Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor does not meet a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connections with article topics. An edit by a COIN-declared COI editor may not meet a requirement of the COI guideline when the edit advances outside interests more than it advances the aims of Wikipedia. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution procedural policy. Sections older than 14 days archived by MiszaBot II.
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Shortcuts:
You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Additional notes:
  • This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period.
  • Be careful not to out other editors. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over the COI guideline.
  • The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content.
  • Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the What is a conflict of interest? list. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request:
1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi}}.
2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed.
3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, MiszaBot II will automatically archive the thread when it is older than seven days.
  • Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN declared COI editor does not meet a requirement of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline.
To begin a new discussion, enter the name of the relevant article below:


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D0kkaebi[edit]

Edit warring around François Asselineau involving a leader of his party[edit]

(last 3 users separated for clarity: Oliv0 (talk) 07:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC))

D0kkaebi recently started a thread on Administrators'_noticeboard/Incident. The ensuing discussion led to the conclusion that the underlying Conflict of Interest should have been reported here, which I am doing now (even though I am totally new to such requests).

To sum it up:

Azurfrog (talk) 09:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC) Signature copied here by Brianhe for clarity

Evidence for COI[edit]

Evidence for bias[edit]

Restart[edit]

Pardon me for folding the big discussion above, but this needs a restart. It seems reasonable for an uninvolved editor to ask D0kkaebi if he is a PRU party official, given that his former username on Wikipedia is the same as the name of a Twitter handle used by a party official, plus I'd call this self-outing by giving the full name of the real-world person involved. The COIN process can go from there. – Brianhe (talk) 00:38, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

There's a new template, based on Jytdog's way of handling COI questions: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Question (includes documentation). This has been posted to User talk:D0kkaebi which seems to be as much as needs to be done at the moment. He hasn't edited since a month ago. - Brianhe (talk) 16:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
IMHO we should let sleeping dogs lie... Vrac (talk) 19:07, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

(off-topic part folded) No answer yet, @Jytdog and Brianhe: what is next in this way of handling COI? Note that D0kkaebi has frequently been absent for 3 or 4 months in a row, last time in Nov-Dec-Jan 2014/2015. And as I suggested Azurfrog on AN/I, the only thing I request here on COI/N is some community approval to use COI-related templates.

I think what I would use would only be {{Connected contributor}} on Talk:Popular Republican Union (2007) and Talk:François Asselineau/Archive 1 (maybe also the AfDs for François Asselineau, but this template is probably not intended for AfD pages). These are the talk pages where user D0kkaebi/Lawren00 has a predominant role and generally directs discussions, telling others about the rules. The aim is that unsuspecting editors reading them would not be fooled by his pretended neutrality, and could use talk pages normally without the influence of the COI. Oliv0 (talk) 22:14, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

This is a question for Vrac too isn't it? Anyway I'm not in a hurry to get into this. What's the rush? – Brianhe (talk) 01:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
I did it so now my question is clear, no rush to answer, there can be implicit approval. If D0kkaebi does not come back within 3 months (limit for RCU data, at least on the French WP), it may also help remembering he may use a new account. Oliv0 (talk) 10:57, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
@Oliv0: Let's assume good faith and not jump to the conclusion that he will be back socking. However, I'm realistic and know that sometimes COI editors do this. We have ways of taking care of that if it becomes necessary. Can I have your permission to archive this case now? – Brianhe (talk) 22:19, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Can I have at least some approval by experienced COI/N contributors like you for my two diffs I give above, that is the template {{Connected contributor}} on the talk pages of the two articles involved, so that in its "|U1-otherlinks=" parameter the link to this COI/N case could be a reasonable justification for it and could avoid its removal? So far the closest I have seen is your mention of "the same as the name of a Twitter handle used by a party official, plus I'd call this self-outing", and your allusion to "sometimes COI editors" just above. All opinions are welcome. Oliv0 (talk) 07:00, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
I have been asked by @Oliv0 (talk · contribs) to weight in. Based on reading links posted here by OlivO, I came to the conclusion that, on one hand, accused user (D0kkaebi) is most probably a follower of UPR party (enthusiast, member or whatever) but also, on the other hand, that he has been both civil and trying to reach consensus. His interest is certainly a fuel for his writing and editing. It is no surprise people giving hard work on a small page like this will be either followers or opponents. In choosing to talk and find consensus he has proven he was willing to avoid conflict of interest from his part. On the other hand, his opponents also have interest (whatever it may be) in this page and hope to hide it... which in the end, sorry, didn't work with me. Nobody can hide behind neutrality. Nobody is neutral. Neutrality is to be reached together. Witch-hunting is also a conflict of interest. Now it is easy to judge. On one side an alleged follower on the other side alleged witch hunters. One tried to reach consensus together with opposing party. The others retorted to cheap tactics, deleting and calling themselves authority. What matters is less the "possible conflict of interest" of one side than the "conflict of interest at work" of the other. Now, I think it would be better people burry the hatchet... Or leave it to new contributors (english-speaking ones if it is not too much to ask). Tl;dr : not guilty. 82.227.169.24 (talk) 10:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
On the talk pages I mentioned I do see he directs discussions so as to reach in the articles what is #Evidence for COI, finding rules to oppose all other contributions even with correct sources, and his style is generally far from being "both civil and trying to reach consensus". It makes a sharp difference with people like Azurfrog and me who are really neutral (Francis Le français is less experienced on WP and may have done things in haste). As I said above, my {{Connected contributor}} on these talk pages means he only pretends to be neutral and nobody should be fooled, and approving this template or not is the only thing I am requesting here: do you mean it should not be there? What do others think? (@Brianhe, Vrac, and Jytdog:) (Note: the IP is French but I feel the command of English is far above all French users so far including me.) Oliv0 (talk) 15:12, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
You said: "his style is generally far from being "both civil and trying to reach consensus"." I honestly have to disagree. He was indeed calm and civil at least until Azurfrog came in. And, I am sorry, but there is no way I could defend Azurfrog's behavior on that one. As much as I can agree there is a sharp difference between them two I rather saw benevolence on the accusee's side than on Azur's side. This said, he also seems a far less experienced user, as is also shown in his attachment to his contributions, which might have contributed to the situation. Finally, I rather separate Azurfrog's contribution from yours, as I noticed you at least have been correct with me, though I didn't side with you. I hope it is a sign you are not afraid of consensus yourself. P.S.: I indeed live in France and I begin to think this Asselineau page better be edited by people far from here. 80.215.170.172 (talk) 16:11, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
"Azurfrog came in" here, doing as I said in #Evidence for bias "a rewrite with some correct sources and in a rather neutral style" one year ago (trying to use only the best secondary sources found in the ongoing French AfD), D0kkaebi tried to stay in control of François Asselineau ("expose your changes one by one") but failed and stopped editing it, so D0kkaebi's patronising style and control of that talk page is not after but before Azurfrog came in. Oliv0 (talk) 19:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Writing in a patronizing style while trying to find common ground is still civil (however unpleasant the patronizing might feel to some). Attempting to block articles and deleting other's work together with lack of communication is not, whatever write-style is used. Just my two cents... Anyway, I can't comprehend how this debate moved here. This is not French Wikipedia. Anyway, about the {{Connected contributor}}, if it is indeed necessary, I think it should come from him, not us. For me, at this point it is both unproven and useless. 82.227.169.24 (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
This is what this page COI/N is for: determination of the COI coming from us, not him. #Evidence for COI is above. Oliv0 (talk) 07:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
What are we talking about? A global corporation? An all mighty lobby (like pharmaceutical, weapons or GMOs)? Is a small party like this even able to pay anybody? What is at stake? That a party that small, that broke and with so little means of expression be labelled leftist, rightist or neither? It would have to be very important for me to support violating someone's privacy and anomimity on the net just for that. I think it's not and I stand by these values. It's the usual question of security against freedom. Respect for privacy and anomimity on the net are precious tokens of freedom. Let's not retort to fascistic methods. Let's try to find a better idea. And once again, it is clear some people who wrote about this party are in a COI from an opposing source (not to mention anybody here out of courtesy, but Rudy Reichsdadt, seriously???) and these sources are both able and willing to pay for it (e.g. the French socialist party has a notorious history of doing just this). Neutrality in politics is a fragile thing. The accusee would maybe better admit his links (if any) on the condition he would be protected from consequences. History taught us finding the common good is key. P.S. Aren't we all blowing this thing out of proportion? 82.227.169.24 (talk) 08:40, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

