Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 41

This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page.

Brandon Paris

Brandon Paris (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I found this article today and tagged it-for obvious reasons-but also noticed that its likely the subjects wife/girlfriend, Reneelavigueur (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), created teh page and has been main contribtor. _{(unsigned comment by [[User:65.68.72.78]]) Smartse (talk) 14:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)}

It's not just likely, she actually added the phrase "Brandon married Renee Lavigueur in July 28th, 2007. Renee has also been involved with the marketing of Brandon's music to this present date." to the article herself. See this diff: [1]. ~~This looks very clear to me.~~ Smocking (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We should assume good faith on Reneelavigueur's part, they have noted on their userpage that they are here to write about Brandon Paris but not to promote him. Unfortunately there are problems related to their editing though as they are a single purpose account and the articles created have original research and some are not about notable subjects. The bio is now at AfD here. They have also created a number of articles about songs which clearly do not meet WP:NSONG so I've proposed these for deletion. Smartse (talk) 14:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

~~One the one hand g~~ Good faith is a reasonable assumption, especially because the COI is so easy to see. She's editing under her real name and makes their marriage clear in the article (although not on her user page). It's also largely written in a remarkably neutral tone for an article by a single purpose account with such a major conflict of interest. On the other, I just found out she also tried to turn a good and much more notable article about Shaggy's hit It Wasn't Me into one about another song with same title by Brandon's band [2]. Although she just might not have known how to make a disambiguation page, that's still pretty inexcusable. Smocking (talk) 14:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That was in August 2008, and was immediately reverted by Cluebot. It looks like an honest mistake by a newbie to me - especially as the song wasn't even called "it wasn't me". Smartse (talk) 16:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Point conceded as she also said it was a mistake on her talk page (didn't see that before as it looked like part of the warning), so I guess she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Sorry for the bad faith on my part. The notability of some songs is a discussion for the AfD. Smocking (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible COI?

Resolved

DominatorMatrix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Apparently I am violating COI. See here. I do not believe that I am violating COI, but this serves as a second opinion. Dominator Matrix 11:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Self-published blog that the owner wants to use as a reference in an article about a product - not only is it a clear COI, it also fails RS by a mile. The author is not an acknowledge expert in this area, the blog has not been highlighted anyway as reliable and the use in that article is not to document claims about the owner of the blog (which is one of the narrow exceptions for the use of such a blog - for supporting factual claims about the owner and not in a way that is self-serving). --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If we're talking about this as a source, agreed 100% with Cameron Scott. It's not a reliable source as defined by WP:RS, and it's a clear COI for a blog's owner to add a link to it (unless there's a consensus that it's within content polices). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 12:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It would never fly under any of our exceptions about blogs because he is using the blog to make claims about a third-party. --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Fine choose as you may. I am no longer active here so I couldn't care less. --Dominator Matrix 22:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

UShareSoft

Catherinenuel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - UShareSoft's marketing coordinator [3] and cross-wiki spammer [4]

The following two are suspected meatpuppets (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Catherinenuel). All accounts only made edits related to UShareSoft, its AfD and later its SPI.

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

Obourdon38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These two users are also involved, but are much less disruptive and seem to be acting in good faith:

Ejulien34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

Issues:

Spamming (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#UShareSoft)
Obvious WP:COI for Catherinenuel and very likely for the others as well
Vandalizing the AfD [5] Smocking (talk) 19:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't sweat it. The meatpuppets are pretty obvious in that AfD and their !votes are weak on policy and probably wouldn't be counted by a closing admin. Unless someone finds some evidence of notability for the company, that article will be deleted and it's likely that the marketing folks for the company will move on from Wikipedia. -- Atama頭 23:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For the curious, I've identified more people from above. Ejulien34 is likely Eric Julien, who has spammed a couple of web sites about this software he "found" called UShareSoft. Jgweir is pretty clearly James Weir, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of the company (I confronted him about that fact in the AfD). Obourdon38 is Olivier Bourdon, another co-founder of the company (and "technology guru"). I haven't figured out who "Topy_w" is, but I don't doubt that they are affiliated with the company as well. -- Atama頭 23:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

User Geo-plus, company geoplus.com

Resolved

– I've blocked them indefinitely as a spammer and also for violating WP:ORGNAME. -- Atama頭 22:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Geo-plus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
User creating new articles and adding subsections to others about products of geoplus.com. Also, user's user page seems to be a promotional piece for the company. --CliffC (talk) 21:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to add that I deleted their user page as a clear advertisement. The articles they've created should be looked at as well, I don't see any of them qualifying for speedy deletion, but a proposed deletion might be appropriate. -- Atama頭 22:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your speedy action; it's much appreciated. CliffC (talk) 22:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Gragg Advertising

This Kansas City ad agency represents a number of for-profit colleges and other educational institutions. They claim to specialize in building websites and using social networks to publicize their schools. We seem to have an editor JohnWhite82 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) whose only edits have been to create an article about this Ad Agency and some of its apparent clients. The articles have undergone PRODs and AfDs. 64.126.108.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) also edits these articles and adds Gragg Advertising to another ad agency's article Becker Media listing Gragg as a competitor. It is possible that this is a case of paid editing. Racepacket (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have PRODed Gragg Advertising and Environmental Technical Institute. Racepacket (talk) 11:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Legalprteam

Definitely suspicious. I softblocked the account, because it seems to represent a group rather than an individual, and is a violation of WP:NOSHARE. They're free to create a new account or request a name change, however. Aside from that, they may be affiliated with the firm but we'll see what happens. -- Atama頭 22:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Unblocked for UNC with a warning about COI and NLT. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd meant to unblock but got distracted, thanks for taking care of that. Just a note that the account has been renamed to User:Legalprgirl. I now know for a fact that the editor has a very strong COI with the article, but will not say in what way per our outing rules. I've warned her that her edits have been questioned and informed her of this noticeboard discussion, and strongly suggested that she participate. -- Atama頭 22:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Legalprgirl

Legalprgirl (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
McKenna Long & Aldridge (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Editor has admitted on her talk page that she is the "legal PR manager for McKenna Long." She's now edit-warring on the article itself. Admin talking-to and intervention needed. THF (talk) 16:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I sent her an email last night with some advice, and it looks like she's following it. I suggested that she take her issues to the talk page of the article. My advice to her was after the edit war. I think she means well, her intention is only to update the article's information. My concern is that the firm may want to exert some control over the article, and that can't happen. I'm hoping that there can be a compromise worked out. She's a cooperative person but she's new to Wikipedia, so we should go easy on her a bit. Sometimes editors with conflicts of interest can actually be of benefit to an article, because they have knowledge of the subject that others wouldn't, but we also have to take care that everything is verifiable. -- Atama頭 17:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree; I don't even object to COI editors editing pages, but just had a preference that someone else approach this editor. The problem comes when there's both COI and either NPOV and/or WP:OWN problems. THF (talk) 03:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Shamir1

Shamir1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I'm concerned that Shamir1 may have a conflict of interests editing the Washington Institute for Near East Policy article.

Short version - Shamir1 has been blocked for edit warring and violating 3RR on this same article for the better part of the last few months, and received a 12-month topic ban on this article. He stated that he was "personally familiar" with one of their scholars, and made what I felt was a highly biased statement, describing the group as "prestigious... taken the most seriously by the State Department". He has declined my requests for clarification on those two statements twice now, so I'm bringing the issue here, in the hopes that someone else can maybe convince him to explain his association with the group. ← George^talk 06:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Long version - On October 27, 2009, Shamir1 wrote: "I am personally familiar with one of the scholars".[6] I replied the same day, expressing my concern with the statement.[7] The conversation went back and forth for a bit, but never really got anywhere as Shamir1 was blocked for 48 hours two days later for violating 3RR on the same article, then blocked for 72 hours four days after that for edit warring so soon after his block was lifted (again, on the same article), and then blocked for 3 months about a month later, this time for long-term edit warring, also on the same article. About a month into his 3 month block, Shamir1 had his block replaced with a 12-month topic ban by the Ban Appeals Subcommittee. The specific terms he agreed to on this were: 1) You are banned from editing Washington Institute for Near East Policy for a period of one year; 2) You are formally warned to avoid any type of edit-warring or ownership of articles especially returning periodically to revert to a preferred version. Repetition of these behaviours will lead to the block being reinstated.[8]

He returned to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy article shortly thereafter, and began discussing his concerns on the talk page, and filing an RfC - things I support and was encouraged by. However, on February 1, 2010, he wrote: "WINEP is a prestigious think tank and taken the most seriously by the State Department."[9] This struck me as a highly biased POV which, combined with his earlier statement about being "personally familiar with one of the scholars", had me concerned. I expressed my concern, replying: "I'm extremely worried about your assessment that 'WINEP is a notable think tank and taken the most seriously by the State Department', especially in the context of your previous statement that you are 'personally familiar with one of the scholars'. I strongly question if you have a conflict of interest in this article, and ask that you explicitly explain what you meant by being 'personally familiar' with a WINEP scholar."[10] Shamir1 declined to elaborate, stating: "Wow. Way to beat around the bush and twist words around. I will not address your last-resort nonsense. It does not deserve a response."[11] I again requested some clarification, stating: "I'm not sure what I'm supposedly trying to find a 'last-resort' around, but the question still stands, and I'd appreciate if you could describe what you meant when you said you were 'personally familiar' with one of their scholars," and suggesting that I was considering bringing the COI issue up here.[12] Shamir1 again declined, saying "I will not respond to any of the ridiculous statements or analogies, most of which have already been needlessly dragged on."[13] ← George^talk 06:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I notified Shamir1 of this filing. ← George^talk 19:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Completely unfounded. The trivial sentence he notes (from several months ago) had nothing to do with a conflict of interest as George all of the sudden tries to suggest. It was made in parentheses to demonstrate its insignificance, and I explicitly noted that it had nothing to do with the content of the article or the edits. User:George has been editing tendentiously and other editors have agreed that some of his edits have poisoned the well and violated NPOV. I have made very careful and considerate edits to the talk page of the article that addresses the concerns of the editors (myself included) and that of User:George. His attacking me personally is not justified, and he did not demonstrate that any edit or concern specifically is original research or a conflict of interest. My concerns are on par with Wikipedia policy, including reliable sources and neutral point of view.

Erroneous is his idea that it is my personal suggestion that the Washington Institute is the Middle East think tank "taken the most seriously by the State Department." Those are not my words, but from The Guardian: "The Washington Institute is considered the most influential of the Middle East thinktanks, and the one that the state department takes most seriously. Its director is the former US diplomat, Dennis Ross."[14] This source also appeared on the article's page. He falsely claims it was my "assessment" that the Washington Institute is prestigious but I only mentioned that in context of what the lead should say, similar to the notability described in the Heritage Foundation, University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University. This was in regards to the presence of secretaries of state on the institute's board. I did not under any circumstances suggest that prestigious = great, flawless, etc., and I was very clear about that. My edits include verifiable criticism; George and I do not have a disagreement over the inclusion of that.

All of my suggestions and concerns (largely understandable to other editors) are legitimate and have nothing to do with a conflict of interest. I have been a responsible editor and invited a request for comment. An editor's attempt to intentionally silence or stigmatize another editor for his concerns is not appreciated.

In regards to George's summary of our discussion and chosen words of mine, those had to with different issues on the discussion page, namely, what seemed to be his erroneous summing up of "my" positions that I already carefully explained differently. I declined to wrestle in the mud over his insistence over little things (i.e., his asking that I do not call the paragraph he wrote to be "George's sentence"). I kindly asked to stick with discussion over article content.

--Shamir1 (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me be as clear as I can here Shamir1 - I'm entirely open to working with other editors on neutral compromises, but I'm not interested in working with editors who harbor conflicts of interest, because they lead to inherent biases. Based on your statement that you are "personally familiar" with one of the groups scholars, and given your attachment to this article in particular (to the point of being topic banned from editing it for 12 months), I've asked you - repeatedly - to explain this relationship. I'm well aware you consider the issue to be ancillary, or just don't consider conflicts of interest to be important. I disagree, and find your reluctance to discuss the issue suspicious. ← George^talk 20:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's the deal Shamir1, you voluntarily stated that you were "personally familiar". You opened that door, so being coy about it doesn't help. It will go a long way to inspiring faith in you if you explained it, you don't have to name names or out yourself or anything. But you're playing games here, and that's not good. You're trying to portray yourself as an expert in these matters by "name-dropping" without actually mentioning names. But that's a two-edged sword, once you try to use that as a discussion tool you're inviting suspicion. It's like editing a pop star's article, and then trying to make your point at the talk page that you speak with authority because you're friends with the star. Be careful about pulling out that card.

