User talk:Steven.Valentine

October 2023

Hello, Steven.Valentine. 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 organizations 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);
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.

Finally, I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. ElKevbo (talk) 21:50, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. ElKevbo (talk) 22:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blatant self promotion

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you use Wikipedia for promotion or advertising, as you did at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Melcous (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

October 2023

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for disruptive editing and blatant self promotion.. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please review Wikipedia's guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text to the bottom of your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Ad Orientem (talk) 00:41, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If these issues need to be addressed again, you will almost certainly be blocked indefinitely. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem I have written nothing that is not entirely factual. I will be happy to sign a sworn affidavit stating that all of my statements are true, and that I can be prosecuted for perjury if they are not. Would you please name me one statement that I have made that is not factually correct? I am an attorney at law and have been a member of the Illinois ad District of Columbia Bars since 1983. I am subject to disciplinary action or being disbarred if I engage in unethical conduct. If you can't find a single statement that I have made that is not true, I will assume that you cannot do so. As the Golden Rule says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." How would you feel if I called you a liar without justification? I am 67 years old, retired from my law firm, and wealthy beyond the dreams of my youth. Why would I need to engage in self-promotion? I will await your timely responses to the questions that I have addressed to you. Steven.Valentine (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not the veracity of your claims, but their promotional nature. Additionally, we do not accept claims based on personal knowledge. All claims of fact must be supported by a citation to a reliable source. Generally, we strongly prefer secondary sources. Also, just because something happens to be true, does not mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. See WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Lastly, I refer you to the note above regarding editing about yourself, an organization or topic with which you have a connection. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem Please also tell me what I have written that is disruptive. I am a Republican, but have always opposed Donald Trump, who prides himself on being a distuptor. One again, sir or madam, prove it. You have the burden of proof. Steven.Valentine (talk) 01:45, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Almost all of your edits have been reverted for violating community policies and guidelines. See my above note, and the COI notice at the top of your talk page. I will leave a template below with links that may help you to better understand how things work here. I don't see any relevance regards your politics to this discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:54, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Steven, you seem to have misunderstood what wikiepdia is. As Ad Orientem notes above, all content here should be verifiable by reference to reliable, independent secondary sources. And inserting your own name into articles, is self promotion - wikipedia is not interested in what you want to say about yourself, you can use social media or a blog for that. Additionally, I'm surprised an attorney would think this edit casting unsourced aspersions on another person is in any way acceptable. @Ad Orientem: I'm wondering if that edit as well as [1] should be RevDeleted? Thanks Melcous (talk) 02:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Melcous Agreed and

Done. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:04, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem When does my period of being

temporarily blocked expire? Steven.Valentine (talk) 14:54, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It ends tonight around midnight GMT. If you will agree to avoid editing on subjects where you have a COI, including yourself and any persons or entities with which you have a connection, and to abide by our guidelines for verification of all claims of fact with proper citations to reliable sources; I am prepared to unblock you early. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:01, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not add promotional material to Wikipedia, as you did to Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. While objective prose about beliefs, organisations, people, products or services is acceptable, Wikipedia is not a vehicle for soapboxing, advertising or promotion. The fact that your user name is the same as the person you added as notable alumni and the fact that you have been called out on this previously appears to show a lack of desire to comply with Wikipedia policies. Indyguy (talk) 20:34, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome Steven.Valentine!

Hello Steven.Valentine. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions!

I'm Ad Orientem, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.

Some pages of helpful information to get you started:

Introduction to Wikipedia

The five pillars of Wikipedia

Editing tutorial

How to edit a page

Simplified Manual of Style

The basics of Wikicode

How to develop an article

How to create an article

Help pages

What Wikipedia is not

Some common sense Dos and Don'ts:

Do be bold

Do assume good faith

Do be civil

Do keep cool!

