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Hi JBW, thanks for your review of my draft Brian Solis. Unfortunately there's no way for me to improve it if nobody is willing to help and explain what makes it an advertisement or provide any examples from the draft. I spent hours on this and I don't know what to change exactly. Most of my sources are from academic journals, authoritative writers (Chris Brogan / Andrew Keen / Keith A. Quesenberry) or known newspapers and sites (Los Angeles Times / Financial Times / El Comerico Peru / Atlanta) I'm simply saying what they are saying in different words. I'd be very thankful for some more detailed feedback and help. Thank you JJelax (talk) 14:47, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JBW, do you have any feedback ? JJelax (talk) 13:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JBW. I'm just pinging you in case you haven't noticed. Have a nice day! JJelax (talk) 07:42, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JJelax: Hello. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. A large part of the reason why I didn't is that I really don't know what I can say that is likely to help you, but I'll say a few things which I hope may clarify things for you.

Years ago in this situation I used to try to pick out one or two sentences to illustrate the promotional tone of the writing, thinking that would be enough for the writer to see the point, and then be able to recognise the same tone in the rest of the writing. Unfortunately, however, over time I discovered that doing that never worked. (Yes, I do mean "never", not "rarely ".) Very often the writer would remove the particular examples I mentioned, and sometimes one or two other very similar ones, but leave the rest just as promotional as ever. It seems that anyone who can look at a page of writing which to most people looks promotional, and can't see the promotional tone, does not become able to see it because a few examples are pointed out.

I have two questions which may be relevant. (They are not rhetorical questions, and please do answer them.) (1) Do you work in marketing/PR/advertising/any similar area? People who do often become so used to reading and writing promotional language for hours on end, day after day, that they become desensitised to it, and can't see it even when it's obvious to other people. (2) Are you personally connected to Brian Solis in some way, such as working for him or with him? If one is writing about a subject in which one has a personal involvement, it can be difficult to stand back from it and see how one's own writing may look from the detached perspective of an outsider, so that one may write in what looks to others as a promotional way, even if one sincerely believes that one is writing objectively. If one or both of those applies to you, you may find it very difficult, or even impossible, to create an article in the way required for Wikipedia, no matter what advice or help you are given.

I suggest you re-read the "Career" section of the draft, and try to see anything which may make it look promotional to others. That may be in the tone and style of the writing, the selection of facts to present, or the manner in which they are presented. To me, the whole section has the feel of relentlessly trying to impress me with what an illustrious career Brian Solis has had. It is not a matter of particular details which can be excised or reworded: it's a question of the overall character of the whole text.

There is also the question of references that you cite. References are needed for two purposes: for verification of information in the article and for evidence that the subject satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. I checked a sample of the references. They generally did verify the statements to which you attached them, though the extent to which they indicated significance of those statements varied; for example, He has been described as "a prominent thought leader in new media": yes, he has, in one passing comment in a text which briefly mentions him in a couple of sentences. However, the only thing I saw that took even the first step towards indicating that he satisfies Wikipedia's notability was one book review, and even that one didn't go anywhere near far enough. There are currently 31 references in the article, and I did not check them all, so there may be one or more much better references there which I missed, but what I saw did not suggest that the notability guidelines are satisfied.

After writing all of the above, I decided to have a quick search for sources to cite, and my god, I can't tell you how much I regret not having done that first, because it would have saved me from wasting my time doing all the checking, writing, editing, etc that I have done. What I saw was briansolis.com, x.com, instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, etc etc; not one independent source in sight. Oh yes, and forbes.com, which is variable, with some reliable and some unreliable content, so I checked it. It was written by a "contributor", which in Forbes-speak means someone acting with little editorial oversight, and free to publish paid content. However, even if I hadn't know that, it would have been obvious what the nature of the text was: it was full from start to finish with gushing promotional hype, including using some of the same wording as on the other pages I saw. Particularly common in the pages that I found was "world-renowned". If he's so "world-renowned", then why didn't I find some of the coverage in worldwide reliable sources that any world-renowned person must have? Why have they all been pushed out of sight by all the self-promotional, self-published, sources that I found? Because there aren't any, of course. Everything that I saw, everything, is unambiguously part of a mass campaign to publicise and promote someone who is not "world-renowned", and who unambiguously does not satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines, nor even nearly so. No article about a subject which does not satisfy those guidelines, however well written, can ever be suitable as a Wikipedia article. JBW (talk) 18:28, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thank you for the write up JBW. I understand your concerns.

