Sockpuppetry case

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You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Dcshoes for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Amalthea (talk) 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

PLease change this username as it is COI and against policy. I've blocked the other account. RlevseTalk 18:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

June 2008

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  Welcome, and thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test on the page DC Shoes worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment further, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Amalthea (talk) 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi, please let me know if this is not the proper way to respond to you, I've read the talk page guidelines but found it some what confusing. This message is in response to your doubts about my username being approprate. I am the head of DC Shoes' web department and my responsabilities include maintaining DC Shoes' image on the internet. Along with discussing my rights to maintain this username I would like for you to provide informatrion on how I can become the administrator of DC Shoes' Wikipedia presence. Unfortunately all of the posts that I have read prior to my post have been some what incorrect and misleading. Thank you for your patience.

Dcshoes (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


Hi.
You should have put your reponse directly beneath the message you are referring to, or if you absolutely want to make sure you are being heard put your answer on the talk page of the person you are responding to, i.e. on User_talk:Tombomp.
To your questions:

  • Read Username policy: Company/group names and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. It's pretty easy: You can in principle keep your username. As a matter of fact I'd even welcome it, because your conflict of interest becomes apparent that way :)
  • You can in no way become an administrator of the DC Shoes article (it's not a 'presence'). Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and no place at all to maintain an image. See WP:SOAP and Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. As a matter of fact, as it says in those links, you should be very careful when editing those pages at all. As it says there: Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals, companies, or groups, unless you are certain that the interests of Wikipedia remain paramount.

Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


Oh, and until then I have reverted your latest edits to the page. You made it into a promotion page again, which is not allowed. Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Username

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Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia!

I hope not to seem unfriendly or make you feel unwelcome, but I noticed your username, and I am concerned that it might not meet Wikipedia's username policy for the following reason: it appears to be the name of a company and your user account appears to be dedicated to editing the article of that company. After you look over that policy, could we discuss that concern here?

I'd appreciate learning your own views, for instance your reasons for wanting this particular name, and what alternative username you might accept that avoids raising this concern.

You have several options freely available to you:

Thank you. Tombomp (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


  Please stop your disruptive editing, such as the edit you made to DC Shoes. If your vandalism continues, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Amalthea (talk) 19:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

OK, by now you should know that what you are doing is really wrong, if you have read any of the links I gave to you above. If you continue to violate those rules you will get blocked. Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi,

The last article I submitted was an edited version, with any information I felt you may find promotional removed. I'd like to apologize for inaccurately describing my intensions, DC Shoes' presence on Wikipedia and the interests of Wikipedia are one in the same as far as I'm concerned. When you revert the older article not submitted by me, you are actually doing Wikipedea a dis-service. It is inaccurate information. DC Shoes was not founded by Colin McKay and Danny Way. Another article that was not submitted be me said "Rob Dyrdek was the first member of DC's team", this too is a dis-service to Wikipedea because it is dead wrong. If you are telling me that Wikipedia is all about mis-informing people then I stand corrected. The information I am posting is 100% accurate and I think there is a fine line between stating what is obviously accurate information about a company and what is information that helps to promote a company. Please provide a break down of what is that you find promotional in the article I submitted and I will have it re-edited. I am not doing anything that I am aware of as being wrong, unless you think posting accurate information that is approved by the company it is written about, obviosly wrong. I'm accusing you of doing something that is obviously wrong, you are re-instating inaccurate information without researching the facts. My advice to you is to check with me or our lawyer prior to re-instating infromation that I am telling you is wrong and inaccurate.

Dcshoes (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


Hi
I reverted the last edit for two reasons:
  • You started the article with the sandbox template. If you want to experiment with the article, do it somewhere in your userspace, e.g. at User:Dcshoes/Dcshoes_sandbox, not at the article itself.
  • It still read as an advertising. I admit I only skimmed over the first two paragraphs, but that was enough: "DC quickly grew to a leader in performance skateboarding shoes" is at the very least unsourced (if you can give an independant websource supporting that then it can stay, if worded differntly), and "agreed upon a mission: to make a significant change in skateboard shoe style and elevate skateboarding performance to the highest level" is just plain promo talk.
I think we already have firmly established your conflict of interest, and if you have read the links I provided above you know what not to do, and how you can still contribute to the article without raising eyebrows and provoking reverts. See WP:COIC for example, and again Wikipedia:NOTADVERTISING#ADVERTISING and Wikipedia:NPOV.
Nonetheless, as I said above, if you are 'careful with your edits, e.g. just change the names of the founders to the correct ones, go ahead. But please don't replace the article in total again without sticking to the guidelines I just referred to.
HTH & Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 20:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