If you were exaggerating, or want to otherwise retract your statement, that's acceptable. If so I'd suggest that George drop it. Usually with conflicts of interest, if the editor hasn't engaged in any behavior that would warrant a block absent the COI, then the harshest penalty given is to enforce the suggestions made in WP:COI; that the editor refrain from making non-controversial edits to the article and only make suggestions on the talk page. The ban that's in effect is already stronger than what the COI guidelines suggest, so any proposed remedy for the COI would be moot. -- Atama頭 21:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Atama. I retract that statement and apologize if I invited suspicion or tried to bolster my credentials through rather foolish means. It was never played up and made no difference in regards to editing. The erroneous case here solves nothing. Looking for yet another way possible to stigmatize and silence an editor is irresponsible and wrong. I have worked hard to make a reasonable, factual, and comprehensive edit (see talk) that encompasses all of our concerns (including George's) and stands to WP:NPOV. If George is open to compromises as he says he is, I suggest he consider this. --Shamir1 (talk) 23:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't see what else is actionable, as I said before the existing ban is harsher than the usual COI sanctions already. George, would you be fine with just forgetting that one-time remark from before? Do you have any other reasons to suspect a COI? (Keep in mind that a COI does not equate to having a particular POV, though the two are often related.) -- Atama頭 23:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Atama, my suspicions were based solely on Shamir1's own statements and proclivities for edit warring on this article. Given his retraction of the statement above, and his abiding by the existing ban, I'm hopefully that even if he has (or had) a conflict of interests, he won't let it spill over into his edits. Thanks much. ← George^talk 01:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:ArtistReport

ArtistReport (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has created a long stream of articles about a marginal figure, Nat Christian, and any film, no matter how incredibly obscure, which Christian was involved in; is also editing existing articles to add links to Nat Christian films. All this user (real name apparently "Carey Moreno") seems to be doing is trying to build up this Nat Christian's profile in Wikipedia. The articles are lousy: titles in all-caps (I've fixed that), no sources except for links to the IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Orange Mike | Talk 16:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is where the editor named themselves as "Carey Moreno", so there is no outing on Mike's behalf. -- Atama頭 17:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

User:snowded

snowded (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been editing the page Neuro-linguistic programming with an agenda to preserve a hatchet job on NLP. Most recently he has repeatedly opposed the inclusion of a reference to a paper by Diamantopoulos, Woolley and Spann of the University of Birmingham's Digital Systems and Vision Processing group in the journal "Current Research in NLP Vol 1" edited by Paul Tosey of the University of Surrey's School of Management. The relevance of the paper is that it rebuts many of the arguments currently on the page. His justification for this is that the journal is published by ANLP, the professional NLP body in the UK. He has multiple conflicts of interest. Firstly, according to his comments on Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming he was formerly a visiting fellow at Surrey University and is personally acquainted with staff in the School of Management. In his own words: "I have never been impressed with the Surrey group from when I had a visiting fellowship there." Secondly, he is the Editor-in-chief of a management journal, so he is opposing the recognition of one of his professional competitors. Thirdly, he makes his living in Management Consultancy and so is competing with the many NLP practitioners also making a living in this field. AJRG (talk) 13:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

response

This is really tedious, an editor trying to drag a content dispute into this forum.

The "journal" referenced by this editor (who is largely a single purpose one around NLP issues over the last few months) is published by a NLP advocacy group. Given that I have asked him for additional sources. Its also just a set of conference proceedings not a normal journal anyway.
As I have already told him I have no personal acquaintance with the members of staff involved, but I do think that Surrey has had a tendency to take up "popular" causes and its claims should be treated carefully as a result.
The journal of which I am a Chief Editor is a complex adaptive systems journal, and has noting whatsoever to do with NLP
I do some management consultancy, some academic work and also software development. To my knowledge I have never ever competed with an NLP practitioner. My user page allows anyone to find out who I am and my interests. This is deliberate, I believe in transparency.
I have a broad range of interests in WIkipedia, one of those is popular management movements which make claims in science that lack substance. A previous such claim (of which this editor is aware) here has already been dismissed. It seems that this is a tactic to remove editors from discussion
The phrase "hatchet job" is typical of the level of discourse from this editor. I asked him on his talk page to address content issues and his report here appears to be the result

--Snowded ^TALK 14:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no COI here. Per WP:COI#Citing oneself, "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest." The COI guideline can be vague in many ways, but it's pretty specific in saying that an editor who edits articles related to his field of expertise is not considered a COI. I agree that this is an attempt to end a content dispute by eliminating the input of an editor with a different POV. Hash this out on the article talk page, and pursue dispute resolution if you can't come to an agreement, but this isn't a matter for this noticeboard. -- Atama頭 23:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thomas C. Wiegele

Lucky4me13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I suspect a conflict of interest with this article, Thomas C. Wiegele. Editor has created the article but has admitted that they are related to this person 5 albert square (talk) 22:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Showninner888

Showninner888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is making edits to sanitise the biography of Andrew Landeryou. In December, I expanded the article based on sources after it had been at AfD. Since then, a series of IP editors have repeatedly tried to remove mention of details that Landeryou might not like. The article has been semi-protected three times now. Upon the latest semi-protection, this account has picked up the baton, and has now twice removed verified information and inserted peacock phrasing about the article subject, and wording that does not match the sources.[15] This editor and all the anonymous IPs refuse to discuss their editing (and I'm getting pretty tired of it). Fences&Windows 02:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

User has enough unrelated edits to suggest it is not an SPA. Looks more like a few (perhaps biased) users/IPs became involved in an edit war. Their sources are generally pretty crappy, but I think someone's blog is acceptable for "He has said he is not a member of a political party" if it matches the source here [16]. I cannot help but notice that you seem to be an active party in the edit war and are using rollback privileges for reverting edits that do not look like obvious vandalism (e.g. [17], [18] and [19]). Use of rollback in the context of an edit war is questionable and has led to RfCs before. I agree that the editors should take it to the talk page instead of continuing the edit war, but perhaps you would do well to stick with the undo feature for a while until another admin has taken a look at it or at least until their COI is established. Smocking (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll start off by saying not all of their edits are bad. I'm looking at their contributions and I see some positive contributions, such as removing weasel words, and expanding a lead, or clarifying a sentence, or wikifying (though that last attempt was a clumsy one I later fixed). My point is that this isn't a disruption-only account, in fact, their edits outside of the Andrew Landeryou article are all good ones.

I also don't see an actual conflict of interest. I don't know if you're seeing some evidence of a connection between this editor and the article subject that I can't. Were the IPs from before shown to be coming from an organization connected to Landeryou, or did they make some comment declaring as much? Remember that a person can violate WP:NPOV without having a conflict of interest, for example I might be a huge fan of Conan O'Brien (and I somewhat am, actually) and if I acted to make certain that the article only had positive things to say about him, I still wouldn't have a COI because I don't have any actual connection to him. If I was a relative or friend, or worked for him, or anything like that then I'd have a COI.

Back to the edits, it might be worth taking the editor, the IPs, and User:Carola56 to WP:SPI. Or you can simply ask the editor if they're the same person. They started editing at about the same time that Carola56 stopped editing (there's a 1 day overlap). I agree with you that the editor's reluctance to discuss matters is very troubling. That alone, the insistence on engaging in edit wars without discussion, that might be enough for an indefinite block. If this was a disruption-only account, I'd do so, but as I showed above this isn't. Perhaps the most appropriate action, if the editor refuses to engage in discussion about the article, is a topic ban. Their disruption seems limited to that one article, so a topic ban would allow them to continue to be productive in areas where they are doing good, while forcing them to avoid the area where they are causing trouble. -- Atama頭 20:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The edits earlier this month before starting editing on Andrew Landeryou look like they were preparing the account to be auto-confirmed so they'd be able to edit once the article was semi-protected (after two previous stretches of semi-protection, they were prepared this time). Smocking, look at their latest edits and see how they're massaging quotes and removing cited information, you seem to be missing the detail of their edits (and whether I undo or rollback is really splitting hairs, but I will refrain from using that option from now on). I was considering an SPI (I don't believe there is more than one person behind all those accounts and IPs, they've been trying to make exactly the same edits), but the IPs have been jumping all over the place so I'm not sure that checkuser will be very enlightening. Most of the IPs locate to Melbourne, which is where Andrew Landeryou is based. Fences&Windows 03:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say I agree with the policy on this point. What I meant is that policy limits rollback to obvious vandalism and that POV issues are only defined as vandalism if there is "blatant POV-pushing". The RfCs I linked to suggest that there is consensus among the stewards that "blatant" should be a pretty narrow definition. Some edits seem to fall within that definition, but certainly not all of them. That being said, if it were up to me we'd be carpet bombing these buggers on sight along with the pseudoscientists :-). Looking at the edits again there does seem to be a certain pattern, but without an SPI you are still acting on the assumption that they're sockpuppets who are also making good edits to hide that fact. That could be interpreted as paranoia and bad faith. Starting an SPI is a better idea than you think: even without checkuser there are plenty of people regularly checking the SPI pages (me included) who might spot more suspicious coincidences. IP location isn't very good evidence in this case: Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia and it's also pretty common for people to be more interested in borderline-notable people who are geographically closer to them. I see you've tagged the page as well, so the suspected POV pusher(s) can now respond with either blatant vandalism (deleting the tag) or a much-needed discussion on the talk page. Smocking (talk) 17:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, SPI coming up. We're on the same page on rollback. It's just a tool to allow easy reverting, and one can accomplish the exact same thing by editing and saving an old version of the page. Fences&Windows 00:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

bleach cover up

Stale

– But still amusing. -- Atama頭 05:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

there is an employee of Clorox editing the bleach articles trying to minimize the risks of bleach and the carcinogenic and caustic nature of it. can someone stop him and revert his edits? it is user http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GVB012009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.246.254.35 (talk) 00:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I gotta say... An employee of Clorox whitewashing the bleach article. You can't make this stuff up. But the latest edits to the bleach page were almost a year ago. I think even hydrogen peroxide can have an expiration date. -- Atama頭 05:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

even if its old hes edits should be reverted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.246.254.35 (talk)

Hilarious potential newspaper headlines aside, his edits seem pretty constructive to me. This edit [20] is perhaps borderline advertising, but at least he did go through the talk page first [21] - the brand name is also pretty much synonymous with bleach in the US. He also discloses his COI on his user page (and transparancy is a good thing). Although his edits could have used some more sources, those sources are mostly easy to find. There was no good reason to delete them. You removed a well-sourced quote from an independent MIT publication that was even peer-reviewed by the European Comission [22] and (unlike the Chlorox guy) you didn't take it to the talk page first. I think this user was not so much editing as a Chlorox employee, but rather as a scientist who (like me) is just tired of the irrational, unsubstantiated fears about almost everything remotely related to science and technology, such as mobile phones, microwaves, aluminum cookware, vaccines, etc. Can't do any harm to be careful right? Well surprise surprise: a disease that has killed children for millenia and was almost completely eliminated in the last two decades is up to it's old tricks again, thanks to a bit of fear-mongering and rumors [23] [24]. But I should stop now before this turns into an argument about any of these issues. Let this rant just serve as an example of how annoyed a rational skeptic, with or without COI, can get about WP:BOLLOCKS. ~~Now if you'll excuse me I have a check from Chlorox to cash.~~There is no cabal. Smocking (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia

Russian Wikipedia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - clear conflict of interest between RuWiki Administrators and other users. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 16:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I confirm, that some sysops from Russian Wikipedia pushing their point of view.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 16:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
There are also reasons to suspect meatpuppetry as all of the party was inactive in the EnWiki until today. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 16:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's sock/meatpuppetry involved, too. I just blocked Захама Ассотаре (talk · contribs). Rock It!, could you please explain how you suddenly heard about this dispute after being inactive for weeks? Jamie S93^❤ 16:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It was the topicstarter (who is ruwiki editor himself) who kept posting his own original research about alleged persecution of dissidents in ruwiki without any secondary sources. BTW, here is 3RR violation: [25], [26], [27], [28]. And Rock It! keeps stalking of another ruwiki user both here and in ruwiki (by single purpose accounts) [29], [30], [31] and many more. Actually almost all his edits here were stalking of ruwiki users. Probably that will explain something. --Blacklake (talk) 16:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way you, Track13 and Alex Smotrov were inactive until 16:00 UTC today when COI started. Probably _that_ will explain something. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 17:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I read about the issue in LJ too. And it was you who gave the link here. --Blacklake (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I read in LiveJournal, that RuWiki admins pushing their POV, and I decided that I should intervene. Of course, you can ask me, do I have any additional accounts? Yes, I have, but I don't used its for sockpuppet-violations.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you please comment on the diffs above? --Blacklake (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments, you need a comments? Okay, you get a comments. You are just an operator, and nothing else. Your party of operators must be blocked for an infinite period in all Wikimedia projects. Your party written extremally bad articles like Калан, and pushing it to featured articles. For reference, this article have more than 100 factual errors, a lot of copyright violations and it is featured article (more information at wikireality.ru/wiki/Полное_собрание_ошибок_в_статье_Калан._Том_1). Any attempts to right the wrong were revert and users, who corrected this article were banned. All errors are in article now. And my articles that contains super-rare material were deleted by same admins who reverted the correction. Do you mean IT when you asked me an comments for my violations after indefinite ban due insults in Live Journal? If not — shut up, please, and don't waste my time.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Blacklake is one of ruwiki administrators who deleted perfectly normal articles written by Rock It! in ruwiki. These administrators follow the philosophy that they call "Philosophy of border control". According to this philosophy, ruwiki users who come out of favor of ruwiki administrators should be kept out of Wikipedia by all possible means, even if they do not violate Wikipedia rules. In this episode, Rock It! wrote several very good articles which were all deleted by ruwiki administrators not because the articles were bad, but because they were authored by Rock It! whom these administrators personally dislike. In case the other members of this flash mob show up, here is the list of administrators who deleted Rock It!'s articles: Grebekov, Blacklake, Mstislavl, Yaroslav Blanter, Claymore. SA ru (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You for some reason forgot to mention that the article I deleted had been created by the indefblocked user and contained personal attacks in the edit summary. It has nothing to do with personal preferences, hasn't it? --Blacklake (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Lie, Blacklake, and you know it. My articles does not cntain any attacks in first versions, but some operators deleted it only because author is me.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Certainly. "Indefinitely blocked" is the stigma that you used to justify your own disruptive behavior. I do not believe you that the article that you deleted contained personal attacks in the edit summary. Could you please show us this edit summary? SA ru (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually we're discussing not the edit summary in another project, but the behaviour of certain users who added their own OR in the article and engaged in edit warring. Let's not forget about it. And since than Rock It! has insulted me few more time just above. But anyway, I'll answer: the edit summary read that another sysop was an idiot. Of course I realize that Rock It! does not regard the word "idiot" as an insult (see comments above). Actually I believe that Rock It! account should be indefblocked since its contribution consists of trolling, personal attacks and edit warring only. --Blacklake (talk) 20:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Stop lying! There NO any attacks in first version of article. And troll are you. Enough to see your contribution in Russian Wikipedia to deduce that.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

See my reply to SA ru below. What's wrong with my contribution in ruwiki? 3 FAs and 5 GAs. --Blacklake (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I can certainly understand your desire to block Rock It! as soon as possible, but let's not hurry with that and try first to restore the exact sequence of events. Isn't it the following:

1) Rock It! published a perfectly normal article in ruwiki with a perfectly normal edit comment.

2) One of the admins (you or another one from the list above) recognized that the article was created by Rock It! and immediately deleted it -- not because the article had problems or the edit description was insulting, but only because the article was written by a stigmatized user.

3) After the article was deleted, Rock It! reposted it with a comment "Such and such administrator is an idiot because he deleted my good article". In this situation such comment is very understandable, although it could be toned done to something like: "I am reposting my article previously deleted by the administrator who acted incorrectly".

So, do I understand correctly that you deleted the article repost, not the original article? If so, this makes some sense. However, why didn't you restore the original copy of the article? This way you would remove the bad comment, but keep the good article. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to come up with such solution, or do you? Speaking of bad comments, if I remember correctly, :ru:user:MaxSem used to comment his edits with comments like "where do such mudaks come from", and nonetheless he served as a steward. So, we need some consistency here. Some people make impolite comments and become wiki-authorities, the others you suggest are blocked. I actually have an opposite solution to what you are proposing. Why don't you simply unblock Rock It! and let him work on his articles without disturbances. Would not this serve the goal of Wikipedia? SA ru (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I did delete the repost. The whole issue was resolved here. And Rock It! should learn to cooperate with the others first. Unfortunately he failed to do it so far. --Blacklake (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. You acted correctly, and it was :ru:user:Yaroslav Blanter who deleted the original version of the article which was perfectly valid. This behavior was very disruptive. I do not understand you comment about Rock It! cooperating with the others, though. Rock It! is blocked in ruwiki. So, the only way he can "cooperate with the others" is by posting articles, which he did in full agreement with the rule Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. He cannot really participate in your discussions. And, besides being a bit emotional, he is the one who is right in this situation. Deletion of his articles was clearly inappropriate. SA ru (talk) 22:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, LiveJournal is a blog site, it's not exactly news. Anybody can say anything, that doesn't make it true. Woogee (talk) 20:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Without getting involved in this COI discussion at all, I am here to inform User:Rock It! that comments such as "Bullshit, Blacklake, and you know it ... some idiots deleted it only because author is me" will not be tolerated. I advise you to moderate your language before you earn a blocking. SGGH ^ping! 21:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

These men insulted me, they called me vandal, troll and copyright violator, but this isn't true. I'm not delete my maybe rude comments until they apologize to me, because wrong characterisation of me as "vandal" or "copyright-violater" is very insulting for me. And Blacklake know it.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SGGH. There is no need to use this vocabulary on this page. Let's just stick to the basic fact that the original versions of your articles did not have any insulting comments, but nonetheless they were deleted in order to punish you. We all can see how easy it is to provoke you to write emotional comments, but it would be only for your benefit if you resist from being provoked. SA ru (talk) 21:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 21:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The basic fact is that the original versions of the articles were published here. As anyone can see, they are not licensed under CC-BY-SA or any compatible license. There is no way of knowing whether any of sockpuppets that posted this content to Wikipedia really belong to the user who published the original version. According to Wikipedia copyright policies, such contributions construe possible copyright violations and must be deleted. --Grebenkov (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Grebenkov, accept the wisdom! You thought up this "reason" only because I am author of article. It's absurd that I could create on this source rough copy of article for Wikipedia with the attribution of authorship to never create this article, and you know it.--Rock It! (Prime Jive) (talk) 22:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the site you showed (pastebin.com) is not really for publishing articles. It is used just for storage purposes: "Pastebin.com is a website where you can store text for a certain period of time. The website is mainly used by programmers to store pieces of sources code or configuration information, but anyone is more than welcome to paste any type of text. The idea behind the site is to make it more convenient for people to share large amounts of text online. Users have the ability to make private pastings, so they are only visible to the people they choose to share their links with." Besides, the first line of the text on pastebin clearly indicates the author. To me your claims look pretty bogus. And again, if you agree that Rock It!'s articles are good contribution to Wikipedia, why don't you simply unblock him and let him work without ridiculous obstacles created for no reason. (He did not violate any of Wikipedia rules.) SA ru (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

(←) Hi Rock It, I've spoken to you before on your old account where I defended you from what I saw as false vandalism warnings. So you know that I have nothing against you. But let me ask you, please keep your disputes with administrators and others on the Russian Wikipedia away from this one. You may have legitimate problems with them there, you may not, but this isn't where to hash that out. I'd suggest you stay away from the article about the Russian Wikipedia also, just so that you don't step on any toes. It is difficult for editors and administrators on this version of Wikipedia to deal with these disputes because we have little knowledge and no authority over what is done there, and it puts us in a tough spot when a fight from there shows up here. -- Atama頭 22:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The whole issue is ridiculous, it's like saying English Wikipedia admins cannot revert total bs from English Wikipedia article because of COI. Admins do not have any "private" interest Wikipedia, they're volunteers just like everybody else. What admin do not like is when the obvious trolling from the banned users crosses over to another project. So, just find the external sources, prove notability of these allegation, only then add this to the article. — AlexSm 16:43, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It's just interesting to see that everyone of the whole party reverting those paras is an administrator of RuWiki and inactive in EnWiki before yesterday 16:00 UTC. This is a clear sign of meatpuppetry. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 18:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

First of all, I would like to ask you to behave in a civil way and not accuse your opponents in trolling. This is not ruwiki, this is a civilized part of Wikipedia. Rudeness and bullying is not allowed here. Besides, such ad hominem arguments are simply of poor quality. Speaking of vested interests and the ideal picture that you painted where volunteer admins do not have private interests, this is not true at all. Many of ruwiki admins involved in banning users for bogus reasons are members of the "Wikimedia RU" foundation which handles monetary transactions, including employee compensations (I believe these transactions were never disclosed). Interestingly ru:user:Lvova was first de-sysoped and later indefinitely banned for inviting a wrong person, her boyfriend, to the meeting of this foundation. In addition to possible business conflict of interests, some admins enjoy press coverage. For example, several ruwiki admins were recently interviewed by Esquire Magazine (Russian edition). All of them, by the way, were involved in Lvova's case. It is quite natural of these people to desire that their activities are covered in a favorable way, and any controversial facts are suppressed. The article's edit history clearly reveals this fact. SA ru (talk) 21:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I know you use any opportunity to insert your ridiculous accusations (that's what makes you a troll), but all these lies have nothing to do with this dicsussion or with the encylopedic article. P.S. Several dosen ruwiki admins all trying to cover decisions made by our ArbComs (different ones), and you and SkyBon are they only ones "revealing the truth". Yeah, right ... — AlexSm 23:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Accusations? I was not accusing anybody. I just explained why there is a conflict of interests here. I responded to your theory that ruwiki admins are just volunteers without vested interests. And since you are continuing to insult me and call me a troll, let me explain why you are the real troll in this situation. The reason is actually pretty simple. You use ad hominem arguments, you attack your opponent instead of discussing the issues. And this is trolling. SA ru (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

As for the above: correct, you were not involed in edit warring, you came online after the article was already protected. You were the one who started to insert such bs into the article in December, knowing very well beforehand about notability and the sources. As a result, you simply wasted a lot other users' time. — AlexSm 00:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like profanity and insulting users is your last resort. Yes, I inserted a couple of facts in the article in December, and my insertion was in absolute correspondence with the article's style - pretty much all the references in the article were and currently are through the Wikipedia-derived pages. Since the authors did not care to use only externally referenced information, why should I care? I am not an expert in all the details of Wikipedia policies, and I just followed the general layout of this article. SA ru (talk) 00:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to illustrate the structure of this article, here are the references from the reference list that point to Wikipedia pages:

1. ^ Wikimedia Report Card August 2009 Retrieved on 2009-10-12

2. ^ Russian Wikipedia's press release on Runet Prize (November 2006)

3. ^ See Russian Wikipedia guidelines Википедия:Категоризация (Wikipedia:Categorization) and Википедия:Критерии категоризации персоналий по государственной принадлежности (Wikipedia:Criteria for categorization of people by citizenship)

4. ^ Википедия:История нашего раздела (Wikipedia:The history of our language edition)

9. ^ First currently-kept Main Page of November 7, 2002

And of course ruwiki admins "do not notice" this and request that only very specific facts are removed from the article because they are derived from Wikipedia pages (Decisions of the Arbitration Commettee, judgements of the Ombudsmen Commission, etc.). SA ru (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

(Kind of conclusion) In the parallel discussion on the article talk page, SA ru finally acknowledged that these paragraphs do not belong in the article. — AlexSm 00:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You are repeatedly trying to make a conclusion here and on the other page as if you are an authority here. Just a reminder: This is not ruwiki where you govern. So, just let the real authorities conclude this topic. Regarding your statement that I "finally acknowledged that these articles do not belong in the article", you are distorting my statement made in December and repeated several times in this discussion. My position is the following: Any policies on sources should be applied uniformly to all information presented in this article, not just to the pieces of information that make ruwiki authorities uncomfortable. SA ru (talk) 01:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

TurnKey Linux

Perhaps it would be fair to mention some of the context of this submission (I got there via the contrib log just now and have no involvement).