So does COIN consensus determine that D0kkaebi=Lawren00 has a COI for articles François Asselineau and Popular Republican Union (2007) so that the relevant talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}} ? No need to consider any off-topic discussion above, only #Evidence for COI. Oliv0 (talk) 10:27, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Charter School Growth Fund[edit]

It appears an employee edited the page. The account name includes a name.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalina3112 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 20 October 2015

Diego Grez-Cañete[edit]

User
Other accounts

A conflict of interest has already been established and admitted between Diego Grez Cañete and his website El Marino. El Marino (online newspaper) was a redirect that he recently turned into an article that is a REFBOMB of self-published, self-written, and hyper-local sources. The user has stated that this is ok because COI editing "is discouraged, but not prohibited". It could use some more eyes. Vrac (talk) 13:09, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

A similar concern was already up in 2014 when Diego's site Memoria Pichilemina was discussed. There must be much more conflicts of interest related to this user but since he has moved around 5 different usernames since 2008 or so it is difficult to track all activity. There also reason to believe most Pichilemu people and newspapers/radio stations he wrties about have some relation to him since the town has only 13,000 inhabitants and Diego is very interested in journalism. Sietecolores (talk) 19:37, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of that history; in light of recent developments I would say that AndyTheGrump's analysis at the time was spot-on: he isn't going to stop this gross abuse of Wikipedia facilities for the purpose of personal gratification until forced to - by topic-ban and/or block, as necessary. Vrac (talk) 19:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Added El Expreso de la Costa, WP article created and maintained by Diego Grez-Cañete who has an apparent conflict of interest with this org, being used as a source for El Marino (online newspaper), . Vrac (talk) 13:37, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Added Pichilemunews, same situation as El Expreso de la Costa. This is a walled garden with these websites sourcing each others' WP articles, all with a conflict of interest. Vrac (talk) 14:21, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
  • The issue with Diego is that he tries to promote himself or subjects very close to himself (his newspaper, his school, or his schoolmates?). He has tried to do so over a long period of time. He should by now know the rules, otherwise he is just gaming the system. Another problem is that Diego tries persistently to cover Pichilemu with such a depth that is not compatible with WP:GNG. Do not mistake me. Diego is good editor, who can if he wants create really good content. He just need to stop editing about topics too close to himself and way to local to be relevant. Sietecolores (talk) 09:16, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
Un-retirement and sock puppetry

Surprise, surprise, the above IP address that geolocates to Chile just reverted my speedy nomination on Pichilemunews. Vrac (talk) 21:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm starting to see how he has gotten away with it for all these years. Pichilemunews was deleted G4 by one admin, and a different admin declined the speedy on El Marino (online newspaper) because it is a redirect. Diego has created variations such as Pichilemu News and Pichilemunews.cl; this could go on forever. Without consistent support from admins the system is being successfully gamed. Vrac (talk) 14:57, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
  • He has created hundreds of articles about the village of Pichilemu, and sourced them all to his newspaper Pichilemu News [19]. All of those articles need to be deleted, and most any article that links to Pichilemu and/or to Pichilemu News should be deleted. In terms of his massively gaming the system, this is a case for ANI (where he has already been called up several times) and possibly also ArbCom. The case is very widespread and intransigent. Softlavender (talk) 09:15, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Softlavender, yes an Diego Grez has a more stories back in time (I don't have time to dig into that). It does not matter to have uncivil and disruptive behaviour in the past if the used has changed that. Everybody deserves a fresh start. But Diego has had chances to recover and still he insists in such immature behaviour. PS. let me know about any deletion nomination i would like to see if any content can be savaged. Sietecolores (talk) 06:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Sietecolores and others, please check the ANI again, as there is a proposal now. Softlavender (talk) 09:44, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
  • If I understood corectly, the user is from the small town of Pichilemu, with only 13000 inhabitants, and is writting articles about this small town, including refferences from the newspaper Pichilemu News and website El Marino, where he is personally involved. Definitely, 99,9% of humankind and 99,9% of wikipedians don't care about Pichilemu, but if we keep in mind Jimbo Wales vision of Wikipedia as a sum of all human knowledge, then articles about this small town have their place here. Nobody will argue against an entire Wikipedia in a language spoken by only 13000 people. As Pichilemu has only 13000 inhabitants, probabily Pichilemu News is the only newspaper there and El Marino website one of the few, if not the only websites dealing in details with events from Pichilemu. If you want to write about Pichilemu, probabily Pichilemu News or El Marino are the best, and sometimes the only sources you can find about this unimportant (for 99,9% of us) topic. I would preffer to see at Wikipedia articles about Pichilemu with sources like New York Times, but what to do if New York Times never cared about Pichilemu? I would say is a conflict of interest if the user is pushing Pichilemu News as a source in Wikipedia articles about New York, but using Pichilemu News as a source for articles about Pichilemu doesn't look so evil to me.MariusM (talk) 15:00, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
This is all well and good except for the fact he apparently writes (or is heavily involved with) that newspaper. Should he be allowed to create Wikipedia articles based on sources he in turn creates? --LjL (talk) 15:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Coalition for a Secure Driver's License[edit]

User CSDLKIDSeditor made a huge addition to the article here. I reverted, and posted the standard COI template and additional advice on this user's talkpage. Now MichaelBJones21 (either the same user with an improved username per WP:ISU, or one of their colleagues) is re-posting the same content. That content violates WP:NPOV (as a biased self-description from the organization), WP:WEIGHT in it's length and excessive detail, and WP:RS (mostly uses self-published mission statements and affiliated sources with a clear bias on their own). I could use some help from experienced editors in evaluating and fixing the situation, currently the article is blatantly misused as publicity platform for the organization and its goals. Note, that I am not against concise additions of some of that content, as I tried to explain on CSDLKIDSeditor's talkpage. GermanJoe (talk) 21:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that user mbjones is editing out any criticism of the organization. This is obviously not NPOV; the editor definitely has an agenda. I tried adding some back in, but need to do some more research. I would suggest that the editor be blocked. I don't see any other solution. LaMona (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Ɱ[edit]

(minor point - there's stale drafts under User:sandboxXX)

This is a technical question to clarify, but with a specific editor: Is a COI disclosure on a subpage User:Ɱ/COI, not easily accessible from userpage where one must uncollapse and uncollapse a second time to reach it a valid disclosure? The editor also has a link in light blue on dark blue on their talk, and there's disclosures on the article talks. They seem to be good faith but claim to be justifying this is OK per the essay WP:COIDEC [21]. The editor considers it hounding for me to continue discussion of COI, so I post here for others.

