Carol at CoramStory

September 2022

Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames which give the impression that the account represents a group, club, organization, company, or website, I have blocked this account. Please take a moment to either create a new account, or request a change of username of your current account here. The new username must represent only yourself as an individual and comply with Wikipedia's username policy.

It also appears that your account is intended to be used for the purpose of telling the world about an organization, person or cause that you consider worthwhile. Unfortunately, many good causes are not sufficiently notable for their own Wikipedia article, and all users are discouraged from editing in any area where they have an inherent conflict of interest. You may wish to consider one of these alternative outlets. Additionally, if your contributions to Wikipedia form all or part of work for which you are, or expect to be, paid, you must disclose who is paying you to edit.

Please also note that you are permitted to use a username that contains the name of a company or organization if it identifies you individually, such as "Sara Smith at XYZ Company", "Mark at WidgetsUSA", or "FoobarFan87", but not "SEO Manager at XYZ Company".

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 ~~~~}} at the bottom of your talk page.

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 ~~~~}}

at the bottom of your talk page. Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names.

 Thank you. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 09:16, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Dear DatGuy,

What is the problem here? Your instructions say: "You are permitted to use a username that contains the name of a company or organization if it identifies you individually." So, I changed the username to 'Carol at CoramStory' - this follows the examples in your instructions (Mark at Widgets USA).

If you had bothered to click the external links I added to the pages on Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital, you would have seen that the Coram Story website is dedicated to the history of Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital. The institution that was known as the Foundling Hospital is now named for the man who founded it 'Coram'. We have an extensive archive stretching back to 1739 which we are in the progress of digitising. When the digital archive is launched online next year, it will be freely available and will be of huge significance to readers of those two wiki pages.

Wikipedia has allowed the Foundling Museum and the Old Coram Association to put external links on these pages. So I don't understand why the organisation that holds the Foundling Hospital Archive is being prevented from adding an external link to pages with further historical information about Mr Coram and his institution. Carol at CoramStory (talk) 08:10, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The block is not removed automatically upon the change of username; you should have requested unblock as is described above, but I will remove it now. Before you attempt to edit further, please make the mandatory paid editing disclosure required by the Terms of Use(if you are paid or compensated in any manner by the organization), and also review conflict of interest and how to make formal edit requests. You should avoid directly making edits related to your COI in most cases, instead you may make edit requests on article talk pages, detailing changes you feel are needed.

Please see other stuff exists; just because you see something on another article does not necessarily mean that it is permitted or was approved by anyone. 331dot (talk) 08:16, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello Carol at CoramStory. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Foundling Hospital, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Carol at CoramStory. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Carol at CoramStory|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. 331dot (talk) 13:49, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

HI, I get a notice saying that there isn't a page called User: Carol at CoramStory. Please can you delete this account? I'm sick of being told off by wikipedia for adding two very small additions to external links. This is a waste of my time when I was only trying to be helpful to wiki readers and point them to a useful resource. Carol at CoramStory (talk) 14:34, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't yet exist, but if you edit it and click publish, that will create the page. It's no one's intention to "tell you off", I'm sorry that it comes off that way. There are certain policies that need to be complied with, and as long as you are willing to, it's fine and we want to help. Note that articles are not meant to have collections of links necessarily- see policy in this area. As you have a conflict of interest, you shouldn't make edits related to it directly, please see the edit request process.

Accounts cannot be deleted, for technical and legal reasons- you are free to abandon your account. If you intend to continue your participation, and you have a paid relationship with the website/organization, please see my message above. 331dot (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that you review the external links policy. If that policy permits your proposed edits, please explain how in an edit request. (again, see this page for instructions). 331dot (talk) 13:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)