| The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.
- Shonebrooks (talk · contribs) This user has declared a connection. () While I was a member of the MMB between 1991 and 1994, I am neither a paid contributor, nor in a position of power in regard to that organization. I am not on staff, nor a dues-paying member of its alumni group. This article is not about myself, my family, my organization, my clients, or my competitors. Any friend relationships under question would be limited to friends I made in the organization, and who in turn would have been active between 1991 and 1994, which represents a small fraction of the over-100 year history of this organization and the content of its article. As to intent, because I had made a few minor edits to the article in the distant past, I was approached as someone who may be able to improve the QUALITY of the article per WP policies and guidelines. I set out to do that (on a strictly volunteer basis with absolutely no compensation or remuneration) and applied many, many edits over a roughly 14-month period. While I care about the MMB and its reputation (from a distance), I submit that a careful review of my edits will show a greater interest in edits that moved the article's content into closer alignment with WP practices and guidelines, which was the original intent. The primary method of doing so involved consolidating, re-writing, organizing, and citing existing content. In some cases, largely to progress the article beyond the "stub classification," I did add content (particularly with regard to organizational history and the discography/filmography sections). I strove to make such additions very fact-based and generally well cited. I referenced numerous other articles for Marching Bands, Pop bands, and historical organizations to guide my efforts. I contend such content is factual and/or historical rather than "promotional." After completing much of that work, my opinion was that reducing the amount of content in the article and continuing to improve its quality seemed a better use of editors' future time and efforts rather than further increasing its content. I stated this position clearly on the Talk page in April of 2020. ShoneBrooks (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC))
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