Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 141

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User:Mooeena & Wiki:Detransition

User is openly trans on their user page. User claims detrans article isn't NPOV. User accuses other users of wrongdoing in edit logs, article talk page, and user talk pages, with exaggerated or false claims. This appears to be a case of trans-against-detrans COI. A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:30, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I am not transgender, (not sure why two separate people today have assumed that I am. Maybe because of the "...identifies as female" userbox, but I digress.) however, I believe that there is no ban on transgender people editing transgender-related articles. Feel free to ping me if you need any more information! Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 05:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
I didn't say trans folk should be "banned" from contributing to detrans topics. I'm saying there appears to be a pro-trans/anti-detrans bias. Please stop the exaggerations and hyperbole. A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:15, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Mooeena's gender is absolutely immaterial. Even if there's non-neutral editing (I have not looked at that), that does not equal a COI. This appears to be a content dispute and this is not the pplace to address that. --Randykitty (talk) 10:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
I apologize for the confusion. The problem wouldn't be a user's gender, but rather a user's gender politics. If they're gender essentialist, and the detrans community is largely gender critical, this becomes problematic when they deny the detrans community even exists, and when they accuse editors of sockery and canvassing in lieu of addressing actual content added to the article. Thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
That's still not a COI, you're at the wrong place here. --Randykitty (talk) 17:31, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Could you advise please where would be a better place? Thanks. A145GI15I95 (talk) 18:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi A145GI15I95. Have you tried discussing this on the relevant article talk page(s) per WP:DR? Content disputes (which this sort of sounds like) generally should first attempted to be resolved through article talk page discussion. If article talk page discussion has been taking place and hasn't moved closer to a resolution, then maybe WP:NPOVN or a relevant Wikiproject's talk page would be a good place to seek further assistance. You could post a Template:Please see on either to try and get others involved; just try not to run afoul of WP:CANVAS if you do. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:09, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

R.E. Lee Capital & Suparatana Bencharongkul

Expansion of speedy deletion for undisclosed paid editing

Various proposals to change the G5 criterion to address undisclosed paid editing are under discussion at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion#Proposal: Expand G5 to include undisclosed paid editing ☆ Bri (talk) 04:02, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

User:En ittomre and UBS

The user is a SPA on UBS related articles. But the most recent edits are off the bar for so large, which positing recruitment link in the article UBS. Matthew hk (talk) 15:20, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Add one more SPA. Vitaliscoffee (talk · contribs). It seem the article was maintained by various UBS staff . Matthew hk (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Jytdog's efforts against paid editing covered in Media

edit requests in last six months
other 2016-2018 edit requests
Independent media coverage

I am not sure if this is the right venue to post this but I believe it should be noticed and some improvisations be done to deal with them. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:11, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I think Jyt would say he was opposed to anti-policy paid editing, whether undeclared or disruptive. The problem with the editor covered in the article is that (it was alleged) their funding allowed them to bludgeon volunteers here until they got their clients' wishes. Wikilawyering, in short.
He often replies to nearly every single bit of pushback with walls of text arguing his case. Trying to get through even a fraction of it is exhausting, and because Wikipedia editors are unpaid, there’s little motivation to continue dealing with Sussman’s arguments. So he usually gets his way.
This should be viewed as disruptive and anti-policy as well and I'd support action against the editor if we can get solid evidence. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Would this news article by the Huffington Post constitute a source for mentioning on these articles that the subjects have sought to massage that they have done so? Lyndaship (talk) 14:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Lyndaship, we have the {{connected contributor}} and {{connected contributor (paid)}} templates for article talkpages. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Indeed Bri but my point is if a RS says that an article has been subject to massaging by the organisations employment of PR people then that is a controversy which if not deemed WP:UNDUE should be mentioned in the article. Lyndaship (talk) 16:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I have BOLDly added a section about this to the NBC News article. I don't believe it to be WP:UNDUE but of course if anyone disagrees feel free to revert what I have done there. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 18:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
There should also be an examination of whether paid editors "cold calling" individual volunteer editors to make their edit requests like [1][2][3][4][5][6] is an acceptable practice. Those were all over a ~15 minute time span by the way. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
User: Bri, This is how I typically work for a Request Edit (though I am sure there are exceptions): 1) Post a requested edit to Talk; 2) if no response, add the Request Edit template (this is usually the end point of most requests); 3) if no response, or the reviewing editor has stopped mid-review, post a request on the Talk page for a related project; 4) If no response, ask several editors individually in the same project, focusing on those with abundant user contributions. I could go other ways if it's preferred - e.g. Teahouse, Help. Or escalate anything stalled to an RfC. There used to be policy language, which I can no longer find, that said editors having trouble getting participation on a Talk should invite other editors from that article, or other editors from related articles. I could also do that.BC1278 (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2019 (UTC)BC1278
I think every single page he has requested edits to should be scrutinized for NPOV violations resulting from his edit requests (though, to his credit, he may have stopped some NPOV violations too). Qzekrom 💬 theythem 16:21, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
That sounds like a reasonable, though doubtless time-consuming, course of action. XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
For example, the article quotes this paragraph that he proposed adding to NBC News:

Today Show host Matt Lauer was fired in November 2017, about 36 hours after a formal sexual misconduct complaint was lodged against him. Some said the issue was well-handled because Lauer was fired swiftly and management began an organization-wide discussion of sexual harassment, but others were critical of NBC for not knowing about Lauer’s alleged behavior. [NBC News' current management denied knowledge of any sexual misconduct by Lauer prior to the formal November 2017 allegations and rumored media investigations about his behavior in the immediate days prior.]

This paragraph should not have been accepted as written (I don't know if it was) because it contained weasel words (boldface added). Additionally, Media Matters claims that NBC ignored warning signs; they were not simply unaware of the allegations against him. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 16:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Qzekrom, no it was not. And it's a great example of how misleading the author of the HuffPo article is. There were only about 10 words on the Matt Lauer incident in the NBC News article and I was the one who suggested it deserved its own, extended paragraph, even though it was not flattering to NBC News. I proposed language for review, and the editor who wrote the same section for the main Matt Lauer article responded with alternate language, which had already been negotiated extensively at the Lauer article. I said that it was well-done, as did someone else. This was the language the reviewing editor used in the article, not my proposal. See Talk:NBC_News#Expanded_info_on_Matt_Lauer and section above it. The HuffPo author doesn't appreciate the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, and that the review process is there precisely to let uninvolved editors make the final calls. She's a Gawker-alum interested in creating sensationalism around high-profile media or politics, not a traditional reporter, who would be expected to follow the example from a NPOV to inform the reader of the Wikipedia outcome. See HuffPost Reporter ‘Sorry’ for Trolling Ailing John McCain’s Family on ‘Upcoming Tax-Free Inheritance’BC1278 (talk) 19:00, 15 March 2019 (UTC)BC1278
The article omitted the last sentence of your proposal, which I added back in brackets. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 20:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi. BC1278 here. Overwhelmingly, my Request Edits are made through a Request Edit flag. The format is usually very concise, as suggested by User: Spintendo, a frequent reviewer to the Request Edit queue: e.g. Talk:Pace_University#Request_Edit, Talk:Jonathan_Swan#Request_Edits. The "wall of text" complaint the author of the HuffPo column picked up on happened in just a couple of articles during extended discussions about controversial issues with multiple RfCs. On these occasions, the consensus decisions ultimately reached by independent editors were not remotely like my original proposed edits, as the HuffPost author falsely implies. Instead, independent editors did their job and came to their own conclusions. One outcome of participating in a couple of these very contentious discussions was a chat last year with a very experienced Wikipedia admin who advised me that they had learned over the years there's very little advantage in getting involved in debates after you've made your point once - you're not going to convince people to change their minds anyway. I have tried to adopt his style since. The HuffPost column is focused on a few high-profile media-related Wikipedia articles which involved public controversies (the author's beat), rather than how I conduct myself on Wikipedia in general. It is also rife with mistakes and misleading statements too numerous to explain here. ThanksBC1278 (talk) 18:24, 15 March 2019 (UTC)BC1278
Which couple of articles, BC1278? – I'd be interested to take a look. Meanwhile, anyone interested in walls of text from paid editors might like to visit Talk:Full Sail University; it gives new meaning to "respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
The author mentions and links to Talk:Noah_Oppenheim, which is the big one. To be honest, looking at it again, I think "wall of text" is less a problem than the fact that I responded more than once after making my point. I think these were the first two RfCs I was involved in.BC1278 (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2019 (UTC)BC1278.
Replying to Justlettersandnumbers' comment. I did a quick analysis on Talk:Full Sail University for 2019. Here are the usernames and talkpage delta (in bytes):
  1. Inkian Jason 6483 (declared/paid editor, Beutler Ink)
  2. Volunteer "P" 2331
  3. ‎Volunteer "Z" 1909
  4. ‎Volunteer "J" 1266
  5. ‎Volunteer "D" 721
  6. ‎Volunteer "T" 192
Does this indicate pestering/disruption? I can't say definitively because we don't have a working definition. A 1:1 ratio of a single paid-editor to the rest of the editing community over a two-month period does seem like it would pass some kind of test, though. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:45, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Whenever a conversation is held which mentions different entities, a listener will construct in their minds a tally sheet of each entity mentioned, in order to spatially keep track of the conversation. If I tell you about a talk I had with a neighbor about her daughter, the tally sheet in your mind would make mental representations of 3 different people. If any boundaries are crossed between the entities then misunderstandings result. What concerns me here is the disclosure made by BC on the Swan talk page. "I am an experienced Wikipedia editor but have a WP: COI here as a paid consultant to Axios, the employer of the article's subject." That phrasing creates the following tally sheet of entities - entities which were not always different people:
WP:DCOI states "If you are being paid for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must declare who is paying you, who the client is, and any other relevant role or relationship." In the case of requests on the Swan talk page, the COI editor's reliance on being indirectly forthright is apparant in two of the mental representations envisaged by the editors following along with the conversation (shown above). It would be intellectually dishonest to state that the relevant roles here were not obfuscated by this type of disclosure. This artifice of constructing two different entities — the one in the article and the one who requests edits to the article — brings to mind, for lack of a better example, Professor Marvel. I understand the need for privacy, and it is unfortunate that in this case their access to that privacy appears to have been taken out of their hands by HuffPo. They are, in essense, back at square one, no worse for wear. Surely they can see now the power in simply owning their editorial intent, continuing to make reasonable requests while letting the reviews fall where they may, and dispensing with the need for a curtain in their disclosures.  Spintendo  02:08, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
User: Spintendo I don't follow and I'd like to. Axios sent me money to work on the Wikipedia article about one of their employees, Swan. Do you think that's not clear from the public COI disclosure I made? There's an additional one in the templated COI box up top, with the language programmed in: "BC1278 (talk · contribs) has been paid by Axios on behalf of Jonathan Swann. Their editing has included contributions to this article." In my disclosures on each new section, I could have just said Axios paid me and not mentioned the relationship between Axios and Swan in the disclosure. It's apparent from the article. Are you after more simplicity? What's the take away recommendation for me?BC1278 (talk) 03:24, 16 March 2019 (UTC)BC1278

