Wdalton18

September 2024

Hello Wdalton18. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Brett Sylvia, 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 employed (or being compensated in any way) by a person, group, company or organization to promote their interests. Paid advocacy on Wikipedia must be disclosed even if you have not specifically been asked to edit Wikipedia. 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 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 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:Wdalton18. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Wdalton18|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. AntiDionysius (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I am a United States Army Officer. I work in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) public affairs office. I am not receiving compensation for my edits. Wdalton18 (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, Wikipedia considers that to be paid editing. AntiDionysius (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Will my edits be approved? Wdalton18 (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Read the paid editing guidelines. It will explain (among other things) how to request other users to make edits on your behalf, because you have this conflict of interest regarding the article subject. AntiDionysius (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Can they see the edits I tried to make? Just so I do not have to go through a detailed explanation. Wdalton18 (talk) 19:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

They can, yes. This is a direct link to the changes you made, which may be useful. AntiDionysius (talk) 20:00, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I will go and suggest the edits on the Talk page for his bio. How long is the turnaround usually? Wdalton18 (talk) 20:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

There's not really any consistent time - it's just chance. Might be half an hour, might be a few days. Following the guidelines closely may speed up the process though. AntiDionysius (talk) 20:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I disclosed on his talk page that he directed me to make the edits and that I am one of his public affairs officers. Is this following the disclosure guidelines? It is to the best I understand. Wdalton18 (talk) 20:09, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I was directly asked by MG Brett Sylvia and his aide to make these edits that MG Brett Sylvia approved of. Wdalton18 (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Mr Sylvia does not enjoy any sort of editorial control over the article about him; no Wikipedia article subject does. AntiDionysius (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The intention was to make a more informative and accurate biography and to have the list of awards as a table similar to GEN Poppas' Wiki page Wdalton18 (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2024 (UTC)