- To answer your questions, (1) I don't work in those fields (but I majored in Communications and Media, where we covered The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis) but I get your point. (2) As I've answered before, I have no personal connection to Brian Solis.

- I can see how you may have misinterpreted my intentions with the Career section. I didn't use statements like "'He has been described as "a prominent thought leader in new media'" to impress people with his 'illustrious' career. 1) since the page was deleted, I'm trying to demonstrate that he fulfills the criteria laid out in the notability guideline that applies to authors ("1. The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors"). 2) that statement was made by professors of Economics and Marketing who have 10000+ citations each and teach at top European universities. It was published in a scholarly reference book. I don't see why it should be removed. I didn't add anything myself, just added the quote. I could add some more background about who said it and in what book. I can't find an issue with paragraphs 3, 4, 5 of the career section. It's all straightforward information with sources to back it up. Please let you know if you have any comments on them.

- I don't get your point about the references I cited. Which ones aren't reliable or don't verify the information in the article? Re notability, my Books section contains a dozen reviews of his books. Most of them are scholarly reviews. Did you take a look at them? More than a third of the 31 citations are book reviews. Shouldn't they satisfy this criteria in the notability guideline for authors ("3. The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews"). I didn't use social media or Forbes or his website, just independent sources, nor did I use 'world-renowned', I just quoted what a few academics and peers said about him.

- Please check the Books section and explain to me why he unambiguously does not satisfy the notability guidelines for authors. I thought more than one criteria was filled, most importantly the many reviews of multiple books written by him throughout the years. JJelax (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of the references that I looked at showed any evidence that Solis satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines, but, as I said, I didn't check all of them, so there may be better ones. I very much doubt it, because if he did satisfy the notability guidelines my searches would pretty certainly have produced some evidence, but I am perfectly willing to be proved wrong. I am not going to wade through 31 references, but if you can give me two which do establish notability, and which are accessible to me, then I'll have a look at them. JBW (talk) 19:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if you have access to an academic library/database.

Some of the reviews published in peer-reviewed journals: 3, 19, 20, 24, 25 JJelax (talk) 04:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I could acquire access to an academic library, but I don't regard it worth going to the trouble. As far as I can see, the references you have mentioned are just reviews of books by Solis. Book reviews don't usually contain substantial coverage of the books' authors.

My advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. I find most users to whom I offer that advice take it up and find it helpful. The main exceptions are single purpose editors who are here only in order to use Wikipedia to publicise something, such as a business, organisation, or person, and have no interest in contributing in any other way. JBW (talk) 11:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited Wikipedia here and there for many years and I've been a lurker for just as long. I feel like I have a decent understanding of how Wikipedia works. I made an account to start creating new pages. I've already created one successfully. I'll take your advice and improve existing articles though. It was my New Year's Resolution but... :)

Re Brian Solis draft, I appreciate your feedback very much. How can this be discussed with other editors who would be more interested in discussing how the notability guidelines for authors applies to the draft? So we can form a consensus rather than rely on superficial assesments or a single opinion. JJelax (talk) 18:42, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JJelax it's not a single opinion nor are the assessments "superficial". The article was deleted for the second time a year ago based on consensus of three editors (the first AfD was in 2014). Ignoring the 2014 deletion as that was a decade ago, between the 2nd AfD last year and your draft which has been declined by three reviewers, that's six different experienced editors who agree Solis does not meet the notability guidelines. If it is your desire to contribute to Wikipedia, I strongly suggest selecting a different topic to write about. S0091 (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, JB; what do you think about putting semi-protection on that talk page? All it seems to do lately is attract WP:NOTFORUM edits from IPs.   –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Skywatcher68:  Done. Out of interest I did a geolocation check on the IP addresses. Almost all of them are from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. If I remember correctly there was just one edit which geolocated to Malaysia, one to Belize, and one to the United States, but even the U.S. one referred to being cheated out of some number of rupees. I may have missed a few, but not many. It seems very unlikely that, after lying peacefully for about a year, the page suddenly started attracting loads of people, all from the same part of the world, and all posting exactly the same kind of nonsense, so it looks to me as though it may be all or almost all one person, doing a prodigious amount of IP hopping, & maybe using proxies too. I also saw that a few of the IP addresses are subject to fairly long range blocks. I didn't check the rest of the editing from those ranges, to see whether they have been doing similar things on other pages. JBW (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About the gratuitous asterisks, as best I can tell, it is a style of markup that more often than not is a pretty big indicator that the work is AI generated. Just so you know, another tool in the toolbelt. Hopefully we don't have to hear from this specific editor a third time. Bobby Cohn (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2025