There is an article on BC1278 in todays Slashdot: [7]. It states in the article:

Sussman's main strategy for convincing editors to make the changes his clients want is to cite as many tangentially related rules as possible (he is, after all, a lawyer). When that doesn't work, though, his refusal to ever back down usually will. He often replies to nearly every single bit of pushback with walls of text arguing his case. Trying to get through even a fraction of it is exhausting, and because Wikipedia editors are unpaid, there's little motivation to continue dealing with Sussman's arguments. So he usually gets his way. Copyright Slashdot.

scope_creepTalk 11:57, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

That's actually Slashdot quoting Spin quoting Huffington Post. - Bilby (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm honestly not sure what the implication of that was supposed to be. Like, the only way that accusation even makes sense to me is if we had a policy of tying a random editor to a chair and saying he won't be freed until he either complies with an edit request or provides a properly footnoted rebuttal. But I'm pretty sure we stopped doing that in 2008. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:45, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Mary Kay Letourneau

Need some opinions on what to do about an editor known as Smmary, who says she is Mary Kay Letourneau, editing the Mary Kay Letourneau article and wanting things in the article changed if she is not to edit it. See this and what Smmary stated below it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:11, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Smmary was asked 8 years ago by SarekOfVulcan to verify their identity with OTRS, to which, they gave this long reply where they stated, among other things, "I only have a little time each week work [sic] on this...but I will keep on it" and "I will be learning." I don't know if OTRS was ever contacted by Smmary about this, but if that is the only mechanism which exists for identification, then it would seem prudent for them to do so.  Spintendo  10:51, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, Spintendo. I'll see if anyone watching Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest has any interest in weighing in on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
As seen here, Smmary is going on about why the Los Angeles Times isn't a reliable source, and on with other thoughts about what reliable sources are. And the posts are so lengthy. I don't know where to begin, and, because Smmary is a newbie, it will take a lot of time to get Smmary to understand how things work here. The lengthy replies are far too lengthy for me to patiently dissect. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Will see if the WP:BLP noticeboard will weigh in on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Ticket:2007111510019599 is relevant, but is not sufficient to verify identity. GMGtalk 18:58, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
  • So if some anon someone's entire edit history had been to whitewash one single article, and they exhibited such poor understanding as to label the LA Times as a non reliable source, wouldn't we be indeffing out of hand for NOTHERE? So why should we be doing different because the anon has made a sketchy claim to be the subject of the article? John from Idegon (talk) 19:26, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I hope the answer is that this editor can be treated with respect and understanding. Also, the editor is not whitewashing. Many of the editor's changes are substantiated by additional NPOV-secondary sourcing. Tabloid journalism permeates the subject's story, but mustn't also shape this BLP. I continue helping this editor and have found only one divergence from NPOV-secondary, which I can as easily attribute to the salicious and near-tabloid status of People magazine as to any deception on the editor's part. While single-issue with COI, the editor has improved this BLP, and has grown more aware of NPOV-Secondary dynamics. Understand how NPOV-Primary tends to call out to those whose lives hinged on those sources, even as the tabloid press of so-called journalists twisted salicious details beyond recognition. It's enough to naturally attract ya to Wikipedia. This editor asserts we need to treat the sourcing of tabloid sensations among the most skeptically, and I agree. Mcfnord (talk) 16:01, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Mcfnord, the editor was adding material based on their own account of what happened, and continues to try and do that. We can see that the editor is also challenging sources like Los Angeles Times. You don't seem to be using the WP:NPOV policy accurately. Being neutral on Wikipedia does not mean what being neutral means in common discourse. It does not mean, for example, that we should present the matter as simply some forbidden love affair when the vast majority of sources do not. Regarding this and this, you actually seem to think it's a good idea to use that Trutv.com "Mary Kay Letourneau: The Romance That was a Crime" source, including to state that Fualaau initiated and enjoyed the sex. First, some sources disagree on whether or not he initiated the sex. Second, this shows a lack of understanding of child sexual abuse and statutory rape. A child or other underage minor "initiating the sex" doesn't excuse the adult's actions or commonly make the matter any less damaging to the child or other underage minor, especially in the case of a very young child who might be "initiating the sex" because he or she was sexually abused already or saw a sexual act in person, on television, or the Internet. It is irrelevant in reporting on child sexual abuse unless the source is talking about those previously exposed matters, or how a child thinks that the sexual activity is okay because they found it pleasurable, or how the child might feel guilty about it (as a child, or once they are a teenager or adult) because they found it pleasurable. Yes, it's common for boys to think of the sexual activity with an adult woman as a having been a positive experience, but there are societal reasons for that (in addition to perhaps biological reasons) and it doesn't make the matter any less child sexual abuse or statutory rape. It doesn't automatically mean that the boy will not have psychological issues when older as a result of the sexual activity. And as for tabloid journalism, it was not permeating the Mary Kay Letourneau article at all. If anything, the "Mary Kay Letourneau: The Romance That was a Crime" source is akin to tabloid journalism. And as for People magazine? We already had a big RfC on that. Consensus was that it is not a tabloid source.
I understand what John from Idegon means. SlimVirgin, you have worked a lot on the WP:COI guideline and COI issues. Do you have any opinion on this? JzG, you tend to be strict on BLP matters. Any ideas on how to handle this? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
And, given the warnings you received on your talk page from Materialscientist and BullRangifer not that long ago about BLP articles, I'm not convinced that you know what is appropriate for BLP articles. Well, except for "no tabloid journalism." And I see that Doug Weller needed to make you aware of discretionary sanctions in the case of certain BLPs. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:13, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
  • The obvious thing is to warn Smmary that if she edits the article again she will be blocked. She can request changes via Talk, but if the requests become disruptive that also can lead to blocking. Guy (Help!) 08:06, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I just examined the last revert by Flyer22 of Smmary's last change. I was able to substantiate every change made by Smmary, and have added strong citations for each. In response to Flyer22: TruTV was then called Court TV, and my review did not reveal it to be unreliable based on its WP article, but maybe you can teach me the best way to make such an appraisal. This couple has maintained over all sources and over two decades that no crime occurred, which is noteworthy. The two citations I provide to conclude that the couple was not found having sex in the car by police by the Washington Post and Associated Press go into much greater detail than contrary claims found in People and elsewhere. In summary, this COI contributed verifiable facts in place of misleading nonsense that you reverted back to. I understand the risk of a COI, and the rules of BLP. I'm happy to collaborate with Smmary, as she has requested explicitly over 8 years of messages on her talk page. Please revert any failures on my part to adhere to the high standards of Wikipedia with my apologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcfnord (talk • contribs) 20:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
JzG, thanks. But I've also taken issue with a bit of Mcfnord's editing. Mcfnord, Smmary's latest changes being able to be substantiated does not negate her previous problematic edits. Above, you stated you were "able to substantiate every change made by Smmary, and have added strong citations for each." If we look at this revert by John from Idegon, we see that you added this products.kitsapsun.com source, which is a part of the USA Today network and seems to be reporting on an Associated Press article. You used it, in part, because you stated, "Two highly credible sources dispute the claim in some sources that they were found engaged in sex." The products.kitsapsun.com. source shows that David Gehrke, LeTourneau's attorney, said the two were clothed and merely talking. That's his claim. And this The Washington Post source that you used states, "The next witness, Detective Dane Bean, said the young man told him that there had been no sexual contact, but he and LeTourneau had kissed frequently and that he had touched her on the thigh. The two were found fully clothed." First, kissing can be sexual, as noted in the Kissing article. Second, that is a witness reporting on Fualaau's claim. Of course, if Fualaau was trying to protect Letourneau, he would state that. Most importantly, per WP:Due weight, two sources do not trump what the literature generally states. Per WP:Due weight, we give most of our weight to what the literature mostly or generally states. We do not give false balance. We don't try to "balance" out every view or aspect with an opposing view or aspect, as if the article is a trial we are involved in with rebuttals for every piece. Like WP:Verifiability states, "If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight." But not everything is due for inclusion. Per WP:Due weight, minority views are not automatically included. And Fualaau's claim is not a WP:Reliable source; it's just his claim. If reliable sources generally state, or at least often state, that Letourneau was caught "having sex with Fualaau in a car," then we go with that unless the report was proven as false. We certainly don't remove the statement that "Letourneau was caught having sex with Fualaau in a car," like you did. That is what is misleading nonsense. This Chicago Tribune source clearly states that "she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car." This Washington Post source clearly states that "she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car." This products.kitsapsun.com source, reporting on an Associated Press report, clearly states that "she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car." It's not just People magazine stating it. The most we might add as a counter report is that Fualaau, or both Letourneau and Fualaau, stated that they didn't have sex while in the car.
You argued that "this couple has maintained over all sources and over two decades that no crime occurred, which is noteworthy." What? If you are stating that they are claiming that there was no sexual activity between them, all the evidence points to sexual activity having occurred between them. If you are stating that they do not view the sexual activity as a crime, their view contrasts what the law deemed. It was a crime. If one is talking about the "in the car" matter, it was a violation either way. And the products.kitsapsun.com source notes that she "pleaded guilty last August to two counts of second-degree child rape." Their view that it wasn't a crime because they were "in love" could go in the "Release from prison and marriage to Fualaau" section if they claim that, but that section already has Fualaau's view that he's not a victim, which, again, is common for boys involved in statutory rape cases where the perpetrator is an adult woman to state. And that section states that "Letourneau considered her relationship with Fualaau to be 'eternal and endless'." As for TruTV, I am familiar with TruTV. That it is reliable for some things does change the fact that it is not reliable for everything, especially when the author of the source is taking a "romance that was a crime" viewpoint, which is a viewpoint the author likely wouldn't have if it was an adult male teacher with a 13-year-old girl.
Oh, and now we have this suspicious new account -- AlienStarChild (talk · contribs) -- editing the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:24, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
There are clearly points on which we disagree, but is there a great reason to proceed within this Noteboard, rather than on the Talk page, as User:John from Idegon directed? I'm unrelated to the subject and not a COI. These are my edits based on my research. What's the compelling COI issue? Mcfnord (talk) 02:32, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Flyer22 Reborn has a WP:ACTUALCOI that prevents them from collaborating with verified user Smmary. Flyer22 Reborn said, "If an editor even discloses that they are a pedophile... they will be blocked and/or banned." Their attempt to collaborate with Smmary was impolite and unwelcoming. Flyer22 also said here, "The lengthy replies are far too lengthy for me to patiently dissect," so we know Flyer22 interacts with Smmary without a full consideration of what has been said in the discussion.
Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity. A WP:ACTUALCOI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, [All pedophile editors should be banned from Wikipedia] and is in a position where the judgment must be exercised [an editor with a child rape conviction needs collaborators to examine claims on the article about the editor]. The biographies of living persons policy says: "[A]n editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual – whether on- or off-wiki – or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest." If you say the person can't speak on Wikipedia, that sounds like an avowed rivalry to me. Smmary has stated many times that she wishes to collaborate with more experienced editors as a COI resource, which is consistent with guidelines governing this kind of COI scenario. Mcfnord (talk) 07:58, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
I have no COI with regard to this matter. You can report me as having a COI as much as you want to, and no one will do anything about it. The only one behaving like they have COI on this matter is you, which is why John from Idegon felt passionate enough to make this comment. And like I stated at that talk page, Letourneau technically is not a pedophile. But if Mcfnord hates our WP:Child protection policy about blocking and/or banning self-admitted pedophiles, Mcfnord can go to that talk page and complain and see what happens. I disagree that I was impolite and unwelcoming to Smmary. And, no, I am under no obligation to be sweet to someone convicted of child rape or statutory rape. I will state that if Mcfnord keeps arguing and editing the way he's been editing with regard to Smmary/Letourneau, he can expect to eventually be taken to WP:ANI. He can also go ahead and take me to WP:ANI on this and see what happens. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:39, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

