User talk:Rachel Helps (BYU)

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Notice to all users: my topic ban (TBAN)

I have been banned from editing LDS Church-related content on Wikipedia because I did not sufficiently disclose my external relationships in my personal editing. Specifically, I did not disclose that I am friends with Michael Austin (writer) when I created that page, nor did I disclose that I have contributed to The ARCH-HIVE when I created that page. I am not allowed to edit any page related to the LDS Church. This include pages for people who are members of the LDS Church. This includes participating in talk page discussions. I am allowed to disclose any further details about my COIs on pages I've edited. I am happy to assist with research and discuss what I know of Mormon studies off-wiki. Feel free to email me from the "Email this user" link under the "User" dropdown.

COI template disclosure on talk pages of pages we've worked on

Hi, I'm putting this on my talk page just in case other users who are watching this page are interested in this discussion. @Valereee, my student just added the paid contribution template to Talk:L. P. Hartley. Is that what you had in mind? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, thanks, Rachel! Valereee (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

An update on this--I've gone through the categories for 19th, 20th, and 21st century articles adding the connected contributor template using AWB. I tried to skip pages that already had a connected contributor template, but I may have duplicated information on some pages. There were four pages where I knew of an additional external relationship to the subject, which I disclosed where I thought of them. I plan to add the connected contributor template to the other pages in the maintenance categories. Afterwards, I will see if I can generate lists from my previous students' contribution histories and add them to their appropriate pages. I probably won't finish until mid-May because of other obligations I need to attend to. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

No deadlines, progress is always good! Valereee (talk) 18:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm in the process of adding my student editors to the paid templates I mass-added. I just wanted to note here for future reference that I have not added the paid template to pages where we simply added a small amount of information, a link, or a category. Some examples: Gandhi added works lists to many German authors as part of our Sophie database, JAGrace, myself, and other student editors added many pages to Category:Films shot in Utah while citing Jim D'Arc's When Hollywood Came to Town for the location of shooting, and Katelyn and I added links to findingaids to many pages that we did not otherwise edit extensively. We also added links to musical works that the BYU Library uploaded to archive.org on some relevant pages. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Buttinsky here again...I wonder if, now that things have calmed down a bit, it might be worth having a more focused community discussion about whether we really want to make you spread COI tags all over Wikipedia. ~Awilley (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was opposed to it. It would help our editing conform to WP:COI behavioral guideline: "you should make the disclosure on your user page, on affected talk pages, and whenever you discuss the topic". Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

The tags don't go on articles themselves, and they'd only be on article talk pages related to BYU/LDS, and I agree with Rachel that where minor edits were made that didn't change content, or ones where there's no connection to BYU/LDS, they wouldn't even be needed there. And these tags aren't even all that visible at article talk; most casual editors aren't reading the talk headers. So it's not calling it out to readers and not even to the vast majority of casual editors. Mostly it's just an FYI to other highly-engaged editors: this page has been edited by someone who has declared a COI. Valereee (talk) 13:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Topic ban

Per this ANI discussion, you are indefinitely topic banned from LDS Church-related topics, broadly construed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:41, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know, ScottishFinnishRadish. I have some questions about the extent of the ban. Are you the right person to ask? Other editors have informed me that topic bans apply to all pages, including sandbox pages and talk pages. This is what I understand about the ban so far:

1. I am not allowed to add COI templates to the talk pages of pages I have edited in the past. Therefore I will be stopping my little project, mentioned above, to do so. I also cannot request that another user add them on the AWB project request page.

2. I have a few potential COIs that I believe are worth declaring (external relationships with subjects I've written about). However, all the people involved in them are Mormon. How would you like me to proceed? I could declare them in a section here (but would that be violating the TBAN?). Or I could email someone.

3. I have OCD and it is difficult for me to think of any page that is not, somehow, related to Mormonism. For instance, one of my students is working on the page for Dorothy Wordsworth. But yesterday, when one of my classmates mentioned participating in the Wordsworth trust internship, I realized that BYU as an institution has a relationship with Wordsworth as an institution that goes beyond us having a Wordsworth collection in our special collections. No one at the Wordsworth Trust has asked us to edit Wordsworth pages--I doubt they even know my team exists. Maybe the best thing to do would be to declare it. Also, one of the professors in the English department at BYU, Paul Westover, is a Wordsworth scholar and he was cited on the Dorothy Wordsworth page before my student started working on it. We were going to ask him for advice on editing the page, but my student decided not to after realizing he was cited on the page. I think it's okay for us to consult with Paul Westover about the page--would you agree?