The WP:TOU only uses "userpage" and from what I can see, policy too. COIDEC is out of line, and I've removed the seemingly most out of line, and escalated for deletion (or fixing) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:COI declaration. Widefox; talk 19:53, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Please close this discussion. I previously had a link to User:Ɱ/COI on my main userpage, this should be sufficient and the rules are unclear. However, I now have it directly on my userpage. I don't want to continue this any further, we all have better things to do.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 20:01, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
You were hounding because you came into conflict on me with another issue and decided to create this one due to it. That is hounding, basically the dictionary definition.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 20:03, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
I am an uninvolved editor (who warned both parties about edit warring). Don't distract. If someone like me objects to your COI disclosure, which is seemingly not easy for me as an advanced editor to quickly see. Justifying with an essay rather than TOU and policy as I pointed out. No indication has come forth yet, so somewhere neutral like this seems appropriate, rather than accusing an uninvolved editor of hounding, and removing COI templates from the articles (during discussion). Widefox; talk 20:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
--ɱ (talk · vbm) 20:13, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
The good news is the essay is being recognised as needing attention/deletion. Thanks for that. Care to provide any justification for involvement in any article with you, or why a COI disclosure shouldn't be looked at by editors talking to you? Widefox; talk 20:22, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
I won't converse with someone who's harassing me on different unrelated issues. If other editors have concerns with my work, they should open the proper channels. If you pursue criticism of once more, I will open an ANI discussion on your conduct. ɱ (talk · vbm) 20:26, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
So, you're being paid to write User:Ɱ/sandbox23 but you have no disclosure in the draft, or linking to that draft. Your only disclosure is not correct per the clear WP:TOU and policies. What isn't clear about that? The correct place to discuss that is here. Widefox; talk 20:51, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
According to the clear terms, they need to disclose on their user page, the talk page of the article OR in the edit summary of any such edits. There's nothing there saying they have to disclose on the draft or link to the draft. They could say "Paid by X to edit on behalf of Y. There isn't anything in the TOU or the Meta FAQ that requires explicit linking to a draft or article. Ravensfire (talk) 21:22, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Yes, but almost right

That's a bit shy of the word and missing the spirit of it. It's 3 clicks from the userpage! Several partials is not a full (per ToU or PAID)

  • No disclosure on a draft is something I have mentioned, I have also taken that up on the PAID talk, but the ToU is clear - "the talk page accompanying any paid contributions" - this should cover drafts. Widefox; talk 23:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
@Ɱ and Ravensfire: need to read the policy Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. It is definitely and not or for where to place the disclosure. The hiding of the disclosure in a double-hidden box is just astounding - please correct that immediately. Also you need to disclose employer, client, and affiliation in the {{connected contributor (paid)}} template. All paid contribution need to be disclosed, including drafts Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:56, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Did some cleanup on the Interactive Brokers article. Added history and litigation sections, removed product section. It now looks less like an ad and more like an article. The company is a major brokerage, there's good press coverage, and it passes WP:CORP. John Nagle (talk) 08:40, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
That's not cleanup. I didn't mention history because I went into great depth with the full entity's history at Interactive Brokers Group. As well, please put the products section back. There's absolutely no promotional wording there, I merely stated tools that Interactive Brokers gives customers. And I know very well that they're not things offered by other online brokerage firms. How much do you know about online brokerage?
On another note, I'm saddened by all of the sickening assumptions of bad faith. I am 90% a volunteer editor, and I strive as much as possible to write in a neutral and encyclopedic tone. Please look at the articles I've written, which include the two FAs Briarcliff Manor and Elliott Fitch Shepard. My user sandbox page is a personal userpage. Users are perfectly allowed to put nearly anything on their userpages, especially sandboxes. It's not a formal draft at all, and still has some way to go before I request publication. I don't see anywhere that I need to mark that I have a conflict of interest on a personal sandbox in my userspace.
As for the COI disclosure, per a previous essay it seemed acceptable to post a link to my extensive COI declaration so prominently on my talk page. I don't know why people think that's hidden. As for my primary userpage, I have always appreciated minimalism and the use of blank space, so I have things collapsed. There's no rule against that, stop pretending that there is. Regardless, I'll make it a bit easier for y'all.
I dislike how none of you have addressed that Widefox has been hounding and harassing me. This conversation shouldn't have even started, he's basically picking on all my faults right now.
If I didn't address any of the so many things above, please let me know.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 08:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
One thing I didn't address was Frank Shiner's notability. I was at first skeptical, however he has two songs top five on national music charts. Your cited WP:NMUSIC has pretty close to the top of the list: "Has had a single or album on any country's national music chart." So do your research by reading the very top of my draft and very top of this before such accusations. The fact that you cited NMUSIC as Shiner being unnotable just tells me you're trying to have my work deleted.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 08:12, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, that was me, Nagle, editing, but I forgot to sign the edit. I haven't touched the Frank Shiner article. As for the product list, when something looks like an ad, it's routine to remove ad-like material such as a feature list. The general idea for company articles is to mention the sort of thing Bloomberg or Reuters would mention, not what the company itself would mention. This is a neutral way of dealing with promotional material. The end result tends to be a bit dry, but that's Wikipedia's house style. It's an encyclopedia. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 08:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
The ToU is T or U or E. PAID is more strict, it was T and U. I've fixed PAID to include E: it is now (T or when not possible E) and U.
The letter of PAID is now explicit that all contributions (that covers articles, drafts etc) shall have a disclosure on their talk page. User:Ɱ has yet to declare on their sandbox23. (they have even removed the userpage tag I put there, which they are not meant to do)
The letter of PAID is now explicit that a list of all paid contributions (clearly visible) shall be made on the main user page. Ɱ has yet to declare.
The letter of PAID is that full disclosures are required on each article. Ɱ has yet to declare.
The baseless accusations of Ɱ, removal of COI tags, removal of userpage tag from a draft, are not the spirit of COI. If the full disclosure I've clarified about is not made, I will escalate this. If there is any doubt about what a paid editor must do for legal compliance, then it is their job to ensure they are compliant rather than attempt to shut down any complaint about inadequate disclosure. Ɱ must also disclose at all places, which includes this page. Widefox; talk 10:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Having had a look through this, Ɱ needs to apply the tags and disclose as mentioned above by Widefox Face-smile.svg samtar {t} 11:23, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Yup, now that's clear, COI goes further - stating that editors are discouraged from editing an article with a COI. The way I see it, is if someone drags their feet doing the legal minimum, the content needs a check, hence the COI tags on them (which really shouldn't have been removed by Ɱ. Also, the other COI stale drafts mentioned above were commented out by Ɱ against talk page refactor guidelines (now restored). Why should normal volunteers have to put up with this? ANI seems the appropriate escalation venue. Widefox; talk 11:35, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, AN/I would be the appropriate next step should the editor refuse to follow guidelines Face-smile.svg samtar {t} 11:47, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