IP address registered to the National Credit Union Administration

The user 216.69.120.2[8]'s address is registered to the National Credit Union Administration. Not so uncoincidentally, this user has been adding extreme amounts of self-sourced, self-serving puffery to the page of J. Mark McWatters who happens to be... Board Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:50, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

The editor, PublikTrust, also appears to have a COI.[9] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:04, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
This declaration also indicates that the user operated multiple accounts. They claim to be the article creator, yet the edit history shows that to be AW at PACA. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 21:53, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

indexsciences.com

This is just a heads up, I have no idea how to identify this company, but perhaps somebody here has ideas. Today I received the following email, from editor@indexsciences.com, at my personal (real life) email. There is no website at this address and, unsurprisingly, a WHOIS search does not offer any information about who is behind this site. The text of the email is copied here (with my name removed):

Dear Dr.XXXXXX,

Have you ever wondered of having a Wikipedia page for yourself or your company? We can help you get a Wikipedia page for yourself or your brand.

Usually Wikipedia only accepts pages on celebrities and famous companies, if you are looking to get one for your self, we can help you with that. Having a page for yourself in Wikipedia, brings you more credibility and makes you more famous.

We have been editing on Wikipedia for 7+ years and We've created tons of pages for companies, people, brands, products, and of course for academic purposes as well.

We own multiple accounts on Wikipedia with page curation and new page reviewer rights, so i can create and moderate pages with almost zero risk of another mod taking it down.

There are few wikipedia editors who are willing to create a page for money, and most of them are scared to offer this service directly, so they do it through their trusted sellers who markup the price to $1500 - $2500 per page.

Because you're buying directly from an experienced wikipedia editor and mod, you'll get your page a lot cheaper, faster and with more reliability.

Let me know if you are interested

Regards

Patricia M. Carnes

I'm apparently not the only one, this person already got two such emails. The email contains a few typos and slightly unusual grammar, and unusually refers to "mods" when they mean editors or admins --Randykitty (talk) 12:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

We are aware of similar emails as well and we're also doing what we can to look into it, but as you point out, there is not much information seemingly available. Mkdw talk 18:17, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
A Wikipedia fellow of mine also got such mail. In case anyone wants to do some investigations, I'm happy to share. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 15:38, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
You can send these to OTRS. We're making a collection of them. Edit: Just noticed DerHexer is a member - there is a queue under checkusers. Someguy1221 (talk) 16:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

RadiologyCafe

Chrisgdclarke has created an article about RadiologyCafe and has stated on his user page that he is the founder and editor of the site. While it seems clear that he has a COI with repsect to the webiste, himself, and anything written about either on Wikipedia, I'm not so sure whether this extends to a WP:FCOI. Is the found of a website who tries to create or add content to Wikipedia about the said website subject to WP:PAID? Personally, I think creating and Wikpedia article about ones "business" probably falls under paid even though company owner is probably not literally paying themselves to do so, but I'm interested in hearing what others think. Whether the article has other issues like Wikipedia:Notability (web), WP:NOTPROMOTION, etc. are probably things which should be discussed on another noticeboard; I'm just asking about the nature of the COI Chrisgdclarke has with respect to the article. For reference, comments about this have also been made at Talk:RadiologyCafe#Possible paid editing and User talk:Chrisgdclarke#Conflict of interest editing. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi wikipedia team. I wrote most of the article along with a trainee colleague. I am pretty new to wikipedia so I hope this is the correct place to respond. I founded RadiologyCafe and wrote some of the wikipedia article, mainly because it was easy for me to get the facts. The website is a hobby of mine as I am a full time Radiologist. Pretty much every trainee I've spoken to has used this site during their radiology training and Radiology Cafe is a registered trademark in the UK. It is a free educational site. I will not add anything further as I'm sure trainees will edit the page to update and correct it. Apologies that it was uploaded to the incorrect place as I tried to follow the guidelines! --Chrisgdclarke (talk) 07:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi Chrisgdclarke. Thank you for clarifying your connection to the website. I'm not sure, however, by what you mean by "trainee". If a "trainee" is also someone connected to the website (i.e. an "employee"/"intern" of some kind working with you to maintain the website), then such a person would most likely have the same COI issue(s) as you do with the subject matter and really shouldn't be directly editing the article at all. They should instead follow the guidelines given in Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide and use the article's talk page to request changes be made if necessary.
This next part of my comment goes beyond any COI issues being discussed here at COIN, but you might want to take a close look at WP:NOT because it sounds like you may misunderstand the purpose of a Wikipedia article. The article has already been nominated for deletion by another editor at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RadiologyCafe because there are concerns about it's suitablity for Wikipedia. You may comment there in response to these concerns, but before you do so you probably should take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Contributing to AfD discussions to get idea as to how to participate in such a discussion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:11, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Marchjuly. Sorry, by trainee I mean a doctor training in clinical radiology in the UK - https://www.rcr.ac.uk/clinical-radiology/specialty-training . They are unconnected to the website. I will look at the Articles for deletion article and see if I can participate in the discussion. In hindsight I should have probably left the trainees to make this page, although I did declare a COI. Chrisgdclarke (talk) 08:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
MarchjulyFurther to above comment, happy for page to be deleted now if not appropriate for Wikipedia at present. I realise I submitted it to the wrong group and will not do this in future. Chrisgdclarke (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
@Chrisgdclarke: The article is being discussed at AfD. What happens to it will be determined through whatever consensus is established there. You may, however, request that the article be deleted by simply adding a post to the discussion. Just state you are the creator and are requesting that it be deleted per WP:G7. Unless anyone objects to this request, the administrator reviewing the discussion should see no problem is deleting the article per your request. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Elizabeth Blake-Thomas

