Welcome! edit

Hello, Blugri, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as Blugri, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may not be retained.

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Speedy deletion nomination of Blugri edit

 

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A tag has been placed on Blugri, requesting that it be deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under two or more of the criteria for speedy deletion, by which pages can be deleted at any time, without discussion. If the page meets any of these strictly-defined criteria, then it may be soon be deleted by an administrator. The reasons it has been tagged are:

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Chrissymad ❯❯❯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 15:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

 

There have been two problems identified with this account: the account has been used for advertising or promotion, which is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia, and your username indicates that the account represents a business or other organisation or group, which is also against policy, as an account must be for just one person. Because of those problems, the account has been blocked indefinitely from editing.

If you intend to make useful contributions about some topic other than your business or organisation, you may request an unblock. To do so, post the text {{unblock-spamun|Your proposed new username|Your reason here}} at the bottom of your talk page. Replace the text "Your proposed new username" with a new username you are willing to use. See Special:CentralAuth to search for available usernames. Your new username will need to meet our username policy. Replace the text "Your reason here" with your reason to be unblocked. In this reason, you must:

  • Convince us that you understand the reason for your block and that you will not repeat the kind of edits for which you were blocked.
  • Describe in general terms the contributions that you intend to make if you are unblocked.
If you believe this block was made in error, you may appeal this block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here}} at the bottom of your talk page, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Alexf(talk) 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
 
This user's request to be unblocked to request a change in username has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Tjbe77 (block logactive blocksglobal blocksautoblockscontribsdeleted contribsfilter logcreation logchange block settingsunblockcheckuser (log))


Requested username:

Request reason:

it is not intended to promote any business. The game studio that was written about exists for over 8 years and the sole intent was to bring a story about it. Unfortunately I was not given the chance to analyse and correct any violations. The article was intended to give an overview of the company history, awards and released games in the same way as is done for many other companies, e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indie_game_developers. If the article I was writing violates any policies, many of the game studios in the provided list do the same. Moreover I looked at several of the game studios with the purpose of bringing the story in the same way. You should at least give me the opportunity and the time to correct the deleted article in a way that it does not violate any guidelines. Simply deleting and blocking user access is not very respectful for my contribution where this was an honest approach to add useful information. As a reference I provide you the following link as a proof of the notability of the article that was being written: http://www.gamesauce.biz/2014/11/27/circuits-the-electricity-puzzle/

Accept reason:

Following the discussion below, and after consulting the blocking administrator, I am happy to give you another chance. I am sorry that your first experience of editing Wikipedia has been so negative, and I hope things go more smoothly from now on. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • I am sure you came here to edit in perfectly good faith, and I sympathise with your sense of frustration at having your work deleted. Here are a few points relating to your unblock request, which I suggest you address, as doing so is likely to increase the likelihood that an administrator will unblock you.
  1. A web page consisting almost entirely of an account written by the founder of the company does not constitute evidence of notability. Only independent coverage, by someone with no connection to the company can do that.
  2. The article you created certainly looks to me promotional, but it was not outright spam. Can you indicate how any future editing will differ from what you did before being blocked?
  3. It is, of course, natural for a new editor to look at existing articles to see what is acceptable. Unfortunately, however, that is not a reliable guide, as very many unsuitable articles are created, and unless and until someone notices that an article is unacceptable and brings it to an administrator's attention, it can't be deleted. Since the number of new editors who come along to create articles to promote or publicise their businesses, their bands, their books, themselves, etc etc is far greater than the number of administrators, there are always articles which should be deleted but which haven't.
  • Finally, if you are unblocked, my advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Dear JamesBWatson, Thanks for your comments. Let be clear that I do fully agree that wikipedia should not be promotional or marketing platform. I do agree that there must be rules, but I was working on an page that would have been a notable contribution.

  • The history section that I added and the list of games are pure facts (same as you can find for any other company, group, band, organisation, ... that is described on wikipedia) There is nothing promotional about facts and it should not matter by who facts are written. I am sorry if that is not allowed, but in that case every company page should be reviewed and a lot of them should be deleted for the same reason.
  • The only thing that can be seen as promotional are the external links to the games. I am happy to delete this, although there are very similar practices on other pages that have external links to dedicated app or game pages. I will not go further into discussion on it and simply delete the links.
  • It is no problem for me to rewrite part of the page if someone can tell me which parts conflict with the guidelines and policies of wikipedia. But simply marking a page for speedy deletion and not giving the time to correct is indeed very frustration for someone who want to do an honest contribution. As I told, the page has only facts but maybe they should be rewritten in a more encyclopedic way.
  • Forgive me to say that the current process of speedy deletion and immediately blocking is not very friendly to new contributors. A much better approach would be to make these pages non public and give the author some time to review their page. It is normal that you block people and delete pages. Yes there are cases that you want to block users immediately, but by giving them the opportunity to still edit a page that they created they can proof that they are willing to live by the rules.
  • I am also sorry to tell you that you are probably quite naive if you think that nobody on wikipedia is writing about their own company, band, group or organisation. In this case I do prefer to see the company name as the contributor. I could have used an anonymous name, but in my opinion that would be less honest as it would appear that someone else wrote the page.

The way this is handled by wikipedia feels very much like an elite abusing their powers. Yes I know that this comment will not make friends. But if wikipedia is a platform that is run in this way I am loosing quite a lot of faith in it as it looks to be a highly censored platform. It does no longer feel as the open encyclopedia it once was.