(←) I'm so confused here. Point out a guideline I'm refusing to follow, please! As well, as I commented, my other sandbox pages were just out of personal interest. If I was paid to write them, they'd look much more done. Anyone who knows me knows I work quickly; I only got the Shiner job two or three weeks ago and look at the article. So that's why I hid the irrelevancy, that apparently Widefox blew up over. Jeez, calm down people.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 17:53, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, it may not be obvious, but I'm trying to cooperate here, and you all keep assaulting me with whatever rules you happen to find that you can stretch to fit. I changed the placement of the COI disclosure. I added about the sandbox. However, I removed the COI tags from my articles because, as I stated on the edit summaries, per the template: "if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning." You never started a discussion, so I had EVERY RIGHT to remove those tags.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 17:56, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Can I remind you, Widefox, that I'm just as much a 'normal volunteer' as you are? Why do I have to put up with so much prejudice? I write good and featured articles, I linked two above. I revert vandalism. I take photographs. I scan photographs. I've done months worth of research for Wikipedia articles. As an objective observation, you seem primarily focused on formatting, vandalism removal, and other tasks, and seems to include very little of any of the above listed items. Perhaps you'd appreciate my work more if you were more of a content creator? Please look at the photos I've taken or found and digitized over the past few years: link. I hope this helps you all realize I'm not the enemy, I'm not some faceless PR guy, I am first a Wikipedian, and second one who needs money for living. My work here has helped with that. I could care less about promoting Shiner or IB; sometimes either entity has been pushy about wanting promotional material and I've done my best to tell my employers 'no'.--ɱ (talk · vbm · coi) 18:11, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
User:Ɱ (ignoring the characterisation of my contributions)... your claim "as much a 'normal volunteer' as you are" is factually incorrect - you're not 100% volunteer so you must disclose per ToU (including in conversations like this) - rather than make claims like that to the opposite. (let's just let that go for a moment, as we all deserve just equal treatment and AGF etc)
Now I've looked into the paid editing documentation, I can understand your viewpoint, which seems close to mine - one of frustration!
You asked for a "guideline" you're not following, and added "I don't see anywhere that I need to mark that I have a conflict of interest on a personal sandbox in my userspace." (also adding a disclosure on a draft in protest that it doesn't need doing)
I will do better than that - the ToU are a legal requirement to edit here, stronger than a policy, stronger than a guideline. It states "on all contributions" "any paid contributions" - so after double checking this I can report back definitively that the consensus is this covers not just "all articles", but "all contributions" "any paid contributions" - so your sandbox is included. That could be construed (as is) that you are required to disclose on this talk page too (although editors will care less than that unless you claim otherwise as you are asserting).
The best practice (as detailed by policy WP:PAID and links from it) says that your paid COI disclosure must be "clearly visible" on your "main user page". Note that wording has been put in my me with feedback from others to prevent the hiding that your user page disclosure still has. As such, feel I need to separate my role of writing that wording from someone asking you to comply, but several others have so I can point out that you still haven't complied with that best practice, which others have characterised as completely unacceptable.
You would do wise to see WP:PAYTALK, which advises us volunteers not to spend too much time discussing with paid editors, before the paid editor is deemed disruptive. It is your paid job to disclose, not mine.
Why the attempt at offwiki communication? and the L3 harassment warning on my userpage? They've been challenged but not explained. Widefox; talk 16:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Widefox, I have come over here from the ANI thread, and I must admit, while I think you are trying to work for the best, I have some concerns. You are claiming to quote from the terms of use, but nowhere in the whole of the terms of use does the phrase "on all contributions" appear in any context. What the terms of use actually say is:

"You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:

  • a statement on your user page,
  • a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
  • a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions."
As you have accepted, you have been instrumental in recent changes at WP:PAID, to tighten the guideline, and Ɱ does appear to fall short of the current text. However, as that has only been in place for a day or two, and by your own admission (here), "we've got limited consensus here", I think it is over the top to expect Ɱ to have been adhering to those guidelines, particularly as you are referring to events that occured before you even changed them. Harrias talk 19:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
User:Harrias thanks for pointing out essentially a typo of misremembering my own editing (which is just a copy of the ToU wording)! "any paid contributions" is of course correct. Please point out if I've misquoted myself with "all contributions" elsewhere (the context being paid editing I might add)! The point is that it covers drafts. So User:Ɱ and User:Ravensfire were corrected above (by not just me). I'm mindful of separation of legislation from enforcement, so please note other's comments, not mine. Widefox; talk 19:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but what the ToU says is "at least one". By having a statement on Ɱ's userpage, this is met, irrespective of the other two points. Harrias talk 20:02, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
WP:LAWYERING Maybe yes the letter of ToU but not the spirit - the disclosure is still hidden - has gone from three clicks away to now one click from visible - and that's despite others saying that's outrageous! It's not an emergency, but I've not taken this to ANI.
WP:PAID/WP:COI guideline is explicit that it must be visible (for exactly this example - it was 3 clicks away!). Paid editors have to abide by more than just ToU here, so PAID and COIN etc matter. You may now be at the start of the same journey I went through to understand this lot (ToU being "or", but the community wanting a "preferred or" or stronger). That started for me at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Disclosure contradiction. Some of us consider this is just an intermediate step, as clearly the difference between ToU and anything else is wikilawyer-able (and as a legal requirement, together with incentives, is may be a good source of it). Widefox; talk 20:46, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree that PAID is an important guideline, but as I said above, until your edits to it on 6 November, after the start of this discussion, it was not explicit that it must be visible, and it did not state that more than one of those three criteria must be met. I do, actually, agree with the changes that are being made to PAID, but I would recommend that the work there is completed and a fair consensus gained (be it by strength of numbers, or stability over a time period) before the guideline is over policed. Ɱ made changes to meet the guidelines as they were at the start of this discussion, it is unreasonable to expect that user to adhere to the changes you have made to PAID during the term of this discussion instantly. Ɱ has shown good faith through most of this conversation, and made efforts to make their COI editing more transparent. Harrias talk 21:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Come on, "it was not explicit that it must be visible" - factually correct yes, do you really believe an invisible disclosure is OK? Want to get another opinion on that LAWYERING?!
The issue of more than one seems resolved - legally it's one per ToU, policy - whatever gets decided by normal process. I just bandaid-ed policy, guideline and template to be in-line with the letter (and a bit of spirit) of the ToU to make all this more obvious - the ToU is the only firm ground and it applies to drafts.
My personal feeling is that Ɱ is good faith (as I state #Ɱ), but as per WP:COIBIAS has misjudged this, and consistently dismissed it (see above, and at ANI). Personalising doesn't help - this section starts with me asking for clarification, not all guns blazing. It is not my job to ensure about legal compliance - it's literally none of my business.
I do care about misleading things like the essay, and in all these places there's been agreement. Thanks for your comments about PAID, as you say more scrutiny is important, but I don't think the conflation of the ANI urgency with a COIN helps. The ANI is about harassment - something another editor has already dismissed, and let's not forget there's still an open question waiting for a simple answer about it at my talk. If you find it acceptable for paid editors to contact volunteers offwiki, or my conduct in any way suspect, I suggest I take this to ANI for proper scrutiny. Widefox; talk 22:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
User:Harrias In fact, the disclosure still isn't actually on the page User:Ɱ. It is on the subpage User:Ɱ/u and may look like it's there (it is conditionally shown there - depending on the date or something from what I can work out). I only just noticed this, so although it may be visible sometimes, it depends on other things, indexing may be disabled, it isn't included in popups, the history isn't there for instance, may depend on browser, and there'll be other restrictions. The ToU says "a statement on your user page" - technically, there is no disclosure on the user page. Fact. Widefox; talk 17:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Just a note that I'm away until Monday. In general I don't think having the note "physically" on a subpage, but visible on the main userpage is a problem, but the date dependent user page is more of an issue, I agree. Harrias talk 11:37, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
I see any conditionality as an issue - if we're relying on it being "visible", but not there in the normal WP sense - it depends on many factors - date, file, browser, let alone other aspects such as indexing, popups, accessibility, mirroring etc, and the purpose is for internal use - so we have no history and have to check multiple file locations for dated files etc - it's overengineered! There's a {{paid}} template, which is best practice. Several of us agree (see above and links) that locating on a subpage is not correct per ToU (this was before yesterday's discovery that this disclosure is not even on the user page - adding a new aspect). Best folk just follow best practice, eh? I wouldn't describe this as worse practice either.
User:Harrias One could interpret it in both ways - "on" the user page: 1. visibly 2. physically . As the ToU is a legal requirement, that is something I'm not sure we're in a position to legally determine. Practically, we are allowed to interpret in policy and guideline, which to not risk diminishing the ToU (we can't), we have to interpret in the most reasonably stringent way - assuming both 1. and 2. . This is only common sense that a disclosure is both "visible" and located where it is meant to be. I will propose that is explicit in guideline - the "clearly visible" is explicit due to this case, the physical is not (yet) explicit, but also due to this case, will be proposed. Widefox; talk 13:08, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Big Yellow Group[edit]

Hello there,

I am getting in touch on behalf of Big Yellow as I have noticed some inaccuracies in the original post. These are as follows:

1) Under "Big Yellow Group" In line 1 of the first paragraph, replace "London and the South East of England" with "throughout the UK".