The COI is obvious. I guess if you'd make a Venn diagram of edits by LirazSiri and edits related to TurnKey Linux (there should really be a tool for this), you'd find two slivers thinner than a fingernail on either side of the overlap. There's also a page on the turnkey website that shows a co-founder with a very similar full name (just click "about us" on their homepage). The particular conflict of interest here is probably not monetary gain as it's an open source project, but rather that he might be under the impression that his notability is proportional to the popularity of a linux distro he's involved with. I'm not so sure about his good/bad faith though. On one hand:

Article has a very promotional tone
Account is pretty much an SPA
User is soliciting attention to a marginally notable distro

On the other:

User voluntarily removed external links he placed earlier - and quickly too
Website has no ads and distro is open source; if anything, traffic and downloads actually cost them money
User seems relatively civil, although sometimes in a kind of pedantic, patronizing way that makes your blood boil (e.g. [32])

Do you have a link to the AfD? I can't find it in the archives and am curious what evidence of its notability they found. Smocking (talk) 20:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

There was never any AfD. If you look at the talk page, at the very top it links to the deletion review log which, when expanded, shows the discussion about restoring the article from deletion. The article was speedily deleted as A7 and then userfied. The editor who received a copy of the article had expanded it with reliable sourced, and consensus was reached in the DRV discussion that the article barely showed enough notability to allow it to be restored. The Information Week article in particular was mentioned as helping to show notability (it's the second reference given in the article currently). I see a couple of InfoWorld references also. -- Atama頭 17:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

An update... Guy brought this to the administrators' noticeboard because the disruption seems to go well beyond COI. It seems like it's being dealt with there. -- Atama頭 00:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

ekerazha

Recommend sanctions against ekerazha (contribs) for whimsical insertion of WP:GNG notices done in bad faith, biased opinion, conflict of interest and retaliatory action on articles involving CMS and PHP frameworks. User has close ties with Yii framework, a previously deleted article. (see [33], [34], [35], and [36]) Bcosca (talk) 05:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

And what of your own conflict of interest? I notice that your edits are limited almost entirely to PHP Fat-Free Framework, and promoting that software in other articles. Kohana is up for deletion and the AfD discussion has been hit with "keep" !votes from new editors, as if recruited through meatpuppetry. Established editors have all !voted "delete" (and I'll look into it but I will probably do the same). My guess is that this posting is your own retaliation against the editor for the nomination of that article for deletion, though the nomination seems to be firmly based in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I am really having trouble assuming good faith in your notice here. -- Atama頭 17:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I was expecting a bit more objectivity and in-depth investigation here, considering the WP:GNG notice was inserted without even the benefit of a comment from a supposedly-neutral editor. That action didn't seem to be in consonance with collegiality promoted here, to say the least. Unless your qualifications include psychoanalysis, "your guess" is not grounded on fact because I have in all fairness attempted to edit my articles to make them as encyclopedic as possible, but that seems to be overlooked at this point. Neither fame nor fortune is in my agenda, and the distinction between notability and popularity has always been foremost when I edit my own articles. If it were, then I would probably have a nice-looking user page like you do. But neither I nor any article is the issue here - but the actions of another user. Bcosca (talk) 19:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

How about you actually post diffs from Wikipedia to back up your claims of "bad faith, biased opinion, and retaliatory action". The "this is about them, not me" argument never works on noticeboards (that would be a good essay, come to think of it). You've come onto this board with some pretty strong accusations without a bit of evidence to back them up. I'm looking at Ekerazha's recent contributions, and I see nothing troubling, and the use of "GNG" notices seem appropriate. I see meatpuppets in an AfD making the same attacks against Ekerazha that you are. I see you acting as a single-purpose account, focused on the same software you accuse Ekerazha of trying to make "retaliatory action" against. I also don't appreciate the personal attack from you, either (implying that "fame or fortune" is in my agenda because I have a "nice-looking user page"). So no, Ekerazha isn't my concern right now. -- Atama頭 19:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, do you have any sources for PHP Fat-Free Framework that aren't at a blog or the Sourceforge project? You realize that none of those references are reliable sources. If not, that article should be deleted. Ekerazha's notability tag was perfectly valid on that article and you shouldn't have removed it without adding proper sources. -- Atama頭 23:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to re-add the notability tag as I still can't find multiple, reliable sources as for general notability guideline. Ekerazha (talk) 09:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please note user Bcosca is in the habit of remove every template about notability concerns from the PHP Fat-Free Framework article, as you can see here [37], he seems recidivist. Ekerazha (talk) 09:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

He deleted the tag again, I'll probably report his account for vandalism. Ekerazha (talk) 15:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Warning added to his talk page. Ekerazha (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The fact I follow the Yii framework has nothing to do with the strength of my arguments. I added the notability template to some php frameworks I found without references to reliable sources. Next week, I'll re-check every article and I'll open an AfD discussion for every article I still find without proper references. Ekerazha (talk) 08:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

What arguments? There still exists burden of proof that you have no link whatsoever to Yii framework and reasonable doubt that you are impartial to the articles being deleted. Bcosca (talk) 10:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The Yii article was deleted, I don't approve that decision (there were 2 published articles from a magazine) but I do accept it. What I do, meets the Wikipedia regulations and I mention Wikipedia policies. I added the notability tag to the PHP Fat-Free Framework article (and other articles) because it doesn't meet the general notability guideline. If nobody can add references to reliable sources, I'll also open an AfD discussion for them, in compliance with the Wikipedia policy. Ekerazha (talk) 10:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, please note I'm not a developer of the Yii framework (just a common user) so the conflict of interest charge is meaningless, while we can't say the same thing about Bcosca as he's the developer of PHP Fat-Free Framework. Ekerazha (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The Yii article was deleted. That's the important thing, even if you could prove a COI in connection to Yii, unless Ekerazha was trying to recreate the article or add information to other articles to promote it the COI is meaningless. I assume the answer to my question about sources for PHP Fat-Free Framework is that there aren't any. Therefore, it should be brought to AfD . -- Atama頭 21:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And, as Ekerazha pointed out, Bcosca is indeed the developer of the software. The only problematic COI that I see right now is that one. Bong, Wikipedia is not the place to promote your software. You're not going to be able to obfuscate that by throwing around accusations about someone else. Something seemed fishy from the very start and I'm glad that my instincts were correct. -- Atama頭 21:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Blatant BBC/Production Company Editing

Mickers Blanket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Added a great deal of inappropriate information to This is Jinsy, along with a bunch of images that the user claims to own (they are clearly images from the BBC show, so either the user is employed by the BBC or doesn't really own the images). The information added to This Is Jinsy goes into great detail about a show that hadn't even aired before it was added. Advertising. Personal attack redacted by Gordonofcartoon. 90.217.104.202 (talk) 20:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree, with strong reservations. See this announcement off-wiki in the h2g2 forum; it does appear that Mickers Blanket has a COI and that much of the material added, not having been aired or published online, is clearly original research.

This nomination does, however, smell of bad faith, coming from an anon whose only other activity has been vandalism:

90.217.104.202 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

And the wholesale blanking is overkill, having removed sourced material too. Currently verifiable details have been restored. I've alerted Mickers Blanket to the issues of COI and OR. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

PS: 90.217.104.202 needs watching. Some reasonable edits, but there's the previous vandalism and a personal attack re this COI discussion [38]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

as the mickers blanket in question of whom this matter seems to be about - all news to me by the way. I just logged onto to see the wiki site and was extremely disappointed to find it had been vandalised to such an extent. I am happy to admit that I have a vested interest in the show. I make it! but, after having made the necessary changes to make it clear it was a work of fiction which I agree is a reasonable thing to make clear I felt it had reached a rather nice place... and was a good page. all the wiki entries about anything like this are, in part promotion and I don't think it's completely without an information service. Most of the information in the page wasn't on the programme but it is available at the www.thisijinsy.com website. The world of Jinsy is a deep and rich one which fans of the show are interested in finding out more about. Wikipedia seemed to me a good place for fan's investigations to take place. I am the copyright owner of all the images on the site as they are all owned by the Welded Tandem Picture Company who make the show, and that's me under my real name Chris Carey along with the rest of us who make Jinsy. Who the hell is this Gordonofcartoon character and what's his beef? We haven't done him any harm. I'll freely admit I'm a novice at creating Wiki pages and will make mistakes and am happy to correct them. but it feels slightly like there's been a court hearing and I've been sent down... and I didn't even know about it. any advice gratefully received. Yours, bewildered, Chris Carey / Mickers Blanket - ps. i'm so rubbish at creating Wiki's i don't even know how to add the correct code to the end of this message. Apologies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mickers Blanket (talk • contribs) 19:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've no "beef" with you'; anyone who sees a report here can comment and act, but equally we're not here to bite newscomers. I think you've just misunderstood how Wikipedia works; it's not a promotional venue existing to provide for you "a good place for fan's investigations to take place" or further webspace to the many other sites about Jinsy. It's an encyclopedia of previously published material, and at the time most of what you added was unpublished 'insider' detail (what's called original research here) so it couldn't be used. Don't worry; I'm sure detail will be added as the series proceeds.

By the way, regarding the "all news to me by the way", this hasn't been done behind your back. At all stages you were notified through your user page User talk:Mickers Blanket, where you'll find a welcome message with links to the basics of creating articles, how to sign messages, etc. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that he is referring to the fact that he wasn't informed of this noticeboard discussion. Generally, people here aren't as strict about notification as they are at WP:ANI, but it does say at the top of this noticeboard, "If you are discussing the actions of another editor here, please notify them." I occasionally try to do those notices myself for people as a courtesy, though I don't get to nearly everyone here. -- Atama頭 01:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

He was notified - "This concerns This is Jinsy, which is being discussed at WP:COIN" - though in hindsight I should have been more explicit about what this meant. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Being more explicit might have been a good idea, even I was blind enough to miss that. :p -- Atama頭 01:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Wikjohn09

Wikjohn09 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Claimed in the Edit Summary for this edit to insufficiently referenced article Professional Karate Association that "I am the founder, John Persinger". Promoted external website in ABC's of Self Defense. Removed speedy tags from those articles. Has already been sent {{uw-coi}} in this edit. RobertMfromLI (talk · contribs) sent a welcome with information about COI using Friendly and I notified the user about this discussion. — Jeff G. ツ 06:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

ABC's of Self Defense has been deleted. — Jeff G. ツ 06:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Mikeandgrant

Mikeandgrant (talk · contribs) appears to have some sort of COI. He has created spammy articles on books by a certain author: Propaganda from the desk of: Martin Trust - Director of Historic Homeland Preservation and Restoration (novel) and The Book (novel), as well as an article on M. Clifford, the author — which includes a picture taken by the user in question. The articles created are all highly spammy in nature, and all articles have userspace drafts (see contributions). Personally, I think the whole shebang should be imploded per WP:VSCA. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Editor operating a site which he wishes to use as a primary source in Wikipedia

User:Gibnews is the self-confessed webmaster of gibnews.net, an aggregator of press releases of organisations based in Gibraltar, which he wishes to use as a primary source in Gibraltar related articles. There has been a discussion at WP:RSN about the reliability of this source [39]. I have asked a series of questions there which got dismissed by some editors (I should have raised it here first, but I didn't know about this page). For example, I asked whether there was any financial relationship between the organizations his site archives press releases for, the site and himself, and this was dismissed as "out of line". To his credit, Gibnews has answered the questions. However, I don't think the COI matters are being treated with the seriousness that they deserve by some of the responders. There appears to be a view that because we "assume good faith" about editors, this automatically transfers to anything the editor does outside Wikipedia. What concerns me most is actually the "campaigning" aspect of COI rather than the financial aspect: the editor is unabashedly pro-Gibraltar and against any return to Spanish rule, and he wishes to use this website as a source. If editors here think there is no COI issue then I will drop the matter, both here and at RSN. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 13:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware that being a web developer is actually a crime, or money for it needs to be declared to anyone apart from the tax authorities. Since our first encounter on wikipedia some years ago The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick has been in my face about everything. He has attempted to get me banned alleging I am a banned user engaged in sockpuppetry which is not the case, and complained that the website gibnews.net is not a reliable source. These things have been resolved and this is yet another manifestation of his harassment.

For the record I wrote the scripts and templates for gibnews.net. The domain is owned by a company. That is a separate legal entity to me. I find it to be a useful resource and others do too. It has primary sources which are not available anywhere else. The information is from significant reliable entities, for example:

The Government of Gibraltar
The Police
The Governors office
The Opposition
The Ministry of Defence

The content is provided by the above and the site terms of use make it clear that content is not edited and that it is a free service. I do not consider there is any conflict of interest. The fact that I have a similar username on wikipedia is a co-incidence - I chose the name some years ago and its not been a problem. Its as good a name as any, and less pretentious than some.

