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Tony Hawks

I know the British comedian Tony Hawks as a casual acquaintance in my local pub, and we've chatted occasionally. A few months ago (pre-lockdown) we were talking about Wikipedia, and he mentioned that his page had a very old and low-quality photo, and that it showed the wrong date of birth. I told him that I had an editing account, and that I'd be happy to update his details. This clearly wasn't a matter of urgency, since his PA has only just sent me an email today with a new photo and his correct DOB. In the interests of making Wikipedia more factually accurate, I've edited his page with these new details, but a much more experienced editor has given me a warning about a possible COI. I'd like to make it very clear that I do not work for Tony in any capacity, I have not been paid, nor do I expect to be paid, for making this edit, and Tony will only benefit from it to the extent that he'll probably get birthday cards on the right date from now on. I'm not very experienced at editing Wikipedia, so I hope I haven't committed a major faux pas here, but my intentions were pure. Cliffsmith23 (talk) 19:27, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Cliffsmith23: Thanks for your forthright honesty. This does not strike me as a big deal, especially since you have taken the time to write the above. Please use the talk page to request edits in future, and include sources with the request. You could tell Tony and his agent that advice as well. Thanks. --- Possibly (talk) 05:49, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Cliffsmith23, this doesn't strike me as a big deal either, but in the interest of WP:Verifiability the DOB should be published by a WP:RS (a primary source like http://tony-hawks.com is okay for DOB) and permission from the photographer (Jay Williams) for the photo should be mailed to WP:OTRS. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:48, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Cliffsmith23, an internet search suggests that the original year of birth in the article was correct. TSventon (talk) 00:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
TSventon, The amended date of birth - Feb 27, 1965 - was provided to me in an email from Tony's personal assistant, along with the recent photo, and is definitely correct. I would be happy to provide you with a copy of the email upon request. Cliffsmith23 (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Cliffsmith23, doesn't help, forwarded mail can be altered and the integrity can't be verified unless the original mail was signed. (but email is rarely signed) Either have that PA mail it to WP:OTRS directly or (preferably) get it published on http://tony-hawks.com/. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Cliffsmith23, what I found was that The Encyclopedia of Popular Music says Tony Hawkes was born on 27 February 1960[1] amd the other mebers of his band weer also born in 1959–1960. The Old Brightonians website says he was in the sixth form from 1976 to 1978,[2] which is consistent. TSventon (talk) 20:05, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ The Encyclopedia of Popular Music: Morricone, Ennio - Rich Kids. MUZE. 2006. p. 4. Morris Minor, ( b . Tony Hawkes , 27 February 1960 )
  2. ^ Hawks, Tony (25 June 2018). "Tony Hawks (Al. 1976-78), OB of the Month, June 2018". Old Brightonians. Retrieved 27 May 2021.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This editor has solely edited the articles listed above and has not answered questions in his or her User Talk page asking if he or she has a connection. ElKevbo (talk) 18:03, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeffed for WP:UPE – did not respond to ElKevbo's request for disclosure on 10 March, but continued to edit these articles. UPE isn't the only possible explanation of that (incompetence/inexperience would be another), but seems the most likely. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:56, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Aidong Zhang

Aidongzhang (talk · contribs), who I believe to be the same person as Aidong Zhang, has initiated WP:BLPREQDEL deletion proceedings against the article, as is her right. However, after repeatedly being told not to directly edit the article and being pointed to WP:AUTOBIO, she also refuses to stop editing the article directly (diff on my talk). I believe this needs to be enforced with a targeted block (or, if that fails to work, semiprotection) but I am too WP:INVOLVED to do it myself, so I am bringing it here with that request. Will notify. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

They seem to be really upset about having an article here. I asked on the article talk page what exactly the problem is. This diff was all about her emeritus status at UBuffalo; is that the reason for all this? It's quite curious.--- Possibly (talk) 21:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Users including have posted on her talk page eight times; yet only one has shown an iota of sympathy or given advice on dealing with her legitimate concerns about content about her on Wikipedia. We can do better. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
For the life of me, I can't see anything on the page that would be worth getting upset about. There's nothing negative, and nothing that an interested party couldn't find out by searching the web for this subject. BD2412 T 18:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Whether or not you can see anything that would upset you is imaterial. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:34, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
I see nothing that would reasonably upset an article subject whose profession already places the information in the public sphere. Since there is no limit to what can unreasonably upset someone, I find unreasonable responses immaterial. BD2412 T 03:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
only one has shown an iota of sympathy or given advice on dealing with her legitimate concerns about content about her on Wikipedia This is ... flatly false. DE's first post advises her on the correct venue in which to raise issues; Possibly solicited a clear indication of what information she wanted to remove; Russ Woodroofe didn't comment but immediately removed the one piece of information that was incorrect; and I copied her comment to the correct venue and tried to give some further advice. Also, her last edit was over a week ago, and both issues she raised (namely, that she was incorrectly labeled "founding editor in chief" instead of "editor in chief" of a journal, and that she didn't want her birth year to appear) were corrected before then. --JBL (talk) 02:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art

I first came to this article to update it, as many of the sources cited in it are self-published. Whilst researching the subject, I found information that leads me to think that the primary editor of the article named above is closely related to the subject, and maybe a senior employee at the organisation. The user has no disclosed conflicts of interest, and I have raised the issue on their user talk page. The user has denied any COI. I noticed that over several years most of their edits appear to be on BLPs with a connection to the Center for Chinese Contemporary Art. The user's edits also predominantly rely on self-published sources by the subject of the article, and they have declared in the article talk pages, that they had the intention of removing information which was considered critical or negative, in favour of information from self-published sources. The article has previously and remains tagged for containing promotional material.

I also took a look at other articles that the user has edited, as they have been a long-time editor. Other edits, for example to the article for the Institute For Education, were also predominantly to list notable members of staff. I have found information which leads me to think that when these edits were made, they were also an employee of the subject of this article. Their user page indicates that they are an archivist by profession. There is a publically available online profile that matches the educational background declared on the user page and that also details close links to the subjects of many of the other articles listed by the user as created or significantly edited - granted, it may be a coincidence but seems unlikely. I cannot share any details from this without the danger of outing. Can this be investigated? --ArchivesandLetters (talk) 22:43, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

--- Possibly What do we do if the user in question does not respond? Can we assume a COI and tag the article? I can work on addressing the issues in the article and make a note on the talk pages in case others want to help.ArchivesandLetters (talk) 15:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
I was unaware of current COI guidance until it was flagged up by ArchivesandLetters on my user page. I have now made adjustments to my user page following guidance for Making uncontroversial edits and current advice for editors who work in the GLAM sector and cultural sector. At the time this post was made on this page I had stated that I have never been a paid advocate, but I was taking time to familiarize myself with current guidance on COI before I felt I could fully respond. I have now responded to the request on my user page and confirmed that I do have a conflict of interest & I will now stick to the guidelines mentioned above. K8tmoon (talk) 21:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, so to sum up, after two editors asked repeatedly, and after one denial, K8tmoon admits to being based at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art. Not really the way to generate trust. --- Possibly (talk) 22:05, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Good summary @Possibly. I must say that whilst I do support the principle that experts should contribute their knowledge and resources to Wikipedia, I cannot support a claim that editors in the GLAM sector can freely edit articles about either their employers or their own organisations. @K8tmoon's edits over the last 3 years appear to have primarily been on the article about their organisation, or associates who have previously worked there. Most edits to BLPs were simply to add the fact that they had previously worked at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art. There are few edits from what I can see which have contributed specialist knowledge beyond promoting the organisation. @K8tmoon if your edits are part of the work you do as a paid member of the organisation, then I think this constitutes paid editing. I see you have also removed the article from your list of significantly edited articles. ArchivesandLetters (talk) 23:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
I realised that my previous comment may be misunderstood. All the edits I have made to Wikipedia have not been as part of the work I do as a paid member of staff of the organisations I have worked for. Therefore I believe I have never been a paid advocate as I have never received anything for my Wikipedia edits. Now being aware of current COI guidelines, I will modify my Wikipedia contributions in future. I did not deny that I work for the Centre, I only stated that I have never been paid to edit Wikipedia. I only edit Wikipedia in my spare time as a hobby.K8tmoon (talk) 08:33, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Conflict of interest editing

Conflict of interest editing whereby the article creator had the photo on the article as their “own work” but did not disclose a COI. Furthermore they have displayed a battle ground behavior by removing relevant warning templates pertaining UPE and has thus far exhibited an WP:IDHT attitude. Furthermore the subject of the article is possibly the worst non notable article I’ve this year. The creator of the article has also been engaging in refactoring comments made by other users. As an anti-spam editor that I am, I can affirm that this is undisclosed paid editing. Celestina007 (talk) 00:39, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Please hold all final judgements until User:Celestina007 case is resolved at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#ANI board. User:Celestina007 is currently being reported for rude behavior, threats, false accusations. Horizonlove (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
And you're blocked for a week. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 02:59, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

not your usual COI issue, and not for the faint of heart

For those that may not be familiar with the term, "zoophilia" was/is commonly known as bestiality, so yes, we're talking about humans having sex with animals. My concern here is that there is an observable pattern across these articles that seems to be attempts to normalize such activities and/or to suggest they are explicitly legal in certain places, when in actuality whoever wrote the material is either interpreting the law for themselves, mis-characterizing the content of the source material, or basing it on questionable sources. One editor is asking fellow "enthusiasts" on Twitter to help them with sourcing certain claims regarding the legality of having sex with animals in Germany. I won't share the link per WP:OUTING but it's pretty obviously the same person. So, my concern is that our coverage of animal rape is being influenced by people who think raping animals is pretty great. More attention from people who don't feel that way might be helpful in bringing this content into line with Wikipedia standards. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:21, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

The situation you have described is not a conflict of interest. Gay men and lesbians might be be motivated to edit our articles about homosexuality, history of homosexuality and LGBT rights by country or territory. No one would consider that a conflict of interest. Zetablocker (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2021 (UTC) Zetablocker blocked as NOTHERE. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:02, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
No, that's a strawman, the correct parallel would be WP:CHILDPROTECT. We don't tolerate advocacy of abuse. Acroterion (talk) 22:09, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
Bank robbers might be motivated to edit articles about bank robbery for that matter. The simple facts of the matter are that bestiality is ether explicitly illegal, or considered morally repugnant, almost everywhere, but some who have edited such content in the past have seen fit to use Wikipedia to promote a viewpoint suggesting otherwise. And done so in a manner entirely incompatible with multiple Wikipedia policies, to the extent that at least one of the articles listed above is best described as a work of fiction, in my opinion. And I think that comparisons with LGBT issues are dubious for multiple reasons, and should be avoided. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
There is a clear parallel between how LGBT people have been treated in the past and how zoophiles are treated now. It is possible to edit articles about your sexuality without having a conflict of interest. It is possible to discuss the merits of articles without insulting the people referred to by the article. Zetablocker (talk) 22:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC) Zetablocker blocked as NOTHERE. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:02, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I really can't express how infuriating the "it's just like being gay" argument is, but that's another issue. I realize this is not what COIN is normally for but I don't think we have a "advocacy for illegal abusive sexual practices" noticeboard. The obvious attack sock above was kind enough to go straight to ANI though, (hence the block) so some more eyes may be on the topic because of that. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:10, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Draft:James Dunn