Cheers Blugri (talk) 21:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

You make a number of points there. I shall comment on a few of them.
  1. AS I said above, the article you created was not outright spam, and I have seen much more blatant attempts to use Wikipedia for promotion. However, it was still written in a manner which clearly sought to impress the reader with the company's performance, in the way that a PR or marketing person working for the company would have written it. One of the main reasons why Wikipedia's guidelines on editing with a conflict of interest discourage editors from creating articles about subjects they have a close personal relation to is that anyone closely involved in a subject is likely to find it very difficult to see how their own writing will look from the detached perspective of a neutral outside observer, even if he or she genuinely does not intend to write in neutral way. It looks to me as though that is precisely so in your case. Writing such as "With 10 released games, and one game in development the company has the ambition to become a well known brand name in the casual games industry" is exactly the sort of thing that a PR professional working for the company would write, but it is extremely unlikely that any neutral third party would use such language. If you sincerely cannot see that that kind of writing reads as promotional, then you may find it impossible to avoid making the same sort of mistake again.
  2. You say that you can "rewrite part of the page if someone can tell [you] which parts conflict with the guidelines and policies of wikipedia", but unfortunately it is not a question of parts of it, but a question of the whole tone of the article, from start to finish. It would be a matter of a complete rewrite from scratch.
  3. I agree to a considerable extent with your comment that "the current process of speedy deletion and immediately blocking is not very friendly to new contributors". I am far from happy with the way this is sometimes applied, but it is not as completely arbitrary as it may look at first. We do get large numbers of new editors who are not remotely interested in collaborating, but no matter what they are told they just continue to try to use Wikipedia to plug their own agenda. Spending time trying to help and advise such editors takes time way from other work, and the encyclopaedia suffers. It is not always easy to assess at first whether a new editor with problematic editing is one of those who can be helped or one of the obstructive ones. Please also bear in mind that a block needs to last only as long as it takes for the new editor to make it clear that he or she is likely to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
  4. You say that I am "probably quite naive if you think that nobody on wikipedia is writing about their own company, band, group or organisation". I have no such illusion: vast numbers of people do it. Some of them are honest about it, declaring their involvement, and following Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines; others are ruthless, uncooperative, and devious, using various tricks to try to hide what they are doing.
  5. I have taken a considerable amount of time writing two fairly long messages to try to help you understand the situation. I do not do that for most editors who are blocked for promotional editing and request an unblock: in a tiny fraction of the time I have spent here I can decline an unblock. I have taken this time for you because it seemed to me that you were clearly here in good faith, and that you might well understand the reasons for the block, and make a response that made it clear that you did so and would avoid the same mistakes. I'm afraid your comments above indicate that you do not understand the reason for the block, as you don't accept that your writing was promotional, and you clearly expect to continue to edit in substantially similar ways (though with minor changes) for the purpose of publicising your company. No doubt you came to Wikipedia sincerely believing that doing so would be acceptable, but unless you make it clear that you now understand what was unacceptable about your editing, it is not very likely that any administrator will unblock you. I am, however, leaving your unblock request open, in the hope that you can do that. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Dear JamesBWatson, Firstly, thank you for your time to answer. I do appreciate it that I am not completely ignored.

  • But let me be clear that if I were here only for the promotion of my own company I would have already given up. Trying to get me account unblocked is time consuming, and it would be a lot easier to just create another account if I would only be interested in abusing wikipedia for this purpose. In the same time I could have written a press release and send it out to 100's of blogs. Instead I do go through the trouble of trying to better understand the rules. As I said before, I handled in good faith and did not write it with a marketing or promotional intent.
  • Wikipedia is also in my opinion not for promotion. I do fully agree on it, and I do appreciate that any attempts to abuse wikipedia are punished. Still I demand the possibility to correct my mistakes. Shouldn't everybody get a second change? I will not immediately bring the deleted page back to live if I would be unblocked. Instead I will take the effort and time to first better understand the Wikipedia platform and the rules.
  • But I am not going to lie either. One day I may write again about my company but not before I feel that I understand the rules enough to do so in an appropriate way. It is clear to me that if I do so I must stick to the facts and use an encyclopaedic approach and writing style. Whenever I do so, I will be very careful and go again through the conflict of interest guidelines. I will not do so with a promotional are marketing intent, but with the intent to document the history of the company (this was also my only intent).
  • Your comment that the tone of the page is problematic is very useful feedback and I wish that this was explained earlier so that I could have corrected it before it was deleted. I agree that it feels like a PR message, which was not my intent. However, I wish to inform you that I have seen similar wording on other wikipedia game studio pages. Nonetheless, I agree that I should have clearly thought my words better in the scope of a wikipedia page.

I do understand that the speedy deletion is often the best way to avoid abuse and huge damage to the wikipedia pages. I do also understand that this is necessary to filter out the bad guys from the good guys. I do also understand that it is difficult to change this to a more friendly system. Blocking the user from all public posts, while still allowing him to correct the problems on non-public page would be a very nice change. But I do understand that you cannot change this easily on a system like wikipedia.

I do hope that I convinced you about my good intents. Blugri (talk) 13:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • Yes, I am convinced you about your good intents, and I always was from the start, which, as I have already said, is why I took the trouble to write to you trying to clarify things, rather than just declining your unblock request. What you have now said gives me the impression that you do have a general understanding of the main issues involved, so I will consult the blocking administrator and suggest that we accept your request. I am sorry you have been put to such trouble, and I hope this can be settled soon. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • In the meantime, I've done the rename (from User:Blugri). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for understanding Tjbe77 (talk) 13:37, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply