Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 24

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User:Bobgold44

Resolved
 – Article was speedied as a G11 by DGG. EdJohnston (talk) 16:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Vander Houwen Public Relations

  • Resolved
     – Article was deleted as an A7 by Lectonar. EdJohnston (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Links amended for changed typography. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Simple Gifts

Simplegiftsmusic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been editing Simple Gifts (trio) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and related pages (and has no other edits here) in apparent violation of both WP:COI and the policy on group accounts. The article was created by Tusseysky (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who has also made no edits anywhere else (except to ask for help). Matchups 17:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

User CultureNI

eyeOS article

Resolved

eyeOS - There is a dispute going on on this page between three users, teddybearnow, psychcf and JayMacdonald, psychcf and Jay both have obvious anti-eyeOS COI with the article, although there edits do appear to be in good faith, teddybearnow possibly has some sort of pro-eyeOS COI, but he denies this, and also seems to be editing in good faith...although not great English. I figured someone used to dealing with COI would be better trying to work this out than me. Restepc (talk) 20:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

  • This matter has been resolved in private, and the dispute is no longer active. Jaymacdonald (talk) 20:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Gumstix

  • Dvescovi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Has commercial interests as he or his company sells products/services based on Gumstix [1][2]. He is trying to remove anything negative to Gumstix and is adding incomplete/inaccurate and misleading information. He is trolling and poisoning on the discussion page and on my talk page and has no apparent interest in improving the Article, but only to push his POV in parts of it. His account appears, based on the edit history, to exist for the sole purpose of promoting a company, product, service, or organization in violation of Conflict of interest and/or anti-spam guidelines. Talk:Gumstix#Neutrality_Dispute neutrality dispute section and below.

Iunaw is under the mistaken impression that I some how have a commercial interest in this product. I have neather, I am not associated with or work for Gumstix Inc. Nor do I even own a company. I am an independent software developer. I may also add ALL the software I have control over has been freely published under the Open Source/Shared Source licensing. I have not made one commercial penny from anything I have done associated with the Gumstix product. I am just a happy user unlike lunaw. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvescovi (talk • contribs) 17:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You could indeed be a happy-user, but you are selling products and services based on Gumstix, according to the website of your project (see links above). Iunaw (talk) 18:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Quote from your website:
    The source code for this BSP is also available for $300 with a signed NDA.
    Contact me through my account on this site if you wish to purchase the source.
And you call this open source, despite the non-disclosure agreement, and say you have no commercial interests? Iunaw (talk) 17:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
You are deliberately vandalizing the article with false information to promote your products/services. You have changed [3] closed source for open source, despite source code of your project is only available under a non-disclosure agreement and a for a 300$ fee according to your projects website, and is therefore considered closed source, as i explained on the discussion page. But you keep ignoring it and editing without discussion. I have added yet another template to your talk page to warn you to cease-and-desist, this time uw-error3. STOP! You do not have any interest in collaborating on Wikipedia, your project is your only priority here in a clear COI violation. Iunaw (talk) 13:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I see you have removed the offending bits from your website some hours ago in a new attempt to mislead, but we still have the cached page on google [4]. What are you doing next, will you ask google to remove the cached page for you? You are clearly acting on bad faith. Iunaw (talk) 13:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The lines were removed because of your suggestions, thank you. I actually agree with you. No attempt to mislead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvescovi (talk • contribs) 23:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Aha, in that case could you please post the full source code of the poject on your website? You are surely wanting to do it, as you consider your project open source. And remove the 'contact me for source code', 'please do not redistribute binaries', NDA and fees information from the pages of your project, as it is not needed anymore. Accept my excuses if i'm a bit sceptical. Iunaw (talk) 02:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately I cannot release the full source code, not because I don’t want to but because of Microsoft licensing restrictions. I can only legally include pieces in binary form, which I have done. There are other options if you wish the full source code (through a signed NDA), which I have included only as an alternative option for those folks wishing to do so. I (we) can only include source for code of which we have legal ownership. I know this rubs you folks in the Linux community the wrong way but personal attacks are not the answer. Leave this issue to the mega-corporations with their team of lawyers to solve.

You are welcome to join the Codeplex community, if anything I think you would find the people a little “friendlier”. Dvescovi (talk) 12:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI, The $300 fee is only for the time and effort needed to “scrub” the code to make sure we are not releasing anything we shouldn’t. We do not wish to get in hot water with MS. Believe me there is no profit motive. I think if you check “source” level BSP’s from other manufactures you will see them in the $8000 to $12,000 range. Any way this is not the place for such discussions.Dvescovi (talk) 14:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
No problem, my interests are wikipedia, not this project. So:
a) I wonder why you changed closed source for open source and removed different informations on your own several times
b) You have a clear COI if you are the coordinator of that project and sell directly or indirectly products (source code, kits, etc) and services (support, training, etc) based on this product
c) You have not participated in other articles nor on proposed improvements to the gumstix article but only pushed your POV
a) + b) + c) released the alarm. Iunaw (talk) 19:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
If anyone would care to check the page history and talk you will see Iunaw was the one that added the pricing information (along with other derogatory comments) in a deliberate attempt to trigger the COI. To say his “interest are wikipedia, not this project.” Is the most outlandish comment he has made to date.
Dvescovi (talk) 00:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
All my mark up’s were done in good faith. I’ll let the record speak to mr. Iunaw intentions. Dvescovi (talk) 20:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
In any case I highly commend Oskay, he did a fantastic job cleaning it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvescovi (talk • contribs) 22:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Dvescovi (talk) 00:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
hahaha you are funny. Yes, yes, you are the perfect Wikipedian, your contributions are the perfect evidence for this. No comments regarding your lies, right? Your project is still open source in your universe, etc etc.. not worth to discuss this Iunaw (talk) 22:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I would also kindly and politely request further editing of the Gumstix page be left to people like Mr. Oskay who has demonstrated command of the English language and who’s neutrality is unquestioned. Dvescovi (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Iunaw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - That's me! I have no interests, but i know that some information i add could be biased (like any other editor). For that reason, i would like to have feedback from neutral parties (i have already asked to a user and on the third opinion page). I would like to balance the article and have it reflect as much information as possible. Information should be complete and accurate, without omitting relevant parts deliberately. I wish that more persons would participate on this article, and not only persons that have commercial interests and try to push their POV. Iunaw (talk) 16:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Earthquake protection

Revival Centres International

This article suffers clearly from conflict of interest. The most prominent users are clearly using this encyclopedia to paint the church in the most attractive light. Their username's suggest affiliation with the church in question and their comments in the discussion pages reveal this agenda. A review of the edits page will clearly show that any attempts to add individual and opposing and independently verified links about issues of controversy around this church and it's practices are simply reverted and called vandalism. Some of these websites are in fact written by academics who have achieved doctorate levels in religious studies and have written for other groups and publications on this church, as well as others. Hoping for a critical mass of people to revert back and improve the article is unlikely to achieve anything as these users clearly have made this article their project and will 'defend' their point of view concerning it, and the group is so unimportant in terms of Australian Contemporary Christianity that the majority of people who know about it simply ignore the group. Wikipedia is clearly being used to advertise, falsely, here.04:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)~Quoth-the-Craven (edited because I forgot to sign in, sorry! :) edits still coming from 149.135.114.42 and not an account

Articles

Resolved
 – Not a COI issue. MER-C 03:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the community in general is mostly Republican, which is ok, but I currently have a problem with many of the articles. For instance, all the Democratic articles such as 'Bill clinton' are degraded, and all the Republican articles are heavily praised. I have tried to balance the articles to a 'neutral point of view', but to no avail. thanks! Dwilso 20:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Please ask your question over at the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Some people would be surprised to hear that we have a Republican bias. The comments that people have been leaving on your Talk page suggest that you may not have picked up our culture of neutrality yet. Wikipedia does not appreciate the addition of strongly partisan material to articles. A personal website is a better place for that. EdJohnston (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

HP SPaM

  • Resolved
     – The submitter agrees that this report can be closed due to the article improvements. EdJohnston (talk) 13:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I have edited it, but previous versions referred to HP SPaM as "we", i.e. the article was written in the first person plural, so presumably originally by a member of the group themselves. They were also claiming credit for several awards that Hewlett Packard as a company have won, and claiming that their specific team, HP SPaM, was the direct recepient of them. I expect to be reverted:) Please keep an eye on this article, which should be merged to Hewlett Packard anway, as the group are not notable independent of them. special, random, Merkinsmum 18:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the refs claim to mention the group, but don't name them specifically at all. Looks like an attempt to add refs just so it looks like there are some sources or notability, when some of the refs don't/didn't even mention the group, and are misleading. special, random, Merkinsmum 17:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
The article isn't nonsense, and there may be something here that should be kept. Much of the current contents I don't think is notable. However Wikipedia is not famous for the quality of its business articles, and if anyone has time to help with this, we might work with the COI-affected people to create something useful. If the article can't be improved, though, AfD should be considered. Documenting the practical activities of business firms isn't easy, since most companies don't ever collect the data in a form suitable for external publication. Still, if this group is well-known within Operations Research / Management Science community, as claimed on the article's Talk page, that fact must be provable somehow. EdJohnston (talk) 18:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say it's nonsense, that was someone else. It's completely not independently notable, with no google news references, and only mentioned online in a couple of individuals publicity bumpf, or with a few sentences in the article or two these some of these editors know about due to it being about them, and are attempting to mislead that these articles are primarily about their group. I bet the article on Hewlett Packard is ok:) And this content would be great when merged and included in an article about a notable subject. Merkin's mum 19:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Recent progress. A bunch of IP editors have shown up and have done a lot of good-faith work on improving the article. Since they are making useful changes and are not obstructing anything, we need not inquire TOO closely as to whether these IPs are affected by a COI. I'm still reserving my own judgment as to whether the article should be taken to AfD. If anyone has time, and has the patience to read some of the online references added recently, they might be able to help fix up the lack of concrete content which I think is the remaining problem. EdJohnston (talk) 20:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Celebrations of the September 11, 2001 attacks

Article Mahamad

Ginsu

Resolved
 – Article has been fixed, and Ginsuguy has not edited since 15 April. He never responded on Talk. EdJohnston (talk) 13:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The page for Ginsu knives has been substantially rewritten today by Ginsuguy in a profoundly advertising-like style. He's even put in ® signs after every mention of the word "Ginsu." Since his user name is the same as the official Ginsu knife website ([www.ginsuguys.com]), I think this should be undone. Dr. eXtreme 14:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

take a look now. --Fredrick Dayton (talk) 18:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, your edits are a big improvement. EdJohnston (talk) 04:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Ginsuguy reverted Fredrick's COI fixes. I reverted again, and left him a note about this discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

User Jakebobbins

Resolved
 – No evidence of a COI.BlueAzure (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Which company? I see nothing that indicates a COI in his edit history. His talk page contains a COI warning, inserted without any comment or rationale by the same IP address who left the above record. Most other notices on the user talk page seem to be (csd,prod,afd) notices. Those give the impression of an ordinary enthusiastic fan whose notabilitometer may need a bit of calibration. But nothing that looks like COI or bad faith. Suggest closing this unless reporter makes a more coherent statement about what is wrong. –Henning Makholm 01:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
After looking through the user's edits, I agree with your comments. BlueAzure (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams

User:Sean D Martin was an affiliate in a lawsuit filed by Stephanie Adams by which she won, and as a result, he has been repeatedly visiting her page and subjectively editing the article about her. He even visits her discussion page and directs his comments towards her, as if she is actually reading them. Much more bizarre, he actually thinks every single individual user who has graced the discussion page is Stephanie Adams, which is absolutely absurd. Even though he claims to have had direct contact with her, which none of us editing that article believe, we still feel that he has enough of a conflict of interest to be banned from editing a page about a person he has such personal feelings about. User:Wandering canadian is also an accomplice to User:Sean D Martin and should be investigated for having a personal conflict of interest as well. Why edit a page about a woman you hate or are obsessed with unless it's to defame and maliciously attack the accuracy of the article about her? SeraphHim (talk) 00:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Interjecting amongst the comments already posted to continue to set the record straight, as I will continue to so long as this person continue to post lies about me.
"User:Sean D Martin was an affiliate in a lawsuit filed by Stephanie Adams" Nope, not true. And if you follow the various comments posted by this person you'll find they claimed I was first a party to the suit (Nope, never sued by anyone. Harassed and threatened, but never sued by Stephanie Adams.), then I'm a friend of the person sued (Which I'm not. Never met them, never spoke with them, etc.) now an affiliate to the suit. SeraphHim et al is heading in the right direction, but not there yet. "subjectively editing the article" Nope, quite the contrary. Review every edit I've ever made. Won't be able to find even one that wasn't attempting to make the article more factual, less subjective. "He actually thinks every single individual user who has graced the discussion page is Stephanie Adams" Nope. Not everyone. But all anonymous posters whos IPs all trace back to Verizon NYC and the named posters who've never made any comment on Wiki until very recently, only post to pages related to Ms Adams and all sound remarkably the same in their comments... "he claims to have had direct contact with her" Much as I wish I didn't. But, alas, I do have a nice collection of emails directly from her mailbox to mine (as validated by the headers). -- Sean Martin (talk) 03:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
User:Sean D Martin's last edit to Stephanie Adams was more than a year ago. On what basis do you assert there is an ongoing COI problem?
User:Wandering canadian has a four logged edits to Stephanie Adams during the last year. Neither looks unreasonable to me.
You have zero edits to Stephanie Adams. In fact, this report is your first and only logged contribution, ever. What's up with that? –Henning Makholm 00:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Interjecting amongst the comments already posted to continue to set the record straight, as I will continue to so long as this person continue to post lies about me.
"What's up with that?" In a word: sock puppets. (OK, two words.) -- Sean Martin (talk) 03:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
There's something weird going on with that article, and it appears to involve quite a few different single purpose accounts and IP addresses working together. Is there some way to check on/deal with multiple accounts/IPs being used in this manner? Is she really notable enough to have an article at all? it reads like a little like an advert for her and her books atm...Restepc (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Interjecting amongst the comments...
Yes, and a trace of the IPs, a comparison of the edit times and noticing how they all say the same things (sometimes verbatim) would lead you to the obvious answer. -- Sean Martin (talk) 03:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I have read that Playboy Playmates are considered notable enough to have articles. It seems like there are a large number of IPs, probably COI-affected, working on the article. At various times in the past (e.g. early 2007) this article has been semi-protected to keep down the IP edit wars. If you look in Talk:Stephanie_Adams/archive_01 you'll see rather tense negotiations back in 2006 with representatives of Stephanie Adams including an appeal to Jimbo, who gave some advice. Unless I've missed something, I don't notice any recent attempts to add any defamatory material to the article. It's mostly a bunch of IPs, probably COI-affected, adding promotional material, and other IPs trying to take it out and maintain our standards. Two veteran editors, Hoary and Dismas, have edited recently. All the other logged-in editors who have edited lately seem like they have few interests outside this article. Unless people are offended by the promotional edits by the IPs, I'm not sure there is much to do here. This COI complaint was opened by a single-purpose account who has no other edits. If we want to take this seriously, lets do a month of semi-protection and try to create a stable and non-promotional version of the article. Comments? EdJohnston (talk) 02:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Interjecting amongst the comments...
Semi-protect sounds good to me. At least it would help cut down the plethora of single-purpose anonymous accounts used to violate WP:NPA in nearly every posting. -- Sean Martin (talk) 03:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
And to me as well. As you'll see from the talk page, a number of usernames and IPs have angrily protested any questioning of the rather grand claims the article makes for Adams, e.g. that she's a "spokesmodel" or notable investor or author. Anyone who claims that the evidence for these claims is flimsy risks being diagnosed with this or that psychopathological disorder. This is amusing in small doses (I rather treasure the diagnosis of "vagina envy") but soon becomes tiresome. I'm thick-skinned and no enthusiast for invocations of "WP:CIVIL", but somebody not yet involved in any way may wish to keep an eye on the talk page and consider whether "WP:NPA" should be invoked. -- Hoary (talk) 05:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The original title of this report was Personal Attacks About The Actual Person In The Article: Stephanie Adams, given to it by User:SeraphHim. Since this editor gave no evidence of personal attacks, and since it is easier to refer to the report with a short title, I changed it to Stephanie Adams. If anyone disagrees, they can revert my change. EdJohnston (talk) 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Per supporting comments by Hoary and Sean D. Martin, I have semi-protected the article for a month. EdJohnston (talk) 13:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Great, thanks for that. I have to say that I am surprised that I am being named as an "accomplice" to someone I have never met but just happen to agree with. Wandering canadian (talk) 20:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, WC. I know how you feel. I tried to warn ya. [9] <grin>. Truly sorry I was right. -- Sean Martin (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to assume good faith about users but I feel we can add Swiksek (talk · contribs) to the list of COI users. All of their edits involve Ms. Adams in some way and all but one of them as been within the last month. They are currently removing info which has two sources on the basis that it is defamatory. All the paragraph says is that she helped teach a course and that it was given a bad review. I don't see how this is "potentially libellous (sic)", "false" and "defmatory (sic)" as Swiksek states. Dismas|(talk) 15:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to add some context, 23 users have edited the Stephanie Adams article or Talk page since the recent activity started a couple weeks ago. Of those, 12 never posted anything prior to the start of the recent activity. The 12 include Skiksek, RoughRideHome, An-Apple-A-NY-Day and all of the anonymous editors (209.167.67.130, 66.108.146.77, 66.108.4.133, 69.203.12.124, 69.204.224.140, 71.167.226.96, 71.167.230.166, 72.89.117.239). It is also interesting that most of these 12 also made their first comments within hours, if not minutes, of each other. -- Sean Martin (talk) 17:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
The edit history of this page shows that Sean D Martin removed a personal attack against him by 208.120.11.47 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This is one of the editors who we assume is a staunch defender of Stephanie Adams. I support the removal. If the attacks continue, I suggest that blocking those responsible be considered, or semi-protection of this Talk. These attacks appear related to a history of off-wiki stress between Stephanie Adams and Sean Martin. I would welcome your comments on this idea. So far I have not noticed any attacks on Stephanie Adams. EdJohnston (talk) 19:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Ed. Just to keep the record straight, I did remove a personal attack but was not the first to do so. The attack was removed by another editor [[10]]. I restored it just long enough to post a reply and then re-deleted the attack along with my reply. (My reasons for that unusual action were explained in my now-deleted reply [[11]]. -- Sean Martin (talk) 20:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Carl Restivo

Carl Restivo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I created this page a while back and recently an account Carlrestivo rewrote the entire page. I have since reverted the page, but it should be worth noting that if this account belongs to the person in question, he is editing his own article. --SharkfaceT/C 07:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

PowerBasic Part II

I posted here a month ago asking for help with the Powerbasic Entry. It seems that determination by the PowerBasic company has prevailed. I checked back on this page after a month to see what progress had been made by others, and it still reads like a glossy brochure for the company product.

