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Happy editing! Polygnotus (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Assistanttobvdk. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for article subjects for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{edit COI}} template), including links or details of reliable sources that support your suggestions;
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam § External link spamming);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicizing, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Polygnotus (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Assistanttobvdk. 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 employed (or being compensated in any way) by a person, group, company or organization to promote their interests. Paid advocacy on Wikipedia must be disclosed even if you have not specifically been asked to edit Wikipedia. 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 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 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:Assistanttobvdk. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Assistanttobvdk|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. Polygnotus (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi- yes I am a paid assistant to Dr. van der Kolk. I am trying to figure out how to add the appropriate disclosures, but the "buddy" assigned to me has not answered, and I am under a deadline to make some edits. I do not have any programming language background and the templates are confusing- I don't know how to use... Can you help? Assistanttobvdk (talk) 19:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, it worked. Yeah those templates can be real confusing. See H:TQG for information. This is mostly a formality; your username already indicates your role. I should make a friendlier version of the {{uw-paid}} template. It is a bit stern which is not always the best approach. Polygnotus (talk) 07:30, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you- that is so helpful! Yeah- I wasn't sure what tone to use; especially since I have been having so many issues. I kinda got thrown into this and there is a lot of pressure to get it right. I will adjust my tone and keep asking for help; that seems to be the best way to not mess up again. Again- Thank You! Assistanttobvdk (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya!

I read your message over at PerfectSoundWhatever's talkpage. Since the Assistantbvdk account was blocked you are technically evading the block with a sockpuppet account. But I know that that was not intentional, and you are trying to follow the rules.

I have asked the WP:ADMINISTRATOR who blocked the account, Drmies, to unblock the Assistantbvdk account so that you are no longer breaking the rules.

Questions on "how to Wikipedia" are generally best asked at the teahouse.

Proposals for improvements to a specific page belong on the relevant WP:TALKPAGE, in this case Talk:Bessel_van_der_Kolk.

The edit request here Talk:Bessel_van_der_Kolk#Paid_editing_request is perfect, if you post those then someone will come along and make the required changes, or explain why they are a bad idea.

WP:EDITREQ explains the procedure in detail, a shorter version can be found over at WP:COIREQ.

Polygnotus (talk) 07:46, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi- I read through the conversation with Drmies and Yarmla (?). Just to clarify the backstory: I was given the Assistantbvdk login from the former assistant; I didn't realize they aren't transferrable, and when I made the first edits (rightly blocked for "whitewashing") I was completely ignorant of the rules of Wikipedia. That is totally my fault. Once I got blocked, I tried to get unblocked by explaining that I was the new assistant to BVDK (using the login from my predecessor) and then got a permanent block for compromising the account (again- rightfully, since it was against the rules). I have been doing my best to read and follow all the guidelines and rules, but when I created the new account, I didn't realize that I was (again) breaking a rule (sock-puppet).

I genuinely just want to be able to make appropriate edits (facts and clarity/grammar) to my employers page. I am genuinley embarassed by my first attempts; I had been given a script from the prior assistant and was just trying to follow their instructions. While that isn't an excuse for my ignorance, I want to assure everyone that I am learning from my mistakes and have no intention of repeating them.

Would it be better to have a different user name? I was trying to be hyper-transparent, but maybe that is only causing problems?

Despite all of my mistakes, I am really loving learning about how Wikipedia works- I have been boring my friends to tears telling them how cool this world is :) I am happy to do whatever is suggested to continue. Assistanttobvdk (talk) 18:34, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, to be honest I think the situation is at least partially Wikipedia's fault.

Would it be better to have a different user name? Wikipedia has rules about what usernames are acceptable, and your current username can be considered a violation of WP:ROLE. So yes, I think you should create a new Wikipedia account. WP:USERNAME contains a bunch of relevant information.

It is important to not share the login information to that account, because Wikipedia accounts are supposed to be personal, see WP:SHAREDACCOUNT.

When you have created a new account, if you let me know what it is I will help you WP:DISCLOSE your conflict of interest and your previous accounts so that people can see you are working transparently.

I have this page on my WP:WATCHLIST so if you leave a message here using your new account then I will be able to see which username you chose.

It is best to not edit the article directly, but put edit requests on the talkpage. Because the Assistantbvdk account is blocked from editing the article, and blocks are considered personal, and not account-based, editing the article directly without getting the block lifted would be a bad idea. We may be able to get thet block lifted in the future.

Polygnotus (talk) 21:22, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to help with this! Seriously- you are amazing.

I need to take a day or two to read the links you've posted and then I will be sure to get in touch with my new user name so I can start fresh and do everything ubove-board.

Last question- I made two direct edits yesterday (updating links to fresh data- with citations); should I delete and move to talk page or let them stand? They don't seem to have caused any concern (yet) Assistanttobvdk (talk) 22:27, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When I was new someone showed me the ropes. Meh, let them stand, to avoid making the mess bigger than it is. I have to warn you: Wikipedia can be pretty addictive! Have a nice day, Polygnotus (talk) 05:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]