User talk:Maryzrose233

Welcome!

Hello, Maryzrose233, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Battle of Big Black River Bridge. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

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 for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Drmies (talk) 19:38, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 2018

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include, but are not limited to, links to personal websites, links to websites with which you are affiliated (whether as a link in article text, or a citation in an article), and links that attract visitors to a website or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the page, please discuss it on the associated talk page rather than re-adding it. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did with this edit to Battle of Big Black River Bridge, you may be blocked from editing. Serols (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you vandalize Wikipedia, as you did with this edit to Battle of Arkansas Post. Serols (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Spam#External link spamming. Your sole purpose appears to be to add this website. Doug Weller talk 20:49, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Maryzrose233. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 20:49, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 2018

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for advertising or promotion. From your contributions, this seems to be your only purpose.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 21:13, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Maryzrose233 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

I create online exhibits for the historical museum/archival library where I work. The organization is nonprofit, the exhibits are free and not selling anything. I added the links because the recent exhibit I made includes personal accounts written by Union Civil War soldiers and I thought it would be helpful for people interested in a particular battle and looking it up on Wikipedia to be able to read a first-hand account of the battle. I also thought that people looking up a particular Civil War regiment would likely be interested in reading letters and diaries from someone in that regiment, so I added links to that effect as well. All of my links include short descriptions of why the Wikipedia visitor might find them interesting or helpful. My exhibits all include bibliographies, which I also think would be valuable for people doing research on a topic. If this is a violation of Wikipedia policies then I'm okay with that, I just want to clarify that I am only linking the resources available on my organization's website when it is appropriate. I have no desire to leverage Wikipedia to drive traffic to my organization only to disappoint them when they get there.

Accept reason:

Appears to be a net positive. Sorry for the trouble. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 02:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but external links should only be inline citations to cited sources. What you have done is WP:SPAM. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to look at WP:GLAM, an outreach to museums, libraries, and such. I don't really know that much about it, but they might be able to help you and your organization. They have a contact page: Wikipedia:GLAM/Connect. Maybe email one of those people? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:07, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your explanation Maryzrose233. As explanations on Wikipedia go, it's a good one. If you were to state here that you now understand you had broken rules and would stop doing so immediately it's possible this block might be withdrawn. Blocks are intended to be preventative, not punitive. I strongly concur with NinjaRobotPirate your approaching the GLAM group would be helpful. Museums and Wikipedia should be natural allies. If we can help you understand better how to contribute, you now have the attention to several experienced editors, at least some of whom would steer you in the right direction. As a former museum educator myself, I'd be happy to mentor or advise if that would be helpful. BusterD (talk) 00:07, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BusterD, much will depend on what Maryzrose intends to do other than dropping those links in. That the organization is a non-profit isn't a surprise nor does it matter much in terms of SPAM policies: spam doesn't need to be commercial, of course, to be spam. I could have predicted Maryzrose's response, but I was hoping they'd start talking before dropping dozens more of those links in articles. Drmies (talk) 00:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies we agree 100%. I appreciate your welcome message here. The COI warning above contains a number of very good recommendations and links and I have no doubt the block was well warranted, those escalating user warnings not heeded. I have a lot of pages in my watchlist affected by these edits and when I followed the trail late I was expecting to leave warnings and notifications myself, but seeing all the real work had been done, I thought I'd add a note of encouragement. I believe there are some circumstances in which institutions like historical societies, small local museums and libraries have an opportunity to achieve their some of their objectives by making their authentic source materials and published offline resources available via the Wikiprojects. They want their community stories told and we want to tell such stories. I wanted to say something positive to the user, in case they feel discouraged by this block. The single time I got caught up in a rangeblock it was maddening and frustrating. And this person doesn't have the wikifriends I did at the time available to help. Hopefully when they come in tomorrow they can take this as a lesson learned and move forward. BusterD (talk) 01:35, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for the gentle and not-so-gentle mentoring. I will definitely contact the GLAM people and explore how I can bring our resources to the Wikipedia community appropriately. I detect some irritation that I didn't heed the warnings sooner so just want to tell you that I didn't even notice them as I was "in the zone" doing good (or so I thought). I don't know how much editing I will do in the future if I am unblocked. In the past when I have had the time and inclination I have done Wikipedia reference and have corrected typos in articles so unblocking me might be beneficial. I really thought adding the links was a good thing for the world. But I also appreciate the need to protect Wikipedia from becoming a "sponsor" of anyone and that priority supersedes my good intentions. Hypothetically, if I had the time, would it be a violation if I added significant, extensive, and meaningful content to a page based on the research I have done for an exhibit, add the references that I used, and also cite and link to the exhibit? I honestly don't see myself doing that though, it would be so much work. But just asking just in case since if I get unblocked I don't want to step in it again.Maryzrose233 (talk) 18:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maryzrose, here's the thing, and that's why I didn't block you on sight, it is obvious you weren't some scammer trying to sell a product--in fact, I hesitated before I reverted you, and I checked the link. What is "under" that link, the documents that are linked from that page, may well be reliable sources (WP:RS). Exhibits typically are not, being (usually) temporary and not published. We would welcome you writing article content that is verified by the documents/sources linked from those pages--the pages themselves are less helpful for that purpose. Does that help? Drmies (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

