Talkback edit

 
Hello, Tomatostudio. You have new messages at Smartse's talk page.
Message added 20:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.Reply

SmartSE (talk) 20:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Welcome! edit

Hello, Tomatostudio, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Please change your username edit

  Welcome to Wikipedia. I saw that you edited or created Tomato (company), and I noticed that the username you have chosen, "Tomatostudio", seems to imply that you are editing on behalf of something other than yourself. Please note that you may not edit on behalf of a company, group, institution, product, or website which relates to the entity in question, and Wikipedia does not allow usernames that are promotional or accounts that are shared. If you are willing to use a personal account, please take a moment to create a new account or request a username change that represents only yourself as an individual. You should also read our Conflict of interest guideline and Plain and simple conflict of interest guide, and remember that promotional editing is not acceptable regardless of the username you choose. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Correction to the canned boilerplate text above: I did not see your edit to Tomato (company), I only saw your message on another editor's talk page to the fact that you made substantial changes to this article. That same message spoke in terms of "we" and "us" which implies that this account may have been used by more than one person or that it may be used by more than one person over the course of time. That is not allowed: One editor per account, shared accounts are not allowed. In any case, people connected to a company should not be editing about that company. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi David. As discussed with Smartse, the original entry for Tomato (company) was created by a member of our company. Given that we now know this is entirely incorrect, the company will ask an impartial outside editor to create and maintain a new page, with a promise of objectivity and emphasis on verifiable references to support assertions. Also, the earlier use of "we" referred only to our company, not sharing of accounts, which we have not done. Hope this helps to clarify. Like a lot of people, we weren't fully aware of the guidelines before attempting to use Wikipedia in a more comprehensive manner. This mistake won't be made again, as we want to support Wikipedia's ethos and intent. However, it is very clear the vast majority of companies with Wikipedia pages created them on their own. It's certainly true in our category of advertising and film production. One look at the pages of most ad agencies (BBDO, AKQA, etc.) or production companies (Radical Media, B-Reel, etc.) clearly shows self-creation and an emphasis on marketing/promotion, including proprietary logo usage. We don't mind being made an example, but it's confusing for a newcomer if they see competitors using promotional language, as it led us to believe this is correct -- and will now create an unfair advantage, as those pages will continue to communicate a highly subjective (marketing) viewpoint, while ours will not. I can only imagine the task of weeding out so many pages and issues, especially given Wikipedia's incredible growth, so I don't mean to complain. I only want to clarify our intent and next steps, and learn more about Wikipedia so we can best support it. Thanks. Tomatostudio (talk) 05:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I thought I had made it clear on my talk page, but maybe not. Whether or not you are sharing your account, your username is inappropriate at the moment per WP:ISU. You'd be best of changing it to User:Bob at Tomatostudio etc. A quick post at WP:CHU is all it takes. SmartSE (talk) 10:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
@Tomatostudio: If you know of pages that were created by people closely associated with the topic of the page, please add {{connected contributor}} to the article's talk page. If the article in its current form is not written in a neutral point of view or it seems too biased, put a {{COI}}, {{NPOV}}, or similar template at the top of the article page. If the topic of the page does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines, please put a {{notability}} template at the top and consider nominating it for deletion. If it's a blatant advertisement and there is no non-blatant-advertisement revision to revert to, consider putting a {{db-advert}} template at the top of the article. Thanks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
 
Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames that give the impression that the account represents a group, organization or website, I have blocked this account; please take a moment to create a new account with a username that represents only yourself as an individual and which complies with our username policy.  You should also read our conflict of interest guideline and be aware that promotional editing is not acceptable regardless of the username you choose.

If your username does not represent a group, organization or website, you may appeal this username block by adding the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} below this notice.

You may simply create a new account, but you may prefer to change your username to one that complies with our username policy, so that your past contributions are associated with your new username. If you would prefer to change your username, you may appeal this username block by adding the text {{unblock-un|new username|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} below this notice. Thank you. Yunshui  14:49, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

  Facepalm

Well I tried! It's probably just easier to create a new account rather than changing this one. SmartSE (talk) 15:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

As we are handing responsibility for our Wiki page to an outside editor, I no longer need a Wiki account, and this user name in particular. That's why I didn't change it. It was our way of ensuring impartiality and transparency, which we thought would be a good thing (versus me sneaking back onto the site to edit our page under another name). So I won't be logging on again under this user name, and would cancel the account if Wiki provided a way to do so. But I'd love to discuss how the larger issues of fairness -- and better communication of guidelines -- can be addressed by Wikipedia. If it continues like this, MIT won't be the only ones to start questioning the long term future of the project. Tomatostudio (talk) 17:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Bad idea - you cannot "hand responsibility over" for something which you did not have responsibility for in the first place. While you are responsible for edits you make, nobody - especially not anyone with a conflict of interest, "owns" any Wikipedia article. Any outside entity which you (that is, your company) ask to "manage" any article related to your company will be considered by the Wikipedia community to be editing on your behalf, even if they are making the final decisions regarding edits. This means that with a few exemptions (fixing typos, removing material that defames a living person, removing copyright violations, etc.), they will not be allowed to directly edit articles about your company. In short, they will not be allowed to make any edits that an employee or officer of the company would not be allowed to make. In short, don't spend good money hiring an outside person or entity to edit on your behalf. It's goes against the spirit of what Wikipedia is all about, it violates at least one Wikipedia guideline or policy (specifically, WP:MEAT), it's disruptive, and if the accounts are ever tied back to you, all edits by that account and by any other account using an IP address from the same IP-address range as the ones used by this account may be subject to heavy scrutiny. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Thanks for the advice about tagging inappropriate pages. To clarify my previous comment, please look past my previous choice of words. We're not trying to "own" our article, unlike a lot of other companies. Nor have we hired a PR flack to create one for us. A writer approached us about updating our article (he had a few questions, points of clarification, etc.), and we first incorrectly decided to do the update ourselves. When it became clear this was not allowed, we contacted the editor to answer his questions and say he should feel free to update the article if he still wanted to do so (or not, it's his choice). We are not influencing, writing or editing with him, or paying for his work. Honestly, this is our attempt to follow the rules and be good Wiki citizens. We are one of Britain's most famous design studios, and are notable enough to warrant a Wiki page, which is why someone wrote a small one about us to begin with. By allowing this account to lapse, and not interfering with an outside writer who wishes write an updated article on their own, we are hopefully on the right side. That's all I was trying to say. Please don't take it as anything other than trying to respect the ethos and purpose of Wikipedia. Quiller1970 (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2014 (UTC)Reply