User talk:Politicalfolkmusic

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Steven Walling 01:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because it appears to be mainly intended or used for publicity and/or promotional purposes. Please read the following carefully.

Why can't I edit Wikipedia?

Your account's edits and/or username indicate that it is being used on behalf of a company, group, celebrity or other well-known individual, or organization for purposes of promotion and/or publicity. The edits may have violated one or more of our rules on spamming, which include: adding inappropriate external links, posting advertisements, and using Wikipedia for promotion. Wikipedia has many articles on companies, groups, and organizations, but it is considered inappropriate for such groups to use Wikipedia to write about themselves. In addition, usernames like yours are disallowed under our username policy.

Am I allowed to make these edits if I change my username?

Probably not. See WP:FAQ/Organization for a helpful list of frequently asked questions by people in your position. Also, review the conflict of interest guidance to see the kinds of limitations you would have to obey if you did want to continue editing about your company, group, or organization. If this does not fit in with your goals, then you will not be allowed to edit again. Consider using one of the many websites that allow this instead.

What can I do now?

You are still welcome to write about something other than your company or organization. If you do intend to make useful contributions on some other topic, you must convince a Wikipedia administrator that you mean it. To that end, please do the following:

Add the text {{unblock-spamun|Your proposed new username|Your reason here}} on your user talk page.
Replace the text "Your proposed new username" with a new username you are willing to use. See Special:Listusers to search for available usernames. Your new username will need to meet our username policy.
Replace the text "Your reason here" with your reason to be unblocked. In this reason, you must:

Convince us that you understand the reason for your block and that you will not repeat the edits for which you were blocked.
Describe in general terms the contributions that you intend to make if you are unblocked.

If you believe this block was made in error, please see how to appeal a block.

Daniel Case (talk) 14:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questionable block[edit]

I encourage you to appeal this block. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 22:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And i do so as well. Richard Myers (talk) 22:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would consider an unblock if the user requested to be unblocked for a username change using {{unblock-spamun}}. Daniel Case (talk) 04:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that. I note, however, that Wiki newbies may not know they have certain rights when they are suddenly disenfranchised on Wikipedia, and they may be too disappointed and discouraged to explore such options. I nearly quit Wikipedia when i first started many years ago, and someone unfairly deleted an article that i spent a lot of time on. (The deletion was overturned.)

That's why we have the rule, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. I don't know how to contact this editor to suggest the option of a username change, do you?

But i'm also still puzzled how this came about; what exactly is wrong with the username Politicalfolkmusic? I could cite many dozens of roughly equivalent names by editors i've interacted with over the years, all of whom i respect for their contributions, and none of whom have been blocked for their username.

In my view, choosing such a username should incur moderately greater scrutiny whenever that editor is editing articles that may in some way be related to political folk music due to possible conflict of interest, but beyond that, what are the user's transgressions that have earned either the block, or the prohibition on choice of username? Richard Myers (talk) 19:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]