2) In the same section in the second sentence please replace, "The company is ranked third largest self-storage company in UK " with "Big Yellow is the most recognised self storage brand in the UK.(Self Storage Association UK Annual Survey published by Cushman & Wakefield 2015)"

3) Under the "History" section on line one please replace, "the company has 55 storage sites in UK" with " the company has 70 storage sites in the UK"

4) In the information box on the right of the page called "Big Yellow Group plc", Replace "Revenue: £72.2 million (2014)" with "Revenue: £84.3 million (2015)"

5) In the information box on the right of the page called "Big Yellow Group plc", Replace "Operating income: £67.9 million (2014)" with "Operating Income: £114.2 million (2015)"

6) In the information box on the right of the page called "Big Yellow Group plc", Replace "Net income: £59.5 million ( 2014)" with "Net income: £105.6 million (2015)"

I have tried to get these changed in the past but been rejected - is there anything else I can do?

Blencs (talk) 10:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Update the financial table and number of stores to match the 2015 annual statement. It's interesting that net profit is greater than revenue. The big money is coming from the real estate investments, not the self storage business. As for being "most recognized", you're not #1 yet; SafeStore stil has more locations. John Nagle (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
Most recognised is not the same as biggest. http://www.ssauk.com/wp-content/pubs/SSAUKAnnualSurvey2015.pdf page 25. OP is correct, though they do not get to choose which metrics we display, I think we can add this one. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:04, 24 November 2015 (UTC).

Sydney59[edit]

All editing here is promotional editing based around Matthew Wills.

Matthew Wills (born in Sydney in 59) is a teacher who, according to Sydney59 "is responsible for the creation and establishment of several unique and international educational initiatives including the Dialogue Australasian Network, Philosothons and the Ethics Olympiad." Draft:Matthew Wills. Editing is dedicated to promoting Wills and those three initiatives. Even it that one sentence you can see the obvious peackocking. Wills is

The drafts for Matthew Wills and Ethics olympiad have been repeatedly declined ([22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]) so Sydney59 just ignored that process and created the articls himself, both first runs were speedy deleted G11. duffbeerforme (talk) 12:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

This notification is a blatant case of harassment in that the Dialogue Australasian Network article and the Philosothon articles were written over 7/8 years ago and received B and C rating respectively. They are plainly about encyclopedia worthy topics and have been written and revised to reflect Wikipedia standards. I am not sure why suddenly someone calling themselves "Duff Beer for Me" sees themselves as being in a position to challenge the integrity of these articles. I am an academic that is well placed to see the worth and quality of these articles. These articles are important go to places for schools around Australasia and the UK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sydney59 (talk • contribs) 12:37, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

@Sydney59: This is definitely not harassment - it is about maintaing the project's integrity. All of your edits are related to this set of articles which are all related to Matthew Wills. Considering that Mr. Wills was apparently born in 1959 and resides in Sydney, it doesn't require a great deal of deduction to come to the conclusion that you have been writing about yourself. Put simply, that is not the purpose of Wikipedia. While it's not forbidden, attacking other users who point out concerns related to this as you have done above is not going to do any favours. Please disclose any conflict of interest that you have and in future only request edits to be made on the talk page of articles. Thank you SmartSE (talk) 13:49, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I applaud Smartse's attempt to maintain the projects integrity by avoiding promotional and un-notable postings. The most recent of my postings did have a conflict of interest, but be careful not to assume that all these postings are a conflict of interest....In his attempt to highlight this Smartse is destroying two well written articles with integrity that I have written about events where there is no conflict of interest....which are notable and well written. I have no involvement in the Dialogue Australasian Network at all and have not done so for the last 8 years. In terms of the Philosothon the management of these events is by two independent educational networks as was explained in the Philosothon article. Therefore there is no conflict of interest there either. While I participate in these events this does not preclude me from writing an article about the event with integrity. Do not through the baby out with the bathwater. I will not be writing such articles in future.Sydney59 (talk) 05:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Clear aligners[edit]

Got a new account, Unbraceyourself‎ deleting material and overwriting it with (probably their) company's information. Alexbrn (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a case for WP:ANEW. – Brianhe (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Lab Made[edit]

This may have been connected to Orangemoody per this. I did some trimming of astonishingly promo content, more may be needed. Brianhe (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Lindy Robbins[edit]

Music PR company writing excessively on 2 subjects. Have been advised/warned in 2013 and again in 2015, are routinely ignoring requests to familiarise with and adhere to policies. When I first encountered their edits, I was able to link the PR company to the subject via a quick google search (i.e. on their list of clients). This isn't available now however it's quite clearly a case of COI and SPA, unproductive and non neutral edits. I haven't looked at notability criteria yet but suspect there may be issues with that too. Also Lindy Robbins links to the wiki page on her twitter bio, indicating to me that they are promoting the page as a supposedly neutral and authoritative source of info to add credibility. Rayman60 (talk) 15:25, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Blocked. MER-C 20:46, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

City Car Club[edit]

Alexzor1 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A number of edits have been made to the City Car Club page and other tenuously related articles by User:Alexzor1 in such a way that leads me to believe they are an employee of City Car Club, as it looks like advertising/promotion to me. It's the type of thing I would usually edit away on sight, but I myself have a conflict of interest here because I work for Zipcar, a competitor of City Car Club.

Why I think they have an interest in / are promoting City Car Club[edit]

Many many edits to the City Car Club page - example - changing "City Car Club is a carshare operator based in the UK" to the (still unsubstantiated) "City Car Club is the leading carshare operator based in the UK"

And edits to other pages adding links to City Car Club:

Request for edit[edit]

Almost all of the above have already been reverted, but the contributions to Telematics and City Car Club still remain. In my humble and undoubtably biased opinion, the statement regarding them being "the leading" on City Car Club needs to be either clarified, cited, or removed, and imo the Carsharing section on the Telematics page does not benefit from the small list of operators that has grown from the initial addition of City Car Club - I think the link to car sharing operators is enough, and the list should be removed.

I would like to note that the rest of the City Car Club page does seem high quality and does not read very "advertisy" to me, including User:Alexzor1's contributions.


The above report was from an IP address/unregistered user. Whilst I agree that Alexzor's edits do seem to be borne out of some undeclared link, he hasn't made any edits to the article since 2007. What he has written hasn't met the standards at all. I'm also concerned about Hi, you share the same name as the article you edit, suggesting a potential conflict of interest. It is therefore advised, according to the guidelines, to refrain from editing the article. The aim of the encyclopaedia is to present relevant information in a neutral tone, and it is difficult to remain objective when someone is linked to the subject. This also goes for sockpuppets which is where someone creates a new identity to effectively continue with the same behaviour. If you feel there are pertinent edits required on the City Car Club article, you can either raise these on the talk page or by requesting assistance at the Teahouse. Rayman60 (talk) 00:35, 22 November 2015 (UTC) and the general tone of the article, it just reads like one giant advert. I'm leaving the article for now so others can see it, however I would have removed a LOT from this article had I stumbled across it. Rayman60 (talk) 15:37, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Toned down the PR language in the lede. ("Billed as "The thinking person's car", the company has received huge press attention, particularly as an example of a unique business thriving during the recent economic downturn.") That was overdoing it. Major, legit business, clearly notable. John Nagle (talk) 05:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

School of Economic Science[edit]

As can be seen from the article, the School of Economic Science, also known as the School of Practical Philosophy, is a spiritual group that has been described as a cult. It has admitted to historical cases of criminal child abuse after an investigation in the UK, as can be seen in the 'Reputation' section of the article.

