HNB Marketing

August 2022

Hello HNB Marketing. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Honesdale National Bank, 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:HNB Marketing. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=HNB Marketing|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. Kleuske (talk) 20:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello, the edits being made are not explicitly for financial gain, but rather to ensure accuracy and timeliness of the information available to the public on our financial institution. I am an employee of the Bank. HNB Marketing (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

And you're doing that out of the Goodness of your Heart, I presume, without any remuneration? What exactly do you think my date of birth is? Yesterday? Kleuske (talk) 20:52, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

We fully understand the purpose that Wikipedia serves in the online community. As a corporation, we aim to ensure the accuracy of information that is available to all of our constituents. In reviewing our profile, we noticed inaccuracies and incompleteness of the information presented regarding our company and its history that dates back to 1836. We were simply looking to help support our collective interests in making content available to the public. HNB Marketing (talk) 21:12, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

In many circumstances, Wikipedia is highly revered and is often a display in search engine results. It reflects poorly on our brand to have the first experience be the display of inaccurate content that may be interpreted as lack of digital awareness or capability. HNB Marketing (talk) 21:13, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

We support Wikipedia and its mission and aim to engage with the platform leveraging your recommended guidelines. HNB Marketing (talk) 21:14, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

If you did understand, which you apparently do not, you would have complied with the Terms of Service in the first place. You violated that by abusing Wikipedia as a marketing tool and chose to ignore the basic fundamentals of the WP:USERNAME policy. And then you got blocked. No amount of PR/management babble will change that. Kleuske (talk) 22:11, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Your account has been indefinitely blocked from editing because of the following problems: 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, organisation, group, or web site, which is against the username policy.

You may request a change of username and unblock if you intend to make useful contributions instead of promoting your business or organization. To do this, first search Special:CentralAuth for available usernames that comply with the username policy. Once you have found an acceptable username, 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 your new username and replace the text "Your reason here" with your reasons to be unblocked. In your reasons, you must:

• Disclose any compensation you may receive for your contributions in accordance with the Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure requirement.
• 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.

Appeals: If, after reviewing the guide to appealing blocks, you believe this block was made in error, you may appeal it by adding the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} at the bottom of your talk page. Replace the text "Your reason here" with the reasons you believe the block was an error, and publish the page. Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:56, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

• In addition to the links in the block template, please read Wikipedia:Yes, it is promotion.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:56, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

  {{unblock-spamun|dyberry|There is no compensation being given for my contributions. I understand that I was blocked through creating edits that registered as public relations or marketing implementation and it appeared that I used the account advertising or promotion, which is against Wikipedia's purpose. If unblocked, I will instead, provide contributions that enhance Wikipedia for the democracy of knowledge and add meaningful entries to help educate and increase the accuracy of our world. I have read the Block Policy and I comply with the Terms of Service. }} 2601:98A:500:6506:7577:4F13:7154:21F6 (talk) 19:01, 12 August 2022 (UTC)