Do maintain a neutral point of view

Don't spam

Don't infringe copyright

Don't edit where you have a conflict of interest

Don't commit vandalism

Don't get blocked

If you need further help, you can:

Ask a question

or you can:

Get help at the Teahouse

or even:

Ask an experienced editor to "adopt" you

Alternatively, leave me a message at my talk page or type {{Help me}} here on your talk page and someone will try to help.

There are many ways you can contribute to Wikipedia. Here are a few ideas:

Fight vandalism

Be a WikiFairy or a WikiGnome

Help contribute to articles

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To get some practice editing you can use a sandbox. You can create your own personal sandbox for use any time. It's perfect for working on bigger projects. Then for easy access in the future, you can put {{My sandbox}} on your user page. By the way, seeing as you haven't created a user page yet, simply click here to start it.

Please remember to:

Always sign your posts on talk pages. You can do this either by clicking on the button on the edit toolbar or by typing four tildes ~~~~ at the end of your post. This will automatically insert your signature, a link to your talk page, and a timestamp.
Leave descriptive edit summaries for your edits. Doing so helps other editors understand what changes you have made and why you made them.

The best way to learn about something is to experience it. Explore, learn, contribute, and don't forget to have some fun!

Sincerely, Ad Orientem (talk) (Leave me a message) 01:55, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ad Orientem (talk) 01:55, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

I see some of your recent edits were reverted. It looks like you tried to include a citation but may not have been using the proper format. Please see WP:CITE for useful tips on how to properly cite any material you are adding to the encyclopedia. Near the bottom you will find some tools that help do a lot of this automatically. Happy editing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:49, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem Thanks. Steven.Valentine (talk) 13:13, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Self promotion, again

Stop inserting your own name into articles. It is considered self promotion and not what wikipedia is for. You may be blocked again if you continue to do so. Melcous (talk) 20:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Knock it off

You have been warned repeatedly about self-promotion, even to the point of incurring a 72hr block. The next time you edit an article in a promotional manner and/or in contravention of our policies and guidelines regarding conflicts of interest and the need for verification and citations of all claims of fact, you will be blocked indefinitely. I have reached the unhappy conclusion that you are basically thumbing your nose at the community. This should be understood as a Final Warning. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem In what way am I self promoting? I listed myself as a noteworthy lawyer at K&L Gates, where I served as an attorney and partner from 1999 to 2023, but I provided a footnote citing the firm's website. Believe me, the firm verified every line of my resume before hiring me. Once again, I am a 67-year old retired lawyer. Why do I need to promote myself?

I am careful to provide footnotes for everything. My wife of 39 years will tell you that I am humble. Do you not like my politics? I am a Republican, but plan to vote for President Biden. So what is it, sir or madam? What is it that I haven't verified? Steven.Valentine (talk) 03:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem Thank you for your response. I understand now and will comply. Steven.Valentine (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:43, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please make sure that when adding names to lists that you have no personal or professional connection to said person. And also, in most cases names added to lists on Wikipedia are limited to individuals who either have an existing article or who meet the guidelines for an article. See WP:N and WP:BIO. For obvious reasons we have to put limits on what can be added to the encyclopedia. Not everyone who is an alumnus of a school or a member of a club can be listed. So we typically restrict those kinds of lists to persons who are considered to have encyclopedic notability. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mr. Valentine: I am a 52-year-old practicing lawyer with several prior national firm affiliations who volunteers many hours a week as a copy editor for this encyclopedia. (No modesty: during business hours this generally happens in the restroom. In two or three minutes I can revert multiple acts of vandalism and/or proofread a newly added sentence about, e.g., pupusas or Kansas City barbecue. No otherwise billable time is sacrificed! Multitasking!)

I never touch an article about anywhere I have ever lived, any educational institution I have ever attended, any human I have ever met, any judge in any jurisdiction in which I am admitted even if only pro hac vice, any employer for which I have ever worked, any client I have ever represented, any adversary party in any litigation in which I have ever participated, or any extant non-publicly-traded business of which I am or have been a client—the only exceptions are to correct patently misspelled names or blatant punctuation/capitalization/grammar errors, or to revert obvious schoolchild vandalism.