It appears that this film director has hired two Wikipedia editors to compose articles on her, both of which are promotionally written. This is not sockpuppetry. The two drafts are written by two different people with the same agenda (to publicize their employer). Robert McClenon (talk) 02:05, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Dev at CAIS33 and Christian Alliance International School

The user was renamed from User:Christian Alliance International School. Despite now the username was renamed, it still did not change the fact that he had COI with the school. BTW, i was a member of the affiliated church which it somehow it was COI but not that CPO defined in WP:COI and WP:PAID guideline. Matthew hk (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I had to inspect the page history to figure out who remove it, but it seem the "Controversies" section of the article was either censored or remove rightfully due to WP:UNDUE. Matthew hk (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Brian Frosh

This was declined[10] at protection requests with a suggestion that I bring it here. Article has a long history of promotional edits. OliverC200 is a Frosh WP:SPA. The account was unblocked [11] with a request that they learn about WP:COI. BBcomm is included as another WP:SPA for the page.Adoring nanny (talk) 11:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC) I've also notified two ip addresses that were adding lenghty promotional material to the article. [12] [13]. There is a lot more if you want to go further back. I will do so on request. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

The connected contributors have continued to contribute in a manner inconsistent with WP:COI.Adoring nanny (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Don Felder

User has been editing Don Felder, which I had reverted a couple times, when I went to the user talk page to apply a warning I found that this is Don Felder, identity verified via OTRS (VRTS ticket # 2018122110007246 and VRTS ticket # 2018122110006891) (I do have access to OTRS but rather not comment on the tickets, I'll leave that to someone else). User has a COI warning on talk. This is my first COIN report, sorry if anything is incorrect. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:43, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

  • I've posted on the article talk page here.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Yes, this user has a clear conflict of interest. No, the user has not done anything terribly wrong. Binksternet (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
User:Mattwcoh is also violating the terms of use by editing with a paid conflict of interest without proper disclosure. They mentioned on Wikimedia Commons and on Talk:Hotel California that they are part of the subject's "management team" but have not acknowledged their conflict of interest on their user page, in edit summaries, or on talk pages of the articles they have edited. —LX (talk, contribs) 00:38, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

PR madness at Hair Peace Salon

Hair Peace Salon has been edited almost single-handedly by this particular user, who added over 300 (!) references to this article about a music band from Belarus. They have been warned several times about COI policies, but continued their unproductive edits anyway. I think it is time to ban this user from further editing Hair Peace Salon. The article itself needs a throughout cleanup. --Bbarmadillo (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

As anyone can witness, the most recent edits were made are just corrections of already used links, eg. adding archive urls data to prevent further allegations on a weak subject's notability flagged red at the end of 2018 that has to be verified down the line. The notion to not add further sources was put in the history log by Masumrezarock100 on 21 February, 2019, so I just followed it. Given the fact that the WikiProject Belarus members have not been much contributed to the article widely, so it goes. As always anyone is welcomed to contribute to, anyway!
Given the history of Bbarmadillo edits across all Wikimedia projects (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth?target=Bbarmadillo), it is safe to say that this user has almost none knowledges regardless the Russian and the Belarusian languages to properly evaluate and use sources in them that are all over here, contribute in any significant way to two Belarusian Wikipedias and the Russian one, and such. So it is worth to point out to the public now that this user has made recent major cuts into the article about 2+ months ago that has not been explained by him yet, while the question about that has been rightfully raised by me on the Talk page: in addition to unexplained deletion of high profile sources backed up by several members in the deletion discussion like Tuzin.fm, European Radio for Belarus ones and more, the band label itself (West Records) and the band site (hairpiecesalon.com) ones were removed too, while the sources of the same kind are acceptable and actively used, for example in articles like Nickelback, Motörhead (the site of their label Roadrunner Records, corresponded bands' websites: nickelback.com, imotorhead.com). Are not double standards in action here? ¯\_(°ヮ°)_/¯
P.S. Even for those who cannot read in Belarusian, you can just switch language of the page to it and see the actual well-elaborated article about the band in its native language based on 369 refs that has none complaints at all: https://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_Peace_Salon (◕‿◕✿) -- Pr12402 | March 23, 2019
@Pr12402: Thank you for sharing your point of view. Please explain how you are connected to the subject of the article. Do you have a professional connection with the band? I am asking because you made 1046 edits to the above mentioned Belarussian version of the article and 991 (or 95.6%) of all the edits to the English one. -- Bbarmadillo (talk) 06:30, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Global Schools Foundation

The two versions of the draft are the same. Account was blocked for promotional advertising, and has returned legally as an individual account, but has not made a declaration. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Spam deleted, User:All10yards blocked as well. – Athaenara ✉ 21:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
User All10yards later unblocked, apparently there's some hope for this editor. – Athaenara ✉ 18:11, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Steven Strauss

First, I am very new at wikipedia, and sort of blundered into this, so apologies if I have misunderstood something. Though I am finding it a useful exercise in understanding how Wikipedia works.


While Avaya1 has accused several other Wikipedians (including me) of a conflict, I am concerned he has a non-disclosed conflict, or for some reason is unwilling to take a neutral point of view in editing this biography of a living person.


On the page Steven Strauss Avaya1 basically deleted all the secondary sources from the page (e.g., interviews/citations/quotes about Strauss on CNN, CNBC, Canadian Broadcasting, NY Times, etc), if you look at his original deletions he claimed two things:

  1. that these secondary sources were non-encyclopedia/peacockery
  2. that the editors who created them was Strauss, or worked for Strauss, or was in some way connected to Strauss.

I think this is what the page looked like before Avay1 edited it: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steven_Strauss&oldid=884476592
I did not revert what Avaya1 did, but tried to make a good faith effort at editing the page to add back what appeared to me to be reliable secondar sources. I explained myself at length on the Talk page.

Avaya1 keeps deleting (making no effort to edit) what seems to me to be normal wikitype material, Avaya1 keeps adding to the page things which (as far as I can tell) are either:

  • not sourced (e.g., Avaya1 keeps claiming Strauss worked at McKinsey for 5 years, I see evidence Strauss was at McKinsey, but no source for the 5 year claim) ,
  • poorly sourced/not supported or not particularly notable. For example, while Avaya1 deleted all the examples where Strauss was cited by legitimate reliable sources Avaya1 keeps adding a section about Strauss and Israel.
    • I have looked at the secondary source, Strauss is known for his work in economic development, US public policy and technology (that is what sources like CNBC mention him for), I can find no secondary source on the page or earlier versions of the page that thinks Strauss's views on anti-semitism, Israel, etc are notable. Also, I am not sure Avaya1's summary of Strauss's views on Israel are a good faith summary of the point Strauss was making.
  • other edits seem to indicate a personal knowledge of Strauss. For example, Avaya1 keeps deleting that Strauss is an academic. According to reliable sources (see the Talk page for Strauss I spelled this out) Strauss has a PhD from Yale, was a Fellow at Harvard, was a faculty member at Harvard, and has been a visting faculty member with named chair at Princeton since 2014. So, unless Avaya1 has some personal knowledge of Strauss I am not sure why he keeps insisting Strauss is not an academic.


I have made extensive remarks on the Talk page, Avaya1 has refused to discuss any of his changes saying I am a sock puppet or have a COI issue He just keeps deleting the normal secondary sources and adds back thinly sourced/non-notable material. Again, I am very new at Wiki so maybe this is all my fault.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I.new.around.here (talk) 18:36, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

What is your relationship to User:NYC.Geek? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 18:45, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Akash.ka01

I stumbled accross the page Ashima Sharma while conducting NPP and when I first saw it, it was an overly promotional mess (but unlikley to be deleted under G11 IMO). I cut down more than 10K bytes of just blogs reporting on celebrities wearing her designs, a clear name dropping scenario, and just pure unsourced fluff. Upon further investigation, many of Akash.ka01's articles have been deleted via either AFD or PROD and they have been repeatedly asked to disclose any paid editing (see Draft talk:Sonal Monteiro).

Where Swt.sarika0123 comes into play is that they made one edit (to create Ashima Sharma and then Akash.ka01 came by and moved it to mainspace. Seems a bit odd there. A major problem here is that a lot of this content was copied directly from her blog which has a very well state copyright policy. This needs to be removed from revision history immediately.