I have other questions, but these three seem the most temporally relevant. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Per advice on WPO, I'm going to post at AN asking if it's okay if I post the COI notices on talk pages. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. One and two seem to be covered by the AN thread. I don't see an objection to you adding COI notices. As for number three, I would seek clarification at AN, as that is right at the edges of related to the LDS Church, broadly construed. As far as consulting with someone with a clear COI on the topic, it depends on what "consult with" means. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in here, I was reading through this talk page and was surprised to see the topic ban notice at the end. Please clarify, does this also apply to editing by proxy? That is, does the ban also apply to the student employees hired by this editor to edit LDS-related articles? ~Anachronist (talk) 17:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:PROXYING covers this. In short, yes, it applies to editing by proxy. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps the four currently-employed students listed on the user page should receive topic ban notices also.

One further question: Does this ban extend to making edit requests on talk pages of article with COI topics? Although these editors clearly have a COI, that's what edit requests are for, to provide a way for COI editors to have their suggested contributions reviewed by the community. It just seems wrong if the topic ban also extends to edit requests. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I assume that the ban also applies to edit requests. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why it would. That's the whole point of edit requests after all. Specifically, the {{edit COI}} tag is intended for COI editors to use on talk pages. If I were you, I'd ask for clarification, as ScottishFinnishRadish also suggested above. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:37, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Edit requests violate the topic ban. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay. That seems like a nonsensical position to take, however, given that "both sides have equal footing in policy" in the closing statement. So be it. In any case it's up to Rachel Helps to appeal. Thanks for the clarification. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the work you have done

I was pretty shocked to see the recent total ban. It seems extremely heavy handed, the conversation was downright rude at points, and discounts the actual edits you have made, the VAST majority of which have been good. FWIW, thanks for the work you have done in the LDS space. Even though we didn't always agree, it is absolutely in a better place because of what you have done. Epachamo (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

thank you *smiling tear emoji*. Your comment means a lot to me. Whenever I see your name in a page history, I know that page is in good hands. I wish that I had been able to communicate better with people who were criticizing my work, but I felt overwhelmed by the volume of criticisms. Many of them felt like they were outside the scope of my editing (like the general issues people have with paid editing, or with how to approach religious topics). Now that I have a little emotional distance, I think I can see one of the main problems people had with my team's work. A section like the interpretation section on Book of Omni summarizes sources that assume that Omni actually wrote the book (many other pages about sacred writ and about literature on Wikipedia assume the same thing (that the purported/presented authorship is accurate, or at least worthy of textual analysis)). Is there a way to reconcile presenting interpretation of the BoM as sacred writ with NPOV? It seems like an introduction could be "Adherents in the Latter Day Saint movement and other Mormon studies scholars interpret this text based on the assumption that it was written by [insert author here]." Then if there are other naturalistic interpretations, those would go in the same section. There aren't as many naturalistic interpretations, but I think there's a Dan Vogel book that tries to link events in the BoM to events in Joseph Smith's life. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

"I think there's a Dan Vogel book that tries to link events in the BoM to events in Joseph Smith's life." There is. Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet. But best to refrain from discussing such things until after you get the topic ban repealed. (Even discussion of LDS topics here on your talk page can be a violation of your ban.) ~Awilley (talk) 18:30, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that discussing the events that led to my ban would be okay and under the umbrella of discussing the ban itself. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I personally see that as right on the line. And I think the best path toward getting a topic ban removed includes staying as far away from the line as you can. ~Awilley (talk) 18:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Good idea. Epachamo, feel free to email me if you'd like to discuss further. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

COI - Ridiculous

It's honestly ridiculous that others feel that all that conflict information needs to be disclosed. Wikipedia is an open platform and every person that edits comes at it from their own past experiences and associations. I find it very sad that some within the Wikipedia community question whether you can summarize information critical of the Church of Jesus Christ, when many of those critics fail to disclose their conflicts of interest and personal biases. Unfortunately, I am not surprised that this is happening, but sad to see it is being institutionalized. --Trödel 21:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Just read some more stuff - indefinitely topic banned from LDS related topics - so sad. Thanks for the work you have done and continue to do. --Trödel 21:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)