The beauty of this encyclopedia’s editorial corps is its foundational philosophy against (inherently untrustworthy, no matter how much one believes to the contrary) promotion of one’s self or those with whom one is personally affiliated at any level more proximate than sports or entertainment “fandom”. I could try to work my own, and my current and former colleagues’, and clients’, and local judicial, and who knows who else’s achievements into these articles, but it would defeat my personal ethics of candor and of responsibility to ensure that only objectively verified information that has been deemed notable by a reliable uninvolved external source becomes part of this internationally relied-upon reference. (I hope I never rise to the level of ”Wikipedia notability”; I value my privacy and personal safety and you would be stunned at the level of death-and-rape-threat-level vitriol one receives simply for having a female-coded username and simply PROOFREADING articles about nationalistically bickered-about foodstuffs like falafel and jollof rice! One would think FOOD would be an innocuous editorial topic. Holy moly, nope. This is a fact about the world that my Wikipedia volunteer work has abundantly taught me!)

These are my own practices, anyway; I chimed in here simply as a fellow “senior”-ish (augh; really?) lawyer who has thought about these issues quite a lot in the nine-ish years I’ve been editing. Best regards. Julietdeltalima (talk) 02:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Julietdeltalima

Thank you! Steven.Valentine (talk) 03:26, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please don’t rule out contributing your talents here! FAR too often, newcomers to the encyclopedia assume that the best way to contribute is by adding new content, a tragic fallacy that leads to excellent intelligent volunteers going away.

I readily admit that I have never added a skosh of “new” content in nine years and 65,000+ edits: I don’t have the time or wherewithal to write the analogue of a law review note at this point in my life, and it would not be enjoyable. Since law school my best Lawyer Skill has been compliance with codes and rules—at this point, the FRCP and my state’s civil procedure rules, various federal courts’ local rules, and a particular federal agency’s rules. Wikipedia has local rules! WP:MOS is the style manual! There is a lot to it!

One of the most challenging but (to me) enjoyable aspects is grappling with the variety of written English styles that our cosmopolitan editorial volunteer pool brings to the project. Super-oversimplified example: if my car breaks down here in the U.S., I pull over to the curb and raise the hood; in most other global English usage conventions I pull to the kerb and lift the bonnet. (I might be wrong there about “raise” versus “lift”.) In non-U.S. English there’s a feline analogue for “mutt”: “moggy”. (Or is it “moggie”? And am I missing a subtlety? This is THE. PLACE. to learn such things!)

I started editing here when I was bedridden after surgery years ago, and amused myself reading about childhood fixations (*sigh* plane crashes; no apologies), and couldn’t tolerate the rampant capitalization errors. I read the “local rules” and started proofreading as I went along. I am really proud of my work here. When I have time, which is not as often as I’d like (note that it’s after midnight in my time zone as I write this, yet here I am), I try to encourage people who obviously have a clue to contribute their talents here to maintain this unprecedented global resource and thoughtfully set English usage examples for folks around the world. When somebody starts getting my goat on a particular article to the point I’m agitated, I take that article off my watchlist and move on to be of service elsewhere. This is one of the great joys of Wikipedia: you aren’t expected to do any more than you can/want to do. Ever.

Thanks for letting me share. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 08:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Julietdeltalima Thanks for your thoughts. Where did you

go to lawv school? Steven.Valentine (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced contributions

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you add unsourced or poorly sourced material to Wikipedia. Melcous (talk) 05:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He continued to do this after this warning.Spiralwidget (talk) 10:14, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Spiralwidget The above warning is two weeks old. No need to be piling on stale warnings. Thanks. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:32, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Spiralwidget

I id not. Give me an example. Steven.Valentine (talk) 15:58, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]