User talk:Kenny Crookston

Your Edit to Brass band sections in the United Kingdom

Hello, I'm Rehnn83. I wanted to let you know that I removed one or more external links you added to the page Brass band sections in the United Kingdom, because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. Rehnn83 ^Talk 09:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Hello, British Bandsman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

Reply!

I still don't understand how a mere link to a publication represents a conflict of interest, especially when two other publications in the same market are already there, one of which has a broken link! I understand the part about having an interest, but where is the conflict? Surely this is just additional factual information that could be useful to readers?

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or any other editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
The five pillars of Wikipedia
Contributing to Wikipedia
Tutorial
How to edit a page and How to develop articles
How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using 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! Rehnn83 ^Talk 10:28, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I had a look at your sandbox and I think this can be turned into an article suitable for Wikipedia with a bit of work from my end (time permitting). The claim to be established in 1887 was very easy to verify and I have added a reliable source to your sandbox. If I can dig out some more sources of this nature, it will easily survive in Wikipedia mainspace. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:18, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ritchie. If I can be of any help please let me know.

Your account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because it appears to be mainly intended for publicity and/or promotional purposes. If you intend to edit constructively in other topic areas, you may be granted the right to continue under a change of username. Please read the following carefully.

Why can't I edit Wikipedia?

Your account's edits and/or username indicate that it is being used on behalf of a company, group, website or organization for purposes of promotion and/or publicity. The edits may have violated one or more of our rules on spamming, which include: adding inappropriate external links, posting advertisements and using Wikipedia for promotion. Wikipedia has many articles on companies, groups, and organizations, but such groups are generally discouraged from using Wikipedia to write about themselves. In addition, usernames like yours are disallowed under our username policy.

Am I allowed to make these edits if I change my username?

Probably not, although if you can demonstrate a pattern of future editing in strict accordance with our neutral point of view policy, you may be granted this right. See Wikipedia's FAQ for Organizations for a helpful list of frequently asked questions by people in your position. Also, review the conflict of interest guidance to see the kinds of limitations you would have to obey if you did want to continue editing about your company, group, organization, or clients. If this does not fit in with your goals, then you will not be allowed to edit Wikipedia again.

What can I do now?

If you have no interest in writing about some other topic than your organization, group, company, or product, you may consider using one of the many websites that allow this instead.

If you do intend to make useful contributions here about some other topic, you must convince a Wikipedia administrator that you mean it. To that end, please do the following:

Add the text {{unblock-spamun|Your proposed new username|Your reason here}} on your user talk page.
Replace the text "Your proposed new username" with a new username you are willing to use. See Special:Listusers 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 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}} below, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Alexf^(talk) 15:08, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexf: - (apologies in advance if I sound like Russell Brand) Has this account been given a chance to rename themselves? Their sandbox has (in my view) potential to become an acceptable article in mainspace and they don't give the impression that they're going to spam all over Wikipedia so this block seems rather, well, punitive. Can't we give this account a chance to pick a new username first? They haven't gone straight to mainspace, they put a draft in a sandbox, which is what we recommend editors with a COI do. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:02, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333: - The way I see it, there is only one edit in mainspace, which happens to be just a link to their website, which coincidentally exactly matches the name of the account. That is spam and and clear violation of the username rules. If they want to write an article about something, related to their field or not, they are free to create another account following the username rules. If they disagree, and want this account reopened, there are clear instructions on how to do that in the blocking message. They are free to do so, and an uninvolved admin will then consider their request. -- Alexf^(talk) 18:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexf: - Understand that, but in this case the website was of a 120 year old magazine listed in the Guinness World Records, so I'm prepared to AGF that a new user would not consider it blatant promotion, particularly when the link has already been added by another editor in Salvation Army Band. I'm honestly not having a go at you per se, I appreciate the work people do at WP:UAA and especially the ton of genuine spam and rubbish that comes through, and I apologise if I sound blunt, but I think we need to just to review our procedures here a bit. I've started a conversation on WT:WER#How well do we handle usernames? that might be of interest. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:05, 12 December 2014 (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.

Kenny Crookston (block log • active blocks • global blocks • autoblocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Requested username:

Kenny_Crookston (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Request reason:

I defer to {Alexf} above, who seems to have a pretty good handle of the situation. To suggest that we intend to spam is frankly ridiculous. I am the Editor of the world's oldest weekly music magazine, who was merely correcting what I'm sure most would agree was a notable omission with some informed historical text. I'm neither an unscrupulous spammer nor someone seeking to seek a commercial advantage any more than any of the other respected music publications on Wikipedia. I'll leave the rest to democratic minds to work out...

Accept reason:

Allowing username change to requested username. Welcome to Wikipedia, Mr Crookston. Please put this request in at Wikipedia:Changing username as soon as possible to avoid re-blocking. Also, please read the Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide and WP:EL#ADV. The general principle is, if there is any doubt, submit a draft or make a suggestion rather than edit directly. I am sorry if we seem suspicious, but Wikipedia is deluged with spam from people who are all convinced that they are not advertising, just "telling the world" about their band, film, company or whatever. JohnCD (talk) 23:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I support the request for unblock, and if the editor requests a name change to what is apparently his real life name, I would support that as well. I am more than willing to work with this editor to help him develop content related to his magazine to the degree I can given other concerns. In particular, someone who has access to the archives of this source may well have invaluable information on several of the works and organizations it has covered, and I cannot see any reason for us to almost automatically remove our access to this material. John Carter (talk) 16:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@JohnCD: Just for the record, Kenny did put his submission in draft space - I moved it out of there after I added several sources and concluded it met the mainspace criteria. As John says, as editor he would hopefully have access to the entire archives of British Bandsman, which would be an invaluable source for a major topic of British music. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 14:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my comment was not intended as criticism, only as general advice on editing with a COI. JohnCD (talk) 18:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]