Neither the content providers, or myself are using links on wikipedia for promotional purposes and given the nature of the above, who comprise the largest contributors and most likely to generate useful links, are of a non-commercial nature.

As regards the suggestion of a political motive, Yes I am totally against 'returning' Gibraltar to Spain that is as absurd as 'returning' Florida to Spain. Its no secret, and its a view that 99.3% of the Gibraltar population share. I fail to see a conflict of interest except with the above editor who may feel differently, but he lives somewhere else, and its none of his business.

If anyone else wants to ask questions, please do. --Gibnews (talk) 15:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You give the impression that the above organizations are giving the content to you and have therefore endorsed your site as an accurate and complete repository of their historical press releases. This is not the case (for the organizations above). You take material from their site (which would be a reliable source) and archive it on your site (which may or may not be a reliable source), and you use it in the Gibraltar article (which could present a COI). The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 15:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I've posted the terms of service of gibnews.net several times, and explained how it works I do not take material from websites it is supplied to Gibnews.net either directly by the content providers -or- by email so what goes happens is with the explicit consent of the providers. That is what it says and that is what happens. Although do I appreciate your twisting, as you did trying to accuse me of sockpuppetry,But I really think its time to give it a rest. If you want to 'scrutinise all my edits' as you claim on my userpage, the next forum will be the one that deals with wp:harass. --Gibnews (talk) 21:57, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I first came across this on the reliable sources noticeboard, and have previously expressed my concerns about The Red Hat's interaction with Gibnews (the editor) (see WP:RSN#Gibnews.net and User talk:Thryduulf#Personal Attacks. Based on everything that Gibnews has said at the reliable sources noticeboard, I don't see that there is any basis for suspecting that Gibnews (the editor) has a conflict of interest when using press releases by third parties hosted at Gibnews.net. Thryduulf (talk) 17:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This should not be a problem. I see no COI. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Fine on the COI then. However, I must say that it's a pity that Thryduulf is unable to separate in his mind scrutiny and personal attacks. It might do him well to remember that we wouldn't even have had this discussion had Gibnews not twice threatened legal action against me (now retracted) for suggesting that his site was not a WP:RS. Anyway, that is the last I shall say on the matter. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 18:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

This looks like forum shopping to me. Keep it at the reliable sources noticeboard. Pfainuk talk 18:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

For God's sake. At the RS board an editor said it's a COI matter, and as I said in my post "If editors here think there is no COI issue then I will drop the matter, both here and at RSN." I just said "fine" above, did I not? The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 18:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Right. My browser for some reason didn't warn me of the edit conflict there. Since you seem happy with the response here, I have no issue. Pfainuk talk 18:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to sense harassment here. Tan | 39 00:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

On what basis exactly? Don't reply here, reply on my talk page. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 01:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

No reply, so I take this to be an unjustified accusation. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 13:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to come to this late, but I'd say the chief problem here is that gbnews.net is clearly a partisan personal website. A skim through its content shows that it exclusively aggregates news within a framework sympathetic to continued British ownership of Gibraltar ("We invite organisations based in Gibraltar ..." guarantees such a bias). Individual news items are verifiable, but the selectivity makes it de facto an advocacy site, and I'd treat it a) as an unreliable source and b) in conflict of interest for an editor to want their own advocacy site as a primary source. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnews.net is not an organisation that authors primary source material, it is organisational that hosts and provides permalinks to primary source material authored by third parties. As such I do not think that it matters whether the collection is partisan or not - many sources used in Wikipedia are partisan, we use them to cite that $organisation said/did/thought something, and use a different source to cite that $otherorganisation said/did/thought something else. If one organisation only hosts material from one side of a disagreement, then we just cite the other side using material hosted elsewhere. It is our articles that need to be balanced, not our sources. Thryduulf (talk) 14:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Putting aside any personal problems between editors, I think that I to agree with Gordonofcartoon that it really isn't the best source and that it is worrying that an administrator of the site is using it as a reference in controversial topic areas. I found this page linked on the list here - it is clearly not a reliable source and should be treated in a similar way to a blog - i.e. removed. Smartse (talk) 00:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

For the record, this specific link is on a talk page, not on an article, and it is one of the rare occasions where it was not Gibnews himself adding the link. However, what you have found there does raise another issue which I'm currently mulling over, and may have more to say on later. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 02:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody explain why this Gibnews guy hasn't been hit with a spamusername block long ago? --Orange Mike | Talk 01:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnews explained what happened here [40] "For the avoidance of doubt, I registered my username here shortly after doing some work designing templates for that website, and it seemed a good idea at the time, not realising the amount of hassle I might encounter on Wikipedia from some editors. Later realising there might be some confusion - although its a sufficiently general term - I tried to change my username to something else but it did not work." The general view on that page was that, because he's been editing for so long with that name, it would be silly to do something about it now. Despite my issues with him sometimes, I agree it would not be a good move. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 02:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Orange Mike - my understanding was that only new users could be taken to WP:UAA and therefore gibnews can't be blocked for a violation of new username policy. If we found a new editor doing this now they would be instantly blocked without question. It seems a bit stupid to me. Wikipedia:ORGNAME does state "Since usernames that are the name of a company or group create the appearance of intent to promote that group, accounts with a company or group name as a username are indefinitely blocked." so maybe they could be blocked. To be honest it doesn't seem like that would really help matters though, although if gibnews continues to add more links after warnings then action should be taken. Smartse (talk) 12:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Given that the reason for such blocks is that they can create the appearance of a conflict of interest, and it has been established above that Gibnews (the editor) does not have a conflict of interest with the organisations that produce the sources (e.g. the Government of Gibraltar) hosted on Gibnews.net (a source that the reliable sources noticeboard has declared reliable - it does not alter the press releases), why would they be blocked for this? If they were adding sources about gibnews.net or editing an article about that site, this would be a different matter. However (afaik) nobody has even suggested that gibnews.net is notable enough for a Wikipedia article, so this is moot.

Whether the individual press releases are appropriate citations is a matter for the editors on the talk page of the article(s) concerned. Thryduulf (talk) 14:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I would say that the username is sufficiently generic that their could not be an objection to its use in any context. Indeed it has also been used by another unrelated Gibraltar news organisation, Panorama and is their email address on another server. However, at one stage I tried to change the user name and wikipedia is not very good at that. I think this is more a case of looking for excuses to ban me for something. --Gibnews (talk) 23:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI: it's actually pretty simple and straightforward to get your username changed. Although, your talk page signatures don't get updated, if that is what you mean. Also, if you are referring to me there, please note I spoke out against a block on your username above. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 00:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnet.com

There is another site in Gibnews' portfolio, which does NOT fall into the category of a neutral press release archiver, and which has been prolifically linked to on WP. [41] It has pages like this [42] with headings such as "The Struggle Continues" and words such as "Despite the 'best efforts' of Spain and at times the UK Labour Government, We campaigned and we won the right to vote.". And this [43]("It was a demonstration for the old people, who turned out in force. It was a demonstration for the children, who came on foot and on wheels. It was an event that everyone came to, including the workers that the MoD tried to discourage from participating.") used as a reference for text at the Disputed status of Gibraltar. Surely this can't be OK to be appearing in External Links sections and ref cites of articles? The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 21:39, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I have raised the reliability issues with this site at [44] The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 23:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnet.com is a long running website which is in a number of parts. The section of reference texts are presented 'as is' most of the other material which he objects to consists of commentary on events in Gibraltar. Yes getting to vote in European elections was a struggle, because Spain attempted to block it happening. That is a matter of record. The section there has original documents and links to support everything said.

The description of the 2002 demonstration is moderate and factual. I thought Wikipedia preferred secondary sources and this is one.

Lets face it, this editor has problems with anything from Gibraltar and me in particular. This is just more forum shopping and harassment. --Gibnews (talk) 23:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't. Yes, Wikipedia uses secondary sources, but ones that are reliable as defined by WP:RS: ones with known reputation as sources (e.g. quality newspapers where there's known editorial oversight and fact-checking).Gibnet.com is just a personal (or at most small-company) website. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Some of the information presented in the documents section of Gibnet.com is not available anywhere else online and its good enough to be cited by the House of Commons library. However this is the COI noticeboard rather than a discussion of reliability, and I see no conflict of interest in the way original documents are presented there. --Gibnews (talk) 09:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to reluctantly agree that if you have any control over the information at the Gibnet site, then linking to it is a conflict of interest because it can be seen as a form of self-promotion. -- Atama頭 16:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I think someone adding links to their own website is a COI issue for exactly that reason. And a site owner being hostile about the idea of excluding such links - for instance, treating consensus that they fail WP:RS as "a lynch mob" [45] - is not seeing the issue with the required neutrality, which is exactly the territory that WP:COI exists to address. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

For the record I designed the site. I did not create the content referenced. Its like banning references to a newspaper made by the man who operates the printing machine. RH has a long history of disputing everything I do on wikipedia and has tried to get me banned, gibnews.net banned and now gibnet.com banned on various noticeboards. He is now removing links without replacing them and the next step will be to remove the content referenced until the pages support a different view of reality. His allegations of me using an IP to revert him are unfounded. --Gibnews (talk) 15:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnews, I suggest you help me find alternative sources for the links you have posted to gibnet.com. I've already started and am finding it relatively easy. e.g. [46] I noticed another helpful individual chipped in with another almost immediately [47] The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 00:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Its very easy to delete things, but unless you replace links with ones that are as good, its very negative. --Gibnews (talk) 15:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnews, I asked that references which were not appropriate were removed, as such references give an incorrect sense of accuracy. Indeed, they should, preferably, be replaced by a better reference, but an inappropriate reference or no reference is similar, the information in Wikipedia is not asserted. I see that you started helping finding alternative sources where possible, if you think that there are specific sources which are un-replaceable, then please, report them to the talkpage (and if you wish, to me), and we will see. Note that the last two references that were added and removed were both very likely replaceable! It would be good if the person removing the reference would help in finding an alternative, but the inclusion and proof of it being worthy of inclusion is still with the person who included the information. When that is disputed, revert and discuss. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Just an aside. Gibnews has claimed in the past to be the owner (not the designer) of the site (you can see the funny story of Gibnews complaining about an alleged violation copyright conditions of his site (with regard to an official document) here (comment of 19:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC), where it's stated that I am the owner of the website www.gibnet.com). Just for the sake of clarity. --Ecemaml (talk) 11:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to believe that he's not the owner of the site. However, that does mean that his claims in that Wikisource discussion were false. Either way it's troubling. I've warned people about claiming false authority before, about it biting them later, even recently on this very noticeboard. I'd say to drop it, but if Gib ever tries to claim ownership of the site again you can point out that he's not the owner. -- Atama頭 20:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

He's not the legal owner because he has registered both sites under a company name. He is, however, blatantly the de facto operator of both and that can be proved. Another matter he was economical with the truth on in the gibnews.net discussion (nb not gibnet.com) was his links to one of the organizations that gibnews.net archives content from. The only reason I did not raise this before is that I could not find any links to his organization's press releases on Wikipedia. However, the fact that he did not disclose this and portrayed himself as an uninvolved archiver of OTHERS' material deeply concerns me. It was on that basis that many people at WP:RSN accepted gibnews.net as a source. I suggest we treat it like gibnet.com. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 22:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This is bollocks. I have already explained that gibnews.net archives press releases, and that the documents section of gibnews.com has electronic versions of original documents. I design websites and write scripts for all sorts of people and organisations. The material linked on wikipedia consists of content created by others. RH is on a crusade and its becoming harassment. --Gibnews (talk) 15:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Voice of Gibraltar Group and gibnews.net

Yet another undeclared COI: Gibnews is a spokesperson for the Voice of Gibraltar Group and added an external link to it plus text in the article [48].

However, what is even more concerning is that this Government of Gibraltar press release [49] which is critical of the VoGG is nowhere to be found on gibnews.net, the supposedly neutral archiver of organisations' press releases, including the Government of Gibraltar. It is concerning because Gibnews is a spokesperson for the VoGG, and operates gibnews.net. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 02:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This is becoming a obsessive one man campaign against me. Its hardly surprising that a press release from 2001 is not on gibnews.net as it started in 2005.

