Scam Watch Warning: There is an on-going scam marketing the creation, improvement, or protection of Wikipedia articles. See this scam warning for detailed information. If you've been scammed please send details to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org to help others who could be future victims of this scam.

I am finding a user to create only spam and unqualified pages. Can you please check his contributions? Meeanaya (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly worth keeping an eye on, especially regarding non-communication. The user may have fallen from the external idiocy surrounding Bollywood i.e. wiki being a synonym for profile. MER-C 17:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Giraffa camelopardalis head (Profil).jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 23:58, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MER-C. You blocked this account, but AKinderWorld seems like a possible WP:DUCK if not the Lebronto23 account then perhaps of someone else. Do you think there's anything to this? Seems a little unusual for a new account to show up at a MFD discussion about whether a draft should be deleted. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:53, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to update that the account has been blocked by Berean Hunter per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lebronto23#06 November 2019 -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MER-C. As an addition to my recent report at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Josher8a, I am noting both of the editors (and one editor confirmed to be a Josher8a sock) I had raised concerns about have returned to editing, mere minutes apart ([1], [2], [3]). Best. SamHolt6 (talk) 00:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, indeed. These socks are not to be trusted. MER-C 13:46, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Red wattlebird.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 19:32, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MER-C: Would you consider removing the maintenance template placed on the Hypergiant Industries article in July now that multiple COI edit requests have been submitted following Wikipedia guidelines and reviewed by COI editor Spintendo? Thank you for considering. Justin Goldsborough (talk) 21:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have considered removing the tag, and decline to do so. MER-C 11:36, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MER-C: Could you explain why you decline so I can address the issue at hand? What steps need to be taken, in your opinion, to warrant removal of the template? Thank you. Justin Goldsborough (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I want to see the article written entirely by volunteer editors. Our readers expect independent coverage of our subject matter. MER-C 11:27, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MER-C: Understand your desire for the article to be authentic. And I realize there was a previous COI issue with a different user. But I have followed Wikipedia paid editor guidelines and did not make any edits directly to the Hypergiant Industries article. The edits I requested on the Hypergiant Industries Talk page were approved and implemented by COI editor User:Spintendo. Any chance you would reconsider? Thank you. Justin Goldsborough (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Substitute authentic for credible and article for encyclopedia in your response. I, a volunteer, am under no obligation to assist you, and decline to do so. (You should be aware that paid editing is barely tolerated, and some editors, such as myself, want to see it banned.) MER-C 11:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to clutter up the nomination page too much. But is this along the lines of what you mean? I'm still trying to nurse my photoshop-fu. GMG^talk 21:25, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. You've applied the noise reduction to the entire image, which destroys some of the detail on the face. It is likely that you will have to perform two noise reductions - select the background, perform an aggressive NR then invert selection and perform a less aggressive NR. MER-C 11:06, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please block user:Bussy4life ASAP. He is posting lewd photos. CLCStudent (talk) 15:15, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done. MER-C 15:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you overlooked the merge part of the closing you did on this category. Do you need help finishing up the merging? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:59, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I listed it on the manual page for processing. It will get done. MER-C 11:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that this promotional article had been repeatedly created. I thought about notifying you due to your experience with these kinds of cases.