  • ANY* attempt to add content is immediatly deleted.

Thier contempt for the process that wikipedia was founded on, (multiple editors) and the five pillars is obvious. Despite several requests (from admins and myself) they still refuse to even register.

I recognize that this entry is relatively low on the Totem pole of importance in this huge repository, and that it does not get much traffic from people knowledegable enough to contribute, so a little adjudication would go a long way here (and allow me to move on to contributing content that is not likely to be regarded as detrimental to a companies market aims and public image!)

I have justified my submissions as requested, endlessly. I have made the case for verifiability and the reliability of sources here, yet within hours every one of my contributions is deleted.

RealWorldExperience (talk) 00:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I see you've also been told, endlessly, that forum postings are not acceptable as sources. But even if they were, the kind of thing you want to add is your personal synthesis of forum content (e.g. counts of support messages answered, and your assessment of the attitude to criticism there), and that's unusable per the no original research policy. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 03:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

As I pointed out in my post on the reliable sources noticeboard While I respect the concept that chat forums are not reliable sources, I suggest that a chat forum as a repository for computer source code, that can be immediately compiled and run by anyone, is an exception because it becomes a place to verify the truth of a statement like: computing 6.13 + 3.45 takes longer than computing 6 + 3. (The reason is because floating point operations just take longer.) Please take a moment to read this post. From Reliable_sources "Sources should be appropriate to the claims made." I believe this is very relevant in this case. Please bear in mind that most likely never will be any "third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy... peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers." that take an interest in small technical details of minor software compiler

Further: "These specific examples cover only some of the possible types of reliable sources and source reliability issues, and are not intended to be exhaustive. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context, which is a matter of common sense and editorial judgment." RealWorldExperience (talk) 18:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but even if we accept the reliability of the source, you are making a novel and personal selection of that material in support of arguing a point: so it's both original research and WP:SOAP. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

With due respect, I have invited anyone to submit source to the contrary. The powebasic company, who you would assume be able to rebutt this with links to the contrary, decline to do so. I assert that there are no links to the contrary. Infact the Integer issues described can be verified by anyone that owns the compiler in 10 seconds! As can be clearly seen, I did not discover these inconsitencies, nor am I the only one to point them out, so obviously this is not original research. If you would take a moment to actually read the arguments on the talk page I think this would be clearer. Beyond that, how can the "personal selection" of features that are included in the wikipedia entry by the powerbasic company not also qualify as original research? You can't have it both ways... RealWorldExperience (talk) 23:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

RealWorldExperience, it appears you have an axe to grind with PowerBASIC. That is something between you and the company, and it's something that should remain between you and the company. Wikipedia is neither a soapbox nor a blog or a free webspace provider. Information on Wikipedia should be verifiable from reliable sources. We are not in the business of revealing embarrassing or inconvenient TruthsTM. AecisBrievenbus 01:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with other commenters above that RealWorldExperience's deductions from the PowerBASIC forum postings don't belong in the article. But the article at present is one-sidedly positive about PowerBASIC. This is a product which has been out for many years, and you would expect it must have been reviewed many times in the trade press. Presumably these reviews are not uniformly positive, and if we read them, we could create a more balanced picture. PowerBASIC, due to its longevity, may in fact be 'behind the curve', and you wonder if it can handle the range of tasks addressed by more recent languages that run on Windows. (What about Visual Basic?). I hope that we could answer some of these questions for our readers, but this would require some kind soul to actually dig up references and work on the article. EdJohnston (talk) 03:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it is obvious that anyone willing to hold a company like powerbasic accountable for its clear violation of the conflict of interest policy, is an easy target for the accusation that they have an axe to grind. This is the unfortunate and inevitable consequence. I left a month cooling off period, and I have not responded to any of the personal attacks or accusations of the owner, frantic to deflect attention. My hope is that I can attract a qualified (computer science) admin who will adjudicate this issue which I have so far failed to do. All that has happened in the last month is that a few randomm people have stopped by, made edits that have immediately been challenged by powerbasic and then disappeared. It seems no one can be bothered because the owner is so tendentious.

As I have explained to my wikipedia mentor, I have elected to follow through with this entry in determining whether I want to invest a lot of time contributing on many levels to Wikipedia. I am evaluating the reality of the Wikipedia policies in action (in this case Conflict of interest. So far, I do not see a lot of teeth in policy like "If you write in Wikipedia about yourself, your group, your company, or your pet idea, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, and no right to delete it outside our normal channels. Content is not deleted just because somebody doesn't like it. Any editor may add material to or remove material from the article within the terms of our content policies.".

In taking on the Powerbasic entry, I am seeking fair play in terms of a real adjudication of the issues, not the knee jerk quotation of boilerplate language by passing editors who stop long enough to pass superficial judgement, enforcement at a meaningful level, and the application of the principals Wikipedia was founded upon. Without my efforts, I am beginning to suspect Powerbasic will just fall through the cracks and will once again become the unofficial marketing tool of the company. After careful consideration, I picked up this cause becuase I have not seen a clearer example of Conflict of Interest on Wikipedia. EVERY contribution I have made has been deleted. Not one has been edited. RealWorldExperience (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The people who respond at this noticeboard are volunteers, and can't be told to spend any particular amount of time on the problem. Since you seem particularly interested in PowerBASIC, do you think you could look up published references for us? It's disappointing that you are still relentlessly offering your own original research findings. If somebody can add properly-sourced information to the article, and *then* an editor who has a COI reverts it out, we are quite capable of taking vigorous action. Until that time, there's not much scope for enforcement. If nobody has time to look up references, one option is to simply remove all the unsourced information from the article and leave it as a stub. If that happened, almost the whole article would disappear. Even the listed review of PowerBASIC in PC Magazine by Rick Knoblaugh is given with no date, and can't be found in PC Magazine's online archives. EdJohnston (talk) 19:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that there are problems with the PowerBASIC article, and it would make discussion/monitoring of possible COI a darn sight easier if Tim Robbins would get an account as advised.
That said, can we cut to the chase over RealWorldExperience (talk · contribs)? I'm finding it increasingly hard to see good faith in this complaint. This appears to be an SPA whose sole interest in Wikipedia so far is in trying to bend WP:RS and WP:NOR to get hostile material into one article (and forum-shopping in pursuit of that - see [12], [13]). Even his mentorship - User:RealWorldExperience/Mentoring - is bent toward that tendentious aim.
In fact I'm certain we're being trolled. A naive newcomer who needs mentoring is unlikely to know about Mediation Cabal Cases [14]. This is someone who knows their way round Wikipedia. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Gordon- I'd be honored to cooperate with you by representing PowerBASIC. Your assessment of this fellow is accurate. We know him. Have you read his first few deleted posts? Amazing stuff. Fabrications. Misrepresentations. Things like: they have no privacy policy... then later... they modified their privacy policy to match my dispute... they have no full-time support engineers ... they won't give you the free support they advertise... they'll take your money then bar you from any support... and many more. It's very ugly and 100% false. He even posted "This situation renders PowerBASIC a poor choice for new users". He's toned it down now to get past his critics, but he already said publicly that once this edit 'sticks', he'll do more. His mentor advised him to lay low for a few days or a week, then hit it again. I hope someone will still be around to help defend a very honorable business. How can I help you with this unfortunate situation? PowerBASIC (talk) 11:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not "representing" PowerBASIC. The aim here is to make sure Wikipedia standards are upheld from both sides. As others have said, you could help by sticking to one registered account (not called PowerBASIC, as IIRC role accounts aren't allowed) which makes attribution and discussion of edits easier. You could also help via the Talk page with finding reliable third-party published sources to verify and expand the article. I'm sure the company must have kept clippings of computer mag articles. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I certainly wasn't suggesting that you represent PowerBASIC. I was responding to your wish for a PowerBASIC representative with whom you could speak. I added the word by above to clarify my intent.PowerBASIC (talk) 12:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ed, I appreciate your point of view, but as I have argued in detail, there never will be an article published in main stream media about the technical details of a minor software compiler. The Wikipedia criteria for veification goes on to say: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I am arguing that signed, dated statements made by the owner of Powerbasic (via a wholly owned and run forum) are about as reliable a source for information about the product as you can get. He created it after all.

If my purpose was to be vindictive, I would be arguing for the removal of the entire Powerbasic entry, because as you point out, none of it meets the strictest criteria for verification, but I am not. I don't think that serves anyone. I would argue that as the reliable sources page puts it "This page is a guideline discussing the reliability of particular types of sources. It is not a policy:"

While I agree that chat forums are not reliable sources for statements, a forum of computer source code (that can immediately be compiled and run by anyone) is because it contains the MEANS to verify the truth of a statement like: computing 6.13 + 3.45 takes longer than computing 6 + 3. This is very different because it is *NOT* a statement in a forum that "Floating point calculations take longer", it is referencing code that proves this. It is not original research as it is a "feature" of the compiler. RealWorldExperience (talk) 22:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Gordon, please try to calm down. Could you please explain what "SPA", "Forum Shopping", and "being trolled" means (probably on my talk page would be best). My purpose is clearly stated. I am seeking to present the truth in a fair and balanced way. I do not want to remove every shred of the powerbasic entry, in fact i have not deleted anything. I am simply trying to bring some balance. I have been challenged to provide verification of my contribution which I have done in great detail. You would have all that dismissed as original research or unreliable sources. IN reading about these topics and fllowing endless links to the definition of words used, I came across the mediation cabal and instructins for initiating a case. I have done that as it very apparent this issue would benefit from a serious examination of the facts.

RealWorldExperience (talk) 22:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

If you really are a newcomer with a sincere wish for mentoring, start by taking the advice you've been repeatedly given, instead of writing essays arguing the toss about it. Mentoring, by the way, doesn't exist to teach you rules-lawyering to better push your point of view; your mentor should be telling you that you've waded in with a pattern of tendentious editing that will lead nowhere but warnings and blocks. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. As you point out I am new here. I began simply a month ago with a post here that dissapeared. I did as I was asked to no avail. Powerbasic still reads like a glossy brochure for the company. Now I am trying a little harder. I am continually surprised by your bias in this case. You do not seem even willing to acknowledge that there is a conflict of interest, instead you have made you mind up that I must be tendentious. My "essay's" are the detailed verification that I was requested to write to support my few lines of respectful content. Categorizing them as "arguing the toss" is not very respectful and clearly biased. RealWorldExperience (talk) 17:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Update: User:Xavexgoem has invited comments at Talk:PowerBASIC#Medcab re consensus to close Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-04-20 PowerBASIC for now. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that unsourced material should be removed from the PowerBASIC article. See my proposal over at Talk:PowerBASIC#Propose removing the unsourced sections. In my opinion these changes would make the article more neutral and less promotional. EdJohnston (talk) 02:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

N.J. Slabbert

I am not sure what to title this, because the conflict occurs across multiple articles and, attempting to cover their trail, the editor has inconsistent user names. The writer N.J. Slabbert is cited in only a few Wikipedia articles, but nearly all of them are in important articles, such as "War," "Peace Corps," "Urban Planning," "John Dewey," and "Internet." I originally came across his name in the article on Buckminster Fuller, in which he is cited prior to the table of contents. Almost all search results on Google turn up variations on his Wikipedia citations. The users which inserted his information into the articles are non-registered, taking names such as ARCHIETODAY in Ken Yeang and URBOSAUR in Lewis Mumford and Buckminster Fuller. It seems easy to conclude that Slabbert is probably editing these pages himself in order to give his opinions undue weight. Most of the edits occurred in early May 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phantomcaptain (talk • contribs) 21:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I note this is your first edit, please can you provide links to the problem edits. Gnangarra 13:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Loonymonkey

Resolved
 – Not a COI. EdJohnston (talk) 02:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Loonymonkey is erasing my edits for no reason. Many of them have been there for long periods of time and are suddenly erased by him. He has far-left political views and erases just about any mention of conservative opinions and allows a lot of liberal opinions to be mentioned, just look at his history. He is abusing his role as an adminsitrator. Please warn him or have him banned. 192.77.143.167 (talk) 21:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I see little evidence of you trying to sort your disagreement out with this user, rather than you too undoing/reverting each others edits, why don't you have a chat with him on his user page where this issue could be resolved peacefully, and a satisfactory conclusion could be reached for by both parties.--KerotanLeave Me a Message Have a nice day :) 22:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Even though he does not have administrator rights, he has an "anti-vandalism" star that he clearly does not deserve. He has threatened to ban me when I was trying to help out with the NPOV on an article. Additionally, he leaves no information on why some edits are erased and has overrode the opinions of just about everyone else on other articles. He is unwilling to negotiate with me; rather, he insists he is always right and that I have "extremist" opinions when in reality mine are probably closer to that of most people. He cannot be reasoned with and I request that action be taken against him. 192.77.143.167 (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any indication that this is a conflict of interest issue. Please consider following the steps of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. I believe this issue should be closed out as a COI. EdJohnston (talk) 04:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not dropping the case until he is punished in some way. He refuses to have an intelligent conversation with me. Just read his page, he refuses to respond to any of my concerns and instead blames me for something I did not do. This is clearly a conflict of interest as he is one of probably many who intends to make wikipedia a left-wing encyclopedia instead of a neutral encyclopedia. "Extremist opinions" "Long history of disruptive edits" (on a shared IP). Clearly, he has an agenda. Also, read his edit history. One edit against me was legitimate, but the others had no reason whatsoever. He cannot be allowed to come after me any further. Please take action soon (I would appreciate it if his "anti-vandalism" star is removed from his page). Thank you. 192.77.143.167 (talk) 05:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
You want punishment? Then go to the police. Making such a demand here loses you a few thousand sympathy points. Wikipedia has no penal system. We do have sanctions, but they are not punishments, they are damage control mechanisms. –Henning Makholm 05:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I was not notified of this discussion and actually found it by accident. I'm not going to waste a lot of your time getting into details other than to say that this user is apparently extremely angry that I reverted a few of his/her edits that were blatantly POV or outright vandalism. No experienced editor would have done otherwise. I could post diffs, but the issue is not worth a huge amount of my time (it is discussed on both of our talk pages) and is irrelevant to this discussion anyway. This discussion was initiated as part of a pattern of making a lot of angry noise in order to make a point. Other examples include attempting to report me on Administrator intervention against vandalism (for which he was scolded on his user page) and imploring other administrators to "take my star away" (I think he believes that barnstars confer some sort of authority). Obviously there is no conflict of interest issue here and it's doubtful that this user even understands what WP:COI is. I don't see any reason why this issue should be left open. I should also note that I am not and have never claimed to be an administrator. Further, I have never "threatened to ban" anyone, having only left template warnings. --Loonymonkey (talk) 15:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

Resolved
 – This noticeboard does not handle any complaints about the spam blacklist. The requester's issue has already been handled in the appropriate place. EdJohnston (talk) 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

to whom it may concern

i have a site which is currently on your blacklist i have became aware of my it department who tried several times to add to the wiki was having a difficult time determining what pages he was added if it was spam or not. we strongly condone spam and i assure u we will avoid positing any further company url links to ur site. please whitelist the domain it is doing my company harm as when people search for us in the search engines its showing ur comments of spamming. the site is www.cruisedealership.com

Best Regards, "Thomas DeSimone""71.167.29.181 (talk) 22:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)" Owner CruiseDealership —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.29.181 (talk) 21:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

See also - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2008_Archive_Mar_3#cruisedealership.com
See also - MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#cruisedealership.com

We understand that we do not intend to use wiki anymore our it department did not fully understand the guidelines and was trying to contribute. but it still remains that the word spamming associated with our company we would like off, --71.167.29.181 (talk) 22:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see the detailed chronology of this matter at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Unlist request of cruisedealership.com. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 01:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Close this at COIN? This noticeboard does not usually address complaints about the spam blacklist. The issue's been discussed in detail over at the MediaWiki link just given by A. B. The actions taken there by the anti-spam editors appear to be normal and routine. Bastique has added a suggestion over at the other noticeboard that the MediaWiki spam blacklist should be protected from Google searching via a suitable entry in robots.txt. This idea seems unlikely to be controversial. Please comment if you think there are any reasons to discuss this item at WP:COIN. EdJohnston (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Mmpubs

Resolved
 – Blocked, reverted. --MCB (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • User was listed at WP:UAA. It was a spam-only account and has been indef blocked, and all its edits (which were external links to its own publications) have been reverted, or had already been speedily deleted. --MCB (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

LUCY Gateway

Mani Menon spam related articles

Articles

Robotic prostatectomy
Mani Menon
Vattikuti Urology Institute
Mani menon

Accounts

Robotic Surgery (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
Sciencefirst (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
Mmenon1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
Ellaboyce (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
68.41.195.44 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
68.79.239.50 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
150.198.150.245 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot) ← IP Henry Ford Hospital
Many PR Accounts Accounts and IP's from Henry Ford Hospital --Hu12 (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