The submitting account appears to be in violation of the terms that they agreed to for an unblock about 24 hours ago. They were blocked for a promotional name, and were then unblocked by User:jpgordon for a rename, in which they said, "Confirm that it will not be used to promote any subject on Wikipedia or link to any website which we have an outside connection with." They have now submitted Draft:James Dunn, which I disambiguated to Draft:James Dunn (businessman). Maybe they aren't in violation, because the draft isn't about a business but about its late founder. If they are technically in compliance, they should nonetheless make a declaration. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Seems like a misunderstanding. They did put a WP:PAID disclosure on their user page referring to this businessperson, so they're at least not trying to be deceptive about it. They probably don't view the draft as an effort to promote the individual they wrote about, seeing how they recently died. WP:NOTMEMORIAL might apply. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:25, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: The article is not to promote the business in any way, it is simply to state the biography of the late business founder.Jennajrdunn (talk) 18:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Jennajrdunn: there was a lot of promotion in your draft (a half dozen watch brands were mentioned, including two comapnies related to your family and the jrdunn.com web URL) but I have removed that from your draft. You seem to have deleted Ivanvector's comment above, but I have restored it.--- Possibly (talk) 18:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: My apologies, thank you for correcting the comment. No problem about removing those, the draft is great with your revision. I did ensure to place the disclosure on my user page prior to this draft. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do. The intent is not to promote the business. Thank you.Jennajrdunn (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Jennajrdunn: others might have comments to add, but I think you are OK there. Sorry for your loss. --- Possibly (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Bảo Đại

Single-purpose account seems to be self inserting themselves into this article. After wack-a-moleing unreferenced edits they have provided a new edit which references a book written by the user in question. I am not sure if this is vandalism or a conflict of interest. However they clearly seem to be the self proclaimed "pretender to the throne" that they keep editing into the article without any third party sources. Spongie555 (talk) 05:30, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Dennis Smith (politician)

It looks like an SPA who does not communicate is trying to manage this article for an active political candidate. Myself and SpeedMcCool suspect a COI. More eyes on this would be appreciated, and possibly some admin action like a page block. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I also suspect that user Applebit is closely related to Smith's campaign (considering that they uploaded his campaign photo to the commons before his campaign launched.)
Further, in early 2018, they repeatedly removed sourced content from Doug Wardlow's page without explanation. Considering the circumstances, this seems like it may have been a sort of peremptory strike on Wardlow's page in anticipation of Smith running in the 2018 race (Smith eventually did not enter the race.) I am not especially familiar with how these cases are handled, so if I am overreaching with my suspicion, please disregard this.
SpeedMcCool (talk) 14:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, I found another one that appears to be a COI. A week before Smith's campaign launch, content that is now featured on Smith's website was copied verbatim into Dennis Smith's page (unsourced, I will add.) This user has only ever edited the Smith page. Again, let me know if I am overreaching.

Randy Fine

Randy Fine has a page, who is is a Republican politician in the Florida House of Representatives. A user with the name @Floridagopman: (Which seems like Randy Fine himself because the name has Florida and initials GOP is synonymous with the Republican Party) has made many changes to page. Glancing at the edits, this user has removed many negative things about Randy Fine and put in positive things. This appears to be a conflict of interest. I put a warning on Floridagopman's talk page. Anything else that should be done ? Thanks RockyMaivia88 (talk) 04:36, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

RockyMaivia88 please note the warning at the top of this page and when you post here "You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so." I have posted the notice on his occasion. TSventon (talk) 08:11, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
The user only edited on 13 June and all their edits were reverted so I don't think any further action is necessary. The notes at the top of the page say "Be careful not to out other editors by posting personal information here." Floridagopman could be any Republican supporter in Florida or indeed elsewhere. TSventon (talk) 08:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Pessin

Miranda6391 has made only 26 edits, all but 3 of which are directly to Pessins article, and another one of which is adding a reference to a novel by Pessin diff. The user has been edit warring to remove reliabilty sourced information from Pessin's article about a 2015 controversy surrounding a 2014 facebook post Pessin made about Gaza. They have not made any attempts to respond other than a post on the BLP noticeboard diff. I agree that the wording that the user objected to in their BLPN post was questionable so I removed it in subsequent editions, but Miranda6391 has continued to remove the passage without any response, other than claiming that the information is "false and defamatory". Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

@Miranda6391: is still continuing to revert without engaging in discussion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:52, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
@Hemiauchenia: I have asked for page protection as editor Miranda6391 seems to be edit warring. scope_creepTalk 16:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Miranda6391 may have a point there. The material they are trying to remove might be a tad one-sided, seeing as there is a lot of coverage about how Pessin feels the posts was mis-attributed. it definitely needs some POV balancing. See Slate and Insidehighered.com'. One of the sources currently used to support the section is a Washington Post opinion piece, which itself criticizes the brouhaha. --- Possibly (talk) 19:22, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree that there is a need for a more thorough treatment of the controversy, but Miranda6391 needs to engage witout repeatedly reverting. I already attempted to add context by specifying that Pessin was referring to Hamas rather than palestinians, but it should probably go further than that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes, of course, no excuse for their edit-warring. Glad to agree that the particular issue needs a POV fine-tune.--- Possibly (talk) 19:42, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
On Pessin's talkpage, Miranda6391 has continued to not disclose their COI, but has stated that they will engage productively from now on diff rather than just repeatedly reverting. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:57, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I have replied to Miranda6391's post with an explanation of the issues. TSventon (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Cellphone surveillance

No COI. IDCOVReveal blocked for 31 hours for for making personal attacks towards other editors then blocked indefinitely with talk page access revoked for impersonating an administrator
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hello, I am doing a page on phone surveillance or phone spying, I have made some edits to the page but Mr.Ollie who thinks he’s Mr.Right thinks it ‘doesn’t fit’. So I came here to see what the others think of it.. I made a piece of content to add to the page other names like mobile phone surveillance, mobile spying and about the app on COVID-19 contact tracing apps. Look at [this page] and let me know what you think. IDCOVReveal (talk) 18:04, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@IDCOVReveal: I don't see anything that suggests a conflict of interest with MrOllie. —C.Fred (talk) 18:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
You don’t? Why is that? You think COVID-19 apps don’t have any surveillance on their citizens? Look at content 2.3, Ethical principles of mass surveillance using COVID-19 contact tracing apps IDCOVReveal (talk) 18:17, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@IDCOVReveal: there is obviously no COI issue here. You can discuss and propose changes on the article's talk page, per WP:BRD.--- Possibly (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Do I copy and paste what is said from here to the talk page then? Is MrOllie a mute? Haven’t heard back from him yet.IDCOVReveal (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Don't paste this thread. Make a new post on the article's talk page, including the reasons you want the material to be included. You can ping MrOllie. Calling someone a "Mr.Right" and a "mute" could be perceived as derogatory, and it does not help your position at all. Don't denigrate others as it violates WP:NPA.--- Possibly (talk) 18:34, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
My bad and okay, I’m not a person who is much of a professional but I do try IDCOVReveal (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@IDCOVReveal: The stuff you're trying to add in, is completely outside the domain of the article. It is not related to it at all and can't go back in. scope_creepTalk 18:54, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
“Not related to the article at all”… How is it not related and if you would like something unrelated I can make it about something about something like a comet IDCOVReveal (talk) 19:12, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@IDCOVReveal: Don't be flip. When there is two seperate editors telling you the same thing, it is not suitable, then take it as read. scope_creepTalk 19:31, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The other two sound like they have better way with words than you do atleast. IDCOVReveal (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@IDCOVReveal: Post a message up to the talk page and I will explain to you. What the primary difference it. There isn't a conflict of interest here. scope_creepTalk 19:41, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Why you have the name creep? (Redacted) IDCOVReveal (talk) 19:44, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
This is probably the last warning you will get regarding personal attacks. Redacted.--- Possibly (talk) 19:51, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Personal attack? It wasn’t personal and if it was wouldn’t it be in their personal life? I was asking a question IDCOVReveal (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Alright IDCOVReveal (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The things you miss when you step out for lunch. Is there anything here anyone other than the OP thinks I should respond to? - MrOllie (talk) 20:21, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
No. Hopefully this will move to the article talk page, where it belongs.--- Possibly (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Just to make it clear to the OP, a conflict of interest would be if MrOllie worked for one of the mobile companies being accused of spying and was defending said companies by deleting the added content. Since we know of no such connection, there's obviously no conflict of interest. This is a content dispute which, as noted, belongs on the article's talk page, not here. NJZombie (talk) 21:24, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

An unusual COIN report

Normally, I show up here to discuss someone with a conflict of interest who isn'y following the rules. Today I have someone who is following the rules and is getting nowhere.

I often assist COI editors who follow the rules. I look at their suggested edits and either implement they or ask that they be made less promotional, etc.

Usually, nobody has a problem with this. At Talk:NowMedical#Requested changes from NowMedical there was a disagreement about whether my edits were good, and I decided to withdraw because I am unwilling to get into a dispute over this.

Alas, that left the COI editor, who really seems to want to follow our rules -- hanging.

Could I please request some other editors to look at the situation and offer an opinion as to whether my edits were appropriate and should be made? I like them and think they were good, but then again, I like everything I do and always agree with my own opinions. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: I don't see the COI issue there; am I missing something? It seems like a content dispute. Perhaps using the {{requestedit}} template would bring a wider range of opinions?--- Possibly (talk) 19:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
It seems that the person who declared that they work for the company, has made some suggested edits, which lead to a lengthy back-and-forth between themselves and User:Guy Macon (with a small number of other people chiming in). This COIN report says that User:Guy Macon wants to make edits but they were disagreed upon by the person who declared themselves as working for the company. Guy: can you summarize for us how many of the users in that discussion disagreed with your edits and how many agreed? If it was just a disagreement between you and the person declaring themselves as having a "COI", then I could understand the gridlock, but it seems there's more people involved in that discussion. Dr. Universe (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I think you misread the situation, Dr. Universe. The editor who reverted Guy Macon's edits was not the person who works for the company. Schazjmd (talk) 22:05, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No, it was I. I have every kind of respect and esteem for Guy Macon, but in this particular instance I disagreed with his addition to our article of content purpose-written on the company's website by the COI editor, and – not without hesitation – reverted it. I know this isn't a normal COI report, but it concerns COI editing and how we deal with it. I was planning to bring it here, but Guy got there first. I'd certainly welcome some other opinions. Would this sit better on the project talk-page, perhaps? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Here are all the players so far:
The person with the declared COI who made the edit suggestions is User:MarthaLuke.
I, User:Guy Macon agree (after a bit of back and forth improvements) with MarthaLuke's suggested edits and implemented them. As always I stand behind my edits so if they are not up to par the fault is mine.
User:Justlettersandnumbers does not agree with My/MarthaLuke's edits and reverted me.
User:DGG agreed with one thing I wrote (about the use of responsible self-published sources), but I don't think we can say they support either version unless they say more.
As for it being a content dispute, of course it is. The problem is that it is a content dispute where one side has their hands tied because they are following our COI rules. I think they deserve to have more than two editors look at their suggestions and have their suggestions permanently rejected on a 1:1 tie vote.
The reason I brought this up here is so that editors who are good at sniffing out promotional edits can check my conclusions. I am really uncomfortable when one person disagrees with me and there are only the two of us. What if I got it wrong? --Guy Macon (talk)
I think they deserve to have more than two editors look at their suggestions... huh? I think the paid editor got first-class service. Two admins and yourself is fabulous high-quality scrutiny. It's not WP:BOGOF, it's buy one get three free. I considered looking at their suggested edits myself, but I don't think it needs to be buy one, get four free. If the edits are stalled then that is the correct outcome.--- Possibly (talk) 02:23, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Just like Guy Macon, I dislike arguing about requested changes. The proper way for a coi editor is to present the information on the talk page, and let other people edit the article. If it becomes a matter of bargaining, I normally disengage. If I consider the end result unsatisfactory, I may edit the article as I would any other like the usual BRD editing by people without a coi. Those with a coi should stay out of the discussion. I am not happy with the present state of the article, but then I am generally not happy with criticisms sections ,which I think are better integrated. And this article has the additional problem thart we don't usually use consumer anecdotes, which can never be representative, but in this case it seems to be the clearest way to show the situation. I think on balance its OK as it is , in the Justlettersandnumbers version. DGG ( talk ) 01:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
If DGG and Justlettersandnumbers both like the current version, then so do I. Sorry. MarthaLuke, but the consensus is clearly against your suggested edits. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
"Those with a coi should stay out of the discussion." That's a new one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I had the same thought. Great minds[Citation Needed] think alike. I was working on a COI request a while back where the person with the COI identified a boatload of mistakes and spoon fed us reliable secondary sources backing up every suggested correction. Of course we also have people with COIs who want to whitewash articles and make them into corporate adds, but there is no rule against suggesting that on an article talk page. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:COITALK! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. Far from requiring "Those with a coi [to] stay out of the discussion", that guideline makes clear they are allowed and indeed expected to participate. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:46, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
That's an incredibly creative interpretation. " No editor should be expected to engage in long or repetitive discussions with someone who is being paid to argue with them." Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:52, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
"an incredibly creative interpretation"? Far from it. It discusses not whether they may participate, but how they may do so. Of course, if you think it says that they should not participate in discussion, please feel free to quote the exact wording supporting that view (which the wording you do quote, being specific to "long or repetitive discussions", does not). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
I am with Pigsonthewing/Andy on this one. It's not like non COI editors are allowed to engage in long or repetitive discussions.
If you don't give someone with a COI a way to correct factual errors or even to make a brief argument against whatever mean things Wikipedia is saying about them, the result will not be them going away and accepting it. The result will be them making undisclosed COI edits or hiring someone to do so. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:30, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
While nobody is supposed to engage in long and repetitive discussions, I think it's fair to hold COI editors to a slightly harsher standard in that regard, simply because part of the way a COI (even a declared COI) can be harmful to the wiki is the unequal motivations it applies in terms of protracted disputes. For example, you backed out of the discussion when it became too frustrating - but someone with a serious enough COI would not (and in extreme cases might not even be able to concede a point or stop pushing it without losing their job and livelihood, though this case doesn't seem quite that extreme.) As Upton Sinclair put it, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." It's not unreasonable to keep that in mind and to be less willing to spend time and energy engaging with COIed accounts that seem unlikely to ever back down or to concede the point, and to be a bit faster to shut them down if they seem completely unwilling to WP:DROPTHESTICK on something that is plainly unlikely to go anywhere. Granted that COI accounts are hardly the only people motivated to slog through that (which is why we have DROPTHESTICK and such to begin with), but it's one reason to be more cautious about it. --Aquillion (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
I was working on a COI request a while back where the person with the COI identified a boatload of mistakes and spoon fed us reliable secondary sources backing up every suggested correction. This is a tangent, but only slightly (since it touches on why many editors are skeptical about COI edit requests.) Fixing mistakes is good, and providing reliable secondary sources is good - but when an article is heavily edited by (or on the advice of) someone who is contractually obligated to only ever correct mistakes in one direction, it can still produce a lopsided article. This is obviously a problem on any article that attracts editors with a strong POV, as anyone familiar with eg. the AP2 topic area can attest, but normally a controversial topic attracts editors with many different perspectives, which ensure everything gets similar scrutiny and leads to a more balanced article overall - there are academic papers confirming this. Whereas COI editors often focus on obscure topics and, if we're not careful, can end up with articles created primarily at their direction, even if every individual edit is well-sourced and accurate. So I feel that when reviewing COI edits it's important to not merely review the specific suggested edits, but to take a step back and consider the article as a whole with an eye towards WP:DUE and WP:TONE, and in particular (especially in situations where there are few other editors) to actively search for aspects of the topic that might go against the COI in question to ensure that they're getting due coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 18:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I am the COI editor in question. To clarify, I never requested the edits in dispute, nor did I make – or even propose – these changes, or even infer they were good or bad.

The reason there is confusion is because the discussion string starts with edits I requested six months ago that are not currently the subject of dispute. @Guy Macon: I see there is another noticeboard for Reliable Sources that seems more appropriate to resolve a disagreement over using primary sources. MarthaLuke (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

St Hilda Sea Adventures

This user seems to be interested solely, going back years, in getting this company onto Wikipedia. 92.24.246.11 (talk) 15:55, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The company does not seem notable. AFD'd.--- Possibly (talk) 17:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Todd Kashdan

The biography of Todd Kashdan contains a section regarding sexual harassment and "lack of appropriate professional behavior" charges that were brought against him following a series of incidents involving his graduate psychology students at George Mason University. The incidents and consequences were reported in The Washington Post[1] and Inside Higher Ed.[2] User Gmupsychologist1 has created an account today whose sole purpose is to whitewash these events and present Kashdan's side of the story, relying on first no sources (diff) and then a source from Justitia Dockets,[3] which fails to verify the claims made in their edit (although their edit summary claims the evidence is in the docket appendix, which does not appear to be available from Justitia). I have warned Gmupsycologist1 of Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules, to no avail. I seek administrative intervention to keep this user from whitewashing this page. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 17:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Anderson, Nick (1 May 2020). "George Mason University investigation faults professor for sexual talk with students in class and a hot tub, court records show". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ Burke, Lilah (4 May 2020). "George Mason Faults Professor for Sexual Talk With Students". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  3. ^ https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/ca4/20-1509
As the user who put the {{welcome-coi}} template on their talk page, I think the username makes the conflict of interest abundantly obvious, especially coupled with the nature of the edits. Gmupsychologist1 is welcome to suggest edits at the article's talk page, making sure to cite reliable secondary sources, but they should not be allowed to directly edit the article. —C.Fred (talk) 17:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Reference spamming and COI editing from Researcherphd

Nearly all of this user's edits, going back several years, seem to be related to a small group of researchers. I've reverted several instances of WP:REFSPAM but there are probably others needing removing and these two articles also need attention. I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, but there may well be some meat/socking going on: [1] @MrOllie: in case you can shed any light. SmartSE (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

It looks very likely that
should be added to the list. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
The linked revert of mine was actually about different sockpuppets who were refspamming a different academics work in some of the same articles. I don't remember noticing Researcherphd before, but I agree that the editing pattern looks bad. - MrOllie (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
I have made an edit on Liu Sifeng where I changed "he is the world's expert on Grey Systems Theory" to "he has published multiple highly-cited papers on Grey Systems Theory". It's somewhat subjective who the "world's expert" is (though Liu Sifeng does seem to be the most prominent living person in that area), whereas it's objective that Liu has published at least 3 papers on the topic which each have 1000+ citations on GS. However, I'm not quite sure I see where the accusation "Nearly all of this user's edits, going back several years, seem to be related to a small group of researchers" comes from? What percentage of a user's edits need to be related to a specific topic, to be considered "nearly all" edits? It appears to not even be 50% of the person's edits. Even if it were 49% of their edits, this would be closer to nearly none than nearly all. What relation do Patricia O'Brien, Fatima Ebrahimi, Frederick Soddy and other that Researcherphd edited, have to do with Grey relational analysis or Liu Sifeng? Dr. Universe (talk) 19:02, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
First of all, this is my first time at COI page, since i begin editing several years back, and i hope i respond/edit my comment here accurately. (1) I am not associated with any people i edit (or when i create new page). (2) If you see my edits, there is one pattern, which none of you could observe: I work on niche, someone big editors fail to recognize. Grey System Theory (GST) was developed in 1982, who else saw it? I tried to create a page for it but since it is connected with its popular model grey relational analysis(GRA) thus i couldn't create a new page for it (though i know it deserves a page of itself. Please see the "talk" page of GRA). Then i researched and edited two top experts of the field (Deng Julong, Liu Sifeng). Yes, if Fuzzy set theory's founder Lotfi A. Zadeh can have a page why can't GST's founding fathers? Also, GST is a new field and most of the people working over it are directly connected with Liu Sifeng and his research group at a Chinese university (a study by Scientometrics journal confirms this. DOI:10.1007/s11192-019-03256-z). Hence, no matter which paper you read on GST, you will end up with this one big guy, and since you don't know this fact it's very convenient for someone to accuse me of "seem to be related to a small group of researchers." The field of GST is itself a field of "small group of researchers." It's a field whose one founding father is still alive (i.e., Liu Sifeng), and when i edit this field related pages at wikipedia i keep an eye on the scholars who are connected with him, because they are core engine of this vehicle currently. Also, if you removed all my edits from this field related pages, you would end up where you were few years back; there was only one page (grey relational analysis) with hardly one paragraph! Another evidence i work on niche: Who else before me noticed that Frederick Soddy had worked on Economics as well? I edited Soddy's page in that direction, else most people only knew he was a Chemist. Same is the case with my other edits. For example, i'm also editing few pages of Chinese universities with significant achievements because most of the people are just busy in editing Tsinghua University or Peking University (One day you may think these universities are paying me for their advertisements....???). Also, i found a 2-year toddler (Archie Mountbatten-Windsor) had a page but a scientist with a very promising contribution (Fatima Ebrahimi) didn't had one until i created. I repeat myself: I'm a "niche editor", and it's a very difficult job. You can ask me to resign and i promise you i won't touch those pages ever again however i will remind you after five years if no body edited them in that period. Researcherphd (talk), 2:46 am, 11 June 2021.