The diff given by RH above shows him removing all references to pressure groups in Gibraltar including the Women's association and the Gay Rights group. Both have an international profile. ---Gibnews (talk) 15:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This diff? [50] That's you adding all that stuff. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick^t 01:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

John P. Abraham

Johnpabraham (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This new editor created John P. Abraham, presumably an article about himself. The article should also be deleted. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The AfD seems to be heading for a snow deletion, so I think the problem will go away on its own. -- Atama頭 01:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Maureenpfleming (talk · contribs) on Maureen Fleming

User:Maureenpfleming is editing the Maureen Fleming article. I reverted, as she left the article with a huge quote in the middle of the article and messed up the formatting. I've referred her to the COI guidelines, and suggested she discuss her edits on the article's Talk page first. Woogee (talk) 00:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I've no doubt of her notability - many news hits [51] - but there's a deal in the article that's not up to WP:V. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Gonzinuk

Gonzinuk (talk · contribs) claims to be the "owner" of St. Anthony's Senior Secondary School Udaipur and that nobody else has the right to edit the article. Woogee (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I love the edit summary: "Woogle Talk does not own the school and has no right to comment on the school.. The school belongs to our family and so woogle talk must just back off" [52]. Back off, Woogle Talk! :) Gordonofcartoon (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted their last revert. If nothing else, the insistence on edit-warring is a problem, and they're currently 1 away from 3RR right now. I've given them a COI welcome and informed them of this discussion, but their edits so far show a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose of Wikipedia and I don't have a lot of hope that this will end well. -- Atama頭 17:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Gonzinuk is up to 3RR now. It's late and I can't be arsed to report it this instant, but anyone feel free. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 04:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I had enough. All of this account's edits were disruptive. Multiple attempts were tried to get him to participate in discussion about the COI and the article, and he refused them all and eventually just started blanking the article. I've indefinitely blocked him as a vandalism-only account. I'm not against unblocking him if he makes a reasonable block request and offers to start communicating, but I don't have a lot of hope for that. -- Atama頭 01:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

An update: Gonzinuk has asked to be unblocked, with a threat of legal action unless Wikipedia allows them to "control" the content of the article. Without going into how much is wrong with that, I did see one bit of truth in the complaint; we can't verify that what is in the article is accurate. I can't find any real info about the article in any sources, anywhere. Therefore, I've decided to propose the article for deletion. -- Atama頭 02:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The prod has been removed without any other changes to the article. Edit history says, "all secondary schools are notable, and the directories prove existence please add them." Possibly time for AfD. Rees11 (talk) 02:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

AFD initiated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Anthony's Senior Secondary School Udaipur. I can't find any source I'd consider reliable, and now the initial misunderstandings have been sorted, I think Gonzinuk has raised sufficient concerns that the article might be problematical per WP:BLP. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 05:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Omarnimri

Arab Bank (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Omarnimri (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
194.165.154.133 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Adding egregiously POV flowery language to Arab Bank. When their edits are reverted, they revert back with We are posting texst prepared by Arab Bank Headquarters in amman, Jordan.. Woogee (talk) 07:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Their edits include such euphonious language as Arab Bank’s history is strongly linked to its founder, Abdul Hameed Shoman ([عبد الحميد شومان] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)), who although embarked on an extraordinary journey across the ocean to follow his dreams, came back to his country fulfill a bigger vision.. Woogee (talk) 07:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

He's at it again. There is also an IP editor registered to Arab Bank. Rees11 (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Simon Hatley

Simon Hatley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - User:Robert Greg keeps adding material to the article and citing to a 2010 book, insisting that certain facts in the article are wrong and removing them, relying on a book. I started the article and I can't say whether he is right or wrong (I have not read the book), but the user revealed here that he is the director of the project which published the book, and their author is one of two authors listed as writers on their web site. Basically, their project with respect to Hatley is the only thing featured on their website. I have no idea if he is right to remove the material, factually, but he certainly has a COI! Advise, please.Wehwalt (talk) 14:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

COI or not, the problem is that neither of the parties in this dispute are explicitly citing sources. If it's in a reliably published book, that's fine, whether there's COI or not. If it's disputed, we need precise citations either way (and if historians' views vary, WP:NPOV requires all to be mentioned). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

When I wrote the article, I added sources, certainly. I couldn't find out much about Hatley, but I added cites and the article went through DYK satisfactorily. What do you propose I do?--Wehwalt (talk) 01:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I've left Robert a note about the COI and verifiability issues. Quite apart from the COI, just declaring a new book overrides previous sources isn't on. It's fair to mention both and say that sources differ, which I've done. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Rockitcargo

Rockitcargo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - blatant advertisement similar to http://www.rockitcargo.com/content.asp at Rock-It Cargo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). — Jeff G. ツ 07:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I was going to block as a spammer, but I was more lenient and blocked solely for the username issue, they can recreate a new account that complies with WP:ORGNAME. The article in question was deleted already. -- Atama頭 22:03, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

London Health Sciences Foundation

Resolved

– main article deleted, editor gone for now Rees11 (talk) 00:31, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

London Health Sciences Foundation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Victoria Hospital (London, Ontario) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
London, Ontario (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Noitadnuof (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
142.158.254.24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Several articles edited by several users who may have a conflict of interest. The IP user's conflict is clear, as the IP is registered to London Health Sciences Centre. The other user is less clear, but note that the name is "Foundation" spelled backwards, and the user has only edited on this one subject. I don't quite have the time to unravel all this so some help would be appreciated. Rees11 (talk) 16:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I've reviewed this (sorry I took so long to get to it, but other more "dramatic" issues were going on). The COI is pretty obvious (not only obvious but the editor pretty much admits to it). The username is a little too borderline to justify a block in my eyes, the word "foundation" is somewhat generic and putting it backward seems to be an attempt to not make it blatant, so I don't think it's too promotional. But the editor is very problematic, just a look at their talk page to see the numerous warnings makes that clear. The biggest concerns I see are copyright violations, followed by the overly-promotional nature of their edits, and lastly the COI itself. London Health Sciences Foundation seems in danger of deletion (it's currently blanked out due to copyright concerns) so it may go away on its own. The other articles probably need to be cleaned up a little to remove the promotional stuff. I think if the editor realizes they're not going to be able to continue with what they're doing, they'll either persist and get blocked, or move on to doing something productive, or leave Wikipedia. Any of those situations would be an improvement. -- Atama頭 18:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. I got a chance to go back for another look. There are only two editors and I suspect they're the same person. He hasn't been back for a week, and the copyright issue is under investigation, so I think the situation is under control for now. Thanks again for your help, I'll come back here if it seems the COI needs more attention apart from the other issues. Rees11 (talk) 21:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

AUISMedia (talk · contribs)

Resolved

– User name blocked as a WP:CORPNAME. – ukexpat (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

AUISMedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Sole edit is to American University of Sulaimani, to chnge the name in the lead section to "American University of Iraq--Sulaimani", which matches the initials AUIS. DES ^(talk) 20:43, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

This seems more of an issue for WP:UAA than anything else. The sole edit from this account was a good one, and the article has since been moved to the proper name per request. Having said that, I've blocked the account simply due to the violation of WP:ORGNAME. They're free to create a new account without prejudice if the new account name follows our policies. -- Atama頭 21:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Pantea rahmani only edits Pantea Rahmani

Pantea rahmani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - s.p.a.; only edits her own article, Pantea Rahmani. I gave her c.o.i. and autobiography warnings in March of 2008. Orange Mike | Talk 19:53, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I looked over the article and added some info. Currently it doesn't read with any point of view so I removed the COI tag. I left the user a message asking to use the talk page for any requested edits. Them From Space 21:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Fern Creek High School

Briangmiller (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Just of the style of wording of HERE check page history Mlpearc MESSAGE 20:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I gave the user a welcome template explaining our COI guidelines. I think the article will be fine with some watchers checking over it. Them From Space 21:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I should of tagged it myself, but ..... Thanks It's on my watchlist Mlpearc MESSAGE 21:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Robyn Griggs Lawrence

Robyn Griggs Lawrence (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) RSOgden (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -Clear conflict of interest editor has copied and pasted from the website of the company he works for. Teapotgeorge^Talk 23:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Alipson

Alipson (talk · contribs) in nearly every edit has attempted to include a link to the book "Optical Physics" by Lipson, Lipson, and Lipson—and there is an obvious conflict of interests. I have been removing some of these that are more obvious spam. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of these, so I am posting here for help. Thanks, Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The editor is likely Ariel Lipson, one of the authors of the book (it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure that out). I've left a spam warning on their user talk page. WP:BOOKSPAM can be a real problem, and I'm inclined to treat the editor as a straight-forward spammer rather than getting into the murky question of conflicts of interest. Every single one of their edits has acted to promote their book on Wikipedia, and that's not acceptable. I've left an only warning because this seems to be a spam-only account. -- Atama頭 18:47, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Armorbearer777

Armorbearer777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The editor as a very strong and admited conflict of interest [53] He has now moved on form trying to get things mentioned in the christian metal article and is now simeply shoe horning refernces into other articles [54], [55], [56]. After I removed one of his edits, he reverted [57] and then started harassing me on my talk page a tactic he has used in the past [58], [59]. I really getting tired of dealing with this single purpose editor, his only edits are to try and promote the show he works for. Ridernyc (talk) 11:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Not true. Though I do refference electronic media from the said radio show, my edit history cleary displays that I am not a "single purpose editor. I have had previous conflict with this user on another discussion. He has obviously targeted me in retalliation for other disagreements. Also user does not assume "good faith" toward me in the least and is obviously gunning for me at this point. User seems to have a track record of being very attacking and biting to new users. I also suspect stealth canvassing with others. I am not the only newer user to have suffered the same persecussion from Ridernyc. Armorbearer777 (talk) 11:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

He is now continuing to harass me with templates on my talk page [60] Ridernyc (talk) 12:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment. Per Ridernyc: Looks like WP:SPA and WP:COI. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Forward Thinkers

Forward Thinkers (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - This paid lobbyist for one side of the gun issue in the United States is doing massive non-neutral edits to articles like concealed carry in the United States, in spite of repeated warnings about NPOV and COI. This is a highly contentious issue in the U.S., and I am not going to inject my opinions; rather, since I was the one who initially blocked this user (because of an old username matching that of the organization he/she lobbies for), I have been asked as a neutral third party to bring this issue to the attention of the community. Orange Mike | Talk 14:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Just saw your comment, Orangemike, and your concern is certainly a legitimate one. Let me say, though, that I've made sure my profile identifies me clearly and I have made no effort to hide my affiliation (dating back to my original username). I am 100% committed to putting the priorities of the Wikpedia encyclopedia ahead of my personal and professional interests. My interest here is in making sure that content is balanced and that it conforms with Wikipedia's rules, including Neutral Point of View and Reliable Sourcing. I have significant expertise about certain topics and this expertise provides awareness of reliable primary sourcing, and third-party sourcing, which is available. I think you will see that my edits reflect that. In regards to my edits on the concealed carry in the United States article specifically, that primarily involved a reorganization of existing content (which was redundant and repetitive in multiple instances), not a significant addition of new content. My goal is to help the Wikipedia project and balance out important views on both sides of all issues, including this one. I remain confident that I can do this with total commitment to remaining neutral, by separating my personal and/or professional interests from the interests of the encyclopedia. I think my record here, to this point, demonstrates that. Thank you for sharing your concerns and I look forward to working with you to improve the content on this website. Best regards. Forward Thinkers (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment - I have been following this saga pretty closely for the last six months or so. I agree that the concern about risk of conflict of interest is real here and red flags are up. It is a fine line to walk: On one hand we do not want to jeopardize the reputation of the encyclopedia by being improperly influenced by editors who hold a conflict of interest, while on the other hand we can benefit from the expertise of editors who are extremely familiar with specialized subject matter like with this case. ForwardThinkers has explained that he understands the distinction, and claims that he can keep his personal and professional interests subjugated to the greater interests of the encyclopedia. Actions speak louder than words, and his record of edits seems to prove that he understands the distinction. Looking at his edit history I see a consistent record that his edits are supported by citations to solidly reliable sources, and that he has an above average record of engaging discussion on the talk pages explaining his rationale for WP:NPOV edits, showing a spirit of collaboration, and prior to actually making the edits in the article space. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- And I'm sure that you would be just as quick to defend an NRA employee who was making substantial changes to gun-related articles, wouldn't you. You would probably even issue them an apology on their talk page if they were blocked per WP:COI policy. --Hamitr (talk) 03:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems wrong to me that someone with a declared COI would make such a large change in the article with very little discussion. The single edit is so huge it's impossible to tell what was removed and what was re-written just from the diff. Rees11 (talk) 04:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify here. I did engage in substantial discussion on the concealed carry in the United States article before reorganizing the content there. The editors at that page seemed to agree that the page would benefit from the elimination of redundant/repetitive content (and I believe it has, the article is much more streamlined and readable now). There were no dissenting voices in that discussion. The record will reflect that. Best regards. Forward Thinkers (talk) 21:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Rees11, WP:BRD is pretty standard. Usually people are encouraged to be bold even before discussion at articles. FT discussed the matter ahead of time, two other editors agreed, nobody else objected, and 4 days later the edits were completed. I think that's a pretty reasonable approach, even for someone with a COI. Frankly, what I see are objections to the edits by FT in principle due to the COI, but no objections to specific edits. I don't see where anyone has pointed out any specific disruption by this editor.