MigrationWatch UK

I believe the recent 'sanitising' of this article by user Moonshineblue with the insertion of material sourced from MigrationWatch UK's own website and the deletion of any external criticism represents a conflict of interest. I'm trying not to get into an edit war but I do see this as a controversial organisation even if I am in a minority. Mighty Antar (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protect? Besides Moonshineblue, a supporter of this group who has participated on the Talk page, efforts to remove the POV language are being vigorously resisted by two anonymous editors, who do not participate on Talk. Does anyone object to semiprotection of this article? The removal of tags and of sourced information critical of MigrationWatch is getting close to vandalism, so I think the use of admin tools might be correct here. EdJohnston (talk) 03:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the removal of external criticism of MigrationWatch has the effect of creating an article that gives favourable coverage of the organisation rather than an accurate one. I also agree that this is a controversial organisation, and if there is properly referenced external criticism of it, it should be included in the article. Moonshineblue seems content to leave in external references that are favourable, or appear to support the organisation. Not sure that semi-protection is the answer, but interested to see what others think.5cc (talk) 14:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It will be apparent from examing the Wikipedia entry before recent editing that it had moved a long way from being neutral and even handed. It was also substantially out of date. The amendments made subsequently have been designed to clarify and update the material. It is not a question of supporting the organisation or otherwise. However, it is clear from remarks by "Mighty Antar" on the discussion notice board that "Mighty Antar" has a hostile view of the organisation. It is surely contrary to the principles of the encyclopaedia that the editing of entries should be conducted in this way. "Mighty Antar's" talk of "friends in high places" and an "anti-immigration and anti-human rights organisation" should have no place in the editing of Wikipedia articles. As for removing "well sourced critical material", the first three tabs were hostile articles from The Independent and Guardian. One could equally insert highly favourable articles from The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail - or, indeed, both - but this would not greatly help the general reader. Better to stick to the record as the entry now does. --Moonshineblue (talk) 16:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

but this would not greatly help the general reader
Not your call to make. WP:V requires sourcing in reliable published third-party sources, and an organisation's self-description is only one element of that. WP:NPOV also requires all significant viewpoints to be represented. Personally I've doubts about the Daily Mail, but the Times, Telegraph, Independent and Guardian are all well acceptable as newspaper sources and, as major newpapers, significant viewpoints. If they differ in their slant on the topic, those variants should be collated and included per WP:NPOV.
That said, this really is a content dispute. Without any evidence that Moonshineblue is someone connected with the organisation (as opposed to being a supporter) this doesn't come under WP:COI. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Since User:Moonshineblue's almost exclusive activity on Wikipedia has been the editing of this article, their edits fall under the 'catchall' clause of WP:COI, where patterns of promotional editing are considered to show a COI, and are blockable. The only requirement is that the editor be warned first.
I agree with Gordon that the group's self-description shouldn't be highlighted in the lead. User:Mighty Antar may have gone overboard in tagging them as right-wing in the lead rather than carefully attributing all those opinions to the respective newspapers. EdJohnston (talk) 18:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It is perfectly clear that "Mighty Antar" is, by his own admission, biassed against Migrationwatch. He thus appears to have a COI so, on his own agrument, his editing should be blockable. That said, the entry is now a great deal more neutral than previous versions. --Moonshineblue (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

He thus appears to have a COI
No, he doesn't. WP:COI specifically applies to having, or there being reasonable suspicion of having, a personal connection with the subject. Bias alone isn't evidence of that, especially in an editor whose edit history is otherwise varied. The possibility of COI kicks in where the bias has a pattern of single-purpose promotional editing - especially when there is admission of acting on behalf of the organisation [15]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: April 23 2008. Biased edits are continuing.[16] Gordonofcartoon (talk) 12:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Over the last year I have endeavored to lengthen the article from a stub. I spent tens of hours researching the organization and provided and balanced and neutral viewpoint on each issue. I used news sources from across the political spectrum. I stated in the talk page that I was seeking to show the complexities of this issue. It has been frustrating that determined pro Migrationwatch people have demogogued the page. Custodiet ipsos custodes talk 19:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bob Parsons

  • Bob Parsons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - This article has been edited by User:ParsonsRep who is affiliated with GoDaddy, the company Bob Parsons is CEO of. Some of ParsonsRep's edits have been reverted on this basis, and therefore I feel a discussion should be held here in order to correctly resolve this situation. Howie ☎ 17:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Thanks for opening this discussion. As Howie noted, I am affiliated with Go Daddy. My edits were designed to help bring the page into compliance with Wiki's neutral voice policy. If you look at the revision history, you'll note that many citations were added and other non-verifiable material removed. My goal here is simply to make the article better - encyclopedic in nature, with proper, sourced material, etc. Is there something else I should/should not be doing? If there are passages in the current article that are causing concern for any reason, I am hoping that someone will make necessary changes to improve them. I am happy to make revisions myself, but am refraining in an effort to work with Wiki community at large since there have been concerns about prior changes. Thank you.
ParsonsRep (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi - thanks for joining in the discussion. I've asked several of the other editors who have contributed to the article to join in this discussion so that we can resolve any problems arising (such as your edits being reverted etc.). In the meantime I will try and look through the edits you have made to determine if I feel there is actual cause for concern. Howie ☎ 19:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I looked through quite a few of the edits and I didn't see anything jump out at me as being inappropriate. They seem to be reasonable and referenced so I personnaly don't see a problem here with the company/individual rep and would like to go on good faith. With that said I do think that we need to watch the article and make sure that it doesn't turn away form wikipedia guidlines. I admit that its conceivable that a company would manufacture evidence in their favor but I don't see it here yet.--Kumioko (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I looked at the edits at the time they were done, and they seemed ok to me, otherwise I would have reverted them. GreenJoe 22:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering what the next step is in this process? I am more than willing to discuss any of the changes implemented. I don't feel the edits made sound like an advertisement. The importance of keeping Wikipedia accurate and balanced is understood. This is why citations are provided for each edit.--ParsonsRep (talk) 19:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hollowpoint Marketing

Resolved
 – Article deleted, user blocked indef, sites blacklisted. MER-C 07:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Article was speedily deleted. –Henning Makholm 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

removed resolved tag, while the article has been deleted the user is satisfied and is making threats against the admin who deleted the page, and appears to be involved in PA against Bidgee. The user is also adding information to other articles so its not yet resolved. I have just left the user a note on policies that affect his action. I suggest that this is discussion left open and other editors look at what is happening. Gnangarra 01:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The 'threat' was that unless the page was reverted, I would lodge a complaint. This is NOT a legal threat, therefore not a violation of wikipedia policy.

I was stating my intent should the delete not be reversed. I am well within my right to lodge a complaint, and it is not for you to decide if I can or not. This is still a free country, so if I decide that I will lodge a complaint, that is my prerogative. If you are suggesting that I will be blocked (threat) for stating that unless an item is removed, I will be using my right to lodge a complaint, then that is a threat in and of itself. I will NOT withdraw the statement.

Hollowpoint Marketing is NOT a company, it is a trademark of a marketing method, as you would have found out had I been able to go back into the article and add some more detail. There are currently 3 articles online from reliable sources that pertain to this method, and once this issue has been resolved and the article re-instated, I will go back in and reference these third party articles. It is a matter of public interest, it is a trademarked method, and about to become a patented method. As for having a COI, can you seriously tell me that no one from Telstra or Ebay supplied any information on THEIR article? I do not believe that. The whole way this has been handled (from speedy deletion to your comments) is ethically challenged at best. I should have been advised to provide sources/evidence/etc from the outset, instead of the deletion. I should have then had the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions, as per Wikipedia policy, BEFORE an admin decided that it was a policy violation. This is all making me wonder what interest the admin has in web design or marketing, and I suggest that I will be lodging a complaint about the process forthwith, AS IS MY RIGHT. --Hollowpointr (talk) 01:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The threat you are referring to is in this edit I said its was of concern, in that you have said you will have an "admin removed" if they dont do what you want. Gnangarra 02:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

"For your information, Hollowpoint Marketing, which is trademarked to Hollowpoint Pty Ltd, is a marketing method for online advertising, as would have been made apparent HAD I been able to continue with my article. Your speedy deletion is not the first time you have made a revert/deletion in error (you did it with my Telstra edit), so I would have to include that as part of my case for having an Admin removed (ongoing personal attack). --Hollowpointr (talk) 21:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)" - 'part of my case for having an Admin removed' is NOT a threat! If I choose to lodge a complaint requesting that an admin be stripped of his or her privileges, once again, that is MY prerogative. There is absolutely NOTHING in wikipedia policy that says I cannot say that! The 'threat' is neither a legal threat nor a personal attack. EVERYTHING said above is factual (1/ it was a speedy deletion, 2/ it is not the first time that a revert has been made in error by that admin (my telstra edit was eventually fixed by admin with an apology stating THEY made a mistake), 3/ I can lodge a complaint (my 'case') and 4/ I will be asking for removal of admin privileges for that admin). It IS as it appears... it's not an issue of getting my own way, it's an issue that I feel what has been done is violation of wikipedia policy. Anyway, this seems somewhat circumlocutive, so I will be lodging a complaint and let them decide the case on it's merits. Further discussion seems somewhat futile, as you know what I want, and I even stated I am willing to negotiate by putting the links to the sources, stating facts and facts alone, and then allowing for comments to determine from the majority if this article is suitable for wikipedia. --Hollowpointr (talk) 02:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Please provide the links you claim make the subject notable, that is the way we do things the onus for verification of material is on the editor adding the information. If you provide the links we can resolve the matter now. Gnangarra 02:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The links will be provided first thing on Tuesday. The articles were supposed to be online effective Friday, but I forgot that it was a public holiday. I am busy on Monday but on Tuesday I will revisit this issue when they are online and in the interim, you can leave the page deleted, but I would expect that the page Hollowpoint Marketing will be made available to me should the outcome determine that it is relevant. After all, it is a trademark anyway. --Hollowpointr (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Spamming Hollowpoint Pty Ltd, a web design and internet marketing company
hollowpoint.com.au

I notice that the AIAS College of Natural Medicine is one of Hollowpoint Pty Ltd's clients, so there are a few COI edits on that topic too [17]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 03:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

has been hassling me over his edits and also told me to "stop molesting his edits" [18] and has made threats to "formalise a complaint" [19] ever since that day of the unsourced information was entred in articles and the COI. I would put it to WP:AN/I but I'm not in the mood and not feelin well. Bidgee (talk) 03:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

1/ If I wish to make a formal complaint, that is my prerogative, 2/ Australian Institute of Applied Sciences is an educational institution, protected by the WikiEducation Project, and has now been deleted incorrectly by Hu12. This is an educational institution.... what the hell is wrong with you people??? --Hollowpointr (talk) 03:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hu12, undelete Australian Institute of Applied Sciences. It is neither your jurisdiction (it is for the WikiProject Education Australia to decide on deletion) nor is it part of this discussion. This discussion is Hollowpoint Marketing, but you have decided to delete a page based on this discussion and a review of my posts. What exactly is YOUR issue with this? --Hollowpointr (talk) 04:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that we assigned pages to groups based on 'jurisdictions' now. I mean, it seems to me like it's a straightforward blatant advertising case, what with the sentence "The Australian Institute of Applied Sciences college of natural medicine represents the culmination of some two decades of quality tertiary vocational education for natural medicine, massage and beauty therapy." But I guess my jursidiction doesn't cover educational institutions, so my judgment doesn't matter. Veinor (talk to me) 04:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hu12, stop attempting to cover your tracks by deleting my posts asking WikiProject Education Australia for support to protect the page. As for jurisdiction, called it authority then... Hu12, you are overstepping your authority on this... it is a protected page under the WikiProject Education Australia. If you have issues with the page, then maybe you should raise those issues in Talk instead of deleting things. --Hollowpointr (talk) 04:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Pages aren't under 'authorities' either. The inclusion or lack thereof of a page in a particular wikiproject does not have any weight on whether the page is a candidate for speedy deletion. Hu12 is perfectly within his authority to speedily delete a page that is blatantly advertising the entity it represents. That's the point of the whole speedy deletion process: to not get bogged down in endless Talk page discussions over every single page that needs to be deleted. Veinor (talk to me) 04:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Then delete Australian College of Natural Medicine then... it is EXACTLY the same! --Hollowpointr (talk) 04:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, The nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on what other articles do or do not exist. So just pointing out that an article on a similar subject exists does not prove that the article in question should also exist--Hu12 (talk) 04:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Hollowpointr, your comments in the thread so far are not likely to be mistaken for a charm offensive. You are lecturing us on the meaning of our own policies. We could provide some advice on how you might create a conformant article, but before doing so it would be nice to receive some hint that you are interested in that advice. I took a look at the speedy-deleted article, and it falls well short of what we normally expect of a neutral and informative article on a business topic. Others might be willing to work with you on creating an improved draft, if you express an interest. EdJohnston (talk) 04:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: at this point the editor User:Hollowpointr has been blocked indefinitely, presumably for abusive language, making threats, etc. Wikidemo (talk) 04:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Back under a sock account, :see
Brisbanealumni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
121.208.16.212 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
Attacked the Australian College of Natural Medicine with a prod, imediatly added a CSD tag, Tagged again, added pov tag, speedy again, re-added speedy again, modifies the speedy to absurd rationale, creates an account and Afd's again
As threatened, →Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Australian_College_of_Natural_Medicine
blocked--Hu12 (talk) 02:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Washington template

Resolved
 – Hard to see a problem here. Not a COI in the usual sense. EdJohnston (talk) 04:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Template talk:Washington - User:Matt Yeager lives in the city he is supporting to be included in the larger city template for Washington state and he is too biased and emotional about the issue to vote on it, and he has also in the past written articles about places and schools that are not notable, but are close to where he lives (Tri-Cities) QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 12:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

reading through the discussion I dont see any real concerns with COI the editor is acting reasonably and discussing the matter, everybody lives somewhere and works as something and has certain qualifications all of these do reflect in our editing patterns and areas of interest. Where COI is an issue is where an editor or someone even something close has gain from how the information is presented and what information is omitted. There isnt anything obvious that is an issue can highlight some edits with diffs. Gnangarra 13:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm closing this as not a COI. The discussion at Template talk:Washington is quite civil and cooperative; there is no revert war on the template itself. Re-open if you can provide any diffs showing bad editing. EdJohnston (talk) 04:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring in UEFA Cup 2007-08

Theres an edit war in the Top scorers section at this page. If youll enter the UEFA site you'll se Pogribnyak is first and has 11, and Toni is second with 10. Nevertheless, i'm being reverted. Since this season UEFA also countes the gouals from the early stages, otherwise Pogrebnyak and Toni would both have 10 goals. On the discussion page a few users decided that it's not fair and want to count 10 Pogrebnyaks goals, and that way making 2 top scorers. The thing is, i dont think Wikipedians are allowed to decide what's fair and whats not. An UEFA desicion, an offical one, is what counts.

P.S. The users who decided it contribute alot to Wikipedia and therefore i belive that what they need is an explanation and no harsh should be done. Shpakovich (talk) 22:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Tricia Walsh-Smith

Resolved
 – Deleted due to BLP violations. MER-C 04:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Historical cost and inflation - editor conflict of interest, grateful views on reliability of own material (single-source, exceptional claims)

Editor Nicolaas Smith (talk · contribs), an advocate of what he refers to as real value accounting, has his own website and self-published book. There were several episodes of promoting his own work (with warnings about conflict of interest, questions about self-published material, and an episode of sockpuppeteering and some blocks for disruptive editing and personal attacks under different names).
After these rounds of issues, he had an article published in a South African accounting journal, and since that time has taken to referring continuously to his own (single) published article.
I would like others to take a look at these articles and comment, if at all possible, particularly on historical cost. My view is that exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and this user has a conflict of interest (he is promoting his own theory on which he has patents pending). It is a single issue which is being promoted (the Truth, of course).
To declare my own issues and interest in having other editors' comments: a) I have had conflicts with this editor before, on his periodic returns to promote his agenda again; b) these have led to personal attacks on me; c) This editor seems to take any intervention on my part as a personal affront (leading to some previous blow-ups); etc.
Please note that I am explicitly NOT attempting to turn this into a re-run of his issues before with sockpuppeteering and personal attacks, etc - just making the history clear regarding the one-issue agenda. Perhaps there is some content that can be contributed, but various articles seem to be turning into his personal agenda-promotion pages.--Gregalton (talk) 18:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I've mended a misdirected hyperlink in the above. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Boxmoor

Boxmoor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Noticed user adding references to same author's work to multiple articles, even when it was not directly referenced in article. All of editor's contributions have been either commentary or promotion of work by "Sally Ramage". Through Google searches, "Boxmoor" is a pseudonym of Sally Ramage Dabydeen (SR Dabydeen): [20] http://www.suite 101.com/profile.cfm/boxmoor (second url is blacklisted and can't be linked; added space between suite and 101) Rurik (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

See also 88.111.225.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who is also adding only references to Ramage's work, without much regard for how it attaches to the text. I wouldn't have so much of a problem if these were given as actual citations, but in this edit, the references are made to appear as though they are actual citations for statements in the article. I'm going to start removing these references, unless someone wants to give citations. The circumstances are already rather suspicious, and the reference lists are beginning to look like a CV of Ramage's rather than a list of references for the article. silly rabbit (talk) 13:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Update: 88.111.225.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has admitted to being Sally Ramage. silly rabbit (talk) 01:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

COI on Render unto Caesar...‎

If you check the history on this article, you'll notice 2 edits by Ned Netterville (talk · contribs) in March in which he cites himself as a source. Ned believes that the U.S. income tax is morally wrong and has pushed this opinion on many pages (see any of his contribs for an example). However, since his last edit, there have been several further additions to the page. Anyone have the time to try to extricate the article? Burzmali (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Laserhaas