@Bobby Cohn: Well, that's interesting. I didn't know that at all. Thanks for letting nd know. JBW (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I give up. JB, perhaps you can help get Revirvlkodlaku to understand that their preferred version goes against MOS:TELEVISION.   –Skywatcher68 (talk) 04:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Skywatcher68, I can't see that it does. Can you spell out exactly what statement in that guideline it goes against? On the other hand, I think there's plenty of reason for a blockb for edit-warring, which I would have done if it weren't for the fact that he has for a while now been editing the talk page & not the article. JBW (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:TELEVISION clearly states that such articles are supposed to be based on the original broadcast in the country of origin but that editor wants the episode list to be based on the re-edited international streaming version instead.   –Skywatcher68 (talk) 14:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Corinthianmeshilem, User talk:Isaihasack, User talk:Rhyneediel, User talk:Jameytamilor, User talk:Edgadgether, User talk:Kemetcristobal, User talk:Royelrishay, User talk:Jovichristapher, User talk:Jayci973c are socks who added WP:SPAM (maybe scam) links pointing to the website alexa.ng. These accounts were all created today within a few hours, each account made only one edit, always adding a spam link. They're obviously socks. (I first posted this at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jayci973c, but it looks like SPI has a large backlog, and I thought I'd just ask you to block these accounts. I hope that's OK. I'll remove the SPI request when they're blocked.) — Chrisahn (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the SPI (and recommended a deeper dive). If you don't use the form, no one will ever find the SPI. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chrisahn This is definitely a scam; thanks for pointing it out. I've blocked the accounts, but don't remove the SPI request, as this needs further investigation; it's a serious scam, and it's essential to take steps to prevent continuation. JBW (talk) 21:36, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I see. Thanks! — Chrisahn (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello JBW. Is there a reason why you unblocked this user? They seem to be here only for promotional purposes, so your block was correct IMO. They also appear hesitant to respond to my inquiries, which further proves that they're likely related to the subject in question; not to mention that they're possibly violating the WP:SHAREDACCOUNT policy. CycloneYoris ^talk! 22:53, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CycloneYoris: You are right, and I have restored the block. If you are interested, here is the history of my actions.

At first I investigated a page thst you had tagged for speedy deletion. The page was made by an account with an associated username. It looked like a classic case for an immediate Spam Username block, so I deleted and blocked. Thoughtlessly, I did so without checking the rest of the editing history as thoroughly as I usually do before blocking. I then did check, and saw a number of edits which didn't seem related to the business in question, including some deleted edits from 2019, so I thought that after all it didn't seem to be a spam only account, and I unblocked, thinking that at this stage perhaps warnings would be appropriately, rather than an immediate block. Later, prompted by your message here, I checked further, and searching on the internet I found that the subject of the edits from 2019 were in fact connected to the owner of Bahabeach, and the other apparently unrelated edits looked like a classic case of a string of trivial edits to game autoconfirmation, and possibly also to prevent the appearance of a single purpose account. Consequently I decided that my original impression had been correct, and restored the block. The lesson to be learnt is, of course, "always check first". Thanks for prompting me to think again. JBW (talk) 10:28, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. Thanks a lot for your detailed and thorough response. I first noticed that they were a promotion-only account since they were quite insistent in publishing the Roberts article (which is a clear indication of a single purpose account), even though the page was deleted previously under G11, they kept insisting. I then searched further and noticed that their username matched the name of one of their companies (which made it quite obvious that they were in fact related to the subject in question). I appreciate you taking your time to check on the user's editing history, and thanks for re-blocking them as well. Kind regards, CycloneYoris ^talk! 22:29, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JBW. Earlier you declined a speedy deletion request for the above draft. I thought it might interest you to know that that deletion request was certainly related to this SPI case I logged the other day. If you're bored, might be something to look into. Doesn't seem like anyone has picked up the SPI yet. Kylemahar902 (talk) 18:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kylemahar902: Yes, I saw that SPI, and didn't "pick it up", as you call it, because I was very unsure what to do about it. However, prompted by your message here, I've looked at it again, more thoroughly, and posted a message which you may think is not much more than a long and extended way of saying "I'm very unsure what to do about it". JBW (talk) 20:35, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your message, thanks for summing up all the key details better for me. I got curious, and I started digging into this a bit more. I think we may have uncovered a bit of a rabbit hole here.

