User talk:MasalaChaiLover: Difference between revisions

Your account has been blocked indefinitely for advertising or promotion and violating the Wikimedia Foundation’s Terms of Use. This is because you have been making promotional edits to topics in which you have a financial stake, yet you have failed to adhere to the mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a form of conflict of interest (COI) editing which involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is strictly prohibited. Using this site for advertising or promotion is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia.

If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, please read our guide to appealing blocks to understand more about unblock requests, and then add the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} at the end of your user talk page. For an unblock to be considered, you must:

• Confirm that you have read and understand the Terms of Use and paid editing disclosure requirements.
• State clearly how you are being compensated for your edits, and describe any affiliation or conflict of interest you might have with the subjects you have written about.
• Describe how you intend to edit such topics in the future.

_signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:29, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So there’s two issues here: the evident conflict of interest that you have not properly disclosed, as described at User talk:Janya Arts, and dodging accountability as a WP:SOCK. The socking on its own I would be inclined to ignore as misunderstanding our procedure, but this edit indicates that you are continuing to ignore the conflict of interest issue that has been identified to you, and that is a problem. You need to be forthcoming about your conflicts of interest in order to regain editing permissions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that there was no paid advocacy or promotional edits involved here. I was discussing with 331dot about what that would entail, and it was a polite conversation because understanding and navigating wikipedia is complicated.

But regardless of the actual situation, at no point did I state that I would ignore the conflict of interest. I didn’t dodge accountability either, please note that it was recommended that I use a different account to maintain proper neutrality. The edit you are referring to was a question about getting feedback on neutrality in writing — it was not stated anywhere that I could not ask any questions about writing and editing… I was attempting to rely on a wiki-provided mentor to try and navigate things successfully.

Please understand that wikipedia procedures & writing is very different from the process that someone coming from academia is used to, and there has been a clear paper trail of trying to understand said procedures — I know that there are a lot of people that try to misuse this platform, but I am requesting a little leniency for someone who is thoroughly confused, not acting out of malice. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not what I said, perhaps you misunderstood. Your username was that of an organization or website, which is not permitted. Neutrality and conflict of interest are different issues. To be frank, you have been disingenious in your conversations by not saying right away that you had a paid connection to the subject(the workshop); it isn’t just your passion- which I already suspected because people rarely pick topics at random to edit about. I think the block can be removed if you agree to be wholly forthcoming about your connection to the subject of your editing, this includes disclosing as a paid editor(which I reiterate does not require specific payment for contributing). 331dot (talk) 15:58, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’d like to reiterate that I have no issues with saying that I know the subject! I didn’t know that I had to say I’ve hosted a workshop for the subject before, it was not an attempt to be disingenuous or anything else.

I would like to say that it absolutely was my passion — after the workshop and other work in this field, I thought it would be apt to try and create an article because these non-western artists do not get any visibility.

Please understand that you both are experienced with this platform and there are those of us that are just confused and not attempting to be problematic in any way. I do appreciate you explaining things to me.

As an aside, I’m a little concerned about the fact that my own personal information might be in circulation now and that someone may find this thread and try and contact me through non-wikipedia means. I have no issues with working through the safety of wikipedia, but if someone looks into the specific conversation we had in my previous account, they may use information there for malicious intents — I don’t mean to be paranoid, but I’d like to remain safe. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will furthermore add that writing a new article is the most difficult task to attempt even without a conflict of interest. It would be like building a house without any knowledge of acquiring land, permitting, and construction techniques. 331dot (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It really is — the way wiki works is just so different from “normal publications” (which makes sense because of the vastness of the platform). I am just trying to navigate and ask for help to make sure I do things properly — so thank you again for being polite and explaining certain things to me. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 16:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think that anyone believes you have malicious intent here- but it’s puzzling that you didn’t think you should bring up or even just let on that you have a relatioship with the subject of your editing- even without knowing a single policy. If it were me, I would have said “hey folks! glad to be here, I want to write about a person that I put on a workshop for, how would I do that?” Yes, we all think differently- so that’s not a terrible thing, but you said it was just due to your passion, or at least, that’s how we took your comments.

You can contact WP:OVERSIGHT to request that edits containing personal information be suppressed; it’s not obvious to me what that information might be(don’t tell me) but it doesn’t need to be.

You can’t use Wikipedia to generate visibility- that is a promotional purpose– a topic must already be visible to merit an article. That does mean some topic areas can be underserved- but verifiability and reliable sources are core requirements of Wikipedia. My strong suggestion would be that you not dive right in to creating articles and take some time to learn about Wikipedia by editing existing articles and using the new user tutorial. 331dot (talk) 16:22, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to know about the personal information — and I didn’t think to mention that I knew someone from the get-go.

Also I don’t want to “generate visibility” here — the topic does merit an article, and has tons of verified sources. What I meant by this is that without a Wiki article, people in the “west” don’t often know about people that are very famous otherwise. Considering the notability, it was shocking that there was no wiki article written — so I wanted to do that. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that all Rosguill is looking for is for you to agree to be more forthcoming with your relationship; and understand that if you put on a workshop for this person and collected money for it(even if it just covered expenses and you didn’t profit) that makes you a paid editor. 331dot (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And that’s totally fair, it’s just that the tone made me uncomfortable, and I appreciate the way you’ve taken the time to respond with patience. I’d like to reiterate that I genuinely have no issues stating that I know this person — however surface-level/vaguely. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 16:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In general I agree with 331dot here. I do have a lingering concern, however, regarding your request to remove personal information from User talk:Janya Arts, as so far as I can tell, the only content there that could be described as personal information are your old username itself, and the link I posted to the public event that was hosted. Given that you yourself chose that name, and that the event advertisement was trivially easy to find in a Google search of said name, I’m a bit puzzled and having a hard time thinking of a good-faith explanation for why you would suddenly want this information deleted. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:18, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reason is that I didn’t think through my username before — not to hide any COI, but thinking back and realizing that you were able to google search and link events, I am suddenly concerned by the fact that people can find my contact information.

My concern is literal safety. I understand that it didn’t cross my mind before, but now that it has I’m trying to prevent anything happening in the future. MasalaChaiLover (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I’m willing to take that at face value and can remove the content in question from public view (if you wish to make it so that even administrators cannot access that information, you can contact oversight as indicated by 331dot earlier). I do have an additional question, which is, could you clarify what article you’re referring to here? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:00, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]