There's a bigger issue here, though. FT is not the only editor at the concealed carry in the United States article. There are a few other regular editors at the article. None of them seem to have an objection to FT's edits. If those edits are truly slanting the article, and others are approving the edits, then that would imply collusion between editors trying to inject a POV into an article about a politically controversial subject. In that case, the entire article should have oversight. -- Atama頭 22:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I would welcome oversight of that article. Though I disagree that a pattern of edit similarity implies collusion. Speaking for myself and I suspect many others: I routinely monitor the edit contribution history of the editors of articles on my watchlist. Both those I tend to agree with and those that I tend to disagree with. A side effect of my contribution history monitoring like this is that I often drop in on related articles on my watchlist whose interests I share with associated editors. This is not collusion, but rather an artifact of my paying attention to the editing environment around me. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Christopher W. Walker

Christopher W. Walker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - The article appears to have been created late last autumn by someone identifying themselves as "Christopher W. Walker",[61] and still substantially consists of material initially added by that editor. FYI A prod template was applied to the article on March 11 and has been subsequently removed without explanation by another editor. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 05:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I was the PRODder - it appears to be WP:ARTSPAM although I wasn't sure if it was blatant enough for CSD G11. Most of the content is unverified (the citations are just links to homepages and don't actually verify the content). Not convinced on the notability of the subject either, searching turns up mentions in the Washington Post [62] [63] although not what I consider significant coverage. Cassandra 73 (talk) 12:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I've upgraded the PROD to AFD: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher W. Walker.

I had a brief snip at it, but I can't find verification for much of it. And "supporting" something isn't notable unless you're demonstrably a major-league supporter (e.g. bankrolling the presidential campaign). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 21:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Rabhyanker, company trademarkia.com

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

trademarkia.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

User edits articles about well-known American companies, adding an extremely detailed history of the company's trademark or service mark filings, cited by one or more reference links to trademarkia.com. User states on his user page "I am an IP attorney, interested primarily in trademarks and patents in Mountain View, California". Has had warnings from various editors as a SPA and for COI, and has had Trademarkia, an article he created, deleted. A few diffs showing links being added to trademarkia.com, by company:

to Tiffany & Co.
to Chanel
to Honda
to Kleenex

--CliffC (talk) 02:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, what's added smells like original research - for example,

The Gillette brand is synonymous with shaving and personal care products. As such, trademark protection becomes invaluable to distinguish a company's products and services from its competition to the public.

--CliffC (talk) 02:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The trademarkia website lists Raj Abhyanker as a contact for Australia, Europe and Canada and also lists the American address as being in Mountain View. Rabhyanker lists his website as http://www.rajpatent.com/ on his userpage, therefore clearly indicates that they are adding references from their own website to wikipedia. It looks like it is being done in good faith, but it remains original research and refspam regardless. Now that it has been bought up I think that Rabhyanker should refrain from adding any further links to http://www.trademarkia.com. I'll notify Rabhyanker of this discussion. Smartse (talk) 17:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello, it's Raj Abhyanker. I have made it clear that I am a co-founder of Trademarkia, that I am an IP attorney, and that my law firm supports the site on legal issues. Trademarkia offers unique historical information that adds value to existing Wikipedia pages. I make my affiliation with the site open and transparent. Why then should I be stopped from improving Wikipedia? Sure, my edits may in some way benefit Trademarkia, and I have a personal interest in its success. However, my edits also benefit Wikipedia and I have a personal interest in making Wikipedia a success. I have invested lots of personal, non-billable time in improving Wikipedia, and I find Wikipedia's inaccuracies related to trademark and brand information quite appalling. Trademarkia uniquely helps to solve a gapping hole in the accuracy of information posted on Wikipedia. As such, I should be allowed to continue improving postings on Wikipedia. I have fixed and edited dozens of articles that have simply been wrong, inaccurate, or incomplete when it comes to historical brand information. You can audit my record over the past few months, its value stands for itself. Rabhyanker (talk) 01:04, 29 February 2010 (UTC)

You'll see from the editor's talk page that others have raised concerns about the conflicts of interest, and you'll even see a warning from me from last year regarding some links added to the iPhone article. But when I looked into the matter further, it seemed like Trademarkia might fall under the COI exception for archivists. This was discussed a little on the COI guideline talk page, where another editor opined that Trademarkia was exactly the kind of place that people had in mind when they implemented the exception. See WP:COI#Subject and culture sector professionals where the exception is mentioned. Since Raj seemed to be adding relevant, helpful links to articles, and was completely open and honest about who he was and his connection to the organization. Because of all that, I considered the COI to be of no concern. On the other hand, if the site isn't considered a reliable source, then the links shouldn't be added. That might be more of a question for the reliable sources noticeboard than this one, however. -- Atama頭 17:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have considered questioning the reliability of trademarkia.com as a source at WP:RSN. In my opinion it would fail the test – as the simplest example, searching Google News for "Trademarkia" returns only three references in English:

A Trademarkia press release
A brief mention in the Washington Post's "TechCrunch" column
A press release from a competing IP attorney in which he states "he was outraged with sites like LegalZoom and Trademarkia offering low-quality trademark registration services"

So, IMO not very reliable, but the site's free (if inexact) trademark search engine seems to provide some value, so I'll not list it for review at RSN at this time. Others may think differently. What brought this user's edits to my attention, and what I object to beyond the admitted COI, is the length and extreme detail of the edits, some of which violate WP:WEIGHT; their placement within the articles (sorry, but the unspoken practice here is to either greatly trim long sections not of general interest, or put them toward the bottom of the article so as not to interfere with readability); (here using Accenture as the example) adding logo images that don't improve on the logos in the article infobox and whose captions add even less; adding multiple untitled "reference" links that end up repeating the site URL over and over in the References section. Sorry if I sound angry but I am pretty fed up with businesses, not just this one, using Wikipedia as a free advertising venue. --CliffC (talk) 17:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Trademarkia is a HIGHLY credible site and its data is very reliable. CliffC (talk), you are simply wrong and not citing appropriate web authority. Trademarkia licenses all of its data officially through the United States Patent and Trademark Office through a paid subscription made available to it under the Freedom of Information Act, and the data is daily synchronized to it ^[1]. Trademarkia's data is fully licensed from the USPTO, and you are welcome to contact a person at the USPTO's Bulk Data Licensing Divison to verify Trademarkia's accuracy and integrity^[2]. Trademarkia's search has indexed both TESS and TARR databases, and hence people can search from the year 1870 on Trademarkia, which is a larger search than the USPTO's TESS database, which goes back only to the year 1932. You will find that Trademarkia has been mentioned in more than 1000 highly credible blogs since its launch on September 15, 2009 ^[3], and achieved a Page Rank on Google of 5, indicating that it is a HIGHLY trusted site. You can install the Google Toolbar to verify this.^[4] Furthermore, Trademarkia has grown to become an Alexa and Quantcast top 125,000 site in its first 5 months, which is among the fastest growth rates ever for a search site of this type, further showing its value and importance of Trademarkia ^[5]^[6]. Lastly, if you check Delicious, Trademarkia has been bookmarked by more than 500 people in its first 5 months, setting a record for sites of this type of social bookmarking, further indicating the Trademarkia's value ^[7]. Rabhyanker (talk) 09:54, 06 March 2010 (UTC)

That "outraged attorney" post is a paid press release by a Trademark search and filing service through a paid Press Release through PR-USA.net^[8]. That attorney (who incidentally PAID for that press release as you will notice) is upset because the trademark search service that he charges for is now in jeopardy. He can no longer charge for that service because of Trademarkia. You should also note that I am also an IP attorney, a member in excellent standing with the United States Patent Bar^[9] for more than 10 years, the State Bar of California ^[10],the State Bar of Minnesota<ref<http://www.mnbar.org/</ref>, someone who has received more than 40 endorsements from peers on LinkedIn (more than any other U.S. patent and trademark attorney in the United States)^[11], and a Co-Founder of Trademarkia ^[12]. I would like to continue to add value to Wikipedia in this transparent way. Please let me know your thoughts before I continue improving Wikipedia edits. Rabhyanker (talk) 09:54, 06 March 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that the press release of the "outraged" attorney be taken seriously as a source, any more than any press release should be, Trademarkia's included. Your good standing with the various bars is undisputed but not really of interest at Wikipedia until mentioned by a reliable source. Another editor has commented on your talk page here regarding the value of Quantcast, Alexa and Google page rank as metrics, and I don't believe blog mentions or bookmark counts are regarded so far as Wikipedia measures of reliability or notability. As I said above, I think your free search engine has value and I have no plans to question your site's reliability at RSN. Where you say "I would like to continue to add value to Wikipedia in this transparent way", I do not agree that your edits are transparent at all, I think they are overweight and obtrusive and I recommend that you at least consider the objections above (search for "what I object to") before you continue editing. Thanks, CliffC (talk) 20:41, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Cliff, many have commented to me how my edits have added tremendous value to Wikipedia. There are simply many things incorrect on Wikipedia. For example, the Coca-Cola post indicated that "Coke" was generic trademark in the public domain, which it has not been since 1944. I have edited and added value to many posts such as this one, and per the general consensus here, I will continue editing in a responsible and transparent way. I will be sure to continue being unbiased. Occasionally, others (such as yourself) may object to some edits, as is possible with any editor. I will continue to promptly respond and comply with such requests. That being said, I will consider your comments in future posts. Rabhyanker (talk) 09:54, 09 March 2010 (UTC)

Cliff, I see that you removed my Kleenex edits based on "conflict of interest and non-reliable source". What strikes me as odd is that the ONLY other remaining reference on the Kleenex post is one of the website of parent company Kimberly-Clark, which is the article's now (with your removal) sole source! Based on your own provided rationale, is there not a conflict of interest with parent company's website? Surely, they are more biased than Trademarkia? In fact, Trademarkia is the only place on the web where you can find this information, as the USPTO's Tess database only goes back to the year 1932. Trademarkia's licensed database from the USPTO goes back to the year 1872. Rabhyanker (talk) 09:54, 09 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for agreeing to consider those comments in future edits, please think of them as constructive criticism in spite of their perhaps exasperated tone. However, please don't consider the opinion of myself and one other editor here at the COI noticeboard as any sort of general consensus that future edits won't run into similar difficulties; you have already received some feedback from others on your talk page.

Regarding Coca Cola, these edits illustrate both the positive and the negative -- they correct the erroneous statement that Coke is a genericized trademark, citing Trademarkia, but go on to stuff additional trademark details and two more Trademarkia citations into the middle of a section on package design.
Regarding Kleenex, (1) I reverted this edit not for COI (although you acknowledge one) but with edit summary "original research sourced to a commercial site not a reliable source"; those blue links represent the areas being discussed above and perhaps in future elsewhere. Company web sites can be acceptable sources for their own articles, there is no automatic conflict of interest. (2) Your repeated defense of Trademarkia's methods is probably best reserved for the reliable sources noticeboard if the subject is raised there. (3) If you will reread your suggestion that I am somehow affiliated with Kimberly Clark I think you will agree that it is lacking in logic and withdraw it.