As SamHolt6 has been suspicious this as well, I will see if they have anything to add. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:39, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. This looks a clear case of paid editing to me. Coderzombie (talk) 06:45, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

checkuser verifies socking. both blocked. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I have opened up Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Akash.ka01 becuae I think I stumbled upon another sock. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 21:56, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Jonathan Mitchell (writer)

Early in January 2016, the user admitted to a COI. However since that time he has continued to edit and update the article - without being restrained. Now there has been an admission by the subject of the article on his blog here, saying "Next, people repeatedly vandalized and defaced my Wikipedia page. Because of this [redacted], who maintains my page, inquired with Wikipedia for giving my page their highest level of protection possible which they did." This is now to the level of a violation of WP:OWN and the user concerned must be banned from editing the page. The user has most recently nominated the page for a good article continuing his lack of NPOV which I have previously complained about elsewhere on WP. I ask that action be taken. I have redacted the user's name which was used in the link but this can't be avoided on this occasion when looking at said link off Wiki. The fact that the user has already admitted to COI should prevent any "outing" concerns. 2001:8003:5901:B400:70A6:8574:2244:C4D3 (talk) 22:01, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Considering the many attempts that you have made to delete the article, it is reasonable, 2001:8003:5901:B400:70A6:8574:2244:C4D3, that I ask if you have yourself any kind of Conflict of Interest. DGG ( talk ) 06:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
@DGG: No. I have no relationship with him that comes under COI. (I hate my IP moving but I have to put up with it) 2001:8003:5901:B400:D149:79D4:9C09:FA93 (talk) 09:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
@DGG: They have no online connection but the IP address is strongly opposed to his views on autism, so he always attacks Mitchell. Not sure how I can prove it, other than the fact that all the IPs are coming from the same region of Australia. This includes the IPs in Talk:Jonathan_Mitchell_(writer)#Conflict_of_Interest. Ylevental (talk) 13:01, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
My issue is with your lack of NPOV and this page is just an example on the back of your COI. 2001:8003:5901:B400:20D3:BB84:40A:303E (talk) 00:41, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Ylevental you offered to add a declaration of your COI on your user page in this discussion and yet you haven't done that and continue to edit the article. The fact the article subject has apparently referred to you as the person who is maintaining their Wikipedia page is really troubling. Is this person paying you to do this? --valereee (talk) 11:03, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I declared it back in 2016, when I didn't know him as well. I got to know him much better since then, and I guess I should have not directly edited the article as much. But no, I promise he is not paying me to edit the article. Ylevental (talk) 12:56, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Ylevental, thank you, and for disclosing on the article talk page. If you'll make edit requests on the article talk page instead of editing directly, I'll keep it on my watch list. --valereee (talk) 14:17, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Valereee, Okay, I just made some edit requests on the talk page. Ylevental (talk) 19:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

OPI Products

An IP editor attempted to clean promotion out of the article and Madisonlucchino restored it displaying ownership.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

We need to hear more about this "important assignment".
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

The important assignment that you have mentioned is the OPI products Wikipedia page that I worked tirelessly on to edit for a grade a class of mine. Basically I am a senior in high school taking a college English class (ENC 1102) through St. Johns River State College and for this class I have to frequently write essays. My latest essay was a Wikipedia editing assignment. For the essay (which weighs 40% of my grade) I had to do two things. One was I had to edit/ contribute at least 250 words on any Wikipedia article. Then for the second part of the assignment I had to write a 500-1000 word memo that explains what was wrong with the article and what exactly I did. The memo portion was to be turned in to my teacher to be graded. For this assignment I decided to edit OPI Products as I noticed there was information to be added. You see this was due on March 25, 2019 and to receive some credit my edits have to be online/ live when my teacher goes to check to see if I actually completed the assignment. I am working tremendously hard on this as I strive to end my high school grades and start my college grades on a high note. Pretty much this whole misunderstanding is over my English assignment. I again have no conflict of interest with the company in any way. I just added factual information as I saw necessary to that specific article. All of this is to hopefully obtain an exceptional grade in my dual enrollment English class. If you need any further proof that this is just an educational assignment I am more than willing to receive another rubric from my teacher tomorrow and upload it if that is even possible. I hope this predicament ends smoothly and I am sorry that I have caused all this trouble.Madisonlucchino (talk) 02:17, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  • I can WP:AGF and take that explanation at face value, but it doesn't make the content encyclopedic. The edits are, at heart, promotional, and sourced from the company's website. The same thing occurred with the edits at Carmex, which I also reverted [14]. Please explain to your teacher that though you've made some effort toward fulfilling your assignment, we can't accept what are essentially public relations blurbs on behalf of company's products. What I suspect, Berean Hunter, is that we are living at a time when a lot of people can not discern between factual scholarship and cheap advertising copy. That's grist for a broader and deeper discussion on how our culture got where it is. 2601:188:180:1481:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
  • By the way, I explained the problem here [15], with no apparent effect. 2601:188:180:1481:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:22, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
  • For the purposes of your assignment Madisonlucchino, you may show your instructor this version of the Carmex article and this version of the OPI Products article. Those are the permanent links to your revisions and you should make note of that to the instructor. They still have access even if it is not the current versions of the articles. There is never a guarantee that your version of any article will remain as is.
  • With this edit, you linked to nothing more than a photographic-driven online catalog. This does not qualify as a reliable source and is lacking in prose so it looks promotional in nature. The point raised above about factual scholarship versus advertising copy is accurate. When you find reliable sources, you have a better chance of writing neutrally on a subject and with balance. For example, I would expect to see references such as this article from the Chicago Tribune related to OPI Products. You would never get OPI Products to reveal that which is why trying to use them for sourcing is problematic.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Chgicago tribune is one of those awful american sites that refuse to serve Europe. Dickheads. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 16:09, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Mendelsohn, Emma; Hagopian, Audrey; Hoffman, Kate; Butt, Craig M.; Lorenzo, Amelia; Congleton, Johanna; Webster, Thomas F.; Stapleton, Heather M. (2016-01-01). "Nail polish as a source of exposure to triphenyl phosphate". Environment International. 86: 45–51. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2015.10.005. PMC 4662901. PMID 26485058.
  2. ^ Tribune, Chicago. "Triphenyl phosphate, found in 'eco-friendly' nail polish, spurs worries". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2016-04-09.

Sorry, Roxy the dog. That ping won't work if I forget to sign my post. :)
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks BH. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 17:44, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Abhijeet Safai-- advocacy & COI

Abhijeet Safai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Post by WBG

A glorious past

  • I first came across this editor, about a year and a half back, when I dispatched several of his articles to AfD; with some help from DGG. I observed that many of his topics centered around fringe medical topics (and noble ideas) by practitioners from a particular state of India and the practitioners, themselves. They also cover other quasi-notable figures from the same state.
  • 52.3% of his creations have been deleted.
  • Many of the nominations have arrived at a consensus that the articles do not only fail to pass our notability guidelines but also can be only written by someone who has a definite COI around the subject-topics. (Vide the discussions over this AfD, this AfD, this AfD et al)
  • Some have been G-11ed for being blatant spam and some have been G4ed for being recreations of a previously deleted article.
  • Safai has claimed to be un-involved in paid-editing and asserted that he was basically unaware of our COI guidelines for 5 long years ( despite being subscribed to The Signpost, which has published hordes of articles around that particular locus).
  • Safai seemed to have taken a sabbatical from article-editing, soon afterwards and I did not bother to keep any track of him.

Now

  • I was a bit taken aback by the trio of his ultra-defensive editorial maneuvers over the same article and choose to dig deep. The findings are recorded as:-
  • I wrote the above findings and asked him about why he shall not be sanctioned for blatant advocacy and breach of COI policies, of which he were explicitly made aware, about a year back.
  • He removed the message saying that it was not the proper place for discussion; which I deem as asking for escalation.
  • I also note other connections between him and another recently edited subject (post the supposed awareness of our COI policies) but can't link to the same, without breaching our outing policies.

Summary

It's evidently clear that he is over here to further his goals of advocacy and choose to exploit our volunteer-resources for the same. He may not be paid to do all thiese stuff but clearly, paid COI is not the only despicable issue for our project. The total lack of collaborative spirit and a repeated failure to understand basic guidelines compounds stuff, further.

Accordingly, I seek for some sanction that will prevent his repeated flagrant breaches of WP:COI and WP:ADVOCACY. ∯WBGconverse 15:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Reply by Abhijeet Safai

Comments by uninvolved editors

Hexcel

Repeating my call for help from September 2018. This article has attracted lots of problematic editing. Just recently, this edit by SPA Rocktober2018 has introduced a whole batch of churnalism sources, for instance. Typical addition: compare paint.org 'press' item to near-identical press release about some activity with another business.

A former COIN regular found Rocktober2018's claim of no COI "not credible". Another SPA made a remarkably similar reply. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

too old for checkuser DGG ( talk ) 17:29, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Church Army and Mark Russell (evangelist)

New editors, probably Mark Russell and someone who claims to be editing on his behalf as well as an IP editing are attempting to whitewash these articles. shoy (reactions) 20:59, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Schmidt's

Both articles cover the same topic. Both are promotional in tone and edited solely by single-purpose accounts, including one with a username connection, Unileveredits (Schmidt's is a Unilever brand). Peacock (talk) 21:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello, COIN, I would like your opinion on these four users, who I suspect are linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PAIDLIST#Wikipediawriters.com (which has changed their name to HireWikiWriters). Some of the editors in question are User:RichardMills65, User:CesareAngelotti and User:Bernie44 (already blocked for being a paid editor and violating NPOV, but I think he's connected to it and it would be useful to have it as an example of what that group's editors are like).

What sparked my suspicion was that when I was browsing articles, I checked CesareAngeletti's article creations and the first batch seem similar to what User:FoCuSandLeArN, connected to that website and banned for being a paid editor, created when he wasn't creating paid-for articles. Additionally, FoCuSandLeArN and CesareAngeletti have the same edit summary for creating an article in general, namely "created article". It's the same with Bernie44 as well. I also noticed that when RichardMills65 created an article on a music producer, within a month FoCuSandLeArN added an infobox to it, in this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Dolphin_(music_producer)&diff=629968625&oldid=629641876 and that RichardMills65's articles generally looked like PR pieces.

CesareAngeletti and RichardMills65 haven't edited since 2016, but I suspect there are more sockpuppets out there. I think that User:Branpedia could be a sock of Bernie44. Same edit summaries when creating articles, he's obviously an UPE, and they've both edited the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewy_(company) article, a somewhat obscure online retailer of petfood. Thanks for reading this. 92.21.156.125 (talk) 21:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Five spam pages

In re: AGS Transact Technologies, LKP Securities, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Ltd, and Aanjaneya Lifecare Limited, all listed below with La page links for each and userlinks for the single-purpose accounts which edited them. Almost all of them have been inactive for years. One, Lordkickass, edited all five, and several were involved in WP:SPIs (there may be more than I saw).