unblock

I see unblocking as a net positive. I will add the caveat that user will not add links to articles unless they are providing a cited source to article content. (Template:cite can make this easier.) @Ronhjones: What say ye? Have I missed anything? Unless there is an objection, I feel I can unblock. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dlohcierekim: It appears the user now understands what is expected, so fine by me Ronhjones ^(Talk) 01:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the unblock. I will follow the rules as they've been explained to me here. Suggestion: If an "External Links" section is only for cited sources, then why have a separate section? Shouldn't cited external links simply be listed in the "References" section instead? I think many people are under the same misunderstanding as I am. For instance, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needlepoint. In fact I would go so far to say that my experience as a Wikipedia user led me to believe that that the intended purpose of the "External Links" section was for "see also"/"you might also like"/"related" content rather than for listing cited sources. Different issue: It was suggested that if I use a primary document as a source for content that I should link directly to the document rather than to the web exhibit that contextualizes it. As a user I am suspicious of so-called primary documents floating on the internet without context. I see the role of the museum as a "publisher" authenticating these documents. I am not asking for "special treatment" nor do I want to engage in a debate. I'm stating these thoughts in the hope that those who are more dedicated to formulating and enforcing Wikipedia rules will use them to improve the efficacy of the rules. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maryzrose233 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember to sign your talk page posts with four tildes "~~~~" so we can see who wrote it and when. BusterD (talk) 19:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:External links which will answer some of your questions. Another helpful page will be WP:Primary sources. Normally wikipedians frown on the use of primary sources (our sourcing guideline prefers reliable secondary sources), but there are some cases in which primaries are allowed (a direct quote from the source, for example, see WP:QUOTE). One could also go to Wikisource, a sister project of the pedia, where reliable primary sources are welcomed with open arms. I remember having a discussion about this subject with a librarian in a major research library. That person was like yourself dubious about having the material floating around on the internet without attribution. As that librarian put it: "I'd like the reader to link back to our library" which is not an unreasonable position. Have you been able to get any response from WP:GLAM? BusterD (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That last bit -- discouraging the use of primary sources -- seems exactly the opposite of what Drmies (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2018 (UTC) was saying above.Maryzrose233 (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The policy says "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." It follows with "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." So as long as the primary source is used to state straightforward descriptive facts (the diary quote "I was born on a farm in Ohio" allows us to assert subject's diary says "he was born on an Ohio farm"). Interpretation or inference, however reasonable, should be asserted only when supported by reliable secondary sources ("he was an Ohio farmer" is an assertion not supported by the above quote, and would need to be sourced). So caution is urged. I would have a difficult time creating an article about a subject supported ONLY with primary sources; many things I might assert would be considered inference or WP:Original synthesis. Could you point me towards an article you'd like improve with resources your museum holds? I might be able to walk you through some examples. BusterD (talk) 18:32, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to point you toward the suddenly very active contributor Special:Contributions/2603:3003:10B:2300:4965:5CDD:E716:876 who today has put scores of links into articles (not external links) directly benefiting the National Women's History Museum. Because these links don't violate the guidelines for external links, and appear to be targeted specifically at adding useful sourcing for specific assertions, I'm not sure anybody's going to complain, although the violation of spam-like links is more egregious than what you've presented, IMHO. As opposed to flagging the edits, let's sit back for a time and watch what happens. BusterD (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Champion Hill

I've read something of the diary you linked previously. I'm looking at this ACW battle article (which needs additional sourcing, but is anchored by several reliables, so this is an excellent place for you to work). I'm adding an assertion drawn directly from the diary, restating precisely without interpreting. Let's let it sit for few days to see if anyone disagrees with the insertion. BusterD (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]