Laserhaas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is apparently a party in a long-running legal dispute involving eToys.com. He has made POV edits to this page and twice created the attack page Paul Traub of Traub Bonaquist n Fox (now salted) about one of the attorneys also involved in this case. I have attempted to advise him on proper procedures, but he appears intent on continuing his crusade here. Your advice and assistance woulld be appreciated. Thanks. --Finngall talk 19:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Robert Lindblad

Resolved
 – Article deleted. MER-C 06:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Lindblad. Most of the items offered as references are copyvios, scans of newspapers hosted on his own personal site. I did not find any quotes from the official investigators in any of the cases confirming his value in the investigation. EdJohnston (talk) 21:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

IvanAnywhere

This article has a number of single-purpose and near-single-purpose accounts adding unsourced and distinctly promotional material [21]. Particularly, it's notable that a Glenn Paulley, Director of Engineering at Sybase iAnywhere, is one of the prime movers of the IvanAnywhere project. 82.25.236.14 (talk) 11:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Boston Children's Museum

Boston Children's Museum

Mkendrab (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Admitted her job/COI here, which I noticed after she dropped me an e-mail to ask if I'd remove the {{primarysources}} tag I placed in March. Article appears much improved, but I haven't gone through it with a fine tooth comb. Might benefit from another set of eyes. I haven't warned her because she contacted me and I don't want to seem bitey in response TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 20:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Greater Grace International School

Article: Greater Grace International School Pirgeri (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 'first official edition' consisted of PR speak. Has been revered on the talk and the prior version restored on the article. TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 04:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

and again going to be one to watch TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 04:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
and AGAIN!. I final warned, it's a little insane. Going offline, it's 1AM EST TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 05:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Mind meal

Resolved
 – Not a COI. EdJohnston (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Mind meal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has created Kwan Um School of Zen as well as articles on the various teachers (see links in the article). The fact that this person has photos and biographical information on people who are otherwise NN shows that he or she has a direct connection to these individuals. He also nommed the article for GA. I would ask that articles created by this user be reviewed for notability and CSDed where applicable - he has two years worth of articles that are unsourced, and I assume this can be done faster with admin tools than I can by hand. MSJapan (talk) 04:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The article on Kwan Um School of Zen appears to be very well done, and it has many references. It's also well integrated into WP's broader coverage of American Zen Buddhism. This article includes sourced negative information about a scandal that happened at the center, so it is not suppressing criticism. Please try to identify a more specific problem. EdJohnston (talk) 13:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Two years worth of articles that are unsourced? That part truly puzzles me. You may be able to find some of my earlier contributions that had this trouble, as I was still learning how things are done on the site. The photos in the Kwan Um School of Zen article were released by Flickr users (plural), as well as through some email correspondences—they are not mine. This is all verifiable. Do I have a particular interest in the Kwan Um School of Zen? Yes, I do. I have sat with their groups before. Am I an active member of their organization? I am not. I have an interest in Zen Buddhism period. If interest equals conflict of interest by default, I'd be interested to know how you arrived at that conclusion. I'm really at a loss for why you would do this, as I cannot see the logic. Do I have a conflict of interest for starting jazz related articles of musicians I have seen live? (Mind meal (talk) 15:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC))
I'm requesting this be closed. It is a bogus claim, frankly. (Mind meal (talk) 04:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC))

Best Friends Animal Society

and

This has also been raised at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#User:Layla2008. It's largely a content dispute that needs a general cluebat on both sides, but the COI angle is that Layla2008 asserts [22] that CatDogLover is a Cathy Scott, who's a staff writer for the organisation [23]; and CatDogLover asserts [24] that Layla2008 is Ms Jade, a columnist at The Dog Press who has a history of hostile editorial on the topic. So apparent COI on both sides. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

To note, I am not Ms Jade, nor am I associated with the Dog Press. I have posted the references, all verifiable, reliable, published newspapers, magazines, and books to the discussion page to back up my post. Pls also note that CatDogLover made a veiled threat with a comment about "libelous" information. Layla2008 (talk) 06:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Are COI claims immune from WP:OUTING? --Dodo bird (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Partially - it depends if there's evidence (e.g. self-admission, strong evidence from IP address or user name, etc). If that can be shown in relation to biased editing of an article where they have an interest, I think it counts as a valid reason for outing, merely to ask that they declare their interest and work within WP:COI guidelines. I wasn't sure of the rightness of mentioning these claims explicitly. But as each has made the claim about the other - CatDogLover keeps repeating it in edit summaries - it's well on the table and needs dealing with, if only to warn one or both to stop if they can't show evidence. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 14:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Apart from recognizing her writing style, CatDogLover's contributions show edits to the William Scott and Cathy Scott pages, as well as numerous Ocean Beach pages, which is the area in which I believe she lives. Certainly she is not denying it, whereas I have stated many times now I am not Ms Jade. As a note, the materials she is posting on the wiki page mirror promotional and 501c materials from Best Friends as well. Which creates a copyright issue in itself, but it does seem to indicate that CatDogLover is definitely on the Best Friends payroll. Another poster on this site, JPolis, also appears to be an employee. Layla2008 (talk) 17:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the contribution pattern looks strong evidence; and I agree about Jpolis, who has self-identified as a John Polis [25]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Michi-chan & REC Networks

Resolved
 – Both articles deleted. MER-C 01:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the articles Michi-chan and REC Networks, principally edited by User:Recnet, who identifies herself as Michelle Eyre, the subject of the first article and the principle owner of the business which is the subject of the second. The articles appear to be about notable subjects, but lack citations. Could someone familiar with WP:COI have a look and advise? - Michael J Swassing (talk) 00:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You left a message on Recnet's talk page back in November 2007 about the lack of citations in the articles, though nothing came of it. After looking into the Michi-chan article, I have nominated it for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michi-chan. The REC Networks article also looks like it might be a candidate for deletion. BlueAzure (talk) 02:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated REC Networks for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REC Networks. BlueAzure (talk) 03:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Craig Moore (Broadcaster)

Resolved
 – Deleted via WP:PROD yet again. EdJohnston (talk) 20:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Craig Moore (Broadcaster) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was created by CraigMoore2008 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and edited today (3 edits) by Moorecraig (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) which could be conflict of interest since the article fails to state sources. User also added a Youtube link to the Prime Television article which was reverted by XLinkBot. Bidgee (talk) 11:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

article speedy deleted as A7, bio no assertion of notability. Done only after google search. Gnangarra 12:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I added a proposed deletion template to this article. Weathermen are not notable due to mere appearance on television; they need to be covered by reliable sources. Like journalists or creative professionals, they should have an influential body of work to meet the definition of notability. EdJohnston (talk) 03:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • User removed it and I revert it but was then removed by a Admin. How many times can this user keep readding something that state no sources and notability?. How I understand it it's been deleted 3 times and most likely the 4 time and messages have been left and by now should have some idea that there is policies on Wiki. Bidgee (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I salted the article to prevent its immediate recreation. User can go to WP:DRV or request a full WP:AFD if he wishes. Still no sources provided. EdJohnston (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • An admin has allowed recreation of the article, believing that there was at least a claim of notability. WP:PROD has been reinstated. I imagine there will be an AfD before long. EdJohnston (talk) 20:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Jgoodness

Resolved
 – Though this is still a lively issue, the BLP noticeboard seems to be dealing with it as effectively as we could here. EdJohnston (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Given that it's a highly sensitive topic relating to a living person, it may be appropriate to remove it per WP:BLP. The material Jgoodness removed [26] looks distinctly polemical and WP:SYNTH - building an original hostile argument from various newspaper sources. I recommend running it past Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

User:DavidBParker

Resolved
 – The editor who appeared to be promoting his own compiler has agreed to use Talk pages instead. EdJohnston (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

DavidBParker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a single purpose account the sole purpose of which seems to be to promote a computer language known as "Flaming thunder". He has made several attempts to insert discussions of this language into various articles: Interval (mathematics) ([27], [28]) and Cross compiler ([29]), Literate programming ([30]), and Alphabetical list of programming languages ([31]). The user was also working on an article Flaming thunder which was sandboxed by User:Orangemike to User:DavidBParker/Flaming Thunder. There is little doubt that this author has a conflict of interest, having a financial interest in the commercial product "Flaming thunder". See, for instance, the email address to this post on mathforum. Orangemike and I have both tried to engage this user on User talk:DavidBParker, but he seems to be more interested in splitting hairs about Wikipedia policy than in actually following them. Could someone please look into this, and maybe explain to Mr. Parker why his contributions are inappropriate? Thanks, silly rabbit (talk) 12:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


> Orangemike and I have both tried to engage this user on User talk:DavidBParker, but he seems to be more interested in splitting hairs about Wikipedia policy than in actually following them.

Orange Mike not only tried to engage me, he (and FCSundae) succeeded. Because they were correct. My original article on Flaming Thunder wasn't up to Wikipedia standards. They pointed out why, offered constructive criticism, and then Orange Mike restored the text to a sandbox for me to continue working on. Which I am. And I'm not going to repost it until it meets Wikipedia standards -- which means it may sit in my sandbox for a while until there are enough external references about it to make it "notable".

If that's not following Wikipedia policy, what is?

> Could someone please look into this, and maybe explain to Mr. Parker why his contributions are inappropriate?

Yes, please do. To start with, why shouldn't Flaming Thunder be in the alphabetical list of programming languages under F? Silly rabbit deleted it.

DavidBParker (talk) 13:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I removed flaming thunder because: (1) it was a redlink (no encyclopedia article), (2) inserted by someone (you) with an obvious financial interest in the site (a WP:COI), and (3) the language appears to have no independent coverage by reliable sources outside the main website www.flamingthunder.com. silly rabbit (talk) 15:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see how any of those affect the verifiable fact that Flaming Thunder starts with "F", but whatever. Two questions: 1) once Flaming Thunder has independent coverage by reliable sources, may I reinsert the link under "F"? 2) if I delete all mentions of Flaming Thunder from the cross compiler article, may I reinsert the information about why cross compilers are so difficult to maintain? The part I added had the only mathematical explanation in the article; the person who wrote the GNU C section referred only to "the huge amount of work it takes to maintain working cross compilers" without explaining why the amount of work can be O(n3). DavidBParker (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The material you added about Flaming Thunder in Cross compiler seemed inappropriate to me. There must be many hundreds of cross compilers in the world, and it's hard to justify singling out yours in that article. There was no source provided to show that Flaming Thunder now solves problems that no previous cross compiler had ever solved. EdJohnston (talk) 16:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
What I asked was: if I remove all references to Flaming Thunder, may I reinsert the information about why cross compilers are so difficult to maintain? That information is applicable to all cross compilers, not just Flaming Thunder. DavidBParker (talk) 17:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
You should not re-insert the information unless you have a published source. Your own say-so is not enough. EdJohnston (talk) 17:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That's fine. If I remove all references to Flaming Thunder, may I reinsert the information about why cross compilers are so difficult to maintain, along with references to reliable independent sources? DavidBParker (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Only if that characterisation of the problems of cross compilers ("inherent weakest-link and version-coherence problems ... the maintenance and debugging problems" etc) is previously published. That is, the idea that cross compilers are problematical must not be a novel argument constructed from sources that don't state this overall conclusion. See WP:SYNTH. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
"... the idea that cross compilers are problematical must not be a novel argument constructed from sources that don't state this overall conclusion." It's not novel; the GNU C section in the existing article already states that overall conclusion when it refers to "the huge amount of work it takes to maintain working cross compilers, in many releases some of the cross compilers are broken" in its 3rd sentence. So, if I remove all references to Flaming Thunder, may I reinsert the information about why cross compilers are so difficult to maintain, along with references to reliable independent sources? DavidBParker (talk) 20:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Only if the sources explicitly state the overall conclusion that there are problems with cross compilers. That statement from the GNU C section appears equally unsourced. As User:Silly rabbit says below, if you don't directly add material on Flaming Thunder (or attempt to spin the text on cross compilers to favour it) the COI aspect is dealt with, and it becomes a content issue better dealt with at the associated Talk page. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Overall, with the above provisos, I would say that Mr. Parker's latest proposal sounds reasonable. If it is still problematic, it seems like a potential content dispute more suited to the article talk page at Talk:Cross compiler than here. I would still strongly urge him to avoid making edits that mention Flaming Thunder directly, although I see no reason that he should not be permitted to edit the encyclopedia in other ways. silly rabbit (talk) 21:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that sounds reasonable to me. I'm still a newbie around here and didn't realize that mentioning Flaming Thunder (a cross compiler that supports interval arithmetic, whose philosophy is to leverage literacy, and whose name starts with "F") on the cross compiler, interval arithmetic, literate programming, and programming languages starting with "F" pages would be at all controversial.
I won't make any edits that mention Flaming Thunder without some sort of permission or approval from someone. Which leads to a newbie question: if I feel that Flaming Thunder might be appropriate to mention on a particular topic page, is it okay for me to ask permission on the discussion page or something? I would of course announce that I'm the guy who wrote Flaming Thunder (which should be obvious from my email address: [email protected]) so as to be totally transparent regarding COI issues. DavidBParker (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Mentioning Flaming Thunder is not controversial: directly adding material on it when you have a conflict of interest is. By all means ask on the Talk pages. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Or should I use the "request edit" mechanism? I just noticed it in section 2 near the top of this page as I was scrolling down. DavidBParker (talk) 21:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Category:Requested edits doesn't seem terribly well-frequented; it's probably better to raise it directly at the associated Talk page(s). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Will do. Thank you to everybody for your comments and clarifications. DavidBParker (talk) 00:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Lotte Motz Entry

A single editor, RSRdford has taken de facto ownership of the entry "Lotte Motz" in Wikipedia. To date, he has thwarted all attempts to edit the article, immediately reverting to his original version, and verbally abusing his fellow editors. He has falsely claimed that my efforts to edit the article are racist and anti-semetic in nature. On one hand, he says that my edits are plagarized and on the other says they are unverifiable. Obviously, this behavior is irrational. I have cited my sources, and all information I have included is verifiable. I would like a moderator to intervene, if possible, to protect the article as necessary. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless you can point to any particular close relationship to the topic of the article, this looks like a two-handed edit war over a content dispute, not a COI issue. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 02:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

So are there moderators for such things? or shall I continue to attempt to edit the article in question and take the abuse of this editor?

Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone'll notice, or you could try WP:ANI - but they'll tell both of you to stop the edit warring. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 09:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Anyone who checks the Talk page can confirm that I have repeatedly asked Jack the Giant-Killer for citations to any published scholarship in support of his anti-Semitic opinions concerning Prof. Motz's work. He has made no atempt to provide such documentation, but nevertheless insists on inserting his personal views and "original" insights into the article. I have also explained to him that cutting and pasting large blocks of text from published work into an article is plagiarism, but to no effect. When confronted with a rogue user like Jack, whose sole motivation is to inject anti-Semitic bias into an article, and who refuses to participate in dialogue toward a consensus, what mechanism exists to protect an article from continued attacks? Rsradford (talk) 16:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Rsradford, please avoid personal attacks on this noticeboard. I suggest you withdraw the phrase 'rogue user.' You may describe content any way you wish, but not users. Please find a replacement for saying 'his anti-Semitic opinions' as well. It is surprisingly common for both participants in a hot dispute to wind up getting sanctioned. Since I sympathize with the content you have added, I hope this doesn't happen to you. EdJohnston (talk) 19:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

76.190.176.65

IP address whose contributions have been entirely to the Tom Kent and TKO Radio Network articles. In the Tom Kent article, user wrote a rather peacock-like biography, while also removing links to the TKO Radio Network. On the TKO Radio Network article, the user has repeatedly removed any reference to Kent (who founded the network but later left). Strong suspicion that this address is Kent himself or one of his close associates (edited). J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Even though this is COIN, we must be careful of WP:OUTING, lets just assume that the address has a strong COI in our discussion, rather than assign a RL identity. MBisanz talk 16:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Duly noted. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

U2charist

Resolved
 – after copyedit, appears to be resolved Tiggerjay (talk) 01:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • U2charist (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — repeatedly edited by U2charistTeam, including edits using the first person pronoun and including unverifiable material, such as the thought processes of members of the parish of St. George's in York Harbor. Usually adds links to the website of that parish. Editor may be a member of the "U2charist Team" of St. Georges, York Harbor. Editor MKinman's username is similar to that of Mike Kinman, executive director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, an organization promoted in MKinman's edits.
    • Still looking in to its notability, however I did go through and did some major cleanup on the article with regards to references, and rm some content. Tiggerjay (talk) 15:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Looks good now, and I'm satisified with the notability. However, I am wondering if a merge with Eucharist would be appropriate. But that's a discussion for another page. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Colonel Warden

Resolved
 – Colonel Warden does not have a COI. The talk page for video games may be a suitable place to get advice. EdJohnston (talk) 04:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I posted this earlier on a wrong page, so I'm just cutting and pasting everything including the replies: A user named Colonel Warden(talk), while usually not a vandal per se, seemingly took my earlier unrelated merging proposal too personally and now repeatedly reverts my edits of the page with no regard to the provided arguments. I don't know how exactly the process works, but I would like to ask an intervention by somebody who has the authority to make resultant the edit war stop. My earlier arguments about the inappropriateness of the use of "several" can both be seen either on Talk:Multiplayer_game and on the history page of Multiplayer_game. Again, since Colonel Warden, who quite obviously has no visible background in video gaming, contradicts his own proposed definition of the term and and doesn't provide any explanation for his actions, I can only threat this as an act of vandalism. Thank you. Rankiri (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

  • It's not the merger, it's the use of the word "several" in the opening definition of the term ("A multiplayer game is a game which is played by several players.") that is not correct. "Several", according to the very same Oxford dictionary quoted by the user in question is "more than two but not many". Multiplayer game is a more than one player game, period (both from dictionary definitions and common usage of the term). That is, a 100-player game and even a 100,000-player game would still be called multiplayer. The problem is that the user consciously reverts this edit with no regard to the dictionary references and other arguments, and I see this form of tendentious editing as a personal act that has nothing to do with facts or objectivity. Rankiri (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Did you read WP:COI? this is the noticeboard relating to people writing about stuff they have a personal connection with. The DominatorTalkEdits 02:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I went with "such as disputes with tendentious editors and cases where editors are repeatedly adding problematic material over a longer period of time". If it's not tendentious editing and it doesn't count as vandalism at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, where do I have to go and should it really take me an hour to ask for a third opinion about replacing a word according to its direct dictionary definition? I'll just have to do that tomorrow... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rankiri (talk • contribs) 03:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Though this isn't a COI question, I can't resist adding my opinion anyway. The dictionary indicates that 'several' implies more than two. The actual usage of 'multiplayer game' that you can find on the web does include two players as a frequent case. This question should probably be moved over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games where you can find people with the proper expertise. EdJohnston (talk) 04:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder vs. others

There is a lingering dispute between Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs) and GijsvdL (talk · contribs), which has spilt over from the Dutch Wikipedia. Guido den Broeder has filed a 3RR report (WP:AN/3RR#User:GijsvdL reported by User:Guido den Broeder (Result: See result) and two Wikiquette alerts (Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#User:GijsvdL and Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#nl:Wikipedia) on several users, including myself. Mediation by Scarian (talk · contribs) has failed, because the mediator withdrew. This dispute revolves around the allegation that Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs) has violated WP:COI by adding books he's written, published by his own publishing company (Magnana Mu), to articles. The user has also created articles for an organisation he's the treasurer of and for an organisation he founded. Being semi-involved to involved, I will not assess the merits of this allegation. What I'm here for, is to ask the visitors of this Noticeboard to intervene in this dispute and perhaps cut the Gordian knot. AecisBrievenbus 22:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Aecis. I'd like to add that user:GijsvdL has refused to participate in the mediation for reasons provided at [32]. Furthermore, the vast majority of my edits is on other topics. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
There is one other self-reference at Types of unemployment.[33]. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me summarize my take on this.

