sure some states (but very few) require them, and I'm not familiar with Illinois' requirements. Orville^talk 05:51, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Alright I think I understand. I guess I'll have to rustle up some 3rd party sources then. Urielscott (talk) 05:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Special enforcement measures apply to blockchain and cryptocurrency content

Please read this notice carefully.

You are receiving this notice because you recently edited one or more pages relating to blockchain or cryptocurrencies topics. You have not done anything wrong. We just want to alert you that "general" sanctions are authorized for certain types of edits to those pages.

A community decision has authorized the use of general sanctions for pages related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The details of these sanctions are described here. All pages that are broadly related to these topics are subject to a one revert per twenty-four hours restriction, as described here.

General sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimise disruption in controversial topic areas. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to these topics that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behaviour, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. An editor can only be sanctioned after the editor has been made aware that general sanctions are in effect. It is only effective if it is logged here. Before continuing to edit pages in these topic areas, please familiarise yourself with the general sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

MER-C 10:59, 7 July 2019 (UTC)