Scientific contributions of Nike Dattani

Closing so this gets archived - Dr. Universe has indicated that they will voluntarily avoid the topic area where they have an apparent COI. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Articles

Article of lesser concern

Editor Dr. Universe seems to have created the page Nikesh S. Dattani sometime before 2014. It was deleted in 2014 (deletion discussion here). They recreated the page under a different name of Nike Dattani somewhat later; the different name had the effect of avoiding a swift G4. It was recently deleted (2nd deletion discussion here).

In addition to the persistent efforts at a biography page for Dattani (with possible attempt to evade G4), the editor has added prominent mention of Dattani to a large number of pages, and has resisted attempts by other editors to remove these. The pages above all include prominent, and I believe in most cases WP:UNDUE, mention of Dattani. Indeed, it would be surprising if a scientist for whom AfD regulars saw little sign of WP:NPROF notability had contributed so substantially to 10 different problems. Diffs of particular concern is:

There seems to be a larger pattern of adding prominent coverage of Dattani, sometimes while removing other references. Examples from Dr. Universe include Special:Diff/800349616, Special:Diff/657025573, creation and promotion of Dattani on Morse/Long-range potential, creation of page and unbalanced mention of Dattani at Robert J. LeRoy, Special:Diff/746821298, Special:Diff/617019234, likely others. IP editors have also added references to Dattani (with the appearance of promotion), including Special:Diff/921951064 and the series of diffs beginning here. Some of these may even be WP:DUE, and most of the edits are not independently so problematic; I find the pattern concerning.

The editor disclosed, or appeared to disclose, some form of COI in the 2nd article for deletion discussion (where several editors expressed COI concerns), but the disclosure seemed to misunderstand the nature of COI on Wikipedia. I am not comfortable unilaterally adding connected contributor tags, and I'm not sure that it would help. The editor has a 10+ year history at Wikipedia, with a bit over 1000 edits in their history, some of which are helpful and positive. Edits to these pages where I have COI concerns do comprise a significant portion of their edits - already, their 48 (!!) edits at WP:Articles for deletion/Nike Dattani make up around 4% of their publicly visible edit history. This sure looks to me like a WP:DUCK with a conflict of interest.

I am bringing this to COIN now following a particularly unhelpful discussion on my talk page. I think this needs eyes other than my own.

I had earlier asked XOR'easter for an opinion (as a physics expert) on the Morse/Long-range potential article, which I was uncertain justified a standalone article. I will also leave a note at Wikiproject physics, as some expertise may be helpful in untangling the situation. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@Russ Woodroofe: Well spotted. scope_creepTalk 11:53, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Subject of the discussion replying here:
  • Even though I've had an account for 13 years, this concept of a "noticeboard" is very new to me, as is much of the terminology being used here. I find this extremely overwhelming.
  • The top says "This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period." Russ only replied to me once on his talk page, and did not reply to my response to that reply. Even though it looks like my response was much longer, Russ had done a few other things in between which I found to be very harmful, so I wanted to address those things too. I would very much appreciate if we can try to resolve this on a talk page first.
  • Russ has accused me of re-creating an article "with possible attempt to evade G4", but that is extremely deceiving, and Russ knows that because in the recent AfD discussion, an admin already investigated the difference between the 2014 article and the 2018 one, and determined that they were substantially different. Russ said the second article was created "somewhat later" even though it was 4 years later and was a totally different article (as an admin already determined). Russ was thorough when it worked against me, but vague by saying "somewhat later" when it could make it look like I violated some rule about G4 (which I'd never heard of before, by the way!).
  • There has been no basis given for the claim of WP:UNDUE mentions (though I just learned that term recently from Russ, and I still have to read up on it), and it seems like Russ Woodroofe taking revenge against me for suggesting that he made undue mentions of Michael Woodroofe (an article created by Russ Woodroofe).
  • "Partial reversion of content-removal by AfD closer at Timeline of quantum computing and communication" is I think an unfair characterization of what happened. The AfD closer removed the "[[ ]]" around all mentions of the deleted article so that the text would appear in ordinary black rather than a red hyperlink, but on only one out of 14 articles that she did this, she removed more than just the hyperlink and removed substantially more. I thought this was a mistake because it was only done in 1/14 articles, and it wasn't even done properly (the first part of a sentence was removed, but the part containing the reference was not, so the article looked bizarre with a lone reference floating around). Furthermore, "quantum computing" is not a topic for which the admin was an expert, so removing an entire entry from "Timeline for Quantum Computing" seemed to be an "overly" bold move, especially since they only removed "[[ ]]" from the other 13 articles (not removal of the entire sentence). When Russ reverted my reversion, I left it at that, and didn't touch it anymore, even though I did think the removal of an entire entry from the timeline was a bit extreme.
  • It's true that in 2018 I added to the Hierarchical Equations of Motion article, mention of the person I wrote a biography (which also by the way was in 2018). But that article has changed a lot since then, and I'm happy with the article remaining as it is with minimal mentioning of the person I wrote the biography about. I think the last thing I did was change "Wilkins" to "Wilkins and Dattani" because the citation was to a 2-author paper published in Journal of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry.
  • I don't see why I'm being called a "DUCK" and why it's such a big deal that 4% of my edit history has been on one AfD discussion, because it was my first AfD discussion ever (except for the one in 2014 for which I only made one small edit and clearly didn't know how AfD worked) because it was the first time an article that I created went to AfD (I had some other articles deleted almost instantly in the past, but this one was exceptional because it was nominated for AfD after being up for almost 3 years, and person who nominated it was a single-purpose-account which appeared to be part of a sockpuppet and became part of this sock puppet investigation). Many of those edits (leading to 4% of my total edits being on the AfD) were because I was trying to raise attention to the sockpuppet-like behaviour, and I didn't know that an investigation could be opened like the admin did.
  • The article for Robert J LeRoy was made by someone else.
  • The list of articles given here by Russ is a bit deceiving. For example, I've never made any edits to the "Pseudo-Boolean Optimization" article, even though Russ's comment in the AfD discussion incorrectly accused me of doing so. Russ has also removed a citation (to the person who's biography I wrote) in that page with an edit summary saying "non-reliable source" with no justification for why it's an unreliable source.
  • Russ has also removed an entire example (having absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this discussion: Nike Dattani) from this Wikipedia article without any discussion on any talk page, despite admitting on XOR'easter's talk page that he's not familiar with the article's topic. When I mentioned that deleting this paragraph was destructive to the overall project, he didn't reply but instead created this Noticeboard discussion.
  • I would very much like to try to resolve this with Russ on a talk page first, before getting a long list of accusations against me made here. It would be appreciated if we could do that! Dr. Universe (talk) 20:25, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dr. Universe: very few editors have time to read the walls of text that you have pasted here and on Russ Woodroofe's talk page. Could you just answer in a sentence or two (not five paragraphs) whether you know Nikesh S. Dattani, you worked for them or are connected to them in some way?--- Possibly (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
PS: if someone says "I think you are connected to XYZ" and you reply with 870 words that do not include "no, I am not connected", then it's a pretty good reason to bring things here, as you seem to be obfuscating the issue.--- Possibly (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: Please be a bit more gentle with me. Russ has been "hounding" me for over a week and it's been bothering me a lot. I didn't know the procedure for noticeboards since this is my first experience on one. I was never trying to obfuscate anything, I was just trying to reply to Russ's initial post because a lot of it is deceiving (for example an admin already determined there was no G4 violation, and Russ already knew that, and the article was written 4 years after the previous one was deleted, so why is he trying to insinuate that I was "trying to evade G4"?). I do not know the subject personally, nor have I worked for them. Russ said that I "disclosed a COI" but that's a bit deceiving too: I said "As the article's author I have a COI" in an AfD discussion about an article that I wrote (meaning I was biased towards !voting for "keep", but that doesn't mean I have a COI with the subject of the article). I became interested in the subject due to being a fan of his academic supervisor Robert J LeRoy (who's article was written by someone else, I only added to it). There was a profile about LeRoy mentioned in my Grade 11 chemistry textbook (the same textbook for all students in Ontario). Also he never said "I think you're connected to XYZ" he said he had concerns about COI which I thought I addressed in my first sentence of the reply on his Talk page. Dr. Universe (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dr. Universe: OK thanks for that. I will take that as a statement that you have no conflict on these articles. In future a statement like "I am entirely independent of the subject of this article, and have no conflict of interest" is really all you need to say.--- Possibly (talk) 22:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: I appreciate that a lot. I still have to read the articles about COI and I thought I had a COI at least for the AfD discussion because I was the article's creator (I spent a lot of time on that article), but that's different from having a COI with the actual subject itself. I would really have appreciated if this could have been sorted out in a talk page rather than opening up a 14-day investigation about me right after a 7-day AfD discussion on an article I created. I'm always willing to talk. My comments on Russ's talk page were indeed long, but there was a lot of things going on and a lot of accusations thrown around against me in several different pages, and large pieces of the articles I contributed to were being removed for no apparent reason (even a paragraph that had nothing to do with the subject of this COI discussion). Dr. Universe (talk) 22:52, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dr. Universe: This discussion stays open until it is closed by a bot, which happens automatically. The discussion here is about COI only, so be aware that you may still find your edits related to Nikesh S. Dattani challenged within articles. Have a good evening.--- Possibly (talk) 23:10, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
So I'm confused by the bulleted list of grievances on the HEOM talk page that is started by an IP from U Waterloo (a place Dattani is/was employed) and continued by Dr. Universe and a second IP (from the greater Toronto area, who had also added references of Dattani to the pseudo-Boolean function) in exactly the same format. There's also this bizarre invisible text at the bottom of this comment:
<!--- I was at the dinner table which was seated by: Tanimura, Dattani, Coker, Mukamel, Petrucionne, and whoever else (I'll have to look at the photograph) the night before Dattani's talk. When Mukamel asked Dattani ---> That snippet, plus the familiarity with Dattani expressed earlier in the same diff (Tanimura was in the audience (actually he had a flight to catch and stayed just to see Dattani finish his talk and then he waved goodbye to him and left immediately after)., make me very skeptical Dr. Universe doesn't personally know Dattani. JoelleJay (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Dr. Universe... why did you write that you were at dinner with him at the same table (diff above) and then today write that you "do not know the subject personally"? Do you know him professionally?--- Possibly (talk) 05:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: That quote sounds like it was about a conference dinner the night before a conference talk, but I don't remember writing it nor why it was left commented out like that. You said this section stays open until it's closed by a bot, but can Russ not withdraw?
@JoelleJay: You accused me of WP:HOUNDING for writing just 2 comments on your talk page which were meant to be friendly, and for writing an 8-word reply to you in another AfD, and you COINcidentally find this COIN page and dig up that level of detail on my edits? Anyway there's a lot of U Waterloo IP addresses in the picture, remember I also told you that there was a U Waterloo IP address from "Lila's macbook pro" that made an edit that just removed Lila Kari's name from the article about Dattani. I too have used University of Waterloo computers in the past, though not for a very long time. Anyway that HEOM article is one that admins looked at in the past, for reasons including the fact that an account with username User:NikeDattani came up and removed 2 references to Dattani's papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hierarchical_equations_of_motion&diff=921150731&oldid=921105082. If you're worried about me or someone else having added Dattani's name there improperly, I've removed a whole section about him from that article just now: I'd like to move away from that article as quickly as possible, and have also notified admins about striking out some edits. Apart from that article, I think the other ones listed here have a benign edit history. I've had a bad experience with back-and-forth with you (Joelle) in the past, and I would really prefer not to go through that again. To allow myself to be freed at last from all the scrutiny I've been getting lately, I may just remove mentions of Dattani across all pages where I added it, and if it really should have been there, someone else may add it later. Dr. Universe (talk) 07:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dr. Universe: again, you fail to give a straight answer to "do you know him professionally". I'm going to leave this discussion now, as it's really frustrating to get a straight answer, But I do now think Dr. Universe has a conflict they are not clearly disclosing.--- Possibly (talk) 07:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: I don't know him professionally but I'm a subject-matter-expert in a niche field of science. All articles Russ listed had to do with physics or some type of maths that is related to quantum information. I didn't add anything to the Wikipedia articles about Dattani's other work in bioinformatics. Dr. Universe (talk) 17:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Dr. Universe, I don't find your answers credible as you have given contradictiry answers too many times, but thanks for replying.--- Possibly (talk) 17:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
"contradictory answers too many times" ? I've been asked 2 questions which were both yes/no. If you think my answer to the second one was contradictory, then you shouldn't have asked it since you already knew the answer! I have not given one contradictory answer. Dr. Universe (talk) 17:46, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
To address your comments, in order:
  • Re: HOUNDING me:
Extended content