The only registered editor I could identify as currently active is User:Siddharthmukund, so I'll post a {{coin-notice}} on his talk page. If any of the other editors are not blocked and still active, I missed that, so may whoever spots them please notify them directly or note it here where I'll see it and can do so.

Perhaps 122.15.122.2, who posted User talk:Oshwah#Kindly Unblock AGS Transact Technologies Account and thus can be considered active, should be notified, I don't know. Of the five pages, the first came to my attention via User talk:AGS Transact Technologies, after which a trail of overlapping edits led down this rabbit hole.







If any of these five articles have robust encyclopedic value, I don't see it. They all look like business listings on a site devoted to hosting such business listings, and while I was tempted at first to be be bold and delete them all per {{db-g11}}, I decided to take this more conservative route. The pages have been around for years, and right now this minute I am burned out on them and the users who dropped them on us. – Athaenara ✉ 02:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

HI Athaenera, I did edit the IndiaFirst Life Insurance page. I am an editor based in India and I do edit any India related pages. I have not edited any of the other pages mentioned in the notice. My reasons for IndiaFirst page was that was a new insurance company using a different business model in India. The company is still around and has been growing. It has also been part of the consolidation and evolution of India's financial sector. I do not have any personal interest / relation in the company.
Siddharthmukund (talk) 03:36, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi, Siddharthmukund, thanks for commenting here.
Certain things in the page histories of these articles stand out.
For example: "Lordkickass" edited all of them, "Dbhathena" edited three, "Paulseemon" edited two, "Shilpi.mishra95" and "Mishra shilpi" are very likely the same person, more than half of them did promotional editing five or more years ago and haven't been seen since, and so on.
You got a {{coin-notice}} because you are a rarity in this crowd (so to speak), in that you're an actual and active encyclopedia editor, not a spammer who hit us hard a few times and disappeared. – Athaenara ✉ 08:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
@Athaenara: did you notice Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Akshay_Aswani? --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
And Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mr.sahota. You might want to open a SPI here on the recent incarnations and see if there are more lines to this story (wow, 9 years worth of spamming). --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Yes, see up there ↑ where I mentioned there had been WP:SPIs and I didn't think I'd seen them all. – Athaenara ✉ 17:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chinmaya.328. – Athaenara ✉ 22:48, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Also by the same SPAs:

Yep, you guessed it, more spam. MER-C 11:08, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

And India Transact Services Limited (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). – Athaenara ✉ 22:57, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Athaenara & Beetstra, I have a little more understanding of the issue at hand here now. Is anything required from my end or how can i help in this issue?? Siddharthmukund (talk) 14:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Technetium (99mTc) sestamibi

Appears to be a COI with removal of content with a subject that is the same as this user. An IP has also made a similar edit in the meantime. Beevil (talk) 18:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

He is now edit warring removing sourced information. Suggest this is rather urgent now. 2001:8003:5901:B400:D149:79D4:9C09:FA93 (talk) 06:30, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Based on the names, it appears he has also operated the accounts Dr. RM Fleming, MD, JD and Fleming1956 in the past. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Based on this statement at his talk page, he is also editing logged out as 172.90.197.240. He's now at 5 reverts in 24 hours, 6 if you count the IP. Voceditenore (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Update: RM Fleming, MD has been blocked for 24 hours for edit-warring by Randykitty. I have reverted the article to the previous version before the mass deletions. It will continue to need eyes, preferably from someone with knowledge of this area (I'm not one of them). Voceditenore (talk) 16:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Note that there are some BLP issues involved in one sentence, although that does not justify the editor removing almost half the article. The sentence was FHRWW was developed by Dr. Richard M. Fleming (a convicted felon debarred in 2018 by the FDA; see also Retraction Watch for more background) and associates. The first assertion is referenced to a highly reliable source (Federal Register) [16]. The source for Retraction Watch is unsuitable for a BLP assertion. I have amended the sentence to simply FHRWW was developed by Dr. Richard M. Fleming (a convicted felon debarred in 2018 by the FDA) and associates. and kept the FR source. But the whole assertion may actually be irrelevant/inappropriate for the article. Voceditenore (talk) 16:38, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Although I also suspect that his background is irrelevant to the article, I wanted to provide some context since Dr. Fleming had edited the sestamibi article to include material from his "published research" in journals that have been identified by others as "predatory" or low quality; as such it may not be unbiased information or helpful to non-experts reading the article. As I acknowledged previously, I have no expertise in this field, but although Dr. Fleming may have expertise, the text that he added to the article appears to be part of his complaints against the FDA debarment (see docket at Federal Register link) and as part of his attempts to promote the licensing of his patented process. That was the reason I added the link to the debarment information. I will be making no further edits to the article. ThatsRegrettable (talk) 17:51, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

ThatsRegrettable, I can understand your motivation, although I think the complete removal of that personalised information has been wise. However, the article has a much bigger problem. It is completely contaminated by Fleming's attempts to promote himself on Wikipedia and by implication his medical imaging companies and patents. The three named accounts + 2 IPs which are clearly him (and probably more) have been spamming the article with his research since at least 2009 [17]. See also other pages created by one of his earlier accounts (Fleming1956 (talk · contribs)) which were designed to promote himself and his patents: Richard M. Fleming, Fleming Harrington Redistribution Wash-in Washout, Inflammation and Coronary Artery Disease, Breast Enhanced Scintigraphy Test. I'm not sure he or his work should even be mentioned in the article, especially considering the dubious publisher of the only remaining reference left in the article and another recent work by him with an even more dubious publisher. I intend to take the issue to Talk:Technetium (99mTc) sestamibi later today and will also ask for advice from WikiProject Pharmacology. Like you, I do not have background on that area, but the history of that article and the references are concerning. Voceditenore (talk) 14:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Update All three of the named accounts above have been added to a COI notice at Talk:Technetium (99mTc) sestamibi. I have removed material from the article which is either unsourced but added by Fleming and related to his claims and patents and/or sourced to this book chapter by Fleming which is incompatible with Wikipedia:MEDRS. This diff shows the removed material. RM Fleming, MD has now been indef blocked for making legal threats in addition to his previous edit-warring block. If he attempts to edit by one of his socks, I'll bring an SPI. This case seems pretty much resolved, but I suggest several editors here put this article on watch as well as other known targets of this editor: Standardized uptake value and Scintimammography. Voceditenore (talk) 10:33, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone

At Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone someone probably working for the company keeps overwriting the entire article with their preferred version. I've reverted them several times. The latest attempt does include independent references, but still has promotional elements. As often found, the previous version was itself defective and out-of-date. Would someone else care to see if they think this present version should be allowed through, with modifications?: Bhunacat10 (talk), 11:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

White Cube paid edits

I ran across this editor as one of the pages they edited is on my watchlist. When queried they admitted they work for White Cube. Virtually all of their 150+ edits are to White Cube artist pages, or to correct old urls related to the gallery. The interesting thing is that they have been doing paid editing for 5+ years. Overall the edits are very neutral (mostly wikilinking to White cube page and updating URLs) and not POV pushing. Not sure if the articles need to be tagged for paid editing, so posting here.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:55, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Facilius, Inc.

This company has an Instagram page where they offer services including "Wikipedia page creation"; they have posted an "Instagram story" with the following purported examples of their work: Natera (created by SPA User:Monmay6, dormant since; expanded by another SPA, User:Best blood test), Chien Lee, Reliance Industries Limited, and Marc Thorpe. I note that Marc Thorpe was created by User:Muhammad Ali Khalid, who has been blocked since 2015 for undisclosed paid editing. bd2412 T 02:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I gave Marc Thorpe a bit of a trim. Lots of promotional garbage there, although I did see an esquire article in a search so he may be actually notable.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 03:46, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
@ThatMontrealIP: The esquire article was written by a staff member of chrysler 200 (which it looks like Thorpe works with). So it is likely a paid article made to look neutral. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 03:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Chien Lee was written by User:Gghenn2 - I am debating whether to ask about it directly on his user page, or to take more of a wait-and-see approach. bd2412 T 04:02, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Reliance Industries Limited is one of the older articles in the encyclopedia, so any work that this company did on it would likely have been in the nature of a recent cleanup. Not seeing anything obvious. bd2412 T 04:04, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree that Reliance Industries Limited has pretty much been neutralized. I also think Thorpe passes GNG and an AfD would fail but someone is willing to try. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 04:32, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Wang Zheng (pilot)

Not quite sure what to do with this. Seems there is a long standing edit war on this page with several SPAs/IPs adding (unsourced) allegations and these two users reverting. Apparently Wang Zheng (aka Julie Wang) is the flight instructor over at Zulutimepilot (see for example their facebook page).

A quick google search shows that Wang Zheng was suing someone and that's not either mentioned in the article.