• Dedicated.com (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• US Dedicated (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Who is the best admin to notify if I run into a case like this? Should we file an SPI? HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 13:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(1) I am an admin. I spend quite a lot of my time on Wikipedia dealing with shit like this, so you've got the right person. (2) I've blocked the account indefinitely. No need for a SPI. MER-C 16:15, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Akash1324 is the same user as HPAcc1324/AditiMishra3000 – ten minor edits over four days to get autoconfirmed, then moving Draft:Applied Intuition back to mainspace. Pretty obvious UPE, but regardless of that, needs a sock block. --bonadea contributions talk 07:00, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked. MER-C 09:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you may have a sock puppet account whose evading their block in order to continue editing the Association of Independent Commercial Producers article. Bella Blue Shoes is now editing the article after you blocked Kristin0419 just over a week prior who was doing (what appears to be) the exact same thing. Just wanted to give you a heads up and let you know... I'll take a look on my end and see if I can find any similarities with the content being added. :-) Cheers - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not the same. The block was for copyvios, but Earwig returns nothing for the new edit. MER-C 20:28, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I'm not quite sure where to report this so I thought I'd drop a note on your talk page since you seem experienced in dealing with UPE. Sintujaggi looks like an obvious UPE account. Most of their articles have been deleted as G11, and there are multiple COI warnings on their talk page that they haven't responded to. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 12:52, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked. It's too easy. MER-C 14:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Camp - Notes on Fashion at the Met - Burberry rainbow cape (73854).jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 22:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reaching out to you in respect to this AFD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Domio Just wondering as a keen observer why User:Britishfinance edited the Domio page and closed the AFD which was re-listed to get clearer consesus. It seems that Domio as a company hired almost everyone that voted "Keep" on that AFD. You only blocked few of them that had few edits. It's also very plausible that User:Britishfinance was paid by Domio to edit the page and close the AFD when discussion is still on. I also discovered that User:Britishfinance is semi retired. why then did he use his account still? Would like you to look into this. I don't think this is right. ThanksMercuryXD (talk) 18:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Hi MercuryXD. I only edited the Domio page after I closed the AfD; I have never visited the article before that. My edits were also mechanical edits to clean up the Talk Page tags and add it to an industry template post-AfD. Having read the AfD and the references myself at the AfD, the unanimous consensus to Keep (which included experienced editors at AfD), was sound; there are several references that would be classed as WP:SIGCOV, such as this Bloomberg article on the company [4] (I have a subscription to Bloomberg and can thus read the full article). Not only did no editor !vote delete at the AfD, but the case for NCORP and GNG was very strong (i.e. the unanimous consensus was correct). It does not help your case to make unfair allegations and attacks on myself as being a WP:PAID editor because your AfD failed. thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Geez, they're coming out of the woodwork today. Blocked. MER-C 19:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:GSS is a paid editor from Upwork and there are many contracts that were invite only and were discussed only between two people were deleted by GSS. He is the most successful editor from Upwork. We need to learn a lot from him how to fool you and other admins. CC: User:Yunshui, share email I will give atleast 10 proofs against him. He today tried to attack User:Anupam who is another paid editor and my competitor, why because GSS was not hired.If GSS is not hired and he has the details, he will screw the page and will look legitimate in your eyes. He mark page for deletion and send Whatsapp text to save the page. How he marks page for paid edit and then how allows another user account to remove it.2409:4052:2097:2D22:6174:B312:7CA6:6BFB (talk) 19:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

IP, if you actually have evidence and aren't just being a troll, you can just register an account and use the EmailUser function. I highly doubt anyone's going to be posting their email address publicly. creffett (talk) 01:08, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

IP, why I feel you are user Meeanaya (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who was blocked recently? GSS ^💬 02:25, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I too have evidence of GSS' paid-editing and attempts to monopolise the cottage industry by sabotaging his rival's work. I wouldn't be surprised if others are in on this, Mer-C I'm looking at you. Anybody who wants evidence should email dddd23@protonmail.com 92.16.250.169 (talk) 15:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! looks like I'm world famous now. :)) GSS ^💬 16:07, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MER-C, I know you do a lot of work catching covert advertising (thanks for blocking HoneyMalt, by the way - they definitely were setting off warning bells for me), so I wanted to ask you for a bit of advice on the topic:

• I know that large, well-crafted articles by new users tends to be a red flag, but what else would you suggest using to identify possible UPE? I'm basically trying to balance "assume good faith" with "keep the spammers out."
• If I do find a possible UPE, what should I do besides tagging the article and giving them a warning? I don't feel like COIN is the right place to report, but not really sure what the appropriate venue is.

Would appreciate your insight on these topics. creffett (talk) 01:02, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are many tells for UPE. UPE articles are often reposted. There are others - if you pay close attention to the content added by the ACPERM gaming socks, you will notice a few odd things. Of course I'm not going to talk about it here - spammers have a habit of waylaying themselves on this very page.

What to do? Draftify the article, don't just tag it. The last thing we want is the spam getting indexed by Google. As an admin, I can just ban the spammers immediately. I am not aware of a proper venue that deals with this kind of thing. Checkuser is on average not very helpful. MER-C 08:57, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I often forget about the draftify option to prevent indexing. Completely understand about not wanting to go into details, I'll keep an eye out myself and see what I learn. creffett (talk) 13:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MER-C: when you get a moment, could you have a look at Draft:MathCelebrity? It and its author are setting off my UPE alarm, so I draftified and tagged, but I'd appreciate a second opinion. creffett (talk) 14:02, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good spot. There are five deleted articles which are all promotional, about spam-prone subjects and bear many hallmarks of UPE. Blocked. MER-C 19:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Midvinterblot (Carl Larsson) - Nationalmuseum - edited.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 15:33, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind reopening and relisting this discussion? I notice I omitted a crucial word in my comments, it should have been "support this rename" (i.e. support Fayenatic L's alternative) instead of "support rename" (as per nomination). Apologies for the inconvenience. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:33, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll change the rename target instead - there is consensus for what you suggest. MER-C 19:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Messier 78.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 19:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello sir, I am contributing and reviewing Wikipedia under guidelines and policies for a couple of years and I wanted to ask you this anonymously. I was very curious and had a few questions and haven't got answered for those yet. I have not edited Wikipedia by getting payment from someone yet, but I have seen a few editors, you can say many editors who are editing by getting payments. And I also reported a few of them and put "Undisclosed paid" tag on a few. But my questions are still un-answered and I haven't even asked anyone yet. First I belong to a poor family and I need to start paid editing on Wikipedia, so I need guidance from you. What should I do, when I don't have any other skills to do? I can assure that I will never ever edit Wikipedia out of its guidelines and policies. But I had to get permission and answers before starting that.