Your comments on my talk page were in the midst of our AfD dispute; along with being completely unsolicited and unnecessary, I took them as a not-so-subtle accusation of misrepresenting myself and a "warning" that you had scoured my user page (and in particular my personally identifying information). The Wagner AfD comment came not long after this, and your single comment in the Methi AfD was a condescending admonishment not to badger. You've also made multiple comments referencing my participation in previous AfDs; these things together gave me the strong impression you'd been combing through my contribs specifically for things to harass me over. After I brought up the HOUNDING, you revisited my TP to contest someone else's note of appreciation for me (and I now see you've complained about me multiple times on that user's talk page), resurrected a 1.5 month-old WP TP thread I and another Dattani !voter were heavily involved in, and found your way to a discussion on a different WP TP I was in very soon after I made my first comment there.

  • I have the physics wikiproject watchlisted and saw the COIN notice there.
  • The HEOM page was linked above, so I read the talk page and noticed the IPs, and in the process of collecting the diff where you discuss the 2014 conference (indicating at least professional familiarity with Dattani) I noticed the invisible comment.
  • The existence of some group of COIs and sock/meatpuppets advancing a negative agenda re: Dattani doesn't excuse doing the opposite. Off-wiki academic rivalries, or whatever all that is, should not be brought onto wikipedia.
  • Please, for the time being do not add or remove references/content relevant to this discussion. These should be addressed by completely uninvolved editors (if at all) while the COIN thread is open. JoelleJay (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
    • Your accusation of me HOUNDING was completely extraordinary. How on Earth does this edit have anything to do with you, other than the fact that you participated earlier in the conversation? I voted "keep per others". I participated in dozens of AfDs in the last 2 weeks. It had nothing to do with you. On your talk page it was meant to be a friendly gesture followed by an attempt to call a truce on the AfD we were in. You're mentioning several AfDs but you accused me of HOUNDING when I'd only replied to you in one, and it was well before I even knew what HOUNDING was let alone that it should be avoided. I am a far more inexperienced user than you and I would appreciate if you would not be so aggressive towards me. You have personally attacked me too many times, for example with the words "absurd", "baseless", "extreme", and "Christ" and I have told you many times that I don't want something like that to happen again. Now you show up at a discussion about me and accuse me of knowing a subject personally based on 2 IP addresses 112 km away from each other and you didn't mention that there was 22 other IP addresses involved in that discussion until now. You also made destructive edits on some of the above articles, for example when you said "It is indisputable that the MLR was introduced in the 2007 paper" when there was a June 2006 paper introducing the same MLR, meaning that it's not "indisputable". Can we call a truce and stop interacting with each other on discussions/articles including this one (I can also go to the extreme of not participating in any AfD where you have written a vote, if you would like that, since you've accused me of HOUNDING after I replied to you in one AfD and wrote a comment independent of you in another AfD that you happened to comment on much earlier)? Dr. Universe (talk) 17:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
off-topic (response re: HOUNDING)
HOUNDING does not have to involve specific interaction with the other editor. Look at it from my perspective: you suddenly show up at an AfD (on a 1950s Norwegian speed skater -- so nothing to do with physics or academia) I previously commented in, after having repeatedly brought up my participation in AfDs, just to chastise me. I now see this was your first-ever AfD comment (outside Dattani), which makes it an even clearer case of HOUNDING. The next edit I see is a veiled accusation on my talk page (I am well within my right to assume bad faith with that), and not long after you leave an opposing !vote on another sports AfD I was involved in. That you !voted in AfDs between the two (and made two NACs, under 24 hours after your first !vote -- you should not be closing even unambiguous discussions with so little experience, and especially not supervoting on contentious ones or closing AfDs you're involved in!) is immaterial to what it looked like to me at the time I brought it up, and anyway your subsequent behavior has only served to reinforce my assertion.
off-topic (response re: "destructive edits")
Your example of my "destructive editing" is my talk page comment stating it was indisputable the MLR was introduced in a 2007 paper. I addressed this in my next comment:

The 2006 paper by Le Roy, Huang, and Jary does namedrop their new Morse/long-range potential form, but its reference is to the then-unpublished 2007 paper where it is actually introduced ("The present work presents a new potential energy function model, what we call the ‘Morse/Long-Range’ or MLR function").

