User talk:Sparticusmaximus

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Possible COI - Mark Willacy?

Hello, Sparticusmaximus. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Mark Willacy, 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 organizations for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
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, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you.

The reason I wanted to question you regarding COI is because I have seen you have a made a small number of contributions on Wikipedia articles, and upon investigation most appear to be DIRECTLY related journalism by Mark Willacy around the same time period. For example your edits, such as this one:[1] to Paul Pisasale, may also be related to this news article by Mark Willacy:[2]; and your edit[3] to Luke Smith (politician) may be related to Willacy's published news piece:[4] Please review the WP:COI policy and advise if you have any potential conflict of interest. Thank you, Aeonx (talk) 11:55, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The edits you refer to occurred two years prior to my recent edits on the Mark Willacy page. My citation of Mark Willacy articles in other edits is related to my interest in documenting a record of local government corruption and entirely unrelated to my recent edits to the Mark Willacy page. Mark Willacy is an investigative reporter with a large number of publications. The use of such sources is not evidence of any COI. I am not Mark Willacy, nor am I a friend, colleague or family member, and I have no interests (financial or otherwise) in his work. I see you have opened discussion on the topic on the Talk:Mark_Willacy page. This is the appropriate way to address edits you disagree with. Slandering those who dispute your edits with circumstantially based ad hominem insinuations is not. Sparticusmaximus (talk) 13:36, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No slandering intended, it was merely an innocent templated question to confirm you were aware of the COI policy and that didn't apply to you in relation to your recent edits. Nothing more. If you feel offended, please know that was not my intention. Aeonx (talk) 19:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]