To repeat what I have already stated on the Talk page there: This article, as noted on this Talk page by other editors such as User:KD Tries again, has at times read like Public Relations, in which verifiable, reliable sources commenting on the subject are undermined by editors' POV commentary in breach of WP:NOR. A few years ago it was so bad that I joined Wikipedia in order to improve this article, which first entailed reading up how to edit and how WP style guidelines and policies work. The PR tendency here was so tiring to work with that I then chose not to go and work on other articles on Wikipedia for fear of burning up additional precious time. Life really is too short. It's precisely discussions like this that puts off newcomers such as myself from volunteering more time into this project. I could, of course, now spend days of my life working on articles about my favorite civil rights heroes, my favorite train lines and my favorite nature preserves. But after this experience, I'm deterred.

I am concerned about User:Skyring having a COI. By their own account on the on the School of Economic Science Talk page on August 10, the editor says: "I'm a member of the School of Practical Philosophy. As such, I have a strong interest in the truth."

Note that Skyring's real username is concealed on their signature, which instead appears as 'Pete'. It seems they may be blanking their own Talk page, so I am not aware of their discussions with moderators or sanction/block log history.

I've found their edits at School of Economic Science to be concerning, in that they appear to be (i) questioning sources and interpreting sources in a way that pushes an agenda of reputation management of the organization rather than (ii) being as faithful as possible to the sources. This is known as SYNTH.

Certainly, it has resulted in actually false information being put into the article, as I've stated in my 19 and 22 September Talk page entries there. There have also been issues raised with this editor by users Keithbob and KD Tries again.

By their own account on a 28 Aug Talk page note, Skyring/Pete says: "Wikipedia editors are more than gnomes, diligently cutting and pasting whatever presents itself in the world of sources. We also evaluate and contribute our life experiences and skills."

Skyring/Pete here is stating that editors' experience is more valid than what verifiable sources say. My understanding is that the opposite is true. It's especially problematic because of the COI.

In the main, Skyring/Pete appears to be trying to make it appear that the child abuse and other alleged abuses all happened as long ago as possible, that it is over and that his organization has changed for the better. This all may be perfectly true, but the problem is that he is pushing this version without accurately representing sources to back it up (and in some cases, openly undermining sources that don't fit this agenda.)

I have raised my concerns with Skyring/Pete and received the reply that I am a 'Single Purpose Account' - and I explained my small journey into Wikipedia as I did above. I warned Skyring/Pete that I would have to voice my concerns if their behavior doesn't change, and in my assessment it has not.

I don't have enough time to go through a lengthy discussion process, and have no intention of getting too involved in Wikipedia for the reasons stated above. I leave this for the record. -Roberthall7 (talk) 21:13, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Robert! You appear to be a single purpose editor because every one of your edits are concerned with School of Economic Science/School of Practical Philosophy. Perhaps you could explain why this particular topic engages you to the exclusion of all else. Do you have your own connection?
Members of communities are not generally prohibited from editing articles about that community. So long as material is reliably sourced, there is no original research, and WP:NPOV considerations are observed, there should be no problem. Australians are not excluded from articles about Australia, Boy Scouts are encouraged to edit articles about Boy Scouts, and Harvard alumni may edit articles about their alma mater. You do not indicate any financial or other interest here, merely membership.
Your main concern about child abuse is that it happened fifty years ago, according to reliable sources, and you suspect that it continued. Do you have any sources to this effect? You say that there was criminal behaviour, but do not show any sources to back up your charges. Who was prosecuted, when, and what was the outcome?
Could you point to any diffs you consider problematic or counter to policy, please. --Pete (talk) 01:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
This looks more like a content dispute than a matter for WP:COIN. John Nagle (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Business 2 Community[edit]

This probably goes just as well at RSN, but thought I'd ping the COIN folk about their experience with business2community as a source. here are the pages linking to it.

And while I'm at it, the article Business 2 Community looks like it's mostly written by a single editor, has no talkpage, and says it "has a high quality standard for contributors" cited to blog.shareaholic.com. Brianhe (talk) 10:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Business 2 Community per WP:WEB. It's a blog. The refs are either article which mention multiple blogs, or were generated by PR activity from the company. John Nagle (talk) 05:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
PROD removed by the IP editor behind the article.[29]. Send to AfD? Comments?

Clevedon Hall[edit]

The new article Clevedon Hall was created by User:Jojourneypr who may have been editing on behalf of the Journey agency. I have edited the article to add references etc and I have added tags to the article, talk page and user talkpage, but could someone more familiar just check I've done this right. I do not know if anyone else from the agency is doing similar things on other articles.— Rod talk 10:48, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I see WP:PAID, and had already made a formal request to User:Jojourneypr on their talk page. They seem to be a WP:SPA, here only to create this article. The article itself is fine, though, like all articles, requires improvement. It is the editor that concerns me. WP:PAID seems to offer no obvious remedies when a suspected paid editor fails to disclose. Am I missing something obvious? Fiddle Faddle 16:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Removed most of the PR material. It's notable because it's a Grade II* listed building, not because of its current use. John Nagle (talk) 04:53, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Press coverage of Wikipedia Tea Room invitation being discussed[edit]

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Notable Tea Room invitee looks like a highly probable case of an Internet marketer getting a newspaper story written about himself, and using his invitation to the Tea Room as a mark of notability (really). Newspaper in question is The New Indian Express with a daily circulation upwards of 300,000. For general awareness but especially to DGG for your attention as one interested in the relationship of the Indian press to subjects of their reporting. People have figured out which WP account it is, but I haven't bothered, not to discourage someone else who wants to add it to this case. – Brianhe (talk) 09:58, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Konstantin Monastyrsky[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Continued at WP:ANI

A new editor with essentially the same name as that of the article has appeared, making massive changes to the article. I have alerted them to the COI process on their talk page, to which (I assume) they replied with this. Chaheel Riens (talk) 22:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Editor officially notified via subst template. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
There are other problems with their edits, such as using Wikipedia, LinkedIn and other unreliable sites. Making unreliable claims such as Neither of these three individuals is a medical researcher or a member of “the scientific community,” and they use Wikipedia to promote their respective commercial websites by placing... Bgwhite (talk) 07:59, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

OnPath Testing[edit]

In metadata for the version of this file visible on 3 November, the uploader identified herself by real-world name. The real-world person has identified herself off-wiki as a marketing-related employee of OnPath Testing. Editor has ignored Sam Sailor's September COI notification and my recent request to disclose a connection, instead resubmitting AfC once again. Brianhe (talk) 11:23, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

DGG had previously deleted a spammy draft in September. Given they took no notice of the warnings and created another spammy draft, I've deleted it and indeffed them. SmartSE (talk) 17:47, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Al Jaffee and his brother Harry[edit]

When adding to Al Jaffee#Personal life, I mentioned the fact that his brother Harry had various mental illnesses. I sourced this to Mary-Lou Weisman Al Jaffee's Mad Life, HarperCollins, 2010. About 80-90% or so of the book seems to be an "as-told-to" biography. Modernist removed the word "mental", as part of an edit summarized as "ce". I put it back in, she removed it again, saying "disputed". On the third go-round, she went to the Talk page, revealing the dispute. She stated she knows everyone involved personally, that "the family is appalled", the book is wrong and verging on "libel", Jaffee was merely sharing an "opinion", and the like.

The strength and vehemence with which Modernist dictates terms, and the fact that it is all based on her personal knowledge, suggests COI to me.

Disclosure: I originally posted on this at ANI (closed as wrong forum), DRN (closed as unripe), and RSN (no responses).