No, the destructive edit was on the main page, not the talk page. Your quote in green does not show that it's "indisputable" that MLR was introduced in 2007 because it was published in June 2006 and the 2007 paper that you're referring to had 2 authors, one which started working on the project in May 2006 (see the talk page). Dr. Universe (talk) 23:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
The many other IPs and accounts making apparently anti-Dattani edits are being dealt with in the relevant SPI. It is, in fact, extremely relevant that there were U of Waterloo IPs making pro-Dattani edits and listing grievances alongside and in support of you/each other. How are we supposed to believe your claims of professional and personal independence from Dattani when you a) have discussed very specific events you both attended, including a pre-conference dinner where you were photographed together; and b) have admitted to "using U of Waterloo computers". You're a subject-matter-expert in the same niche field as Dattani, can attest to the specific roles each author played on a paper he was on, familiar enough with his research to dig up unindexed source code for a program released by Le Roy that happens to acknowledge him in a comment, and apparently even worked at the same university as Dattani, and yet you don't know him personally or professionally? JoelleJay (talk) 22:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
  • You mentioned one U of Waterloo IP and now you're saying "IPs" in plural.
  • I wrote here already that I don't know where that quote in 2019 about what seemed to be a pre-conference dinner, came from: It was commented out, and the sentence was cut-off suddenly without finishing. Please let's stick to evidence that wasn't commented out or incomplete. I really don't know what was going on there 2 years ago in the middle of that contentious discussion with 22 anti-Dattani accounts/IPs.
  • Me using U of Waterloo computers is something I wrote today here in this discussion, in the spirit of being open, not for you to use it against me: The university has about 60,000 members at any given time and probably millions of alumni and members of the public using their computers.
  • I never "attested" to specific roles each other played on a paper he was on: I went by the "author contributions" (which was brought up by you!) listing in the paper.
  • I told you in the AfD discussion how I found the source code, and you also managed to dig up some extremely specific information about him in that same discussion.
  • I'm not sure where it was said that I "worked at the same university as Dattani".
  • This is the last time I'll say it: I would like you to stop interacting with me on AfD and noticeboards since I have told you so many times to stop badgering me and sealioning me and I can no longer take the level of harassment. If "uninvolved" editors have concerns, they can chime in so you don't need to worry. Dr. Universe (talk) 23:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Request I can no longer take the WP:Badgering and Sealioning from JoelleJay which has been going on for about 2 weeks, not just here but also in AfD. I have asked that user to stop badgering me over and over and over and over again with no success. I'd like this discussion to get closed early. If you want to make the consensus that I have a COI, then fine. You're free to monitor the pages listed in this article and my user contributions and perhaps even open a COIN against me in the future, but I'd like the peace of mind of having this closed no matter the outcome. Dr. Universe (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Comment. Apologies to come back in here late. But after reading WP:OUTING carefully, I believe it is within policy to point out two relevant edits by Dr. Universe: 1) I believe the 4th-from-last sentence of this diff, beginning "my name", may be a self-disclosure that the editor is very closely connected to Dattani, indeed. (Note that the subsequent edit replaces "my name" with "my subject's name".) 2) Possibly also relevant, in this diff, Dr. Universe speaks somewhat frankly about his use of Waterloo IPs. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Also, Dr. Universe points out correctly that he was not the creator of Robert J. LeRoy. I was confused by the similarly-named LeRoy radius article, and this was a mistake in the original posting. The sentence praising joint work with Dattani in that article was added by an IP. As far as his other related points about the nomination: I don't think the difference between swift G4 and swift referral to AfD is significant, and my concerns about Pseudo-Boolean function stand. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Response: It is absolutely not a self-disclosure, the diff points to a typo that was corrected 3 minutes later, and to consider something a disclosure one must look at the final version after minor typos are corrected. I remember correcting that typo and thinking it wouldn't be a big deal because people already know that I'm not the subject, I'm just being accused of being too closely connected to the subject. It's extremely easy to prove the former (although the initial ways I can think of, like me showing a picture of my ID or something, would I hope not be necessary if we respect the rules about WP:OUTING that I just learned from Russ's comment). My use of a Waterloo IP was something that I did not need to say here, and I was worried that by saying that people would try to use it against me, but I thought that since I don't know the subject personally or have professional ties with them, there would be no harm in being open and honest about it, plus there's 60,000 members of UWaterloo at any given time, and millions of alumni and even more when we include visitors and members of the public since it's a public university funded by tax-payers who are allowed to spend time there without being a member. I'm finding a lot of this to be intimidating and I don't think it's fair to say I broke WP rules based on me using a Waterloo IP (which you first of all learned directly from me, in this specific discussion: I didn't have to tell it to you but I didn't know people would try to use each piece of information against me that way... this is making me nervous about being open in the future, which is unfortunate because all this time I thought were were supposed to be welcoming and not making others feel uncomfortable in this way... I feel "guilty until proven innocent" and that the burden of proof for everything is on the defendant rather than the accuser). After learning from Russ just now about WP:OUTING, I don't feel comfortable having comments from years ago, which were clearly not even complete since the sentence ended abruptly without finishing, used to make assumptions about me, and I worry that the follow-up questions and responses to my answers did push me to want to just say my name and show my ID so that we could settle all this once-and-for-all, but I don't think we're supposed to be made to feel like we're forced to "OUT" ourselves.
The events on various pages in the 2 weeks leading up to this discussion, make me concerned that the initial accuser had quite a strong interest in getting a certain outcome and they started this discussion with some wordings which have hindered the possibility for a fair trial, even though they may have been acting with good intentions. Also there was 4 years between the two articles, so even if "swift G4" and "swift AfD" were the same thing, neither is an accurate representation of what happened or what my intentions were when I made the second article. Furthermore, the initial accuser did actually say "G4" and not "AfD", and that was not fair. The instructions are quite clear that COIN should start only after some other things have been attempted such as talk page discussions, but no matter what anyone tries to say, that just did not happen and the initial accuser already had told XOR'Easter that they were considering COIN well before any attempt the discuss anything on the talk pages.
However now that Russ and I have started to talk a bit on his talk page, he has suggested that I should add a "connected contributor" template to the article I'm currently writing on Donald James LeRoy, and it seems this is only based on the fact that I'm a fan of his son Robert J. LeRoy, even though I never met DJ LeRoy and absolutely did not know him personally or professionally, or in any capacity at all (actually he died in 1985, and without WP:OUTING my specific age, let's just say it wouldn't be hard for me to prove to you that I didn't personally know him if I was forced to). I had not idea that "conflict" of interest was so broad that I should add "connected contributor" to that article, but I will consider to do this and then to add this template myself to whatever articles in Russ's above list that warrant it based on my next thorough reading of the COI rules, but I would be quite furious if my username just gets embarrassed by other users adding these templates everywhere unfairly. I already removed all mentions of people connected to Robert J LeRoy, from many of those articles. I would appreciate if we could go through the proper procedure of discussing things on talk pages before making much wider public accusations: for example in some of the above articles, things like the KLi example and the quadratization reference were removed without any discussion on the talk page, and before this COIN discussion even started. For example, I'm very sure we would have at least reached agreement on the KLi example if we'd talked about it (seems we did eventually agree on it outside of this COIN!). Dr. Universe (talk) 20:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Dr. Universe, It is pretty clear at this point that you're going to have trouble editing articles about anyone connected to the University of Waterloo - this is going to keep being brought up as long as you are active on these pages. Regardless of the exact nature of your connection, or how fair or unfair this might be, would you consider agreeing not to edit about anything connected to the university or anyone who is employed by them? I think that would be best for everyone - including yourself, since this process seems to be causing you quite a bit of stress. There are lots of other academics who could use articles. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red would be a great place to look for subjects. MrOllie (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
@MrOllie: I very much appreciate your feedback, and thank you. I'll reply to you more later about what you said, but if it can indeed make this easier on me (because except for one very simple AfD in 2014, I had zero familiarity with "noticeboards" or "AfD" until 2 weeks ago, and I have found these types of wide, public, accusations/discussions to be unpleasant), I can totally stop editing articles about anyone connected to Waterloo. I was in the middle of writing the articles for Jiří_Čížek (Waterloo professor) and Donald James LeRoy (father of Waterloo professor) and the OP of this COIN discussion (Russ Woodroofe) was helping me with these on a different talk page, but he said it would be okay if it goes through "AfC". I was already considering contributing to Women in Red when I saw on JoelleJay's talk page how many women that pass WP:Notability don't yet have articles, but being brought into these noticeboards and such, have caused me to be unable to write new articles about people and contribute in other ways. If I can stop editing articles about Waterloo people, and also in the meantime not have people keep discussing me here, I'm actually extremely keen on contributing the Women in Red. I actually know someone involved over there named Jess Wade. Dr. Universe (talk) 21:34, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Unrelated question

Pasted from the top of COIN, where it was mistakenly posted.--- Possibly (talk) 01:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC) @Possibly: Do you know why this is still up after 14 days? You said that a bot will archive it after 14 days? Dr. Universe (talk) 00:15, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Dr. Universe: I believe Possibly probably meant 14 days from the time the last post was made, not from the time the discussion was started. The last post prior to yours seems to have been made on May 24, and 14 days hasn't passed since that day. Now, unfortunately, it appears that your post (and subsequently this response made by me) has probably reset the clock, which means that the thread will be archived 14 days from today as long as nobody posts anything further. There's really no rush to archive discussions; most of the time they just end naturally when people stop posting and thus will eventually be archived at some point (if automatic archiving has been set up). If they're not archived exactly after 14 days have passed, then it's not really a big deal; moreover, if the thread is formally closed before 14 days have passed, then it might even be archived a little sooner (which again isn't a big deal). -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:20, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dr. Universe: Marchjuly's answer above is excellent. At my talk page you asked a similar question about how COIN works. As Marchjuly says, this will be archived a while after the last post to the thread. In general I think COIN is effective at getting at the core of COI issues as many people contribute their views. Your message on mytalk page sounded like this discussion is overwhelming for you. If that's the case, don't participate, unwatch the page and do something else for a few days. --- Possibly (talk) 01:59, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How do I declare CoI from 5 years ago?

I'd like to know how I can disclose CoI edits that I have made about 5 years ago. During my work at a former employer, Unwired Labs, I have edited the articles: GSM Cell ID and OpenCellID. I'm not aware of edits to other articles at the moment, but history might reveal some. I have not actively received any payments for my edits, apart from the monthly salary for my work at the company. However, edits to Wikipedia is not part of my job resposibilities. The article GSM Cell ID was used for promotional purposes, to the best of my knowledge during my work. I could not comment on further advancements after I parted in November 2017.

I was not aware of the CoI requirements in the early days. As I progressed over time, I learnt more and has thus mostly refrained from editing. I might have edited, but couldn't recall. I have added {{Update}} (Special:Diff/786780889) and {{Advert}} (Special:Diff/800745380) templates to OpenCellID and {{Primary sources}} (Special:Diff/788141583) to GSM Cell ID, for which I was reprimanded. In 2020, when I knew better, I have noted the CoI in the edit summary (Special:Diff/961037277) as per policy.

What are the next steps that I should follow? -- DaxServer (talk) 17:27, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@DaxServer, If you have had a COI in the past, declaring so would be a good idea, but since you no longer edit the article, declaring it is rather moot. Just don’t edit the article again, but if you are going to edit the article in future, then declaring a COI would be wise. Celestina007 (talk) 00:06, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
@Celestina007 Thanks for the clarification! -- DaxServer (talk) 08:51, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Aaron Golbin and DebateIsland

Articles

Recent accounts

Last year's accounts (blocked)

User DILover1 claims on their talk page they aren't paid and are just a fan of Aaron Golbin, a teen businessman, and his company DebateIsland. However, all their edits are on the above articles, and the intent is clearly very promotional.

The most recent evidence of promotional intent came when they removed all the AFC tags from Draft:Aaron Gabriel Golbin, including the stop sign one advising that Golbin is not notable... and then pushed the article to article space. Then they did that all again, five minutes later. This really strikes me as paid editing. I opened an SPI for the many associated accounts that have worked on the Golbin article, but no word yet.

Now they've done the same thing with DebateIsland, stripping it of the "stop" AFC tags and moving it to article space with the comment "DebateIsland is the largest online debate platform globally by activity and should have a Wiki."

Here's the deletion log for Aaron Golbin. I think this is pretty clearly some kind of promotion, with an undisclosed COI. --- Possibly (talk) 03:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I’m not paid and will not be paid to write these articles. I’m a DebateIsland user, like hundreds of thousands of others, and want to make a wiki about the company and Aaron Golbin, the founder of DebateIsland. DILover1 (talk) 04:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Care to explain "I am not being immediately financially compensated" then? (emphasis added) —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 04:08, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
And it's more than a bit difficult to believe that this [2] is the first edit by a new user who just happened to decide to write an article. Meters (talk) 04:19, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I added AaronGolbin to the list of accounts active this year; they created Draft:Aaron Gobin and Draft:DebateIsland last week, on June 5. Those got deleted, and were recreated by DILover1. It's actually hard to keep track of which account created which draft, as there have been so many attempts. --- Possibly (talk) 04:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

  • I haven't seen this at COIN before, but all the recent accounts are blocked... and all possible article titles are salted ... and all possible draft titles are salted.--- Possibly (talk) 22:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Natemup

Natemup declares on his user page that he: is a millennial theology and history nerd, Black Catholic aspiring to the priesthood, and graduate student in Black Catholicism at XULA's Institute for Black Catholic Studies. He is from Evansville, Indiana. in a recent article addition he has cited himself, writing a blog for the "Black Catholic Messenger", in which he identifies as a Josephite seminarian. He has not explicitly declared any COI anywhere I have seen, and continues to edit Josephite- and XUL-related articles freely, regardless of NPOV concerns. It seems this editor will need to (1) declare his COI explicitly and (2) begin to use edit requests on the talk pages of articles where he has a direct COI. He has done good-faith work in areas of black Catholicism and I hope that this issue will not serve to hinder that work. Elizium23 (talk) 05:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