  1. WP:COI applies to these cases, except where the references were reinserted by another user as in Melody Amber chess tournament.
  2. WP:COI is a guideline for user actions. It has no bearing on the references or articles themselves. They should simply be neutral, reliable etc. as always.
  3. WP:COI does not prohibit the user involved from editing.
  4. WP:COI can only be violated by a user, not by an article or a reference.
  5. WP:COI is violated if the user involved introduces a bias in the article.
  6. The identity of the editors has no bearing on the neutrality of the article.
  7. If a violation of WP:COI occurs, the response should be (a) to remove the bias, as always, which does not necessarily imply a revert or deletion, and (b) to check whether the user involved behaves in a disruptive manner.
  8. As time passes, especially when the article is edited by other users without undoing the edits by the user involved, COI for these edits diminishes and eventually disappears.
  9. If a self-reference is deleted and the reference is reinserted by another user, it is no longer a self-reference.
  10. With regard to providing sources, there is no difference in guidance between ordinary references and self-references. Where providing a source is mandatory, it is also mandatory to do so for a user with a COI.
  11. Self-referencing does not equal self-promotion, original research, or vandalism. Users claiming that it does, behave in a disruptive manner and should be dealt with accordingly. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Users should not make any major edits to articles of which they are directly/indirectly related to.
By writing books about the Melody Amber chess tournament you have put yourself in a position where you are related to the articles topic. You must've done research on the tournament which thus would have put you in a bias position.
By creating articles about organisations that you are related to you are seemingly trying to promote them. Even if you say otherwise, you should have NOT created those articles. WP:AfC and WP:REQUEST, the former being a section of Wikipedia I have vast experience in, are perfect for that. ScarianCall me Pat! 08:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:AfC is for unregistered/anonymous users, so your experience relates to a different area. Am I correct to assume that you no longer claim the articles and references themselves to be tainted, and that you are withdrawing your accusation of self-promotion? Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you can submit articles even if you are a registered user on AfC (as, in my vast experience, I've seen it numerous times) :-) - But stop avoiding my point. You should not have created those articles. WP:REQUEST fits perfectly though! And I never actually said that the sources were tainted, you've obviously misread me. There is an obvious conflict of interest here. Any denial of this is, well, just pure denial. ScarianCall me Pat! 09:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to see appropriate action taken against user:Scarian for falsely accusing me of promotion.[34] Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Meanwhile, another user from the same mob at nl:Wikipedia has just joined the harassment team here, user:Migdejong.[35][36][37] Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

For clarity, I would like to say where I stand on this one. To be blunt, the allegation that Guido has violated WP:COI has some merits. He has referenced himself, he has listed his own books, he has written about organisations he's involved in. But I think that's not the main issue. The main issue is that Guido is so emotionally involved in these subjects that he takes anything that doesn't match how he feels about something, as bad faith, inconstructive cabalism and vandalism. From dickish comments and misleading edit summaries to downright arrogance, there's only one way for Guido, and that's his way. Both here and on the Dutch Wikipedia, he has shown himself combative and uncooperative, to the point of becoming disruptive. To summarize, the problem is not the fact that he may have a COI, but the fact that this issue has led him to disrupt two Wikipedia projects. AecisBrievenbus 11:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I find the above comments highly offensive and kindly ask you to withdraw them. I would appreciate an independent admin to step in at this point and see to it that this procedure follows due process. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • LOL, there already has been an indipendent admin involved but he didn't do what you wanted. Aecis just discribed your doings here perfectly and supported by edits even, you are not willing to behave in a normal way and you slander people who do not agree with you. Like I said before, this is not a fit behaviour for a man your age. You are only making it harder for yourself to be taking seriously... Jorrit-H (talk) 12:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Being an admin is no big deal on the English Wikipedia. Admins have some tools, but no special rights in content questions. However, wikilawyering aside, "due process" on Wikipedia involves an open discussion of the issues at hand. That is exactly what I see here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
In that case, I am done here. Nobody seems to be the least interested to discuss the merits of this case, so what is the point? Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
We were, even I was (still after more than a year) but you ignore comments, you trow mud and you are not open for another opinion. The problem lies within your own borders, do a little selfreflection now and then.. Jorrit-H (talk) 12:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
If you're ready, stop throwing mud and comment on my 11 points above. Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, now I'm the one trowing? I see it's hard for you to take criticsm but fine I will react on your points above as long as you promise to take my reaction seriously, otherwise it has no use. Jorrit-H (talk) 12:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Any comments on my points will be taken seriously by me, Jorrit. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Yet when someone does, you find those comments defamatory, offensive and even highly offensive. AecisBrievenbus 11:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
To my regret, I do, except that these comments are not on my points above. I'm still waiting for Jorrit though. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
External view: I think one problem is that you're trying to engage in a form of discourse that just isn't how things work here. No insult intended, but I've seen it a number of times with editors whose background is in analytical rule-based genres (e.g law, programming, tax, championship-level boardgames, etc). As Wikipedia:BUREAUCRACY points out, Wikipedia is not a moot court, and this kind of "I put it to you: point A, point B, point C... which implies ... etc" discourse is viewed negatively as wikilawyering, and in any case is pointless because policies/guidelines are interpreted by custom as well as strict wording.
For example, your point 3 - "WP:COI does not prohibit the user involved from editing" - does not have the corollary that such editing can be done with impunity; the custom is that it should be done with serious caution and always deferring to community opinion.
The bottom line is, if a number of independent editors view your edits as self-promotional, they probably are and you should defer to that view. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
In my view, the bottom line should always be the quality of Wikipedia. We are not a community, we are a project team, and I will weigh other people's opinions in that light. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

{undent}Wikipedia can be improved without self-promotion. You can place your books, your websites, your suggestions on talk pages, where they will be reviewed by other editors and if there is merit, they will be added. If there is no merit, if it's just self-promotion, changes, sources and suggestions will be rejected. The template {{request edit}} can gather attention from other editors, as can requesting edits from editors known to you or active on the relevant pages. Though this may be slower than making the edits yourself, there is definite advantage to wikipedia using these methods - there is no taint of COI, and no concern over WP:NPOV violations or self-promotion. Ultimately your suggestions will rest on their merit rather than your perception of their merit and the quality of wikipedia is not improved by adding information you inherently can not be neutral on.

I have had contact with GDB on the CVS and VBI verening pages. My interactions suggest to me that he does not truly grasp the importance or essence of policies and guidelines - I'm not sure if it's deliberate or obtuseness. If it is obtuseness, then it is a very strange blind spot - GDB writes well, his spelling is adequate, his presentation of ideas is generally readable, but he does not seem to grasp what policies are saying and why. See User_talk:WLU/Archive_6#Vereniging_Basisinkomen in my archive, and in particular the curious discussion under the subheading User_talk:WLU/Archive_6#Notability. He seems unable or unwilling to understand which guidelines govern content (RS, NPOV, OR), and which govern article existence (N). Further, the two pages I was involved in were riddled with coatracking. On the VBI page, I removed the coatracking without incident and GDB has not tried to re-add. Which is it, unable or unwilling? I assume unable, which still suggests problems. Bluntly, GDB should not be adding his own work to pages. He has enough experience on wikipedia, and sufficient discussions related to COI that he knows this is problematic behavior. This isn't a matter of 'needs to be warned'. He is well aware of our position of COI and there is no excuse for violating it by adding sources he wrote and published himself. He is also by now aware that he should not be creating pages for organizations he is a major player in. He has sufficient tools available to him that there is no excuse for creating pages or adding information that may be problematic.

I do not doubt his sincerity, I do not think he is a vandal, but I do think his actions in many cases are well beyond questionable. My opinion would be future COI problems, judged by neutral admins, would result in escalating blocks. --WLU (talk) 01:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It is unfortunate, that nobody is interested in discussing my arguments, but all would rather discuss me. But how can you think to understand my motives and ideas, if you do not first try and grasp what I say? If none of you ask me even a single question, but simply keep repeating your own mistaken interpretations?
I know that there are many people who think the same as you, but you are not helping Wikipedia, you are killing it. The project is already declining, and its average quality deteriorating. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I've reviewed your arguments on all the pages we've interacted on. The above is my opinion. My two archives point to issues you've had with a policy and a guideline and the difference between the two. COI is another area - several users have weighed in. WP:COI#Examples has several examples. You've cited yourself (note the statement "When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion."), adding books that you have written and published raises concerns over financial benefit. You've created articles that are of extremely tenuous notability - one has been deleted, the other has been AFD-ed and is on the borderline. Perhaps you might want to consider that other editors have a point and certain contributions should be filtered through uninvolved editors. If your expertise is truly formidable, then demonstrate this by citing sources and suggesting changes rather than editing directly. Text created on talk pages and sub-pages can be reviewed by other editors and if issue-free, pasted wholesale. Other editors find your edits problematic and tinted with COI concerns. So, rather than insisting, use alternative methods to draft sections. That would be my recommendation. WLU (talk) 00:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
We are talking about a full total of 3 articles here, and a tiny fraction of my edits. None of which were found problematic by anyone until some users, all of them Dutch, had a disagreement with me about ME/CFS. So no, I am not in doubt. In cases where I was in doubt, I did post on the talk page. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I am removing this page from my watchlist, so there is no point posting here again. If anyone wants a real discussion, instead of slinging opinions, post on my talk page. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Response seems typical of that being commented upon and disagreeing with a consensus of other editors, in fact worse, he dismisses other views out of hand and with arrogant bold ignore message - all reminisant of his block in December for 3RR violation [38] where I observed "wikipedia is a collaborative process, so repeatedly stating in talk page discussions that various editors are on your ignore list is also disruptive". I support WLU's conclusion "My opinion would be future COI problems, judged by neutral admins, would result in escalating blocks"... David Ruben Talk 13:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it's typical - even if GDB doesn't think he's got a COI or conflict problem, others do, and you can't always get what you want (or think is right). Enough people have had problems with GDB's edits that it's arrived here and there's obvious issues with understanding of the relevant policies and guidelines in my mind. WP:SPS says they can be used with caution, and in the areas discussed (obscure chess problems) there may not be an alternative, but if someone else is objecting to you adding your own source, adding it anyway isn't a good idea. The first example in WP:COI is citing oneself, and ends with the sentence "When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion" - yep, I think that applies here. Since GDB isn't watching the page anymore, should a line be dropped on his talk page? In fairness towards his potential expertise, {{request edit}} should probably accompany the message (his original posting would have been timed when the template was a redlink - I've just corrected now). WLU (talk) 15:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
To whit. Revert-warring isn't a good sign, ever. WLU (talk) 16:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I suggest that blocking might be considered, in the light of Guido's yet again removing the COI tag from Vereniging Basisinkomen. Does anyone have an opinion on that option? Guido appears to be tone-deaf to the strong concerns expressed by the community. He has even less right to remove the COI tag when he has taken the COI noticeboard off his watchlist. I would warn him on his Talk page before doing so. EdJohnston (talk) 19:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Discussion above applies as a community view & Guido den Broeder can't be excused from it by deciding not to listen. I've therefore posted a WP:Banned notice on his talk page specific to Vereniging Basisinkomen and limiting non-collaborative talk page wikilawyering.[39] Failure to heed community request not to disrupt should be reported to WP:AN/I for an uninvolved admin to block. David Ruben Talk 13:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

{undnet}Lovely, now there's an arbitration case. Sigh (reaches for a nice merlot). WLU (talk) 17:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Context, context2. WLU (talk) 17:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I've completed my RFAR statement, but I am unclear whether as an alternative WP:AN/I should have invoked or this COI/N is sufficent admin authority in itself to review partial bans & my own handling of this... Presumably this now needs await ArbCom decission on the RFAR before any alternative actions taken ? David Ruben Talk 00:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I will be very, very surprised if the RARB goes forward - there's a wealth of conflict resolution options that haven't been tapped, Guido didn't seem to understand what arbitration was, and it seems grossly overpowered and complicated for what is really a fairly simple dispute. WLU (talk) 01:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
RFAR been declined, suggesting that WP:AN/I seek further input, which is an appropriate means of reviewing editor actions, admin actions (and to be fair, also how I as an admin approached an issue), lets await views at WP:AN/I#Editor COI and COI/N proposal + review my actions.David Ruben Talk 23:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
AN/I discussion closed & archived after a couple days of no further input to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive408#Editor COI and COI/N proposal + review my actions. No support stated for article ban, and GDB therefore free to resume editing - I note Jossi offered some sensible advice on approach to take in editing where the potential for COI. David Ruben Talk 11:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

After having steered clear of this issue for about a week, I find the way the discussion has ran since I stepped out of it typical of the problem at hand. Our position on COI is very clear: be cautious, and when challenged, be even more cautious. All have acknowledged that Guido has a COI and that his editing is problematic. Guido ignores the concerns, and continues as if nothing has happened. He doesn't appear to be willing to even consider the idea that others might have a point. Every time an independent editor in good standing (Scarian, WLU, me) came to a conclusion Guido didn't appreciate, he assumed bad faith, questioned our impartiality and aptitude, and made vague accusations of cabalism, vandalism and incivility, as I've outlined above. AecisBrievenbus 22:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Outlining does not make it true, and my own standing is not less than yours. Fortunately, other editors have since arrived to different conclusions. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Who? Where? Provide a diff, please, saying you have no conflict of interest and your editing is problem-free. Please provide a diff, as your depiction of other's statements is generally not accurate. You have been warned repeatedly and most of your conflict of interest problems have been resolved not by your statements but by third-party editors being willing to make a change for you, which is invariably the advice you have received and you would do well to simply follow this advice on all future incidents where you have a conflict of interest - being a member of an organization whose page you are editing and adding a source you have written or published. Diffs are meaningful. WLU (talk) 21:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Your own standing is indeed not less than that of others, but I have never said anything to that extent. What I said (and I will make it more clear this time) is that the editors who have indicated that your editing was problematic are not passers-by who have no idea of how Wikipedia works. If so many editors in good standing indicate that your editing is problematic, you should take it seriously, very seriously. They should not be ignored and discarded as you have done. You should listen to them and try to incorporate those suggestions/recommendations. We're not saying this out of a grudge against you, or anyone. If so many people see a problem, please consider the possibility that there really is a problem. AecisBrievenbus 11:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Both of you: please stop mispresenting my statements and the situation. We just had an RfC where opinions were mixed.
@Aecis: The users that claim my editing to be problematic, are those that themselves do not contribute to the articles. The users that work with me on articles, do not report any problems. I'd rather trust their judgement, instead of that of passers-by, and I find it typical that you dismiss their opinions. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Considering this situation, some of the links where Guido den Broeder was involved in were added to several wikipedia, and some of these links got meta-blacklisted.
Links (follow the Meta XWiki link to the report):
Users:

Reports were put together in m:User:SpamReportBot/cw/globalincome.org. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not involved in these blacklisted links and this has absolutely nothing to do with a COI. I merely encountered the problem when I tried to edit the article, and asked for the basic income links to be delisted since there seems to be no good reason for them to be on the blacklist.[40] My request is still unanswered. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason is clear, there was excessive linking across several wikipedia by an IP in Scandinavia (Sweden?), creating sometimes massive linkfarms (see e.g. diff). I see that that is probably not you, still, since you are also using that link (as can be seen from the linkreports) I think that it is good to see that part of the situation as well. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see any connection, so I suggest moving this to talk:Basic income. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
GDB asked for my thoughts on link blockage. Given since the time when this COI/N was started in early April, there has been a full and frank discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder which is now on pause whilst everyone takes a breather and we see how well future article work progresses... I have to agree, going back now 4 weeks to relook at link usage seems probably unnecesary - PS the LinkSummary output is quite incomprehensible :-) I have to agree with GDB that there needs be a time when restating the same past link activity does become historical and irrelevant to the present time, the concerns have been stated and GDB is aware of this (irrespective of whether he agrees the edits were problematic COI or not). He clearly is now aware (its been stated often enough) that COI edits are not permitted if other editors state their is a problem with them. So, unless anyone can show good cause, IMHO this COI/N, like the RfC, probably now needs to pause. What counts now is how GDB works in the future, which links added, manner of interacting with other editors and how he responds to contrary views - if no future problems then COI/N RfC served their respective purpose, otherwise they form basis for AN/I review :-) David Ruben Talk 18:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's all be aware that I am not this Scandinavian anon. I did not know that these links were blacklisted until I found that I could not edit a page that had them. Anyway, they have now been delisted on my request. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

DJ Sassy

Resolved
 – Moonriddengirl was able to get the attention of these editors. She can request further help here if needed. EdJohnston (talk) 03:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This article, once nominated for deletion for promotional and notability concerns, has for the past few weeks been subject to changes from various IP editors which seem to originate from the subject or an affiliate (see edit summary). After I addressed the COI issue with that IP editor, here, a newly registered user appeared to make the same changes. I've tagged the article with {{COI2}} since I'm quite sure at this point that the article is not promotional (or white-washed), and I've reiterated some of the points to the newly registered editor, here, but I would be very grateful for additional eyes on this. As my revision of the article to provide sourcing and eliminate bias was cited as one of the reasons it was not deleted, I feel a responsibility to prevent its being used for misrepresentation, but as I revised the article I do not wish to give the appearance of ownership issues. Uninvolved feedback and/or reinforcement here as necessary would be very much appreciated. I am very accustomed to dealing with BLP issues, but am far less familiar with COI conflict. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, one more point: Please also note that the edit summaries may be somewhat misleading. Note that the most recent indicates "Removal of inaccurate references", among other concerns, but of the references altered, one has not been removed, only relocated. The others are this article in the Manchester Evening News and an external link to a review in The Mirror. (That EL, frankly, doesn't add much to the article and was only included to help substantiate widespread coverage of the individual. The fact that it is critical of the subject, though, as is the Manchester Evening News link, makes its removal somewhat suspect.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Your actions seem correct to me. There is certainly a recent blaze of activity on this article since May 1st. You left the appropriate queries for the editors who were removing information. If there is any genuine BLP concern they should be able to explain what it is. If we can't get anything coherent out of the reverting editors, another AfD is something to consider. When COI-affected editors continue to revert without discussion we can propose admin action, but we usually wait to see if we can get their attention first. EdJohnston (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look. The individual is now discussing his concerns with me, and it may be that this thread has helped him to realize my purpose better. Hopefully, we'll be able to reach a compromise that will make everyone happy. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Bob Thompson (musician)

Resolved. Article appears to be resolved.