I found another Page for you to read: Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from enterprise). Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 20:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply


Hello. I'm sorry but I have reverted your edits to DC Shoes. If you would like to work on the article, thats great. You should try incorporating new things into the existing article, rather than deleting content and then replacing it with your own. As mentioned above, your user name makes any edits you contribute look odd, and they are likely to be reverted. Beach drifter (talk) 21:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
After reading your above statements, I might have to withdraw some of mine. It's probably not great if you edit the article, it's probably a pretty bad idea due to the clear conflict of interest. Sorry. Beach drifter (talk) 21:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
You're going to get banned. If you want the page changed, you need to engage in discussion on the articles talk page. You cannot continue to change the article as you please. People here are more than willing to listen and to help. Beach drifter (talk) 21:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

  This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
The next time you use Wikipedia for advertising, as you did with DC Shoes, you will be blocked from editing. Sorry, man, but that's it. Absolutely FINAL warning, if you edit that page one more time *in* *any* *way* you will be blocked. If you have anything to add at all, do it on the talk page. You're just not listening. Amalthea (talk) 21:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

I still have know idea what you are talking about, please tell me how to get to the "articles talk page" I went to the article and I do not see an "article talk page". I thought the only way to contribute to an article was to hit the "edit page" button.


But it's really easy: Don't edit that article anymore.
As a matter of fact it wasn't me you suggested who should change your username, it was User:Tombomp. And he said *change* it, not create a new one, and he gave you instructions how to do so. You created a second account aka (here and elsewhere on the internet) a Sockpuppet, which in most cases is a bad thing here on Wikipedia (more info).
In any case, that's not the real problem, the problem ist your conflict of interest as noted above, and that doesn't change one bit if you choose a different user name: You have it cause you work for the company the article is about. In principle, as iterated above, you are allowed to edit the article, but all of your edits so far are considered vandalism, for which you recieved numerous warnings and reverts, and I gave you a number of the guidelines above.
Don't do that again, please.
On top of the DC Shoes‎ article, right next to the Edit-Link, there is the link to the articles talkpage, also called discussion. If you feel that you have things to contribute to the article, go there, create a new section, and make a suggestion. I can tell you right now that if you simply repost your previous changes, you will be ignored at best. Instead you should state what is currently wrong with the page, what the page is missing, and what you would like to add. Add sources to your suggestion that prove the relevance of your changes. If you think that the teams you posted previously are noteable, find independant web sources that mention them, newspapers or the like. If you can't find those, then they are most probably not noteable.
I fixed the names of the founders of DC Shoes I think, some guy vandalised those earlier today.
Again: Don't change the article on your own again, or I will have no choice but ask an admin to block you.
Hope that helps, Amalthea (talk) 23:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Why in the world didn't somebody just say all that in the beginning. You can't imagine how many other things I should have been getting done today other than trying to appease Wikipedea's guidelines. You guys really need to work on simply explaining that on your homepage. So it's the first thing new visitors learn before anything else. Why would you call it a talk page and then label it a discussion page. How much more confusing can you make a simple thing?

Well, considering that talk and discussion are synonyms, it's not that much of a stretch, and really, if you had just read the links I kept giving you, it would have been laid out to you: WP:COIC said that in case of conflict of interest you should edit the talk page, where talk page linked to its explanation: There are two types of discussion pages, more commonly called talk pages [...]. I didn't just search these information pages for fun, they have everything you need to know.
But that really wasn't the problem. Apparently you weren't familiar with using Wikipedia before today, and were given an impossible task by needing to massively revise an article under those constraints. And, to be honest, I'm not taking or letting Wikipedia take the blame for that: One of the early links I gave you listed all the potential problems that you were running into. To quote: The best way to avoid deletions and public discussions is not to write about yourself. You have been warned. ;-)
Anyway, I hope I could help you. Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 00:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

I wasn't writing about myself, I was writing true facts about a company and more importantly I was trying to replace inaccurate facts about that company that you allowed to be posted in the first place. There was nothing massive about this undertaking, I was obviously a more reliable source than anybody else to post information about DC Shoes and for some reason you guys can't seem to grasp that concept. When I was a kid, and I looked up stuff in the encyclopedia the information that I found was correct. Every time I visited your site that claims to be a "Free Encyclopedia" I found information that I knew was wrong and you allowed it to be displayed for the world to see. How is it that you don't find any fault in this? I'm dying to know!