@Elizium23: there are COI disclosures for Black Catholicism and Black Catholic Movement on Natemup's user page. Do those mitigate the above any?--- Possibly (talk) 05:12, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Possibly, those aren't really organizations in their own right. He can't have a COI with "black Catholicism" just because he is a black Catholic! What I am discussing are the specific organizations to which he is affiliated. Elizium23 (talk) 05:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm fine with disclosing any relevant COIs, but I wasn't aware that I needed to beyond what I had already done. Is this something that should have been mentioned on my talk page before being reported here? And for the record, I am a Josephite seminarian-to-be; I haven't started classes and am would not be a member of the society per se for another several years. As for XULA, I am a student there, but I'm not sure that counts as an editors' COI. natemup (talk) 11:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
@Natemup: Thank you for openly declaring what COI you think you have. ---Avatar317(talk) 00:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Catholic University of Portugal

Above editor has made a COI declaration on their TP. They are continuing to edit the article, which is filling up with phrases such as "UCP promotes integrated training geared towards the global context, based on the principles of truth and respect for individuals and the environment" and "with a view to promoting qualified education and integral formation, knowledge and research of reference, and innovation at the service of the common good". Some of this is "sourced" to the university website, and many of the sources are in Portugese. MB 19:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

They disclosed a COI but not that they are being paid. The Commons account for the same user says it is a role account for the Catholic University of Portugal, so the paid editing seems clear. I left a paid editing template on their user page. --- Possibly (talk) 21:51, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
A new account with one edit, Klodij, arrived to edit the page. --- Possibly (talk) 17:17, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Mariam Kamara

This user is trying to declare CoI and make edits they consider constructive, albeit in complete ignorance of the rules. They need some guidance especially after a BITE-y initial response. 79.71.47.30 (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

There does not seem to have been a "complete ignorance of the rules"; there was even an attempt to properly disclose the connection according to WP:PAID, in their edit summaries. There is currently nothing to do here – except removing the disputed content that was incorrectly re-instated in [3] (done), notifying the article creator about the concerns (done with a discretionary sanctions notification), and removing the unjustified vandalism accusation left by Drill it on NeoMaditla's talk page (done with a ping). The only mistake here was treating an almost-properly-disclosing editor who corrected BLP mistakes like this. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikionlinecontributor

The editor's very first edit was to add "Arcesium" to HITEC City [4]. Their second was to do the same in another part of the same article [5]. Then they wrote Draft:Arcesium (company) which was deleted. They were warned that paid editors needed to disclose [6] and after receiving that they wrote Arcesium which is promotional with no references except the company itself. Notfrompedro (talk) 18:42, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's pretty clearly promotional or paid editing.--- Possibly (talk) 18:48, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Can't find any sourcing for the Arcesium article so I've put it up for AfD, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arcesium. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:56, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, Notfrompedro. I've blocked Wikionlinecontributor indefinitely, see [7]. Bishonen | tålk 21:54, 15 June 2021 (UTC).

James Morris (filmmaker)

The user Jlmorris7403 is a single-purpose account whose edits are promotion of the series and film listed above, and of James Morris, who co-produces, co-directs, and acts in the films. The account has not made a conflict of interest declaration. The BLP of Morris was created in article space but draftified by User:GPL93 (in my opinion, correctly). The slow-motion strategy appears to be to create a walled garden. I have not reviewed the series and the film articles in sufficient detail to determine whether they are or not notable. I also have not finished reviewing the now-draft autobiography (but I have probably declined hundreds more autobiographies than I have accepted). Robert McClenon (talk) 22:14, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

He also moved James Morris (bass-baritone) to James Peppler Morris (bass-baritone) (a name that doesn't appear to have been used by Morris) with the stated reason "Name getting mixed up in google searches and causing issues with other people who share the name." Clearly he is editing to improve his own google rankings. Notfrompedro (talk) 22:19, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
There were briefly three related issues involved with this editor and their edits:
The subject editor has sent me an email apologizing for his lack of familiarity with Wikipedia processes, and stating his desire to correct the information on Google, which he says credits everything that he does to the opera singer.
The remaining issue is the two articles on the series and the film, which need to be scrubbed to determine both whether they are notable and whether they satisfy neutral point of view.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Comment Jlmorris7403 is responsible for over 90% of the content of the two film articles. As for the films, it is not a good sign that none of the actors or other key people have Wikipedia biographies, and that the reviews are all on niche horror movie websites. I fail to see how either of these films meets Wikipedia:Notability (films). Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:40, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Perceived conflict of interest and self-citation

Being discussed at Talk:Temporal network#User:Arashbm source. – Joe (talk) 05:14, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Quite a while ago I added a paragraph to the page about my subject of study (Temporal network, a relatively small field of study and part of complex network). This included a few citations, one of which had me as a co-author. I studied the self-citation criteria to avoid possible conflict of interest and decided that the citation was neither excessive nor irrelevant. My criteria for this was pretty simple, If I added the same content without logging in to my user account, I doubt that it could have been viewed as excessive, irrelevant or putting undue weight on a specific work. I also do not stand to gain any tangible benefit I can imagine from a Wikipedia citation. I'm certain that Wikipedia citations are not indexed with normal academic citations and do not affect my work or my future prospects. As I was not in doubt about the self-citation criteria, and as my previous request for comments on the talk page of the same articles had gone unnoticed, I dispensed with creating an edit request.

The guidelines of self-citation criteria are quite clear that self citations are allowed within reason given the criteria I just mentioned, and that I can ask for the community's opinion if I'm in doubt about a possible conflict of interest. If other people perceive a possible conflict of interest, the burden of proof of a conflict of interest is on them. I don't have to ask for permission before all edits in my area of expertise if in my opinion it is not violating the conflict of interest criteria and I'm okay with my name being associated with the edit forever.

User MrOllie seem to have an unspecified problem with relevancy, excessiveness or other aspect of my edit and keeps reverting them while refusing to engage in productive discussion. I have already asked them to specify which of the self-citation criteria is missing in their opinion but the only answer I received was that they "[do] not view it as [their] role" to engage in discussion "with COI editors". I'm here to ask someone else to comment on this perceived conflict of interest. If I cannot cite any article that involves me, my supervisors (who pay my salary) or other people I currently or previously worked with, it would be all but impossible for me to add anything to the article for the subject I know and do research in. Many of the current citations of the article would constitute a conflict of interest in that sense. This is just the reality of working on a niche subject. Arashbm (talk) 20:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

@Arashbm: have you considered placing a note on your talk page that explains the areas where you might have a COI, given your close proximity to some of the things you are citing? In the edit you mention above, you don't mention the self-site in the edit summary or on your user page. And there is no note on the article talk page. Maybe MrOllie has something to add?--- Possibly (talk) 22:26, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: My user page (not the talk page) currently has my employer (A university, obviously they don't pay me to edit Wikipedia) and my area of expertise including a link to the article in question. My username is also just my name (initials, I've since added the full name to the user page) which is, presumably, how detective MrOllie discovered my sinister plot of winning myself a Nobel prize by citing my research paper in an obscure Wikipedia article. In any case, these are all beside the point. There are guidelines on self-citation and the criteria is whether the content is relevant, excessive or puts undue weight on a my work. Do you believe the content is irrelevant, excessive or puts undue weight on any specific piece of work?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Arashbm (talk • contribs)
@Arashbm: I can't comment on the weight, as it's not my field. What I do know is that MrOllie is a well-known good faith contributor to may topics and articles across the wiki. If their judgement is that you should not edit the article directly, I would tend to agree with them as they have very good judgement. SELFCITE is a bit tricky. Yes, you can add items you have written, but the point when other editors disagree with your additions is when you should stop self-citing and use talk page requests. There's no guaranteed right to cite your own works as you seem to suggest. --- Possibly (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: Undue weight is also pretty well defined. It doesn't have much to do with actual expertise in the field. From WP:WEIGHT: "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects". There are no "more widely held views" involved around the work cited. It's just a fact about certain algorithms on graphs. With this description, can you comment on weight issue?
Also, I don't understand the relevance of some user's previous contributions. I also have a long history of contributing to Wikipedia in my native language. Do I get freebies on not caring about guidelines and a pass on just refusing discussion around a revert? Can I run around accuse random editors of a lack of work ethics on first sight and relegate them to some noticeboard when they don't have any of it? Judgment, theirs or yours, should be based on guidelines. I'm showing the relevant guidelines here and asking you to point out the part that makes me a tried and convicted "COI editor" not worth talking to. I'm even having a hard time understanding what kind of benefit you think I'd get from this. I posted this here to get a third-party, independent opinion on this specific case, according to the guidelines. "I don't care about details but I just trust user X" is not really helpful in resolving the issue. Arashbm (talk) 02:20, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Arashbm, I can't assess the weight because I find the material impenetrable. The basic advice that COI editors should use the talk page in the case of a dispute (see WP:BRD) and/or pay very special attention to disclosing their COI stands. MrOllie is presumably neutral here; you're not. Your half-dozen or so edits to the Temporal Network are important, but are a very small portion of the work to be done overall. Communicating well, practising transparency and a willingness to get along are highly valued here. Use the talk page, where this item should have been discussed in the first place before coming here. Thanks. --- Possibly (talk) 02:29, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
@Possibly: I tried communicating for more than a week. At first, they ceased communication and later, the answer I received was that they are not interested in discussion and I should come and discuss here. That's exactly what I'm doing but the only answer I get is that I should try communicating more. I've been trying to communicate well beyond what is reasonable. I don't have any problems answering questions or disclosing things. I honestly believe I'm in the rights here and the edit is reasonable. What I really can't get over is that someone has accused me of being biassed in a piece of academic writing, which is quite a serious for someone who does academic writing for a living, nobody seems to be interested in justifying the accusation and I seem to be guilty by default because I'm not neutral about my own integrity. The revert edit message on my edit was "apparent COI / selfpromo". I'm willing to get along with a lot of things but I can't accept in good faith without any discussion that a piece of my academic writing had an "apparent" undeclared conflict of interest and was an attempt at "selfpromo" in a public forum where everything is recorded indefinitely. Arashbm (talk) 03:24, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not academic writing; it's an encyclopedia. As above, use the talk page, this is an issue that is well suited to the BRD process. You might also find this to be helpful in explaining how things work here. --- Possibly (talk) 03:29, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
We are in the BRD process. The other party is not interested in the "D". What am I supposed to do? When do we get to the actual discussion about the edit and not around the edit? We are supposed to be getting pro/cons identified or checking the fitness of the content according to the guidelines. I've not heard a single point being raised on topic. This is not about winning or losing or my ego, but I'm not above letting others know when they accuse me of what is most probably considered a misconduct by my employer and a gross moral failure in my line of work, without providing any substantive justification. I don't have many edits on English wiki but I've been around editing on Persian Wikipedia from ~2010. I understand how this works, though things don't get this toxic this quickly in small-town Persian wiki. I suggest we stop this thread and start or participate in another one that discusses the actual merits of the edit. Arashbm (talk) 04:03, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
I would suggest that the appropriate policy to apply would be Wikipedia:Reliable sources. If a scientific or academic work has been published by a reliable publisher engaging in appropriate peer review or similar quality control processes, then it frankly should not matter what relationship the editor has with the work, unless the editor is going to extremes (e.g., adding tenuously relevant citations to their work to dozens of articles, removing other valid citations in favor of their own, using the article as a platform to insert a lengthy screed on their academic plaudits). A conflict of interest requires an interest, and I doubt that merely citing one's own reliably sourced article in a Wikipedia article provides that. BD2412 T 03:49, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Andrei Boncea ‎