The subject of the article does seem notable. However, the referenced user's contribution to the article are mixed, and seem to have both a Non-NPV and a mildly spammy feel. --Joe Sperrazza (talk) 05:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Eh, this article needs cleanup, but it looks notable enough and should be okay if there a copyeditor with some free time. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Chad Thibodeaux

Resolved. article deleted per PROD on May 17 Tiggerjay (talk)

Subject of this article appears to be the creator and primary contributor of the article. Rtphokie (talk) 12:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Article is currently PROD and has a COI warning on it as well, the author has also been notified. While I could cleanup the article, the primary problem at the moment appears to be notability, more than COI. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Samanthabox0817

Resolved

Possible conflict of interest with this User's contributions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Samanthabox0817. The User has created several articles about photographers, all related to contactpressimages.com, with no sourcing other than links to the photographers' works at that website. I'm concerned about notability for a number of these people, as well as the user's conflict in creating them. Corvus cornixtalk 22:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Status update: Most of the articles have disappeared, the only one that remains is Olivier Rebbot (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). MER-C 07:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
That one looks reasonable. Corvus cornixtalk 16:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
User is blocked for 1 week, and remanding contrib looks okay, and was created by another editor (however that article was previously flagged for COI). Tiggerjay (talk) 01:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Adil Najam

Resolved
 – This issue belongs at WIkipedia:Deletion review, not here. There is no COI. EdJohnston (talk) 18:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(originally I called this section Adil Najab by mistake. Corrected. Pashute (talk)

I was not aware of Professor Adil Najab until reading about negotiation. Found the page was deleted twice, but the reasons given were "Self advocacy". In Wikipedia there are several articles which cannot be done without him. I looked up the person on the web: Thousands of entries in various media outlets, quotes from books that he wrote, articles and quotations, and wrote a very short entry with some links. 5 minutes later, when coming to add something I found the article deleted. Looking further I found some controversial sayings of his. I have no personal or other interest in this person, but it seems the people deleting him do. Pashute (talk) 10:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any deletion log for that specific spelling. Could you double-check and make sure you've typed the name correctly? Equazcion •✗/C • 10:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I found the article you're referring to - it was Adil Najam. The article was originally deleted as a result of this discussion, and was deleted again recently because the new article was apparently a recreation of the material that was originally deleted. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So in conclusion, you could begin a new article on this person if you like. Just make sure it's well-sourced, establishes notability, and isn't a mere recreation of the deleted article. It might also be a good idea to inform Ragib, the deleting admin, that you intend to re-create the article from scratch. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, meant Adil Najam. I cannot start a new article. Rajib seems to be claiming I'm only recreating an old article. Please see my answer to Rajib below.

I do take offense at the comment by Pashute above. This article is in my watchlist since I had prodded it as NN bio in the past (the article was deleted following an AFD a year before that, and was re-deleted due to the NN content/G4). I did look into the "new" content Pashute is claiming there, and it is simply a rehash of the old content with no update on the notability of the subject (with a few new Youtube or blog links). So, this falls under CSD:G4. Apart from nominating the article based on the NN of the subject, I have no idea / interest etc. about the subject. So, I find Pashute's suggestion of any hidden agenda quite objectionable. Any other admin is free to look into the deleted content again and decide for him/herself. By the way, Pashute first recreated Adil Najam, then following deletion, created Adil najam. I deleted both under CSD:G4. --Ragib (talk) 18:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not mean to offend, please forgive me, but on my talk page you left a message that there was no place to discuss this. I don't understand how my article can be a reproduction, when I never heard of the man before, until reading about Negotiation on wikipedia, and created it from scratch from the first 100 or so google posts that I found about him, and included good sources to each of the five or six points that I wrote! I felt its a cultural war to eliminate this person, since my post was very short, and well sourced, with media of all sorts and locations showing credibility to the person AND notability. Still don't understand how it can be NN. In your talk page, and above I wrote the full scope of notability I found. (about the Adil najam: without capital I created the page as Adil najam FIRST, then saw it had a small leter in it, and thought that if I post the capital, the small letter would change. Thats good you deleted it. So you are claiming that it was NN the SECOND time. I did not see that, and would like to. According to Equazcion above the second was deleted because it was a reproduction! My short entry CANNOT be a recreation of the first entry. A few minutes after entering it, it was deleted. I then started searching to understand if there is any controvercy around him or his sayings. I found that there definitely is, but could not bring any of it to Wikipedia, because you erased the entry altogether. Rajib, maybe you could put up a page with what you think IS relevant, or tell me which points to remove/change/add. But the remaining question to you Ragib is: Do you still think the man is non notable?! Pashute (talk) 22:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I have already instructed you to take deletion related requests to deletion review page. The article has been AFD'd as non-notable ... and if you want any review regarding the AFD, Deletion review is the proper place. Thank you. --Ragib (talk) 20:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

MaxButterchuck

Resolved
 – This user has been cooperative. He undid the challenged edits, and appears willing to learn our system. EdJohnston (talk) 16:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Great to hear! Mike R (talk) 17:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

MaxButterchuck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This account's only contributions consist of adding mention of the book The Midnight Show: Late Night Cable-TV "guy-flicks" of the 80's to the article of every movie that was reviwed therein. Mike R (talk) 22:01, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a polite notice for this editor. He's on thin ice at this point, but reform is always possible, and is certainly to be hoped for. EdJohnston (talk) 03:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
He undid his edits on request. Can we close this? EdJohnston (talk) 21:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Reiner Hartenstein autobiography and COI edits

Resolved
 – appears most of the problems with these articles have been resolved as much as possible.Tiggerjay (talk) 04:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears this person created and/or heavily edited an article on himself and created/edited a large number of other articles that seem to have COI problems. I can't tell if he satisfies the notability requirement. He has previously been found to have used the following user IDs: RainierH, RainierHa, Rainier3 and Rwdh, although they don't seem to be used for the purpose of sockpuppeting because of their obviousness. He may also have edited under the user IDs of Karl-tech and Huebner.

He has also created resume-like articles on Wolfgang Nebel, Karl Steinbuch, Helmut Metzner and Nick Tredennick. Notability does not seem established for at least the first 3.

My biggest concern is the long list of articles he created for what are essentially technology terms, many of which mention him directly or his concepts. Several are redundant with each other and most would be orphans if it weren't for the fact they link to each other though wikilinks. There are also articles on organizations with undocumented notability. Questionable articles include: Structured VLSI design, Structured hardware design, Morphware, Configware, Flowware, A Block diagram Language, Anti machine, Domino notation, Auto-sequencing memory, Super systolic array, KressArray, Configware Compiler, Data counter, Generic Address Generator, Auto-sequencing memory, Reconfigurable datapath array, Data path unit, Von Neumann syndrome, EUROMICRO, CSELT, Weikersheim Think Tank and Lernmatrix. He has deleted PRODs on his articles, but at least two have been deleted: KARL and Xputer.

I suggest that most of his terminology articles be merged into the Reconfigurable computing terminology, which is a glossary article. Unfortunately I'm not knowlegeable enough to know which terms are truly industry jargon. OccamzRazor (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I checked the first three bio articles that were questioned for notability. In my view, they do pass the threshold for keeping, though the articles need a lot of work and more references. I took the liberty of removing notability tags from those three articles. Others are welcome to review my changes.
  • Reiner Hartenstein looks notable, though the article might be improved.
  • The creator of all these articles, who we must assume is Reiner Hartenstein due to the many clues from the user names, may be hard to reach since none of his accounts have edited for many months. Somebody might check the German Wikipedia to see if he is still active there. It can't hurt to add to our coverage of German computer scientists.
  • The topic articles seem weaker to me and I bet some of them might be deleted. Computer scientist editors are invited to look them over and give their opinion. If I get some time, I may go through them eventually. EdJohnston (talk) 02:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
While new to COI, I agree with EdJohnston review above, and I will look more into the terms myself tomorrow or later this evening. I'll also go to work on the bio's as well. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:39, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I've spent some time on merging the above links, and reviewing a large majority of the axillary articles. Main subject still needs copyedit. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Brian Sherwin

Username and edit pattern suggesting COI. Roodhouse1 created the article for Brian Sherwin, senior editor at myartspace; put unusual effort into defending it when it went to AFD; and has focused since on adding various links and material re Sherwin interviews at the myartspace blog (e.g. [41],[42],[43],[44],[45]). Oddly enough, Brian Sherwin lives in Roodhouse, IL [46]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

http://spam.myartspace.com

Adsense pub-5626493247304372

Also:

Links should probably be removed per WP:ELNO #11. (Don't you just love the pun?) MER-C 14:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

My bio of Sherwin was posted in good faith just as the bios for Edward Winkleman and Tyler Greene will be (I will also include supporting links to artists they have reviewed on those artist bios). I'm the type of person to finish one project before moving on to the next so yes I added interviews and text to artists who Sherwin had interviewed because those interviews are some of the most current for those respected artists. Several of those artist bios lack citations. So it made since to use Sherwin's interviews in that way. If you go to my talk page you will see that I'm very interested in helping to add more art related content to wikipedia. The Sherwin bio was my first article and I was defensive because it was removed without a debate at first and I was new to how wikipedia works. Would have been nice if you had sent me a note about this and why did you not mention anything on the talk page? (Roodhouse1 (talk) 01:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC))
Probably because I'm not nice. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 04:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I think we need to give the benefit of the doubt here. Roodhouse1 said he had previously added other non-myartspace ELs (presumably as an anon). It's an easy way for a new editor to start contributing, even if not the most desirable way. Roodhouse1 stated earlier he was only delayed from moving onto other articles by the AfD discussion. He has now made edits on other subjects and other AfDs (prior to the COIN post above), and has other articles in preparation. I have encouraged him to use the myartspace interviews as refs, not just EL, and he is now doing this. In fact, I've just noticed I used at least one interview as a ref myself, back in January on Gary Farrelly. It is a strong interview series on a professional web site with editorial control (the "blog" is an editorially-contributed part of the site, and not a "blog" as normally defined). I wouldn't like to see a wholesale reversion of the links, as at least some of them I've checked out provide unique additional information to the article. Ty 04:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Ernest G. McClain

User:BuffFans/iModerate (edit | [[Talk:User:BuffFans/iModerate|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

User:BuffFans/iModerate (edit | [[Talk:User:BuffFans/iModerate|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Resolved
 – posted to main spaceTiggerjay (talk) 21:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

22

I DIDN'T SIGN THE BOTTOM OF THE PREVIOUS POSTING WITH A TIME AND DATE...THIS ONE IS, SORRY ABOUT THAT.

Editors,

I have been working to put a page on Wikipedia for iModerate Research Technologies. I have written an article that if possible, I would like previewed by you to make sure that I can submit this page to put on a main page and not a sub page. I want to make it clear, yes I do work for iModerate, but in no way am I trying to advertise or exploit this encyclopedia. I want to put up this page for people to read and be able to learn from. An encyclopedia is a book, or in this case a website, that educates people of all ages, and by putting the sub page that I have created up, I feel that I will give people the opportunity to learn more.

I am asking for the editors help because I want to make sure that you feel the same way about this page as I do. If you would please give me feedback on things that you would like see changed, added, or the go ahead to make it a main page. Please respond on my talk page.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

BuffFans (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I just did a quick review and it appears too much like advertising and spam, while it does appear to have 3rd party sources. I just performed a quick cleanup of the reference links so they appear normal - however they are still not completely proper. My viewpoint is this is not yet ready for mainspace as it is and will be PROD for spam. However, I'd be happy to try and copyedit the article tomorrow for you. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I just performed an initial copyedit and it looks much better, however I discovered that the company is far less notable than it first appeared. This will need to be address first, please see the article talk page. Input from other editors would also be appreciated. Tiggerjay (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

(u/d) It appears that this article is ready to post to mainspace - other editors, please chime in. Tiggerjay (talk) 15:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Now posted to main space. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Pat Muldowney

This Comment explains the addition of <no wiki>COI|2</no wiki> tag to the article Killings at Coolacrease. The person at issue is User:Pat Muldowney who has explained his motive for the article. He is a newbie who identified himself from the outset and, has addressed the requirements of WP:COI as and when he has been made aware of them. A tag certainly does not apply regarding Citing oneself; Financial; Legal antagonists; Self-promotion; Autobiography ;Close relationships; Promotional article production on behalf of clients. He has self advertised his complaint about a TV documentary on the subject. Is this is considered a campaign and, if so, does not Muldowney's aim coincide with that of Wikipedia?. An AfD polled 8:2 Keep by non Single Purpose Accounts (but obviously consensus is important and this was not achieved). 82.36.178.185 (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Mark Thompson (reporter)

This articel has been substantially written by a user whose name is the same as the subject, and the tone of the articel sounds rather partial. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Article tagged, and user notified -- plus username is currently WP:UAA Tiggerjay (talk) 04:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Username no longer UAA since it has been around for a while, however recommended to user that they change it. Tiggerjay (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

ArtInfo and User: JPLei

JPLei (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The user has, without exception, used artinfo.com as the source for all his sourcing. As some warners have said, it seems to be a not-so-subtle way of linking the art info website when any other source could be used. I'm not entirely sure of its standing as a reliable source either, but it doesn't appear to be a bad source. I can't find concrete proof of COI, but my radar is going off. TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 14:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Most if not all of the contributons from this editor, back to their first edit, have revolved around adding simply enough information to require a cite/ref to the ArtInfo website. I have inquired about this on their userpage. While it is not against policy to have a single purpose account, it does call into question possible COI. Tiggerjay (talk) 16:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

http://spam.artinfo.com

I don't know about COI, but it's unquestionably spam. We've had similar cases before of citation spam. Cross-posted to WT:WPSPAM. MER-C 06:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Naked short selling

Resolved
 – The submitter, John Nevard, is satisfied with the response (see my Talk page) and doesn't wish to pursue the matter further. EdJohnston (talk) 20:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

PatrickByrne (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Patrick M. Byrne is the president, CEO and chairman of Overstock.com, an internet retailer. Overstock (OSTK) stock prices have declined in value recently, and Byrne has made accusations and filed lawsuits to support his claim that a number of funds, financial analysts, journalists, etc have colluded to engage in the practice of naked short selling of Overstock shares.