Hello. I tend to agree with you on some points. We were not at all clear on some of the reasons we were complaining about. Things around here can be very confusing to newcomers, and we did a poor job explaining our intentions. We have a policy here about being friendly to new editors, which we may have failed. That being said, you did continue to revert edits, many times, after being asked to read the guidelines, and then ignoring them. You should read all of the guidelines posted above, that is the only way to gain a clear understanding of what wikipedia is about. You, as yourself, cannot at all be a source, for several reasons. Reading the wiki guidelines will make it clear why. As I said earlier, anytime you have a concern, posting it on the talk page will be of the most benefit, as then the community can discuss it and can communicate to you how the article can best be edited. Finally, no one "allowed" anything to be posted. Just as you can, anyone can post anything they want. It is up to the community, including you, to regulate it. That is what this place is all about. Beach drifter (talk) 04:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

It shouldn't be called "The Free Encyclopedia", it's misleading. It should be called "an information source supplied by a community", or something like that. The other thing that is really misleading, why do you even have an "edit this page" button, if the proper way to make edits is to use the "discussion" page. You provide an "edit this page" button, but when used you call it vandalism. It's like the City of New York leaving cans of spray paint at the entrance to the subway system and every kid that picks up a can and starts tagging gets accused of vandalism. Are you saying I'm the only visitor on your site that made that mistake? I already know the answer to this question, it happens all the time. That's the reason the information about DC Shoes was wrong in the first place. I talked to 3 different people that I work with that told me they read three different things about DC Shoes and all of it was incorrect and they knew it. At this point I understand your system, I'm just trying to make you aware that it's a very misleading system that can be corrected with a few minor updates. If the information on your site can be modified through discussion, I hope that the interface on your site also could be changed through discussion.

  • You were writing about yourself, since you are acting as a representative of DC Shoes.
  • Sorry to say that, but you are not a reliable source in this case. I trust that you know the organizational structure, business model etc. of DC Shoes better than anyone else here. Other than that though I don't trust that you can edit this specific article constructively. Your edits included lots of not noteable information, you did not write from a neutral point of view, in short they did not follow the guidelines for an encyclopaedic article. You fixed one problem on the page, yet introduced a dozen new ones.
  • I had told you to go ahead with careful edits and fix the bits of incorrect information, but instead you just kept replacing the whole page again. You still haven't said what specifically is wrong on that page, besides the names of the founders.
  • It's not that no one is allowed to use the edit button on this article and should use the discussion page instead, only you aren't, and you brought this onto yourself. And had you read any of the guideline pages I keep giving you, you'd know that I was pretty liberal at the beginning.
  • So 3 different people have found 3 different things that are incorrect, yet none of them felt the need to change them, and you still haven't named them. Why?
  • Yes it happens all the time that pages are vandalized. Most of the time those changes are reverted within minutes. Some of them take longer till someone notices it. The incorrect information on the DC Shoes page was up for 18 hours, for example. I suggest that you watch the page from now on and check edits to it, so that you can make sure that everything stays correct.
  • You complain that "we allowed" incorrect information to be posted, yet you insist that we should just take your word that your contributions are 100% correct, constructive and objective. That's kind of contradictive. How can you scold us for not making User:DR.funkey follow the rules, but also complain that we hold you to them? And just to let you know, that user also recieved a warning for his vandalism, and will stay on my watch page, so that next time it can be fixed much sooner and he can be blocked.
  • Wikipedia guidlines can be changed through discussion, yes. But I'm not quite sure what you are proposing. Let every company simply edit the article about themselves without any guidelines? Imagine how useful this place would be then, and real trustworthy, because no company would ever spin or hold back negative press, right?
Amalthea (talk) 17:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm proposing that nobody should be allowed to edit a page, everybody should be required to discuss/talk and have it approved prior to it going live as an encyclopaedic article. Until then I'm proposing that you remove the tag "The Free Encyclopedia" until all the information on your site has been verified by the people and organizations that are written about. 18 hours? What if nobody from DC Shoes ever went to Wikipedia and looked it up? How long would that information remained live for the world to see? How long were the other inaccurate comments live prior to these incorrect comments. You are basically saying if the world's population doesn't come to your site and verify everything on it than you will continue to miss-inform the rest of the population while calling yourself an Encyclopedia.