User talk:Markallenstaples

Welcome!

Hello, Markallenstaples, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!

Also, could you please read our policy on copyright? We cannot accept material from other websites unless you are able to prove that you are the copyright holder for that information; also information copied and pasted from other websites may not fit with our recommended manual of style for articles. Let me know if you need any more information. -- Francs 2000 18:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop' posting the same content again and again to Stephanie Staples. To continuously post the same content after being asked not to is not helpful. -- Francs 2000 18:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not recreate the article Stephanie Staples

Even if you are the copyright holder of the material from Stephanie Staples' biography, please stop pasting it into Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles are intended to be informative, not promotional. The gushing language of this biography has no place in an encyclopedia. FreplySpang (talk) 18:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there are other Wikipedia biographies written in a similar style, then they need correcting too. The biography you have posted is written from the point of view of someone close to Ms. Staples. Phrases like "impact this generation," "you can sense the earnestness," and "Stephanie's life is a testimony" are really not appropriate in an encyclopedia. One of Wikipedia's core policies is "neutral point of view", meaning that our articles are not written to promote or disparage their subjects. We also strongly recommend that editors should not edit articles about themselves or the people they are close to, because it is very hard to be objective. FreplySpang (talk) 18:48, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is promotional material because, in short, it boils down to a very positive message about Ms. Staples and her music. A lot of it is subjective, though, and we try to stick to objective material. We look for material that can be verified using external sources, and subjects that are well-known or influential in their fields. FreplySpang (talk) 18:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please be careful in removing material until you've been around Wikipedia for a bit. FreplySpang (talk) 18:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

September 2022

Hello Markallenstaples. The nature of your edits 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:Markallenstaples. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Markallenstaples|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) 19:10, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As previously advised, your edits, such as the edit you made to College of Charleston, give the impression you have a financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. You were asked to cease editing until you responded by either stating that you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits, or by complying with the mandatory requirements under the Wikimedia Terms of Use that you disclose your employer, client and affiliation. Again, you can post such a disclosure on your user page at User:Markallenstaples, and the template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Markallenstaples|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. Please respond before making any other edits to Wikipedia. 331dot (talk) 19:37, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Response - September 2022

While I am an employee of the College of Charleston, I am not compensated for making these edits and t's not part of my job description, or overall responsibilities. I just saw that the site was a mess (and still is, but it was better) and there was a need. I'll fill out the disclosure.

FWIW, I totally missed your communication and apologize for attempting to undo your site reversion.

Disclosure added. May I make the edits now?

I'm not certain that I agree that editing does not fall within your general job duties, but the disclosure is sufficient. You should avoid direct edits about your college in most situations (see this page for exceptions); please read about how to make edit requests, and do so on the article talk page. 331dot (talk) 14:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. My job duties are in information technology and fall outside of marketing and communications. The last time I was on the site, it was a mess and needed significant code edits with additional links to other wiki pages. It also needed to be reordered and headers needed changed.

The only content I added was two locations, one was referenced earlier in the article (Avery).

Avery Research Center

Founded in 1865 as the Avery Normal Institute, this community hub provided education and advocacy for the growing Charleston African American community. Although it closed its doors in 1954, graduates preserved the legacy of their alma mater by establishing the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture.

The modern rebirth of Avery began in 1985 with the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston. The Avery Research Center collects art and archival materials that document the history, traditions and legacies of African Americans and their influence on American society and culture as well as their place within the American narrative.

https://avery.cofc.edu/

Harbor Walk East

This 45,000-square-foot contemporary complex has the best view of Charleston Harbor, Patriots Point and the iconic Ravenel Bridge. Home to the Department of Computer Science, the facility includes high-tech classrooms, faculty offices, computer science laboratories and a game room. https://compsci.cofc.edu/harbor-walk.php markallenstaples (talk) 15:27, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please understand that the main purpose of a Wikipedia article is to summarize what independent reliable sources with significant coverage say about a topic, not what it wants to say about itself. To be frank, the article should not read like a promotional brochure. It will not necessarily say what the College might prefer it to say. If you want to describe historic buildings on campus, you need to locate independent reliable sources that discuss the historic nature of a building, not what the college says about it. 331dot (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

respsonse

I think the first one is historically and factually correct. I'll work on the the Harbor Walk description to make it less promotional. markallenstaples (talk) 11:30, 22 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have made comments on the article's talk page regarding what I fear are truly unconscious lapses into PR-speak, because people are surrounded by it all the time any more. I am not an academic but my "day job" (like everyone else on the site who doesn't have a username that prominently indicates employment by Wikimedia, I am a volunteer who drops in when I have a moment) involves writing, editing, and correcting the work of/teaching younger colleagues. One of the most ubiquitous problems I deal with is surplus verbiage that the authors admit they added for the sake of making a nice-sounding sentence of sufficient length to suggest the importance of the subject and not sound "blunt" or "rude". There's an excellent book from 30+ years ago, BAD, by the late Paul Fussell, in which the author used the example of a prix-fixe menu that included the line, "A Selection Of Warmed Dinner Rolls Will Be Presented", and noted that every word but "Rolls" never needed to have been typed. When I give this example, everyone agrees that "Rolls" would have been neither "blunt" nor "rude", and that less really is more.

Keep the rolls. Cut the tautologies. Hang in there. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good advice. Thank you for taking the time. markallenstaples (talk) 14:23, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]