Props to Kigenkigen for an epic edit summary here Hydromania (talk) 03:10, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Zulutimepilot should have been blocked a long time ago for WP:CORPNAME (https://zulutimepilot.com/). --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 04:52, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
WP:BLPN#Wang Zheng (pilot) and WP:AN#Possible NLT at BLPN are both connected to discussion. It does appear that CTF99 (the editor formerly known as Zulutimepilot) has a strong connection to Wang that likely extends to a WP:FCOI. CTF99 states he is James Fretcher, an attorney for Wang, at BLPN and various articles about Wang in reliable sources describe Fretcher as a manager for China General Aviation (a sponsor of Wang and a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Wang), Wang's attorney, Wang's husband, and also as being connected to Zulutimepilot, where Wang was/is listed a chief instructor. So, there really appears to be more than just a WP:APPARENTCOI here, and CTF99 has been editing the article and other content about Wang on Wikipedia since at least December 2016 (that's when the account was created) without declaring any connection to Wang or without following WP:PAID. Either CTF99 is who he's claiming to be which means that both COI and PAID apply, or he's impersonating Fretcher, which is another issue that's just as bad. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:23, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I've added EdiK2016 to this discussion as well based upon some posts made to the article's talk page which have been since removed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 20:56, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Update: Kigenkigen and CTF99 have been indefinitely blocked per WP:SOCK. If one or both get unblocked, they should be instucted to follow WP:PAID or otherwise the will be re-blocked again. EdiK2016 is still an active account, but they should also be advised about WP:PAID since they might be involved in off-Wikipedia legal action with Wang, and thus would also likely have a financial COI with respect to the article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:12, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Marko Brajovic

This user appears to have a COI based on their username and continues to edit the draft while ignoring talk page notifications. shoy (reactions) 16:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I tagged the draft, which is clearly a promotional effort as it has dozens of external inline links. I also reported the username for admin action.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Pressmarkobrajovic was blocked by 331dot.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 06:32, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Michael Simkovic references

Wikipedia has a lot of references to the work of a particular law professor, Michael Simkovic. I noticed a new user (Mbs6446) adding a link to the same paper of Simkovic's to 9 articles this morning. Some of these references were to support a new sentence, others were added to existing content. This got me curious, so by employing the search function and the WikiBlame tool, I was able to collect the above list of accounts and IPs who are more or less single purpose accounts that add references to this author. I've only gone through about half the search results so far, I would expect there are a few more accounts to find. I'm apparently not the only person who has noticed this: a law blogger has also written about this here. Posting this mostly to raise awareness. - MrOllie (talk) 17:44, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

More accounts:

Also note that one of the subjects of this report tried to alter it. - MrOllie (talk) 18:33, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
And again here - MrOllie (talk) 19:14, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
first hat for comments from blocked editor Mbs6446

Note the policy against outing wikipedia editors which is explicitly stated on this page. "When investigating possible cases of conflict of interest editing, editors must be careful not to out other editors. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over the conflict of interest guideline." I've asked Mr Ollie to engage on substance on his talk page and on the talk pages of pages I've edited and to be mindful of wikipedia policies against harassment and outing, but he has refused to engage on substance. I attempted to edit this page to be in compliance with those policies, but in a way that would not prevent the substance of the report from being comprehensible.Mbs6446 (talk) 18:41, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Plase also note policy against attempting to out a wikipedia editor, which is per se harassment. Please note that attempting to out an editor is not permitted as a way of resolving conflicts of interest, and that citing academic work does not constitute a conflict of interest when it is on point and relevant, as all of my citations have been.Mbs6446 (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

way too long back and forth with blocked editor Mbs6446

This is Mbs6446. I made several edits to articles about mortgage securitization, the GSEs, and the subprime mortgage crisis, including substantive edits that improved the accuracy and content of wikipedia articles. Specifically, I added more on-topic reliable sources, including citations to an award-winning (see also here), widely-cited, widely-read academic journal article by a tenured professor at a leading research university with relevant expertise.

According to Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources:

″Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. . . . Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. . . . One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes.″

Thus, the source cited is among the most reliable sources under Wikipedia's definition of reliable sources.

Please note that news articles in journals with an ideological valence, think tank reports and other materials are considered less reliable sources than academic research. See Biased or Opinionated Sources Many of the other sources in the article are editorials and think tank reports, not academic articles, and the inclusion of more high quality and up-to-date academic articles would therefore improve the article.

Many of the other sources in the mortgage articles I edited are think tank reports written by organizations that receive financial sponsorship from private lenders and therefore have an interest in portraying the financial crisis as having been caused by government policies rather than by private financial institutions.

I've attempted to engage MrOllie on the substance of edits I made and on wikipedia policies regarding reliable sources. I attempted to contact him through both his talk page and on the talk pages of the wikipedia pages I've edited.

MrOllie has refused to engage on substance, and instead blanket reverted every edit I made without any substantive explanation, and has apparently filed a grievance against a particular professor who he dislikes.

MrOllie also cites to self-published material [[18]]. Indeed, the author of the post MrOllie cited acknowledged "that this post might be construed as an “off-wiki attack” ... that Wikipedians may perceive as harmful to their community." It may be helpful to understand the context of this post. The blogger apparently posted this criticism as a form of revenge for having been made to appear foolish for making substantive mistakes about legal education and student loans <ref>{{cite news |title=Repetitive (and avoidable) mistakes |url=https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2013/07/repetitive-and-avoidable-mistakes.html |publisher=Brian Leiter's Law School Reports |date=July 28, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Simkovic & McIntyre's "The Economic Value of a Law Degree"... |url=https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2014/11/simkovic-mcintyres-the-economic-value-of-a-law-degree.html|publisher=Brian Leiter's Law School Reports |date=Simkovic & McIntyre's "The Economic Value of a Law Degree"...}}</ref> --subjects about which the blogger purports to be an expert--even in a publication to which he has contributed.<ref>{{cite news |title="Million Dollar Degree" Authors Answer Harper, Leichter |url=https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/almID/1202617450833/?slreturn=20190231121410 |publisher=The American Lawyer |date=August 30, 2013}}</ref>

I've asked Mr. Ollie about the specific substantive reason for each of the deletions to my edits he made as it pertains to the particular article, source, and context, over the last 2 hours, and how he believes that he is improving the quality of the underlying article by making those deletions.

I also pointed out that his actions--targeting a particular individual based on something that is irrelevant to whether edits are improving wikipedia articles under wikipedia policies--could constitute Wikipedia:Harassment under Wikipedia's policies.

Instead of responding on substance, MrOllie filed a grievance on the conflict of interest board and is apparently attempting to get every single citation to a particular author deleted whether or not those edits substantively improve the quality of sources cited on Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbs6446 (talk • contribs)

Mbs6446,please learn how to sign your posts.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:47, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Irrespective of the identity or identities of the individual or individuals behind these accounts, it appears that single-purpose accounts are being used to promote reference to the work of a specific author. If any of these accounts were substantial long-term contributors who made improvements to the encyclopedia in areas other than this one, this could be overlooked, but Wikipedia is not the place for a single author to be promoted as if they were the leading authority in an area where they are not actually of any greater authority than dozens or hundreds of others in the field. MrOllie is correct in reporting the appearance of such impropriety in this forum. I would not necessarily have gone as far as removing all instances of citations to the author in question, but I am satisfied with his explanation for his reasoning in so doing. bd2412 T 22:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
As am I. The issue here (to me, at least), is that these edits seem not to be motivated by "hey, this article could benefit from adding XYZ content, with an appropriate source," but rather by an effort to find any possible place to add a citation to a particular author's work. As for the concerns about outing, well, it's against policy, but WP:DUCK applies here as well, so we're not obliged to retain a pretense about the source of these edits. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 15:41, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
I've removed maybe 1/3 of them. I think (Wikipedia's search function leaves something to be desired) there are still 70-100 or so cites remaining. So far I've only found 1 that was added by an established editor. - MrOllie (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
BD2412, MrOllie, SamHolt6 I take the point that the Wikipedia articles would be stronger with citations to multiple academics work by multiple authors, and I think it would be great if MrOllie had handled this by adding *more* citations to other prominent academics to reduce the apparent prominence of a single academic. Such additions would undeniably be making the Wikipedia articles better. But just removing some of the few reliable sources from lightly sourced articles is not making the Wikipedia articles better. It's making them worse. If one source is too prominent, then other editors should come along later and add more sources to make the one source less prominent. The more reliable sources, the better. If there are factual statements that have no source or only have a weak source (not very reliable), including a citation to a reliable source helps the article and removing the reliable source hurts the wikipedia article.
If academics are using wikipedia to promote their work, that doesn't hurt wikipedia, and it's not comparable to promoting a commercial service--it's sharing knowledge. Every academic who wants to should be free to come in and add citations. It would be great if wikipedia actually had some editors with subject matter expertise. If enough academic editors come in and contribute, then wikipedia might actually have citations to serious peer reviewed works of scholarship instead of blogs and op-eds that haven't gone through the most basic fact checking. The Undue weight policy requires some evaluation of the relative merits of different views. See this essay on attracting academic editors. I would encourage Mr.Ollie to restore the sources he deleted and either add more sources to the articles to reduce the prominence of the one academic, or instead add tags to those articles that additional citations would be helpful. It would be great if every wikipedia editor had read every source on a particular topic and could cite 20 academic articles, but if someone adds citations to one source which is more reliable than other sources in an article, that's better than nothing and such contributions should be encouraged, not met with retribution.Mbs6446 (talk) 04:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
I have not read through the entirety of this thread, but will note that reliable sources do not have a mandate to be included in Wikipedia. In this instance, I feel that the addition of a single reference (sometimes attached to a single sentence) can easily be removed as being WP:UNDUE given the scope of the topics involved. SamHolt6 (talk) 01:53, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
SamHolt6, More reliable sources are supposed to be preferred to less reliable sources. Please read the reliable sources policies
It's not a question of the "privilege" of being included in wikipedia. It's not a great privilege--wikipedia has about the same prestige as a self published vanity press trade book, which is to say, not much. The only relevant question is whether the Wikipedia article is being improved by citations to more reliable sources. Each citation should be evaluated in the specific context of the article and the quality of the source. Most Wikipedia articles have citations to less reliable sources like think tank reports, blogs, news paper articles, and material that has not been edited, fact-checked or peer reviewed. If a source that is *more* reliable than other sources in an article is being deleted or removed, that makes the article worse. MrOllie's efforts to batch delete references to academic works by a single author without evaluating the substance of each edit and each work cited is not improving articles on wikipedia. It seems to be some sort of punishment, which may be emotionally gratifying to Mr Ollie as a way of exercising his wikipedia authority--note his dismissive attitude toward inexperienced editors--but the fact of the matter is, power-tripping isn't helping make Wikipedia articles better. Let's focus on substance instead of hurling around accusations of conflict of interest and making revenge edits.
With respect to WP:UNDUE, this policy refers to perspectives or view points, not citations to sources. Undue weight refers especially to giving undue weight to unscientific viewpoints such as "the world is flat." Perspectives on mortgage securitization from an article by an expert in the field, which has been published in a reputable journal and widely cited do not seem fall into this category. I do not believe that WP:UNDUE weight is applicable here. Mbs6446 (talk) 03:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
long response by blocked editor Mbs6446

Response from mbs6446

I made several edits to articles about mortgage securitization, the GSEs, and the subprime mortgage crisis, including substantive edits that improved the accuracy and content of wikipedia articles. Specifically, I added more on-topic reliable sources, including citations to an award-winning (see also here), widely-cited, widely-read academic journal article by a tenured professor at a leading research university with relevant expertise.

