Welcome to Wikipedia! edit

Hello, Benmakinen. Welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your contributions. My name is Howicus, and I've been an editor here for some time. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

If you're working on creating a new article, you should take a look at this page on your first article. Also, this page has instructions on how to cite sources, complete with videos.

If all this Wikicode is a little overwhelming, this cheatsheet may help untangle it.

If you're looking for a tutorial of sorts, The Wikipedia Adventure is a good option.

And if you need more help, I'd recommend getting live help at the Wikipedia help chat channel: click here to join. Additionally, you could ask me on my talk page, try the Teahouse (a help page for new users) or click here to ask for help here on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you here shortly

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. Again, welcome, and have fun editing! Howicus (Did I mess up?) 21:39, 15 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Managing a conflict of interest edit

  Hello, Benmakinen. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Charles Burrell (musician), you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. 331dot (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Movie posters are typically used on Wikipedia under fair use- are you licencing it under the license you claim everywhere you make this poster available? That would mean that anyone could take it and sell it if they so chose as long as they provide attibution and you wouldn't necessarily get a penny. 331dot (talk) 10:03, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for writing me.
I am the producer & director of the films JazzTown and Who Killed Jazz. Charles Burrell is featured in both films. I simply wanted to make that fact known by adding it to a Filmography.
Your point about the movie poster has me reconsidering. Is there a way for me to post it without using fair use, IOW can I grant Wiki permission (a license) to use it while maintaining full copyright status everywhere else.
Also: I would like to continue updating the wiki pages of other cast members in my films, but I do not want to run afoul of conflict of interest guidelines.
Can you advise me as to how I may add these simple facts without appearing to be in conflict? Benmakinen (talk) 10:23, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Please review how to make formal edit requests; you should do that on the article talk pages of the articles you want to contribute to. In most cases you should avoid directly editing relevant articles(see this for permitted exceptions to that). You should also declare your conflict of interest on your user page(User:Benmakinen) as well as on the article talk pages you contribute to, WP:COI has instructions to do those in a formal manner, but if the coding is too challenging, simply typing a statement will suffice.
No, you cannot grant Wikipedia one licence while having a different one with limitations elsewhere. To make an image avaiable on Wikipedia without being under fair use, its license must be compatible with Wikipedia everywhere. I suspect you might not want to do that(I wouldn't if I were you) so your only option to include the poster in articles would be under fair use- which would also mean the poster could not be on Commons and would need to be uploaded to this Wikipedia directly(see WP:UPIMAGE). 331dot (talk) 10:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thanks 331dot - It appears my poster upload has already been removed. I was going to use the suggested speedy tag but cannot now see where I would place that and if it is now needed. I will proceed with posting my suggested edits on article talk pages and I have made a general statement of coi on my new user page. Benmakinen (talk) 12:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, good luck to you. 331dot (talk) 12:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
And to you as wellBenmakinen (talk) 14:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Using "minor" edits edit

Hi! While going through your contribution log, I noticed that you marked a lot of edits as minor. This should only be used for edits that do not change the meaning of an article whatsoever. See WP:MINOR for more info; the take-away is that any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if the edit concerns a single word, and it is improper to mark such an edit as minor. Thanks, and good luck editing! Actualcpscm (talk) 18:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Benmakinen (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2023 (UTC)Reply