Now, Byrne claims that persistant naked short selling against Overstock, rather any financial issues, artificially depressed the share price of the company. In other words, if you accept Byrne's claims at face value, (his) Overstock stock is worth more than its market value. It seems inappropriate that an individual with possibly the most major interest possible (bar, say, Richard Altomare) in the controversy regarding the importance of naked short selling is editing our article to push his fork as a replacement for our main article, despite a number of issues that have been pointed out by editors with more financial chops than me and a distinct lack of glaring conflicts of interest. John Nevard (talk) 02:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Returning to the real world for a moment... My changes were simply to rearrange the sections of the article, which are so scattershot as to be unreadable, into a cohesive structure. All the NSS-apologist arguments that were there before are still there, and in fact, are featured more prominently than ever. They are just not scattered with apparent randomness through the article. PatrickByrne (talk) 08:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
As the article still includes obvious misquotes and uncited editorial comments that were there before you forked it, even this is untrue. John Nevard (talk) 08:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Despite the possibility that your edits were warranted and don't constitute a conflict of interest, it might be best, Patrick, to leave editing of this particular article to others, in the interest of alleviating such concerns. If you have suggestions for the article you should express them on the talk page instead. Equazcion •✗/C • 08:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Equazcion that User:PatrickByrne should not edit Overstock.com. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland to get an impression of how sensitive all these issues are. See Remedies for the rules that apply to editing the Overstock.com article. Patrick can make requests here if he thinks his concerns are not getting proper attention. He risks getting beaten up at WP:AE if he doesn't go through proper channels to make his changes. EdJohnston (talk) 18:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Mjschacker

I've just noticed that this new user, Mjschacker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), seems to be creating links to a book he is apparently the author of, and an organization founded by his wife. Wouldn't this sort of self-promotion constitute a COI violation? Dyanega (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

With links to Amazon, I'm inclined to say yes. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Possible COI edits on the Viktor Rydberg article. Thread #2

The COI reported earlier in the Viktor Rydberg article has never been resolved. The editor who is controlling the article to promote his self-published paperbacks has responded to my request for mediation with an ad-hominem attack on the Talk page, including posting a link to my employer's web page. Is there any action that can be taken to protect the Rydberg article (and other editors) from this guy? He is now posting as "JacktheGiantKiller," instead of using multiple anonymous IPs. Is there another forum I should go to for assistance? Rsradford (talk) 04:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyone reviewing this matter should note that both parties allege COI, quite possibly correctly on both parts. Doc Tropics 04:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
As a point of clarification: the editor who has been controlling the Viktor Rydberg article has repeatedly promoted his vanity-press paperbacks in the article, where they are currently listed in the bibliography alongside the real books. OTOH, I have never, at any time, posted a link to my own article on Rydberg, specifically because I recognized it would violate Wikipedia's COI policy to do so. (Nor, of course, have I stalked and attacked other editors on the basis of their non-Wikipedia, RL employment.) Rsradford (talk) 16:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Rydberg suffers from having few English translations of his work. Reaves' translations of Rydberg are printed by a vanity press, but we are not relying on them for the truth of any matters of fact, so WP:SPS does not bite us here. I have no personal awareness of the quality of the Reaves translations, and some people consider those works of Rydberg on mythology to be silly, but that may be something we can allow our readers to sort out. A number of regular editors including User:Dbachmann have been making steady improvements on the article and they seem to be allowing the Reaves' translations to remain listed in the bibliography. There may no longer be a big problem to solve here. I left a note at User talk:Jack the Giant-Killer urging him to observe WP:CIVIL. EdJohnston (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for investigating. Although it seems odd for a Wikipedia article to list as references self-published "translations" by a person who can neither read nor write the original language of the texts, that is really a side issue. The problem is, to help convince Wikipedia readers to buy his books, Reaves has persistently violated NPOV by excising from the article all references to scholarship critical of Rydberg. This is the core issue, which no one will be able to address so long as Reaves is allowed to use Wikipedia for self-promotion. Is it a big problem? Only to those who attach some special value to the historical version of Norse mythology, as opposed to Rydberg's racial-nationalist fantasies. Rsradford (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The suggestion that Reaves is attempting to bias the Wikipedia article as part of some promotion campaign for his books is completely baseless. The fact of the matter is, that regardless of who printed the books, he has made available in English works of Rydberg that were not available in English before, and inclusion of such works is completely relevant to readers who would like to know more about Rydberg. The substance of your comments suggests that your viewpoints are biased in such a direction that you would rather not have anyone reading such works, based on hand-picked theories about what constitutes "the historical version" of Norse mythology. Reaves' portrayals are balanced and inclusive of criticism, but if he is slanting the editing of articles, perhaps it is to counter another editor who clearly has an agenda, an agenda that has little to do with a fair and balanced portrayal of Rydberg. And once again, "racial-nationalist fantasies" is a charge that has yet to stick, let alone be proven. CarlaO'Harris (talk) 01:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


You may be right that the article is unbalanced, since it covers Rydberg's myth work in such positive terms. I'm especially dubious about Ref. 19 of the article, which says that the point of view expressed in Hamlet's Mill is becoming widely accepted. (There was recently a big furor on WP:ANI about poorly-supported theories of Archaeoastronomy). If you can make a focused proposal on Talk that includes reliable sources, which explains how to restore balance about his theory of myths to the article, I would welcome it.
I'm disturbed that there are so many personal attacks on Talk:Viktor Rydberg; this could lead to admin action if it continues. New opinions expressed on that page which contain personal attacks may be removed without further ado. EdJohnston (talk) 15:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


Kudos with regard to the policy on personal attacks. Enforcing it will be absolutely essential if NPOV is to be restored to the Rydberg article. I am preparing the focused proposal you requested, and will post it for discussion on the Rydberg Talk page when it is completed. Rsradford (talk) 03:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Editors following this COI case may want to go to Talk:Viktor Rydberg and give their opinion in the latest thread. User:Rsradford gave a well-organized proposal and User:Dbachmann has offered support for adding a link to Radford's web site and making some of Radford's changes. I would say Radford's new text is almost ready to put in the article, give or take some copy editing. EdJohnston (talk) 17:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
If there are no further comments on the proposal to restore NPOV on Talk:Viktor Rydberg, I will proceed to implement points I and III. I will leave it to others to deal with the unverified quotes from foreign-language sources, if anyone else finds that issue to be sufficiently troubling. Rsradford (talk) 21:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Admin action needed? An editor named Jack the Giant-Killer is deleting a newly-added section containing criticism by later scholars. The section was added per the COIN discussion above, in the effort to make the article neutral. Since COI editing can lead to blocks, per WP:COI, please comment here if you see any other course of action than warning User:Jack the Giant-Killer about admin action.Summarizing:
  • Jack the Giant-Killer is an enthusiast for one of the English translations of Rydberg's work on mythology, to the point where common sense might indicate he is either the translator or his good friend.
  • After adding what are possibly his own books to the reference list, he seems to be reverting out any criticism of Rydberg's myth work. For example, see the reverts here, here and here. He is reverting out what many of us believe to be a neutral version.
  • The previous archived COI report has more detail on the authorship of the translations.
Unless anyone objects, I will start leaving warnings of admin action on Jack's talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 02:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems like a neutral point of view issue, whether or not there is a conflict of interest. If the editor persists in povpushing after sufficient warnings, they may need to be blocked. Let me know if it comes to that point. Jehochman Talk 03:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Could someone who has participated in this thread please take a look at "Jack the Giant-Killer's recent edit history in the Viktor Rydberg article and determine whether it has "come to that point?" He is now simply deleting references to objective scholarship on Rydberg and replacing it with his personal opinions, claiming "acceptance of" and "support for" Rydberg's 19th-century mythological theories from sources that make no reference to Rydberg, or mention him only for minor, tangential points. He has repeatedly refused mediation and will not participate in (or abide by) any kind of consensus building. Unless Wikipedia has some mechanism for restraining this sort of editor, it will be impossible to restore the Rydberg article to any semblance of NPOV. Rsradford (talk) 14:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Da Costa's syndrome take #2

Can we revisit this one, as it seems unresolved?

The previous discussion is archived here: Posturewriter self-identified [47] as MA Banfield, an author with a known strong interest in a particular "postural compression" theory relating to this and similar conditions. [48] He argued then that we should put this information "back in the box" because he was forced to disclose it during an AFD; I'm not sure this washes, and in any case he has since repeated the disclosure in all but name [49].

The problem is his refusal to act by COI guidelines and his continuing SPA activity on Da Costa's syndrome with edits that, although not explicitly naming his theory, have an ongoing focus on the respiration and chest issues central to this theory. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 21:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The respiratory issues seem central to the disorder, and IMHO their mere mention in no way hints at his personal theory for explaining them. In fact, from the information provided in the article, I'd rather expect particles from gunfire to be a probable cause. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The respiratory issues seem central to the disorder
They may well be; but having a known involvement in advocacy relating to those issues means that COI guidelines should apply: editing with caution and deferring to consensus. I'm not seeing that.
I'd rather expect particles from gunfire to be a probable cause
WP:NOR please. (None of the many studies came to this conclusion, and it was common in civilian life too). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Reading is hard. And no, this is a postwar syndrome. The fact that similar medical problems (e.g. from pesticides or chronic infections) also occur in other situations, does not change that. Meanwhile, I strongly suggest that if you think due caution was not exercised, you provide the diffs to back that up. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Compare the text of Da Costa's syndrome with that at Banfield's website References which were used in the development of The Posture Theory, and which are useful in assessing it. For instance:
Banfield site:
"In 1951 the fourth edition of his book "Heart Disease" contained a chapter on "Neurocirculatory Asthenia", because, as he explains, the symptoms are similar to heart disease, but are not the same, and he adds, that they are also similar to, but can occur in the absence of anxiety, and therefore need to be discussed separately".
Wikipedia article:
"In 1951 the fourth edition of Paul Dudley White’s book “Heart Disease” contained a chapter on “Neurocirculatory Asthenia”, because, as he explains, the symptoms are similar to heart disease, but are not the same, and he adds, that they are also similar to, but can occur in the absence of anxiety, and therefore need to be discussed separately".
Problem sufficiently demonstrated? With diffs such as these [50][51][52][53] he's adding large verbatim dumps of material from his own website: not neutral stuff, but summaries of papers selectively collated and commented to support Posture Theory. He's turning the Wikipedia article into an annexe of his own references section, and it needs to stop. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 10:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The added material does, however, not support his theory at all (note that if it did the theory should rightly be mentioned in the article, COI or not). I don't think that there exists a reliable source that does, so there is no danger here. Using the same words to refer to a publication as on his own website is by itself permitted (we can't, but he can). That said, the article, while IMHO neutral enough, could profit from some tidying-up. Some of the references are not fully on-topic, others not very significant, and they are discussed in I think too much detail for Wikipedia purposes. I therefore suggest that you try and improve the article first. Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I never thought of that...
But seriously: it's been tried, and he keeps adding the stuff back in. I'd appreciate more opinions: I'm not sure I agree with you that it's no problem for someone with a COI to add material predominantly duplicating their own website. That they appear in this context is reason to have concerns about the neutrality of selection. Is the syndrome largely about respiration and breathlessness (as opposed to, say, pseudo-cardiac symptoms such as chest pain and palpitations) - or does it appear that way because the references are cherry-picked to focus on those aspects? The thing was, after all, called "Soldier's Heart", not "Soldier's Chest".
But I agree with you whoeleheartedly about the excess of detail, hence the current tag. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Chest pains and palpitations are the consequences of many respiratory disorders. However, if these references are cherry-picked, it should be easy to find others that say different. Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
If you look at where Da Costa's Syndrome wound up in ICD-10, it is labelled F45.30. That is part of a section called F40 - F48 NEUROTIC, STRESS-RELATED AND SOMATOFORM DISORDERS. So what exactly is a Somatoform disorder? Our article says

Somatoform disorder (also known as Briquet's syndrome) is characterized by physical symptoms that mimic disease or injury for which there is no identifiable physical cause...

So ICD-10 has bracketed this possible ailment, Da Costa's Syndrome, as what sounds like (to me, a non-doctor) a psychosomatic problem. If you read the diagnostic criteria (from ICD-10) that drills you down to F45.30, it takes you through a bunch of symptoms that are reported by the patient. So this is a far cry from the original American Civil War ailment, and it still appears to be a catch-all for stuff that is not well understood. So there is apparently no pill to take for Da Costa's Syndrome. Our current article, I think, makes it sound too much like a real, tangible disease. I think the view of the disease in Paul Dudley White's 1951 book is extremely dated. That material should either be taken out or labelled historical. The lead of our current Da Costa's syndrome article I think needs to be rewritten to present this as more of a historical item. At a minimum it should track the ICD-10 understanding of the phenomenon more directly. The rules of WP:MEDRS should be applied to the sourcing of this article. I hope when the article is finished most of its references will be post-1980. EdJohnston (talk) 02:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
A Wikipedia article is never finished. :)
As I understand it, this diagnosis is not used anymore, it has been replaced with one that on first sight seems to be close: 'neurocirculatory asthenia', a diagnosis that is not restricted to post-war. That diagnosis presently also falls under F45.3. However, the basis for this classification as well as for the replacement is very thin. It is, by its definition, not possible to prove that someone suffers from a somatoform disorder (or even that such disorders really exist), and there is a long and expanding range of known physical causes of the exact same symptoms. Now, one logically expects that diagnoses will be reclassified away from somatoform disorders as knowledge progresses and causes are found. For a dead diagnosis this will of course not happen, but it is a good reason not to see the classification as absolute, and rather focus on what research has found. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

(Undent) I've been off Wiki for a few days, and didn't realize that this discussion had started when I made major changes to the history section on Da Costa's syndrome yesterday. You can find the contested version at this link.

Yes, I believe that User:Posturewriter's primary, if not sole, interest in Wikipedia is for the opportunity to promote his pet theory about how the body works (or doesn't work). He finds a parallel to his idea in Da Costa syndrome and hangs his idea on that peg. This is his hobby; he doubtless believes his ideas are accurate; he wants to help sufferers around the world by sharing his knowledge. That's all very noble, but completely inappropriate for Wikipedia: it is definitely original research.

I think it is particularly important to note that Posturewriter's first edits to Da Costa's syndrome were six days after The posture theory, which is his actual theory, was deleted through AfD for being non-notable (e.g., "promulgated by one author in one book. Not recognised by health scientists in general"). Over the last six months, he's tried to turn Da Costa's syndrome into a dumping ground for the non-notable original research that was originally stuck in The posture theory and deleted after the AfD discussion. (The author is the only editor who opposed the deletion.)

Since then, I and other editors have repeatedly discussed our concerns on the article's talk page. Three editors have left five separate requests on his talk page that he not use Wikipedia as a platform for promoting his own ideas. We have asked for help in removing his original research, or to stop adding information that tends to promote his personal ideas, but he has generally declined, opposed, or ignored these requests. We have removed sections, only to have them reappear, or to be replaced with even longer lists of tangentially connected publications.

Just about any publication that has similar keywords, BTW, and doesn't directly contradict his idea is likely to be included as support. N.B. that PubMed lists only 12 papers since 1951 that actually mention "Da Costa's syndrome" by name -- and some of those merely mention it in passing (e.g., PMID 15274499), or only to claim that it is really some other disease (e.g., PMID 3395533 for hyperventilation) -- so available evidence for any side of this story is rather thin. As for cherry-picking: he lists a BMJ (Heart) paper that discusses the history of the syndrome, but skips the letter published in response that says it's all a bunch of garbage. The general belief among those who "believe in" DCS is that it's a familial/genetic tendency, probably anxiety-oriented, with no physical/mechanical/postural/cardiac component at all. If you will read the last paragraph of this paper (by a "true believer" in DCS, although not someone who believes that there is any postural component), and ask yourself what sighing respiration indicates, you will probably have an excellent understanding of the actual condition.

I'm pretty much at the "give up" level with this editor. I do not think that Posturewriter has an interest in contributing anything to Wikipedia other than his original research. I've even given up on him figuring out simple things, such as the fact that I removed his favorite bold text formatting from the article (a direct violation of the Manual of Style) purposefully, instead of accidentally.

Overall, I think the practical solution is to settle on a version of the article that basically works for all of the other editors, and then steadily revert any addition of original research by Posturewriter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

An assumption that it is a form of hyperventilation is also original research, so be careful not to replace one with another. Edits should always be based on consensus, and original research should always be removed. I see no need to single out one editor in this manner, just focus on the article. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Guido, that is spoken like someone who has not been doing exactly that -- repeatedly, exhaustingly, and frustratingly -- for the last six months in this article. Note, please, these uncontested facts:
  • The editor has a conflict of interest: he has published and is trying to sell a book based on his WP:FRINGEy interpretation of this phenomenon.
  • The editor is using Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting the interpretation in his book.
  • The editor has proven repeatedly unwilling (or unable) to restrain himself from adding his personal OR to this article.
Your solution is, in effect, "y'all play nice now, y'hear?"
If that were possible, there would not be a notice here about an unsolved problem. If the editor in question was willing to work towards a consensus, there would not be a notice here about an unsolved problem. If the editor in question would quit adding his original ideas to this article, there would not be a notice here about an unsolved problem. Pablum about not including original research and working together for a consensus has not solved this problem.
The editor's repeated actions are consistently opposed to both the spirit and the letter of many WP policies and guidelines. We are "singling out" this editor because this editor refuses to follow your advice on original research and consensus. Educating him about the nature of Wikipedia has proven ineffective. He does not want to stop it. He wants to use Wikipedia to promote his original ideas.
The question is no longer how we can all contribute happiness and joy to the project. Now the question is, how do we force him stop adding his original ideas to this article?
I think what I would like out of the COI process is an agreement that this editor will not add any information to that article. (Suggestions on the talk page are fine with me.) I am open to other suggestions. I am not open to spending the next year deleting original research from a stubborn editor with a clear-cut conflict of interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't care what he may have done half a year ago. He does not need to be stopped, since he is not promoting anything or adding any original research to the article now. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Break

User:WhatamIdoing, if you think admin action is needed, it is good to provide diffs showing that the COI-affected editor is actively obstructing progress toward a better article. In fact, User:Posturewriter has only edited the article twice during the month of May, and he does participate on Talk at least occasionally. There are several editors active in this COI report who should be able to review any changes. If you have ideas for improvement of the article, just start making them and see what happens. EdJohnston (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