Harry died in 1985, so there are no BLP issues regarding him. Choor monster (talk) 16:33, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this is a COI issue, or even really an RS issue. It's just common sense about whether it should be included, especially when it's of questionable relevance and based on a primary source with no expertise in diagnosing mental illness. I could flippantly tell a biographer that my brother has mental illnesses but that doesn't make it so, and it certainly shouldn't appear in an encyclopedia article about me. I agree with statements made on the article talk page by Modernist and NYB weeks ago, and this feels a bit like forum shopping. You lost the argument, let it go. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 16:56, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
By the way, it would have been courteous to notify Modernist and Newyorkbrad of this posting. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 16:58, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Spike Wilbury. If this were important to the article's subject, there would be reason for discussion. Given that this is contentious material, peripheral to the article, and without multiple sources, it's not worth this much time and trouble. Newyorkbrad explained this already at the article's talk page. JNW (talk) 20:58, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Spike: your statements about Al Jaffee are improper. You should not imply regarding a BLP that he "flippantly" told his biographer something, or suggest that he's incompetently rendering his own amateur diagnoses. According to Weisman/Jaffee, Harry was diagnosed by professional psychiatrists, and kept at psychiatric institutes, until the newly invented psychotropic drugs made it possible for Harry to go home. They gave him shock treatments, and they recommended lobotomy, which Harry's wife declined.
JNW: you are citing BLP regarding a long dead person. Irrelevant.
There has been no discussion based on WP policies/guidelines/essays. It was railroaded from the outset by claims of outside personal knowledge. NYB cited this outside personal knowledge as tipping the call.
A discussion regarding the relevance and bearing of Harry's mental illness based on WP policies/guidelines/essays and restricted to RS is fine by me. I even mentioned why I included it, how it helps make the article more encyclopedic. And I did so based on RS, not outside personal knowledge.
Regarding COI, it says here "A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connections with article topics. An edit by a COIN-declared COI editor may not meet a requirement of the COI guideline when the edit advances outside interests more than it advances the aims of Wikipedia. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality." Modernist has claimed a personal connection, and has explicitly edited for the sake of those outside interests, calling it "private". Choor monster (talk) 16:14, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that writing well is somewhere in a Wikipedia policy/guideline/essay. My main point is that the information is of very questionable relevance. Something can also be challenged as contentious regardless of whether the subject is a BLP. When it is, you should provide multiple RS not only confirming it, but also illustrating why it's relevant. You don't have consensus to include the material. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 00:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Your comment on consensus is presumptuous. Consensus is based on respecting WP policy/guideline/essay. Citing outside unverifiable knowledge is nowhere acceptable. Modernist relies entirely on that, NYB said that for marginal material, it tipped the balance. You and JNW yourself state that you agree with them. So far as I can see, we have a self-declared COI editor being defending regarding her COI edits. I see exactly one editor sticking to WP policy/guideline/essay versus several who aren't.
For example, your statement about contentious material is nonsensical, invented on the fly. Think for one moment. Why does WP:BLP even bother to require multiple RS? Wouldn't it have been simpler to just remind everyone about this alleged policy that applies to all contentious material? It would be, but since that's not policy, it's explicitly a BLP-extra. Bluntly put, you are declaring open season on an incredible volume of WP material.
As another example, Modernist invented the "only statements about his cartooning are allowed" idea, since that's the reason Jaffee is notable. Such statements meet DUE rather easily, of course, but that's about it. As it is, I stated on Talk:Al Jaffee why this minor point is relevant. It's in fact relevant to Jaffee's cartooning. From 1970-77, Al hired his brother to draw backgrounds for him, to provide for stability and routine in his life, since after Al's 1967 divorce Harry was harder to deal with. Harry's work was quality material, but Harry refused an offer from Al Feldstein to freelance directly for Mad because of his paranoia. Harry then quit when Al remarried in 1977 to a social worker, since Harry believed she was automatically in cahoots with psychiatrists, who of course wanted to give him more meds.
I would say UNDUE is respected if we stick to the one word. That's proportionately much less than Weisman/Jaffee devote to Harry's mental health.
As it is, the RS I've cited is as rock-solid as you could hope for. Al Jaffee isn't some latter day scholar piecing through an obscure paper trail, but he is telling Weisman from up close and personal. He had been there. And he had been paying for it all, and not just in cash. Choor monster (talk) 17:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Gerber Scout Reservation[edit]

Notability hasn't been established; a previous merge appear appropriate, but the apparent COI account prefers to make this a stand-alone article. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:52, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I did some cleanup, notified the editor, and also did a PROD on the page. Not sure there is enough notability for the article. It appears to be partially merged out from another article. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Edwardpatrickalva[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Continued at WP:ANI

Cross-posted from ANI but User:Edwardpatrickalva's COI editing over The Hunting Ground has been brought up in the press here. There's a number of edits to BLP articles as noted there. I don't know what to do here. Someone already added The_Hunting_Ground#Controversy but that's not sufficient to me. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:26, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

This editor arguably violated WP:BLP with pejorative edits to Jameis Winston. Based on that, I would say the appropriate action is to report this editor to WP:ANI to discuss sanctions and possibly a ban. Cla68 (talk) 05:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
This is already over at ANI, there is no need to duplicate efforts here. Tiggerjay (talk) 22:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Kabir Sadeghi[edit]

Article created by SPA, maintained by long list of anon drive-bys, and linked from a suspiciously spammy userpage. Brianhe (talk) 11:32, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Taking a quick look there are a handful of problems. The two users mentioned haven't edited in a while, and the COI username isn't active. I also found numerous links on other pages, many of which I have removed because they were dubious and appeared to be attempts at asserting notability... Looking to the recent IP edits, all of the ones from this year aren't necessarily horrible, just a bit of peacockery. With the only concerning COI edits coming from last year from 94.78.79.85 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), of which I placed a COI warning on their page. But even that IP's recent edits aren't a major concern... Overall it seems like this page just need a good copy-edit, and no administrative action are necessary. It doesn't appear to be a current problem with the last edit at all being 2 months ago, and nothing serious recently. I've tagged the page itself for peakcock and coi. Tiggerjay (talk) 23:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I also did a quick cleanup to remove some of the peacock, fixed some formatting, and trimmed the extensive use of over-citing. Tiggerjay (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Vanessa Silberman and others[edit]

editors

Something odd here, possibly a music company or promoter editing under the name of a client. Brianhe (talk) 12:28, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

William Morris IP editor or editors[edit]

editor #1
editor #2

Subsequent to being invited to look at an ANI report on the anon editor 143.223.0.1, identified as a William Morris Agency (PR) address, I looked a bit more at contribs from agency's IP addresses. The addresses appear to be static so are labeled presuming each is associated with an individual; top articles are listed here.

In summary, the top two articles edited are about themselves, so this is problematic for COI. They may also be involved in entities they represent. Also this removal of cited information on another member of the same industry. And there may be other, logged-in accounts involved. Brianhe (talk) 09:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree - definitely COI problems here. I've notified 143.223.9.249 and IMGGolf15. --Ronz (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
What's current policy on paid editing from IP addresses? WP:COIDISCLOSEPAY says "Editors who are compensated for their contributions must disclose their employer, client and affiliation with respect to any paid contributions, on their main user page, the talk page accompanying any paid contributions (articles, drafts etc), or, if the talk page can not be used, in edit summaries." That assumes the existence of a user page, which IP editors usually don't have. This has been coming up lately; see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Widefox. An unambiguous policy on paid editing from IP addresses would be helpful. Comments? John Nagle (talk) 21:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
It would be nice to get specifics about editing from ips into the policy. IPs like this are paid editors by definition, and should disclose on article talk pages even if they are strictly adhering to WP:COI's editing recommendations. --Ronz (talk) 00:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Rohinimahesh[edit]

Draft article appears to have been written by subject's son. Brianhe (talk) 13:11, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Deakin University 2[edit]

User has returned and performed the following.

