Hi JoshGilmore! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:

Learn more about editing

Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

Get help at the Teahouse

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Volunteer at the Task Center

Happy editing! – LuniZunie ツ_(talk) 19:48, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello JoshGilmore. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to User:JoshGilmore/sandbox, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being employed (or being compensated in any way) by a person, group, company or organization to promote their interests. Paid advocacy on Wikipedia must be disclosed even if you have not specifically been asked to edit Wikipedia. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are strongly discouraged from direct article editing and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:JoshGilmore. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=JoshGilmore|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 17:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good afternoon, and thanks so much for reaching out.

Firstly, my apologies for being unfamiliar with Wikipedia's paid advocacy disclosure requirement. I'm new to the platform (well, long-time user, first-time editor). I can confirm that I am working on edits on behalf of my employer; we noticed several of our agency Wikipedia pages contained outdated or inaccurate information, so I'm working to correct any errors. We're also missing pages for several of our agencies, and are hoping create additional articles over the coming weeks.

I've added the Paid template to my User page along with the relevant information about my employer and the articles I'm working on. Please let me know if I've set this up correctly. JoshGilmore (talk) 18:05, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please be aware of two matters:

• For new articles: Wikipedia is not a business directory, so a company is not entitled to have a Wikipedia article just because it exists. All topics must be notable by Wikipedia's definition to merit inclusion. In the specific case of a company, it must meet the notability criteria for companies and organizations. For this to happen, the company must have already received significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources. We have no interest in what a company wishes to say about itself, as this is an inherent conflict of interest.
• For existing articles: The preferred method for someone in your position is to avoid direct edits, but instead using the edit request process. This allows you to submit proposed changes for review by independent editors. Often, persons affiliated with the subject of their writing find it difficult to recognize when their content does not meet the required standards of a neutral point of view, or fails to cite reliable and independent sources. The edit request process is a good way to mitigate this risk.

I see that you have made the required disclosures on your userpage, so thank you for taking care of that. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 19:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Greatly appreciate the explanations and love that Wikipedia is so thorough. Moving forward, I'll use the edit request process for any updates to our existing articles.

For our new pages, I'll ensure we go through the articles for creation process. The content has already been drafted (with multiple, external sources cited), in what I believe to be a factual, neutral tone, but I'll ensure we go through the preferred process. JoshGilmore (talk) 20:26, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Ibjaja055 was:

This submission appears to read more like an advertisement than an entry in an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia articles need to be written from a neutral point of view, and should refer to a range of independent, reliable, published sources, not just to materials produced by the creator of the subject being discussed. This is important so that the article can meet Wikipedia's verifiability policy and the notability of the subject can be established. If you still feel that this subject is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, please rewrite your submission to comply with these policies.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Acosta Group and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the reviewer's talk page or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Ibjaja055 (talk) 06:21, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, JoshGilmore! Having an article draft declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Ibjaja055 (talk) 06:21, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Acosta Sales & Marketing, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Acosta Sales & Marketing until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:01, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]