Hello, Wildmint! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! XLinkBot (talk) 01:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
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July 2009

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Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Warrendale has been reverted.
Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove unwanted links and spam from Wikipedia. The external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): \bmultiply\.com (links: http://browndalestaffkids.multiply.com/).
If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 01:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

  1.   Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added to the page Warrendale do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia.  
    Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove unwanted links and spam from Wikipedia. The external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): \byoutube\.com (links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcora1uq5lm). If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. a sound or video file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy and therefore probably should not be linked to. Please consider using our upload facility to upload a suitable media file. Video links are also strongly deprecated by our guidelines for external links, partly because they're useless to people with slow internet connections.
    If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

  Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. ThemFromSpace 06:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

  This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits. The next time you insert a spam link, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. ThemFromSpace 03:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

I know the user personally and I know that there was no intention by this wildmint to spam the article. While I note that wildmint made 7 edits, I think at least some of these were accidental, made through inexperience with the wiki edit process... While the first edit was civil in tone, the second and third warnings from the bot were seen by wildmint to be an egregious attack. Though I understand the reasons for their use, wildmint did not, or at least not very well, and in consequence has sent a request for mediation or arbitration about them. I should mention that wildmint's intent in adding the links was to be of help to readers who might have an interest in the actual Warrendale that was the subject of the documentary, because she herself was fascinated about the story, and not because she had any personal connection let alone commercial connection with the film, the producer, or the principals of the story. I know that the guidelines were read by wildmint, and it seemed to Wildmint that the rules for adding external links were being followed. Yes, wildmint was inexperienced, but enthusiastic too. Unfortunately wildmint is now totally turned off using Wikipedia even as a reader, let alone joining the community. Too bad.theyelgel 15:49, 25 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theyelgel (talkcontribs)

Theyelgel, the warnings the bot leave are all agreed upon by editors (indeed, the first one is an even friendlier one that the first good-faith warning). Indeed, after that harsher warnings follow (which, by the way, were not left behind by the bot, they were done by other editor(s). Generally, after the first remarks, editors do read those. It should also
Wildmint, I am sorry to see that this escalated, but I do feel that a friendly and lengthy explanation was left, and the timing of the edits after the second revert (which was not by the bot), does give me the feeling that you were more persistent in being right, and pushing the information, than to consider that it may indeed not have been appropriate.
However, I do gather that you know more about the subject, and I hope that you will take some time to read about our policies and guidelines, and proceed editing here. Hence:

Wildmint, &nbsp has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

(Really!) hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)Reply


Thank-you for the smile! It really cheered me up. I appreciate your response, although I'm done with Wikipedia and won't post again. I found it a shame that the messages sent to posters, especially brand new users were so harsh and hope the editors who agreed upon them will rewrite them to sound more kind and helpful in the future and less threatening and hostile. I was terribly upset, as a new user to get the sudden messages that I was being disruptive, was a spammer, warning, warning and then you will be banned. I didn't get the friendly message at all until I finally saw the new message bar after my 3rd or 4th attempt to repost and then attached to it were all the terrible messages. I only reposted because the rules I read seemed quite accepting of links (although it sounds like there must be a more strict section about this). I thought there must be a virus in the bot, which was removing everything, instead of the one link it would mention. Anyway I'm just explaining, but don't really mind being removed at all. It was the language and tone that were used with me that got me so upset. Thank-you so much for your kind response and smile though. It helped me feel a tiny bit better about all this.