The user who was attending to the previous report linked to above is currently under ArbCom block, seeking review of the above evidence and any appropriate action taken. I personally feel that we may be dealing with a single purpose account here. -- sandgemADDICT yeah? 05:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC) 06:56, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

The above report was removed without explanation or cause in this revert. I understand that I failed to provide the required UW, which will be provided. Explanation would be appreciated for further revert to my talk page. -- sandgemADDICT yeah? 06:56, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Conley family[edit]

Around Conley family
Promotional editor who started this page.

SPAs involved
1. Only edited Conley family

2. Those with other edits

3. Others

Around Roger Cameron Wood, a member of the Conley family

SPAs invovled
1. Only edited Roger Cameron Wood

2. Those with other edits

3. Others

See also the following post from Index theory taken from Talk:Roger Cameron Wood
begin quote "
Sock puppetry?

first try
we never give up
  1. Roger Cameron Wood, 6 November 2009
  2. ORCA (Internet currency platform) ("co-founder Roger Cameron Wood")
  3. Conley family (Wood "is the 4th generation of the Conley family members to attend Morehouse & Spelman")

--Index theory (talk) 23:59, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
" end quote

There is other SPAs putting Conleys into other articles that have not edited the above three articles.

What we have here is a mass of paid editing, promotion and sockpuppetry surrounding these subjects. Thoughts? duffbeerforme (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Alleged conflict of interest and attempted outing at Romanian Wikipedia[edit]

I am a Wikipedia editor at both English and Rumanian Wikipedia. I started contributing at Wikipedia at 2006. In 2007 two bureaucrats at Romanian Wikipedia accused me of conflict of interest and made attempted outing against me, based on the fact that I made contributions in articles related with Romanian Revolution. They asked my permaban at Romanian Wikipedia. I didn't make a formal complain about the attempted outing, I thought to let the community to decide if I was wrong. The community decided in my favour. Those two bureacrats were hurted in their ego by the fact that the community decided against their will and continued to harrass me. Other people who were on my side on the debate were also harrassed. Actually, almost nobody who was on my side in the conflict of 2007 is still active on Wikipedia. Myself, I stopped contributing at Wikipedia in 2008, because of harassments, however I had no formal interdiction. After that I made only short returns, almost only with comments on talk pages, not with editing articles. This year I returned at Romanian Wikipedia as I saw that an article about a leader of Romanian Revolution of 1989 was proposed for deletion. After that, harassment started again against me, I was blocked twice for "trolling" (there is a policy at Romanian Wikipedia which don't exist at English Wikipedia, based on which users can be blocked for "trolling"; I asked the deletion of this policy and this was also considered "trolling"). I was again accused of conflict of interest (keep in mind that I had almost no edits in articles' mainspace from 2008), and attempted outing was made again, in several Romanian Wikipedia pages, including my own talk page at Romanian Wikipedia. I tried to remove my attempted outing from my talk page and I was reverted, accused of "vandalising" my own talk page, and the nature of the block was changed, in order not be able to edit my own talk page. (after that, other accusations were made on my talk page but I am not able to answer). Any protest against attempted outing at Romanian Wikipedia is considered there as Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. I've asked through e-mail User:Pafsanias (who is admin at Romanian Wikipedia) to oversight the edits where refference was made about my possible real-life identity (one of them was made by him) and he took no action.

I mention:

  • I didn't write at Wikipedia an article about myself or about a family member, while there is at Romanian Wikipedia an admin who wrote articles about himself and about a family member, and nobody cares about conflict of interest.
  • I didn't write an article about a personal friend or a person with which I have common commercial interests.
  • I was accused of conflict of interest because I suposedly participated in the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and I edit Wikipedia articles on this topic. While I don't want to disclose my real-life identity, I do not deny my participation in the Romanian Revolution. There are hundreds of thousands of Romanians who participated at the Romanian Revolution, and around 20000 registered members of more than 100 associations of former revolutionaries. In my opinion, the aproach from Romanian Wikipedia, to accuse of conflict of interest persons who participated in the Romanian Revolution of 1989 if they are trying to contribute in articles related with this Revolution, while not making such accusations if supporters of the former Communist regime (overthrown by the Revolution) are trying to contribute at same articles, is hurting the NPOV.
  • In English Wikipedia my main area of interest was not Romanian Revolution, but Transnistria. I was even involved in the arbitration case about Transnistria where the arbitration comitee decided no sanction against me, but sanctions for all my opponents. It was a good decision, after that edit-warring in Transnistria-related articles stopped. However, in both English and Romanian Wikipedia I made some edits in topics related with Romanian Revolution.

I realized that the accusations of conflict of interest which were made against me at Romanian Wikipedia can follow me at English Wikipedia (recently, after a 5 year absence, I made few edits at Romanian Revolution). I want to know the community opinion, if is indeed a conflict of interest for someone who participated in a big historical event like the Romanian Revolution to edit Wikipedia articles related with Romanian Revolution? But if he is not editing such articles, but is expressing opinion in talk pages or articles for deletion debates (as it was recently my case at Romanian Wikipedia) about articles related with the Romanian Revolution?

Also, I want advice about the attempted outing which was done against me at Romanian Wikipedia. As after 2008 the number of my edits on both Romanian and English Wikipedia in the mainspace of articles is negligible (in English Wikipedia I made 13 mainspace edits in 2010 and 4 mainpace edits in 2015, no edits in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 [48]; in Romanian Wikipedia I made 1 mainspace edit in 2009, 11 mainspace edits in 2010, 1 mainspace edit in 2011, 11 mainspace edits in 2015, no edits in 2012, 2013, 2014 [49]), I do not consider myself such a danger to Wikipedia in order to justify the attempted outing, even in the eventuality that a conflict of interest exist. While in 2007 I tolerated the attempted outing in order to let the community to decide if is something wrong with my behaviour (and the decision of the community was in my favour), I don't want to accept new attempted outings today (the new attempted outings and 2 blocks for "trolling" against me at Romanian Wikipedia occured after I was against 2 nominations for admins at Romanian Wikipedia). I want oversighted the edits in Romanian Wikipedia which attempted to out me even against the will of admins at Romanian Wikipedia. I don't give specific DIFFs as it will mean to further expose the attempted outing. I will give the details to the person who is willing to oversight those edits.

I know it is not normal to bring problems of Romanian Wikipedia at English Wikipedia, but I don't know how to solve my attempted outing problem, as the Romanian Wikipedian community seems to consider WP:OUTING acceptabile and even positive. I listed 4 wikipedians involved in this case, while only I am involved in a possible conflict of interest (for which I ask the opinion of the community). User:Pafsanias and User:Accipiter Q. Gentilis are involved in attempted outing (Pafsanias also blocked me twice and Accipiter Q. Gentilis asked twice for my blocking, request accepted by Pafsanias), while User:Turbojet didn't make a clear outing, he only wrote that I am a revolutionary and he knows I will deny that I am a revolutionary, but this is wikilawyering (suggesting that my opinion against the deletion of the article about the leader of the Romanian Revolution is not a legitimate opinion; however, at the end the article was recovered). I never ever denied that I was a revolutionary in the Romanian Revolution of 1989 (I didn't confirm it either), but from Turbojet's writings I saw that he trully believes that it is a conflict of interest if I express opinions about articles related with the Romanian Revolution, this is why I listed him as an involved part. I don't list the 2 bureacrats from Romanian Wikipedia who attempted to out me in 2007 because this is an old story and they didn't repeat the attempted outing recently.-MariusM (talk) 23:47, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

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