According to Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources:

″Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. . . . Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. . . . One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes.″

Thus, the source cited is among the most reliable sources under Wikipedia's definition of reliable sources.

Please note that news articles in journals with an ideological valence, think tank reports and other materials are considered less reliable sources than academic research. See Biased or Opinionated Sources Many of the other sources in the article are editorials and think tank reports, not academic articles, and the inclusion of more high quality and up-to-date academic articles would therefore improve the article.

Many of the other sources in the mortgage articles I edited are think tank reports written by organizations that receive financial sponsorship from private lenders and therefore have an interest in portraying the financial crisis as having been caused by government policies rather than by private financial institutions.

I've attempted to engage MrOllie on the substance of edits I made and on wikipedia policies regarding reliable sources. I attempted to contact him through both his talk page and on the talk pages of the wikipedia pages I've edited.

MrOllie has refused to engage on substance, and instead blanket reverted every edit I made without any substantive explanation, has hurled around unfounded accusations of COI as an excuse to avoid discussing substance, and has apparently filed a conflict of interest grievance against a particular professor who he apparently dislikes.

I've asked Mr. Ollie about the specific substantive reason for each of the deletions to my edits he made as it pertains to the particular article, source, and context, over the last 2 hours, and how he believes that he is improving the quality of the underlying article by making those deletions.

I also pointed out that his actions--targeting a particular individual based on something that is irrelevant to whether edits are improving wikipedia articles under wikipedia policies and attempting to out editors--could constitute Wikipedia:Harassment under Wikipedia's policies. See here. (See especially "hounding" and "outing").

Instead of responding on substance, MrOllie filed a grievance on the conflict of interest board and is apparently attempting to get every single citation to a particular author deleted whether or not those edits substantively improve the quality of sources cited on Wikipedia.

Rather than waiting to reach consensus, he has proceeded without further explanation to delete every citation to this particular academic's work that he can find on any Wikipedia article.Mbs6446 (talk) 04:10, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

  • User has been blocked as a sock (surprise, I know). GMGtalk 18:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
I wonder if we should hat the above discussion that involves a back and forth with him/her? S/he refactored his own comments (and mine, which he deleted), so the long text above is mostly meaningless now.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I felt bold, so I hatted that shenanigans. apologies if anyone esle's comments were hatted. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:26, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Question about disclosure requirements

I came across DIALOG Architecture Engineering Interior Design Planning Inc., which looked like a paid article to me. I checked the user page and talk page of the article's creator, 03wikicreator (talk · contribs), and there is a disclosure on their talk page (in the section titled "Disclosing COI") that they were paid to create the article. I'm glad that disclosure is there, but shouldn't it also be somewhere on the article's talk page as well? I'm not super well-versed in our COI disclosure requirement but thought someone here could educate me. Thanks. Marquardtika

Other pages this user has created and/or declared a COI with regard to include:
I added COI notices to articles and talk pages. Peacock (talk) 21:07, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I gave Dialog Architecture and excessively long name a trim. Wondering if it passes notability. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks all. The user has been blocked as a sock and most of the pages have been deleted already. Marquardtika (talk) 15:43, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
yes, Bbb23] swooped in there and took care of all the problems! Thank you.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:53, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Your next box of spam has arrived

Batch ending 24 March

Enjoy. MER-C 18:00, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Batch ending 4 April

Looks like a pretty bad bunch this time around. Have fun. MER-C 19:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Scytl

This user appears to have, starting soon after their first edit, exclusively editing the Scytl Wikipedia page in a manner flattering to Scytl. For context, Scytl is an evoting company which has been in the spotlight after numerous security flaws were found in its product. See, e.g.,[1], [2].

References

  1. ^ https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1109908811697946624
  2. ^ https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1112776403823419392

I believe that given this pattern an apparent CoI exists.

Disclosure: Although I do not know any person involved in this matter, Ms. Lewis, who is one of the security researchers who discovered these issues, did inform the public (and thus me) of this apparent CoI via Twitter. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:41, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Rachel Hart

I created this article and it keeps on getting tagged with a Conflict of Interest. Completly out of line. No conflict of interest. Nothing to disclose. How do we actually resolve this? It was reviewed and is live. Everything links to the appropriate source. --Media Edit NZ (talk) 20:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

(user is referring to Rachel Hart article).ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks and welcome to Wikipedia. It's probably your user name that is an issue. It sounds like a company: is it?ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:32, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Hello ThatMontrealIP. That makes sense to why there would be a conflict of interest and I am happy to change my username. We are not a company, no. Again, how is it resolved though? Is the tag just always there? --Media Edit NZ (talk) 00:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Do you happen to know Rachel Hart? It is getting tagged because the article is what we call highly promotional. It was also sourced with lots of references written by the article subject, which I have removed. Also, all your edits for the past six months or so concern Rachel Hart, her husband and their television programs. And the resulting articles are promotional. So it has all the hallmarks of what we call promotional editing, which is exactly the kind of thing we discuss here. Please do enlighten us on any connection you have to the article subjects, so we can clear this up! ThatMontrealIP (talk) 00:42, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
MediaEditNZ, other editors will discuss to see if she is notable, that is the point of the AFD. the larger question is that your editing overall looks clearly promotional; could you clarify what your connection is to the set of subjects you have been editing? Thanks!ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Honestly I am a big fan of the subjects I had been editing. That is it. I had started to watch the 100 Day Bach show on NetFlix. Started to learn about the subjects and producers and saw what was linked with them. I have no connection with the subject for the TV show that you tagged has a close connection to. I understand they might be promotional. Your welcome to cut them down. I was new to editing so I am sorry if I had caused some problems. I am. I am definitely a new comer! --Media Edit NZ (talk) 01:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
OK thanks for that, which clears things up. And welcome! One thing you might want to try is to read over WP:RS, which covers what we consider to be a reliable source. For example, you were using articles authored by Rachel Hart to prove she was a writer. This might be marginally ok, but we tend to frown on anything that isn't independent. If the publisher or the author of the article isn't objective and independent, then we generally do not use them. Same thing goes for company connections: The use of the company Stripe in her article is no good as it is either her company or her employer. Keep to independent sources that are in reliable publications. Thins also have to be very neutral in order to not be seen as promotional. I wish you good editing and hope that this bureaucratic machinery has not discouraged you too much.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for this information. I tried to look for sources and references that would work. The television show in New Zealand here [19] shows her all throughout the Episodes and Series. Something that was clearly notable, being on a popular TV channel in New Zealand. I have however asked to delete the article Rachel Hart as this was just going around in circles and was quite upsetting. Thanks again for your help. --Media Edit NZ (talk) 02:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Don't take it personally... you have to have a thick skin in here. The AFD will determine notability in an orderly way, if it is not deleted before then by your author's deletion request.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 02:54, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I changed my mind on this one, I don't believe this is good faith editing after looking at the user's contribs. It is all connected to one company, and it is also very slick editing that is not by a newbie editor. And it is all editing solely connected to the products of a single tv production company. Highly experienced volunteer editor suddenly decides to start promoting a single company's products. There are zero contribs outside of that subject area. There is a similar account over at Wikimedia Commons that also makes uploads for the same purposes: MediaSpyNZ. An SPI or checkuser might be in order. So in sum, I think the original UPE tag might be in order. WP:DUCK. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:24, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Note - we are not a company, no. hmmm. Hydromania (talk) 05:17, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Two of the accounts mentioned above (MediaEditNZ, MediaCheckNZ) are socks and were blocked. MediaEditNZ did have a pretty convincing routine though. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Fernando Perdomo

Need I say more? User has been editing this page for a while. has also added his name to other articles here and here Hydromania (talk) 03:22, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Looks like an artist doing their promotional duty! It was all unsourcd, so I restored it to the earlier version before they came along.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:52, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
That was a bid hasty IMHO. You also reverted some formatting fixes which I've re-added. As the article is all written in the same tone and format, I wouldn't be surprised if the earlier edits were also COI editors.Hydromania (talk) 05:03, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
You are right about my missing your improvements. I did search for the typo check and could not find it, but missed the other improvements you noted. Apologies.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 05:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I've also informed the user about WP:IMPERSONATE as it's relevant here. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. If they return to editing without either verifying or changing it, please report to WP:UAA. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:28, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
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