As you know, mere participation in talk page discussions is not the be-all and end-all of Wikipedia's editing standards. Yes: here's Posturewriter saying he'd be "happy to abbreviate my theory to one paragraph of plain text if required" (emphasis added) -- a clear admission of WP:OR and WP:COI -- and discussing "the fitness programme at the SA Fitness Institute" that he designed and included in the article.
However, the talk page discussions and user talk page discussions have no perceptible impact on what he actually does in the articles. This situation is like the son who says, "Yes, Father, I'll go work in the vineyard today," (Matthew 21:28-31) but never shows for work.
I think we can all agree that describing your own clinical research in an article, complete with reference to a newspaper article about yourself is a clear-cut violation of WP:COI. Of course, the first time could have been an innocent mistake, but sticking it back in there after it's been deleted it according to the agreement of every independent editor who has looked at his additions cannot be construed as an unknowing mistake, especially since he's been repeatedly warned on his talk page and elsewhere about WP:OR, WP:COI and WP:COPYVIO concerns.
Note that this same diff is also an WP:OR problem: he declares that DCS is a Chronic fatigue syndrome, with no reference. He has attempted to promote his theory in other articles as well, although the account's edits (and the identifiable anon) since December have been confined to this single article.
Here's Posturewriter's very first edit to this article, in which he adds an external link to his own website. Paper copies of his book are only AU$64.50, by the way. Here's Posturewriter deleting the Category:Anxiety disorders designation, which is a mainstream classification that contradicts his personal view. Here's Posturewriter re-casting the first sentence so that it doesn't mention the mainstream view that DCS is an anxiety-related condition. Here's Posturewriter deleting anxiety-related conditions from the ==Related== articles section.
Here's Posturewriter starting his blow-by-blow description of practically every paper that mentions the general subject without directly contradicting his personal views, including adding tangential information to explain his private views, despite nearly every word on both the article's talk page and his user talk being a request for him to stop drowning this article in references that tend to promote his idea. He's not violating these normal rules because he wants to violate them; he's just doing every possible thing he can to promote his particular view. His Truth™ simply is much more important than, say, how Wikipedia operates, or its reputation.
Other editors have repeatedly removed or deleted the most egregious violations, and tried to condense the rest. Note that when his personal opinions are deleted under WP:SYNTH or WP:OR, he sometimes just undoes the "invalid deletion" or otherwise restores the material later. Because of that, I don't know how long I can expect my most recent de-crufting to last.
Honestly, I don't see any possible interpretation here except that we have a single-purpose account that has been dedicated to promoting his own personal research conclusions in this article for the last six months, and in other articles before then. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Based on the diffs given by WhatamIdoing, I left an admin warning for User:Posturewriter. If he persists in COI editing, he risks being blocked for disruptive editing. Others are welcome to give their advice on how to handle this case. EdJohnston (talk) 02:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

EdJohnston; I have seen your comments on my talk page, and would like the right of reply to the comments on this COI issue number 2, which in the past week has amounted to 4468 words by five editors, including yourself as administrator, and one in favor, and three against, spread over this page, the Da Costa discussion page, and my talk page. I wanted to respond earlier but each time I started a new criticism appeared so I decided to wait until something consistent was reached, particularly when you inserted the subtitle ‘Break’. Could you please give me a few days to complete a response before making any final decisions. In the meantime I thought that the previous COI discussion was resolved in my favor given that no-one responded to my three final comments when they had the opportunity. [54]Posturewriter (talk)posturewriter —Preceding comment was added at 11:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the diffs provided above by WhatamIdoing, you are not in fact following the Conflict of Interest guideline. If you would completely refrain from editing the article you would be in the clear, but it seems you won't follow that advice. You continue to add material to the article that promotes your off-Wikipedia interests. EdJohnston (talk) 16:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I see nothing in his recent contributions that is related to his personal theory. Most of these diffs are ancient. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't want to, but I'm going to have to call WP:COI on this one. Guido has known COI issues - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder - and strong connections with an advocacy group denying the possibility of psychological origins for syndromes in this area (User:Guido den Broeder/ME/CVS Vereniging). See my comments at Talk:Da Costa's syndrome. [55] Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no COI with this topic, but it gets me wondering where you are coming from. You may not like it, but I am trying to bring some quality to the article by relying on published sources rather than random websites. I am now quickly getting the idea that this COI complaint against Posturewriter has one reason only: to get the opposition against your own pov out of the way. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
:::I have no COI with this topic
Bollocks you don't. Nearly every edit you've made related to this topic has been about edging out the possibility of psychological explanations in favour of things like OR involving pollution and poisoning: a 19th century Gulf War Syndrome. I've no particular views either - it's a historical diagnosis that, judging by sources, probably lumped together people with different syndromes with similar symptoms (e.g. the physical condition of dysautonomia on the one hand, and the psychological one that we'd now call PTSD on the other) - but I can spot axe-grinding. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification: user tried to prove his pet theory that the Da Costa syndrome is an anxiety disorder (it is not classified as such by the WHO) by pointing to some website, the single source on the internet where such a claim can be found. This after he just made this COI complaint against another user who did the same thing with a rival pet theory back in December (except that that user had published a book about his theory which got some coverage). User doesn't seem to understand the notions of reliability, OR, COI and civility. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

EdJonston; to save duplication I invite you and NPOV editors to go to the discussion page [56] where I have posted my response to 5000 words of criticism in the past 12 days i.e. since I added my review of the 1916 MacKenzie conference to the Da Costa syndrome article page [57] Posturewriter (talk)posturewriter. —Preceding comment was added at 04:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

User:64.230.71.197

User:64.230.71.197 is making dozens of edits on tenuously connected articles, all with very similar text promoting a new book. The Wednesday Island (talk) 13:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This IP is promoting books by Opal Carew. The article about the author looks non-notable and has already been prodded. I believe that the May 8 edits by this account are all promotional and should be rolled back. I invited this editor to join the discussion here. EdJohnston (talk) 03:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to Tiggerjay for previous comment. I reopened this COI item since the PROD on the Opal Carew article was removed, but without any addition of reliable sources. I've nominated it at AfD per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Opal Carew. EdJohnston (talk) 18:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Inte:Ligand

Inte:Ligand (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - User Gwolber (talk · contribs) created and has had significant edits to this article. One of the directors is identified as Dr. Gerhard Wolber. I have tried to discuss COI with the editor to no avail and article issue tags like COI, etc have been removed from the article by SPA's 138.232.38.100 (talk · contribs) (resolves to Vienna where the company is located) and Moldesi (talk · contribs). Would appreciate some advice on how to handle the situation because I still have COI concerns as well as concerns that the article is being used as a vehicle for advertising due to the generally favourable tone and multiple links to the company's website and products. I don't want to get into an edit war on this hence why I've ended up here. Deadly∀ssassin 10:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a polite note for User:Gwolber. We don't look kindly on the removal of tags by COI-affected people. But if we can get a conversation started, that could lead to a solution. The article itself doesn't look bad to me; it's reasonably short and informative. EdJohnston (talk) 01:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Levitron

Huge, persistent, COI by Fascinations group over a period of a couple of years. Referenced material keeps disappearing due to actions by multiple anonymous editors, and a user name called 'User:Fascinations' is almost certainly (IMO) acting on behalf of the company in a bald faced way.

Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but I don't think I've ever seen such a clearcut example before.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 07:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I notice that you've redirected Levitron to Spin stabilized magnetic levitation. That looks like a sensible move, given the turmoil about the trademark. There is some interesting material in the old Levitron article. Do you have any interest in merging the material over? If you believe this is important and are willing to work on it, it would be reasonable (IMHO) for admins to be keeping an eye on any improper removals of well-sourced material that might possibly occur. If anonymous editors remove the material then semi-protection might be considered. I don't perceive that User:Fascinations has so far edited Spin stabilized magnetic levitation at all, so perhaps our concerns will not be realized. EdJohnston (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Paul Frampton

This page about Paul Howard Frampton is maintained by an account called HowardFrampton almost exclusively 75.110.103.19 (talk) 01:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

What seems to be the problem? I see an empty talk page. Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

GHG Management Institute

Articles

Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (deleted twice)

Accounts

Mwgillenwater (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

Adding a large volume of links to sites he has a COI with. User is also citing himself, and placing links to those works within articles. "Michael founded the Greenhouse Gas Experts Network and currently serves as its Executive Director. He also co-founded the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, and serves as its Dean". links have been removed however, this still presents an issue. I have left a message, however some monitoring may be needed. --Hu12 (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Gary McHale

Resolved

Article:

Editors:

GaryMcHale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) editing what appears to be an uncited puff piece about himself (if one presumes these two users are the same, it looks likely). An anonymous IP, 76.64.66.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) posted an anonymous "letter" attempting to prove notability. That smells enough that a checkuser may be in order. Blowdart | talk 05:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears that this is being monitored by a few other editors, and the page has been appropriately tagged and user notified. Regarding the checkuser, there is nothing technically wrong with not logging in to edit a page, unless you are trying to avoid a block or some other administrative action, which doesn't appear to have taken place...yet... Tiggerjay (talk) 04:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
None of the COI-affected people have edited since 18 May. Several others have been keeping an eye, and the current version of the article looks OK to me. Does anyone object if we mark this resolved? The complaint can be reopened if more problems occur. EdJohnston (talk) 23:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Resolved per Ed Johnston. — Athaenara ✉ 07:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Calvin A. Grant

Resolved
 – blocked Toddst1 (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The notability of this physician is limited, though he could probably meet notability guidelines, but the article is clearly being edited by two (at least) different editors with clear conflicts of interest: Aricalex (talk · contribs) and Ari.staff (talk · contribs) (Dr. Grant's practice is "The Advanced Retinal Institute, Inc.", the two accounts beginning with ari are conflict of interest accounts. I put the "coi" tag on the article and Aricalex removed it without comment. I've restorted it and admonished Aricalex. Corvus cornixtalk 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you left {{uw-coi}} notices for both of these editors. This man does appear notable to me, but the article could be written more clearly. I see that he gave a meeting paper offering the results of a 60-person case control study on a new eye treatment he was trying to get approval for. This is potentially of interest but I think we are in the domain of WP:MEDRS. Not sure if that standard allows meeting papers to be cited. If they are allowed, perhaps they should be subordinated to any peer-reviewed journal papers that could be found. EdJohnston (talk) 00:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Aricalex (talk · contribs) has removed the coi tag from the article for the second time. I've issued them a uw-v2 warning. Corvus cornixtalk 19:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Block him if he does it again. I think this doctor would meet notability, but the article does have a COI bent. I think it should be reworked by a neutral user and more/better refs found. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

And now a third vandalism of the article. I have requested blocking at WP:AIV. Corvus cornixtalk 17:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Iulia Antoanella Motoc and User:Iulia M

Resolved
 – Deleted by author request. MER-C 13:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a resume dump. I warned her accordingly, but I think she's probably notable from some of the claims. TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 15:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Andrea Aquino Concepcion/Andrea Concepcion

Resolved
 – Blocked, indefinitely. MER-C 13:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Incessant posting of her autobiography. Earliest version has been salted. The newest (Same content) has been re-created at least twice today. Not sure where else it might pop up. I'd keep an eye on but need to be offline. TravellingCarithe Busy Bee 16:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User blocked indef after Andrea aquino concepcion was created. MER-C 13:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Tconline

It's a legitimate concern, but for now a warning is sufficient. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 16:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

WZNZ

Resolved
 – rewrote article davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I rewrote the article but it could use some attention from someone within listening range of Jacksonville, FL. I don't trust the web site's listen-live links. The station's history also needs improvement. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Nseidm1

Resolved
 – I left a note for the submitter. There are no specifics for us to address. EdJohnston (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned that User:Nseidm1 is falling into a conflict of interest situation - but I don't see any really clear guideline that covers this specific situation in the WP:COI description. The user's real name (from his User page) is Noah Seidman and from his user page (and a Google search on "Noah Seidman water fuel") it is clear that he's heavily involved - almost certainly at a commercial level - with various 'fringe theories' about water powered cars (and the highly dubious business of "hydrogen enhanced fuel" for cars). Looking at his edit history, you'll note that he edits exclusively in a handful of articles that variously discuss these topics - and many of the articles he works on end up skewing heavily in favor of these fringe theories. Check out "Hydrogen fuel enhancement" for example - the article has literally hundreds of edits from this user and it reads like an advertisement for his technology. The lead photo is taken from research that Nseidm1 claims to have performed (look in the image description page) - which presumably amounts to a WP:NOR violation. This editor also has a propensity for uploading copyrighted images - initially without fair-use rationales - then with bogus rationales that eventually result in the images being removed. He clearly has no compunction about doing this because his own private and commercial websites employ many of the same images - almost certainly in violation of said copyrights.

I'm not sure whether this should be taken further - and because I'm one of the editors working hard to bring these articles in line with our WP:FRINGE policy, I tend to be on the opposite side of many edit debates with User:Nseidm1 - so I'm hardly a neutral party here and would not like to be accused of wielding WP:COI as a weapon in edit disputes.

But - I'm deeply concerned that there is a problem here.

So, in the interests of fairness and neutrality, I would appreciate it if someone without my inherent bias (which I freely admit) would take an independent look at Nseidm1's position here and consider whether his behavior does indeed rise to the level of a WP:COIN complaint or something else.

However, I would prefer to recuse myself from further input since I do not feel able to be entirely dispassionate about the matter.

TIA. SteveBaker (talk) 16:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

All editors are expected to follow our policies. I've run across Noah before in regards to articles on hydrogen fuel. I assume you are inviting the editors here to join in the discussion at Talk:Hydrogen fuel enhancement to help in cleaning up that article. I'm happy to see that there is at least one expert in electrochemistry working on that page, User:OMCV. There is also User:Tjcognata who works on fuel cells. Clearly the page needs some rewriting. Unless Noah resists improving that article, there may not be much more for us to do here. I don't see any glaring neutrality problems on Hydrogen fuel enhancement, which is the main thing I would look for if COI was a concern. EdJohnston (talk) 15:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Your concerns are warranted, which is why I don't edit much anymore. I was editing alot before because there was zero academic articles sourced, and a lack of other references. Now that references are available other editors are researching and editing articles constructively. The hydrogen fuel enhancement article is all quotation from the referenced academic publications. None of it is my words. It is up to other editors to paraphrase properly to express the intention of the publications authors. Other articles that I have edited are also coming along nicely due to the hard work of other contributors. Noah Seidman (talk) 00:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sollog biography

Resolved
 – The Sollog article was deleted at AfD. There is nothing more for us to do here. EdJohnston (talk) 04:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

→ See also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sollog (4th nomination)

I am concerned that the Doug Weller who defamed Sollog in this usenet post [58] is the same person as User:Dougweller who recently reverted my attempts to remove libel from Sollog's biography.Arnold1 (talk) 18:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to know explicitly what the 'libel' was, and how these pointers towards COI apply to me: "There are no firm criteria to determine whether a conflict of interest exists, but there are warning signs. Adding material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of an article's author, its author's family members, employer, associates, or their business or personal interests, places the author in a conflict of interest. When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference." At the moment I have no idea what User:Arnold1 is referring to. And my last edit on Sollog was to remove a claim that he had worked for his family porn business. Doug Weller (talk) 19:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
User:Dougweller had previously added the libelous content which he just removed from the Sollog biography, as can be seen here [[59]]. He also added this defamatory content here [[60]] which I had to remove. He also defamed Sollog in the talk pages, here is that edit[[61]]. Currently, User:Dougweller is involved in a discussion over at the reliable sources noticeboard where he is arguing in favor of keeping the source that provided some of the above libelous content, a source which I believe is not a reliable source for a BLP and which also has COI issues. He has also strongly argued in favor of keeping that problematic source on the Sollog talk pages.Arnold1 (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
this appears to simply be a content dispute, I can't really see a COI issue here. Restepc (talk) 20:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
If User:Dougweller is the same person who libeled Sollog on usenet and he is allowed to edit Sollog's biography on wikipedia then surely that is a conflict of interest.Arnold1 (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Unlike the legion of Sollog supporters who have edited the article? Corvus cornixtalk 21:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
If it worked like that anyone who had ever expressed an opinion about something would be unable to edit the relating wikipedia article, leaving the holocaust patrolled purely by the mute... Restepc (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I keep getting edit conflicts! It's pretty obvious I didn't add the bit about him working for the family pornographic business.[62] - that was added almost two years ago [63]. What actually happened is that Arnold1 deleted it on the basis that the newspaper is a tabloid, which is a description of a newspaper format, its size (the Times of London is now a tabloid), and does not refer to 'tabloid journalism', a different thing (and now an anachronistic term with top-rank newspapers going tabloid). If you look at the talk page of the article [64] you will find other editors trying to get Arnold1 to be specific about what is libelous or contentious and Arnold1 not answering the question. I don't see what is defamatory about [65] (note that the speculation on Usenet wasn't about Sollog's involvement but about Xinopoehl). It is a content dispute, with Arnold1 apparently trying to remove anything at all negative about Sollog. My position on the newspaper has shifted a bit as it has been pointed out that Altman, the journalist, and Sollog had a public feud ending with an alleged bomb threat on the journalist so the journalist's articles might be COI. I have suggested before that all the Usenet stuff is highly problematic (sockpuppets apparently everywhere), but of course without the Usenet stuff and the City paper, there is virtually no article. Which ends up with a problem about notability of course.
I am still waiting for the editor who brought this complaint to point out my COI, which I feel he should have done when raising the complaint about me. Arnold1, please explain what part of this applies to me ""There are no firm criteria to determine whether a conflict of interest exists, but there are warning signs. Adding material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of an article's author, its author's family members, employer, associates, or their business or personal interests, places the author in a conflict of interest. When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference." That is how COI is described, COI is not about my having an opinion that you don't like, if it was we would have very few articles. Or about anything someone posts on Usenet (is it libellous for Arnold1 to call me a libeller without proof? Is it likely a jury would find I libelled anyone? Rhetorical questions, I don't want answers, just pointing out the attack on me - or someone posting under the name Doug Weller, who knows - is ludicrous) Doug Weller (talk) 21:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps you would like to enlighten us as to whether you are the same Doug Weller who libeled Sollog on usenet. I feel I have explained the COI as best I can and have given several examples of your edits that are incompatible with the supposed goals of wikipedia.Arnold1 (talk) 23:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, what is your position on the deletion of the Sollog article, now under consideration? A2Kafir (and...?) 02:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Arnold, does it actually matter? Having an opinion on a topic does not make it a conflict of interest to edit that topic's article. You might want to look at WP:COI#Examples. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Arnold1, a conflict of interest in terms of editing on Wikipedia would only come about if an editor was somehow directly associated (or had a financial interest in something to do) with Ennis. Gwen Gale (talk) 04:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
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