I saw a few articles which were tagged by "Undisclosed paid" template, but I saw that they were poorly written and I wanted to help those articles by rewriting and cleaning-up to comply with policies. But I got afraid that the admins or reviewers will doubt me as one of the paid editors. So I wanted to ask, what should someone do with those tags? Can we remove that tag after cleanup the article If we can?

And what if someone is paid editing and do not undisclosed it? And what if the editor undisclosed those editing then the tag will remove or not? And what if the editor has written a article with Wikipedia policies but it was undisclosed paid editing, what will happen? And what is the method to fix that?

I know Wikipedia doesn't support paid editing and I am also against it but what if someone like me is forced by the society and financial issues to edit by paying? I just want to get answers for these and I will try to follow as I always do. And I wonder what if I wanted to help with removing the tags from ? I know people are using Wikipedia as advertising and I am very against them. But what if a company, software, game, or a person's article comply every Wikipedia policies but it is tagged with "Undisclosed paid", what should we do?

I recently tried to fix the issues same with Desiree Gruber, I rewrite the article and remove the tag but a user put the tag back. What I do sir? Undisclosed paid editing is already on talk page. What more? --RockEditorLikeMe (talk) 13:21, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/John Ranchie. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Phyllidia elegans (23806633304).jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 19:44, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please tell me what the date was when dutchy inserted the copyvio in the lede? Btw, I'm aware of the micro CCI at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2019 November 3 and will get to it when I have the time. Thanks, 💵Money💵emoji💵^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 21:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

19 October 2012. MER-C 08:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20191012 is now complete. Thank you for your assistance in the evaluation of this CCI!

💵Money💵emoji💵^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 00:11, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I am the copyright holder of the recently-deleted text about Nicholas Samartis. The gallery Olsen Gruin (olsengruin.com) used it without my permission (which didn't bother me) and it's use here should not have been affected. That said, the text has been removed from Wikipedia. I would like to replace it with something different in any event, just to minimise confusion.

Is there anything else I need to do before I begin editing a new Nicholas Samartis article?

Thanks for your assistance.

FREDVECCHIO (talk) 07:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You will need to declare any conflict of interest regarding Mr Samartis. Content written to promote or boost the profile of Mr Samartis is not wanted here. We're not interested in ghostwritten profiles - our coverage is based on what others have written about the subject on his own merits. MER-C 19:14, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can you userfy that for me that you deleted recently. I know some details about him? He is certainly notable so maybe I can consult the deleted one, or maybe you could stub the article. ww2censor (talk) 12:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can't restore (presumed) copyright violation. I will, however, provide you this: User:Ww2censor/Daniel O'Neill. MER-C 18:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I know and already have most of what is on the page you created for me and that you can't restore a copyright violation page but perhaps you can give me the url of the copyvio as it may be a reasonable source for some new prose. Thanks in advance. ww2censor (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article was preemptively deleted per Wikipedia:Copyright violations#Addressing contributors. There is no URL, but the author was blocked for repeatedly copying from the paywalled Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. You may find s:O'Neill, Daniel (DNB00) useful. MER-C 19:13, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of that source you mention. Thanks for you time. ww2censor (talk) 23:31, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Court 1 Interior, London, UK - Diliff.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 10:54, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You deleted a previous version of this article as the work of a sockpuppet or as block evasion. There are now a new article version and a draft version. Please take a look at whether there is being evasion of gaming. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:46, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article was created by Superastig who is legit - 13k edits and wasn't flagged when the CU was done on Eric abiog. The creator of the draft, Feeble241, is very suspicious. They registered only a few hours after the accounts were blocked. However, I don't think there's enough evidence to get out the banhammer yet. MER-C 17:53, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]