Check out this diff from Emirdy, adding a passage about Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. Well it doesn't look like Emirdy has directly edited that page, but if you take a look at the edit history, there's some accounts like User:Zambot84 and User:Ndemille who also appear to have been engaging in undisclosed COI editing. I'm starting to feel like it might be a fruitless endeavour to try to do anything about this but just thought I'd update you on my findings. Kylemahar902 (talk) 21:42, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to post twice in a row, but since I made that post, we have another one. To recap, where I originally noticed this was with Thor Industries, who paid to have Jayco Family of Companies created as well as a separate article for all of their subsidiaries which I since redirected to the parent article. User:Crystal the Editor just created an account and immediately jumped in to editing Airstream, a Thor Industries brand, as well as adding substantial promotional content to Lynda Weinman which I have not yet touched. I'm just going to leave it at this, because clearly wrangling this sock farm is far beyond me. Kylemahar902 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Kylemahar902 -- I jumped into both Lynda Weinman and Airstream because I know a lot about them (have renovated several Airstreams, used to work at lynda.com well over a decade ago and have followed Weinman's career). I noticed Weinman's page was way out of date and added what I knew. And added significant into to Airstream because I know a lot about vintage Airstream history. I don't work for either. If you want to see my Airstream experience let me know and I'll give you links. No sock farms in sight. Crystal the Editor (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Crystal the Editor, thanks for your message. Perhaps I might have been a bit presumptuous to assume you were involved with this issue, however it is a little odd to see a brand new account linking someone's website in a passage of their article as you did at Lynda Weinman, and making substantial contributions with primary sources to Airstream. Typically links to official websites would go under "External links" rather than in the body of the article, just so you know. I hope you can understand my reasoning for bringing this up. I apologize if I offended you. (Edit: By the way, Lynda.com redirects to Linkedin. Sure that's the right URL? Edit again: Never mind. I'm going to remove the URL from the infobox though, bit confusing) Kylemahar902 (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No offense taken, I appreciate the guidance, thank you! I saw that the old URL was in the info box but didn't know the policy on that. She now has claybottress.com but hasn't updated it in some time. Crystal the Editor (talk) 22:55, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually just looking for an official website to add. Do you think I could still get a CD-ROM of HTML book?

After I had some time to think about it, I also wanted to say I'm sorry for not first bringing my concerns to your talk page. If I had concerns about your edits, I should have asked you about them first before I started making accusations. That was not very nice of me, and I apologize. If you need a hand with anything and I didn't make too bad of a first impression, let me know. Now I'll stop clogging up JBW's talk page. Kylemahar902 (talk) 23:02, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I saw your username listed as admins willing to help with revision deletion requests, and I think one might be in order here[1]. Basically two names were introduced to the infobox as accomplices to the article's subject, but I can't find any RS to back that up. I already reverted it and left a note on the author's talk page. Apologies in advance if this is an unnecessary request or if I'm going about this in the wrong way. Zzz plant (talk) 20:55, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. As it happens, another administrator got there before me, but I certainly would have done it otherwise. JBW (talk) 22:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]