Andrei Boncea created Andrei Boncea back in 2006. Today they edited it again and I gave them a COI template warning [8]. After receiving it, they made three more edits to their namesake article one of which was to alter the COI tag [9] Notfrompedro (talk) 00:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Colorado Government IP users User:165.127.14.x and associated accounts

Articles

Users'

These are IP user registered to a State of Colorado government computers, likely in the legislative offices in most cases and perhaps some others. The user contributions logs (especially from the .14. block) include several edits to various Colorado politicians, which is almost certainly one or more undisclosed COIs. I would propose banning the addresses from editing anything having to do with Colorado politics, but as it's an IP user it seems difficult to enforce a selective ban. There are likely other IP addresses involved as well, and also probably more pages, but I have not identified them yet. In addition, many if not most of these pages also have edits from named/IP users with potential COIs, which likely could be investigated further by looking at other users who edit from these IP eddresses. Frankly, the more I look at these pages the more I find with regards to implicated users and articles. I would consider a blanket ban on IP edits from this IP block if possible, and further investigation. - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 14:49, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

And what is with Template:Infobox Colorado Legislation? The only other US states that seem to have similar templates are used on articles for actual pieces of legislation. (see here for example). Adding these to a stack of politician's articles looks like promotion to me, listing their achievements by detailing every bill they have sponsored - that seems the kind of content that belongs on their own websites or on the legislature's website, not in an encyclopedia. Melcous (talk) 05:51, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
This is a good point -- I have listed the template at WP:TFD (see the discussion) to discuss. - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 12:55, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
Wow that is a lot of article these people have edited and from the few I have looked at they were poorly made. Guess I found myself some work to do :) Just give me a day to finish my work on Robert V. Cullison and I will get to work on fixing these articles. Jon698 (talk) 02:42, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
@Mathmitch7: @Melcous: I have been working on these pages for the past few days, but had to stop for a few days to deal with some In The News candidates. So far I have fixed the Randy Baumgardner, KC Becker, John Buckner (politician), Greg Brophy, and Nathan B. Coats. Jon698 (talk) 04:02, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into the individual pages! - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 14:20, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
(Way to make my state look bad, guys.) I've taken a first pass at Leroy Garcia, and there were definitely issues. I'll check some of the others as time permits. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:05, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Beyond fixing the articles mentioned (and other implicated articles), does anybody have a sense of what can be done about these IP addresses? It seems a mere notification on the IP users' talk pages just isn't enough to warn the editors in these locations of our COI guidelines. Does enwiki have other instances of similar problems that could guide the way? - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 18:38, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Roderic O'Conor​

Username suggests CoI. User has added text to these painters' pages with links to auction site. I have reverted changes and commented on user's Talk page but they have reverted one of my reversions and not responded so am bringing it here. Tacyarg (talk) 11:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Adamsauctioneers (now blocked by an admin for username and promotion) said something interesting on their user page: "At our company we employ specialists to write about Irish artists who are not well known... Please let me know how I can resolve this and whether I can edit any articles of artist's with whose work we sell." On the face of it, this sounds great: free research. However they are a company whose number one goal is selling art by the subjects of the Wikipedia articles they are contributing to. I doubt that we can have total trust in what they are adding to articles; it is in their financial interest to make the artists sound as important as possible. --- Possibly (talk) 17:43, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Adding a 2014 account to the list (Adams1887), which mainly added references and links to Adams Auctioneers. --- Possibly (talk) 18:42, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Tunghai University

ChiaWeiHo has said that they're "a university administrator trying to copy and paste content on the uni website to wikipedia". They deleted that post to the Help Desk before it was answered. Aside from that, they've only edited Tunghai University. The article has a promotional tone. The editor has been cautioned not to add promotional material, and was asked directly about UPE with uw-paid1, which warns "In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message". However, they have continued to edit. Only five of their 68 edits are tagged as being from a mobile, so WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU isn't likely to be the problem. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 20:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Pblocked. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:43, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Travel DMC Group

The user disclosed that they had been paid on behalf of Travel DMC Group. [10] However, they still create and submit the draft themself (see user talk page). A few months after that, they removed the disclosure [11] and then claimed to be the founder of the group [12], but still submitted the draft. However, they removed *that* claim [13] and submitted another draft with a similar name which was rejected about a month from then.

They created this article today and I added a COI tag because of the aforementioned concerns [14]. They removed the COI tag, but, interestingly, they also changed the first name of one of the company founders in the article, which used to be a name that is borderline the same as their username [15]. But even then, it seems to me that their family is still the founder(s) (or at least claim to be such) of the company and constitutes a COI. —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 04:51, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Very fishy stuff. I was going to nominate the Travel DMC Group article for deletion, so I did a search first. Their London office is a "virtual" office, i.e. no one works there. They seem to actually be based in Malaysia, Singapore or India. Another search result was for Destination management, and guess which blocked sock has edited there? Traveldmc. I'll open an SPI (opened) to see if they are related. --- Possibly (talk) 05:42, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
also added User:TravelDMCGroup.--- Possibly (talk) 05:57, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
I was never paid by Travel DMC Group the page you are referring it was by mistake and that time I was new on WIKIPEDIA, Well I got the school project that I need to do research on some Travel Group so I did on Travel DMC Group, I researched on Travel DMC Group and I saw they have Virtual Adress I confirmed with them over email, They have shifted to Virtual Adress due to reason of COVID-19 and all of their staff is working from Home, I don't know if i have put my name somewhere it can be due to Auto correct, Thank you. --- SawanAroraji (talk)
All the accounts were blocked by Bbb23.--- Possibly (talk) 16:40, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Kompany

Two WP:SPAs appear to have been created shortly after Kompany came upon increased scrutiny and proposed deletion as a self-promotional company article. More eyes on this would be appreciated. - Amigao (talk) 22:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Dear User:Amigao and User:Kleinpecan. I have the feeling that you, Amigao, are taking something personal here for no reason. I was suspicious about your speedy deletion request because your account seems to be criticised recently a lot by the community because of vandalism and also it was discussed to block you. And of course, I contested the speedy deletion of my first article here because those facts about you and also due to reasonable reasons; at least I suppose, and this contention is discussed atm on another page. True, I created my account on English Wikipedia recently but I registered my account more than 4 years ago on German Wikipedia and also created articles there. As already stated I am personally very interested in anything going on around Austria, especially about modern culture here, and think that some of those things need more international visibility. I wrote with Kompany my first english wiki article as I am also very interested in topics about changes in the financial world and this seemed to be a good exercise to write about an important player from Austria in this sector. I do not need do declare any COI as I am not a power user who creates articles on a daily basis. I just got recently again very interested in how Wiki works due to my current studies and planned to contribute something here and for sure more in the future. However, I definitely hope that other upcoming articles will not be that exhausting and that Wiki admins do not block all users just after first contribution, as this would reduce Wiki project to absurdity. Frottdog (talk) 19:36, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Australian Institute of Business

Hello. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. While looking at articles that are written like advertisements, I came across this one. It was created in draft space in 2012 by WP:SPA Learning is life, who mentioned the Institute's chairman as "our Chairman" in this 2014 edit summary and referred to itself as "we" in 2019. Since then it has been hit by a shocking number of SPA's, starting with the similar-sounding Education is the future, which has only added swaths of promotional-sounding content to that single page for four years (!) In April 2020 Alexban01 came along and started doing the same, even deleting a COI template. Then from 24 April to 10 May, we have the other accounts listed above, which, with the exception of Mrstudent515, made only a single, promotional-sounding edit, all to that page. Except for BillyBoCurtis and NatureManlovesnature01, all their edits were at least 1 kilobyte in size. All accounts from Anonymousstudent2020 onward made very similar-sounding edit summaries. (Interestingly, Coffeecam218 claimed to be an AIB student in their edit summary, which is the only disclosure I can find.) I suspect something very fishy's going on. Miracusaurs (talk) 08:49, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I've given the article a much needed trim from all its primary sourced, promotional content. We will see what happens from here. Melcous (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Entree Capital

I have moved Entree Capital to User:CandiceResearcher/sandbox due to UPE concerns and because the article mostly consists of trivial coverage, but I am not really sure whether it was the right thing to do. Could someone more experienced please review the article? Kleinpecan (talk) 06:13, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Kleinpecan: No comment on the page move, but for simple suspicion of paid editing, you can place the Paid-1 template on the user's page, as I have done. COIN is for cases where discussion has not been fruitful. In this case it seems like there has been no discussion. Give them a chance to respond. COI and paid editors often don't know that what they are doing is not good. --- Possibly ☎ 06:32, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Jeff McCracken

Mrjeffmcc has been editing Jeff McCracken for years. He was warned on his talk page about COI back in 2008 but it had no effect. He has since added himself to other articles[16] [17] and continues to add completely unreferenced material to Jeff McCracken. Notfrompedro (talk) 14:34, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

And now he removed the tags for COI and BLP sources on the article.[18] Notfrompedro (talk) 15:12, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

He is on slow edit war. I have asked for Page Protection. Looks like a COI. scope_creepTalk 15:57, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Tomasz Kamusella

Based on this article in New Eastern Europe from two years ago, Tomasz Kamusella reveals that he has edited Wikipedia articles in the past - "On March 2nd 2019, in the Anglophone Wikipedia’s article on Sofia, I added the images of Sofia’s Mosque and Synagogue to the text’s showcase box, which features the Bulgarian capital’s iconic sights and buildings. Twelve hours later, the watchful user Tourbillon removed both images with the following comment: “Enough with these mosques, wrong historical period on top of that”. He additionally includes links to the different versions of the articles [19] & [20]. His username - Hyrdlak - is both the creator and one the most prolific editors [21] of his own page. This has been going on for almost 11 years. This is a massive violation of conflict of interest, and he has also been investigated for similar malconduct in the past. This needs to be investigated. Esmost talk 16:05, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes it plainly seems like there has been a lot of autobiographical work there. If you think he is not notable you should launch an AfD as I removed the PROD calling for deletion based on promotional editing. --- Possibly ☎ 22:04, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
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