--CliffC (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It just seems strange how the only source remaining on that Kleenex page is the company's own website. Furthermore, I stand behind the integrity of each edit I have made. In my view, Wikipedia is a place for relevant information, not just a collection of summaries of corporate websites. My edits reflect thoughtful, original research related to corporate history. Many have commented that they add value. Beyond being a commercial venture, Trademarkia is an immensely valuable resource that is full of historical brand information and research not found anywhere else. For example, Trademarkia offers the only way to search for U.S. Trademarks before the year 1932. This historical information is not published on the web by the US Government but has been made available to Trademarkia under the Freedom of Information Act. As I have mentioned before, Trademarkia offers unique historical information that adds value to existing Wikipedia pages. I make my affiliation with the site open and transparent. Sure, my edits may in some way benefit Trademarkia, and I have a personal interest in its success. However, my edits also benefit Wikipedia and I have a personal interest in making Wikipedia a success. It is expensive to run a site like Trademarkia, and the organization needs some revenue stream to survive. I will continue editing and referencing back to Trademarkia in a thoughtful and transparent way. Objected to edits will be removed as appropriate. Raj

--Rabhyanker (talk) 14:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Raj, what has some of us concerned is the undue weight some of your edits give to the trademark aspects of articles. Unless one is interested in the topic, either professionally or as a hobby, trademarks are not that big a deal within the global aspect of a corporation's history. For example, your edits give more weight to copyright issues with Coca-Cola than to the history of allegations that the corporation's affiliates in some third world countries have been involved in murders of labor organizers and the like. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback OrangeMike. In my view, the strength and value of Wikipedia derives from the collective whole of educated and diverse contributors sharing their own expertise in this collective forum. Many experts of these diverse areas (including myself) would otherwise have no other forum to collectively contribute toward the betterment of history and knowledge. As a Partner and founder of a multinational law firm representing more than 200 companies, I am a recognized and qualified expert in the area of intellectual property law, international intellectual property, trademarks, patents, and copyrights. My edits reflect areas of my expertise. To certain companies such as Coca-Cola, their success, brand identity, and corporate equity is directly tied to the value of their trademarks. Without documented history of their trademark rights, corporate profile history for companies with famous, valuable brands (whose trademarks are notably one of the biggest factors to their stock value, market capitalization, success, and brand identity), a big component of their history is omitted. My contributions reflect thoughtful additions to that history. That being said, I agree with you that humanitarian and human rights concerns of business practices of such corporations is equally important. However, I am no expert in such topics. I reserve the opportunity for experts in such areas to contribute and enhance relevant articles. By sharing collective knowledge and expertise, we can together make Wikipedia into a credible resource for historical information. Wikipedia needs contributions from experts in their respective fields. When done in a transparent and honest way, such efforts should be applauded, not dissuaded. Raj Abhyanker, JD --Rabhyanker | Talk 8:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.31.167.25 (talk)

(outdent) The aggressive placement, overly long and detailed content and two links to trademarkia.com of today's addition to Gap (clothing retailer) suggest to me that Rabhyanker is not really listening to anything said here. The article already had a "Trademark dispute" section, but he chose to park the edit near the top, between the sentence "In 1974, Gap began to sell private label merchandise in its stores" and the "Brands" section which immediately, and logically, followed. With its excessive detail (in part, trademark serial numbers and calendar dates granted are not of general interest), and the two illustrations of virtually identical past trademarks, this edit is no improvement over Trademarkia edits that have been discussed over the past several months. --CliffC (talk) 03:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I've undone the edit and I have the same concerns with Rabhyanker as you which I've outlined here. --'NeilN'

^{talk to me} 04:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't mean to be in any way aggressive. It will take time for me to figure out exactly what the community feels as acceptable. I will make the necessary edits to the articles mentioned above consistent with your recommendations. Rabhyanker (talk) 14:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Cheeseburger in Paradise (restaurant)

Cheeseburger in Paradise (restaurant) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) I've just tagged the article with a COI template because I've been noting a fair amount of material with a distinctly promotional tone being added to it today, by an editor with the user name "Cheeseburgerinparadise2002" [64]. I've also placed an appropriate template on that contributors page to advise them that their name could be perceived as indicating that they were in some sense 'representing' the restaurant chain itself. I'd like to request some extra eyes and opinions on this situation please; the amount added is fairly substantial relative to the size of the article, and definitely appears to be promotional in nature. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Spam + username violation = indef block, per WP:ORGNAME and WP:SPAM. I've done so. -- Atama頭 22:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I removed the material that was added by that editor from the article and will be removing the COI tag from it as well.Thanks for your help. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 16:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

ACE Adventure Resort

ACE Adventure Resort (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
WELDwiki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This article has been almost entirely created by User:WELDwiki. It now appears that the copyright on the ACE Adventure website is held by a group called WELD, which makes it look as though the whole thing was written by a representitive of the company. In my opinion the article is very close to being promotional, even without this knowledge. I would welcome comments on a way to proceed. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

You're on the right track, posting here, putting a warning on the user's talk page, and reverting the worst of the promotional material. I would suggest using the standard uw-coi template, which someone else has already done. Note that the user is not forbidden to edit but is strongly encouraged to follow the COI guideline. Also it's not appropriate to put "who are you" on the user's talk page, as that amounts to attempted wp:outing. I'll go take a look at the article now. Rees11 (talk) 00:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Kathy Freston

Kathy Freston (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
24.43.20.87 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Was there another response besides this?[65] I agree there were problems but the IP was preventing any collaboration. There does not appear to be any respnse so I am going to again attempt to edit the article. I don't believe the IP should be editing since they have been disruptive.Cptnono (talk) 09:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

It's nearly impossible to tell who said what on the article talk page since the editors insert comments over other editor's signatures (this, for example, is a comment from 74.100.22.216 that looks like it's from 24.43.20.87). The only user with an obvious COI is Cclimetree (talk · contribs), who has self-identified on the talk page ("I work for Kathy Freston"), but has not edited the article. This seems more a disruptive editor(s) problem than COI. Rees11 (talk) 16:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Shlomo Sawilowsky

Shlomo Sawilowsky (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - The article is created completely by unregistered users (probably the same person with different IP addresses) who only work on that article, that quite obviously have a close connection with the subject, in some cases specifically posting as the subject. They are here for promotional purposes only. The subject does actually meet notability criteria and deserves an article, but the editor thinks that this means they can write as much as they want, because everything the subject does is then notable. Much of the content is original research and primary sources.

Moreover, whenever registered, experienced users try to fix things, the unregistered user attacks them from the various IP addresses, undoes all edits, calling them "wiki warriors" and now actually accusing us of Anti-Semitism! For example, they will not let me delete names of books written by authors who have been associated with Shlomo in the past, but where the books have nothing to do with him other than that fact. Again, the article should remain, but these IP addresses should not be allowed to completely control it given the COI. Some moderation is needed.Iulus Ascanius (talk) 19:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Just on quick glance (it's late here), I agree that attention is needed. We're talking about

141.217.105.228 (talk · contribs)
68.43.236.244 (talk · contribs) who has self-identified as the subject [66]

Certainly it looks as if WP:OWN is going on, and there's a deal of material there that's pushing the envelope of original research and notability. Books by the guy's students? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 04:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article is a mess, at present it is far more like a CV than a biography. I've had a look for some sources to use and can't find any so added {{notability}} - If no sources appear soon I think it needs to go to AfD. Smartse (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Where does 68.43.236.44 "self-identified as the subject"?141.217.105.228 (talk) 13:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

In the link provided - saying "response from the Prof" makes it pretty clear. Could somebody who is not invloved please take a look at Talk:Shlomo_Sawilowsky#Notability_tag? I feel rather attacked for suggesting that WP:ACADEMIC is not met and could do with another a third opinion. Thanks Smartse (talk) 13:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The whole thing is getting pretty daft. There was no need for 141.217.105.228 to gut the article because people wanted some parts of it to be less aggrandizing. Smells of WP:POINT. I've removed the AFD notice; that too looks like making some kind of point, since 141.217.105.228 added it without creating an AFD entry. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yea I'm pretty baffled by their behaviour too, I was trying to make it more compliant with policies but I guess that they took offence at me questioning the notability of him. Smartse (talk) 17:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't hard to find some information about him. I've made a start. AJRG (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I've re-added the categories. BTW, WP:AIV] declined to treat destroying the article as vandalism; but if 141.217.105.228 disrupts the re-creation, they're on a final warning [67]. I have a bad feeling we're going to get a lot of WP:SOUP-style wikilawyering from those IP accounts. 68.43.236.244 is now arguing the toss over the image, claiming "no copyright information given that this image is in the public domain" despite the clear assertion on the upload page. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've done a little more research, with some interesting results. Consider the following points:

1. 68.43 self-identified as the subject once

2. 68.43 asserted ownership of the image, which would either owned by the subject or by his company, where the image was taken from ([68]). And now they are saying "oh, wait..."

3. The article is quite similar to that website.

4. The article has been noted by multiple neutral editors to be euphorically positive towards the subject, and the two IP addresses are fighting any modifications that they themselves do not make. Quite angrily, to the point of calling me an Anti-Semite.

5. The two IP addresses that are doing the WP:OWN? The 68.43 address is from West Bloomfield, MI ([69]), which is the home address of the subject.([70]) The 141.217 address is from Wayne State University (Google "141.217 wayne state" for a bunch of hits), which happens to be where the subject works. If you look at their contribs, you will see that 68.43 contributes on the weekends, 141.217 on weekdays.

6. When an editor noted on the article talk page that everyone should state COI position, the 68.43 address simply said "OK by me" and avoided the question.

7. Some of the details in the article would take a large amount of research for anyone other than the subject, such as the list of all topics the subject has been interested in, and the distribution of all past graduate students.

I hate to say this, and did not expect it... but I think the writing is on the wall. Thoughts? Iulus Ascanius (talk) 03:33, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, the blanking thing has stopped; I've posted the standard COI advice template to both IPs; and there seem to be conciliatory moves at Shlomo Sawilowsky. Another editor agrees with me about what needs trimming. I'd say wait and see what happens when we do. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 04:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Remember that there is nothing to stop people writing about themselves and that this in itself is not a reason to be blocked. If the IPs were to continue editing disruptively then we could do something about it, hopefully that won't be necessary. We seem to have reached a consensus on the talk page about what should and shouldn't be in the article. Regarding point 6 - remember that nobody has to say whether they are an article subject or not (WP:OUTING). I broadly agree with you though that the arguments you've made are pretty convincing! Smartse (talk) 14:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I agree that it isn't outright vandalism or anything, we shouldn't straight-up block him. Especially, as Gordon noted too, he seems to have changed his tune to some degree. I don't blame anyone for wanting to be involved with a page on themself, but owning it and posting promotional material is quite different. Iulus Ascanius (talk) 18:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Reverts and vandalism on nationalistic basis

Resolved

– Complainant indef blocked, no COI violation. -- Atama頭 19:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Dear admins! I'm talking about two issues: 1. The page Tadeusz Kościuszko. 2. The collage at Poles.

The thing is, Tadeusz Kościuszko was at least partly ethnicaly Belarusian, which I referenced in the article about him (he was even baptised in an orthodox church). Now he was also born on the territory which is Belarus, so I entered him into categories like Belarusian nobility. I also deleted him from the collage at Poles, because the article talks about the Poles as an ethnic group, and Tadeusz Kościuszko was not ethnicaly Polish (I wrote it on the discussion board. I mean he was born in Belarus, he was ethnicaly Belarusian, he was born on a territory which was part of Lithuenia then, so he was Polish only by citizenship). Now the user User:Marekchelsea started reverting me on both pages, without writing anything, which is rude. I was warned before signing to Wikipedia that there are few Polish nationalists here that do those stuff, but tell me, can't you admins do anything about it? It's really discusting when referenced information gets deleted, and when someone wants to steal to his ethnicity someone who wasn't of his ethnicity. Free Belarus (talk) 16:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

And now there is user User:Stephen G. Brown writing to me "Busy yourself with Belarusian pages and leave Polish subjects to the Polish" on the Poles discussion page, not refering the topic. Common, where are the admins when needed? Free Belarus (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing even coming close to what is discussed at WP:COI. What I see is a dispute about content. Stephen's comment to you does look like it comes close to a WP:OWN violation, so I will give him a warning, but no, administrators don't really have special authority when it comes to deciding what should and shouldn't be in an article as long as no policies or guidelines are being violated. -- Atama頭 18:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, well, looking at the person making this complaint, they've now been indef blocked, so I'm talking to myself here. I'll call this resolved then. -- Atama頭 19:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Conservapedia

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

I am Conservapedia Sysop User:RobSmith. Per Wikipedia:BFAQ#ATTACK, I believe my organization is under attack. Factual inaccuries. Notice templates removed. Sockpuppetry. I believe the page has been taken over by RationalWiki editors, cited within the entry itself, "According to an article published in the LA Times in 2007, 'From there, they (Lipson and his fellow [RationalWiki] editors) monitor Conservapedia. And—by their own admission—engage in acts of cyber-vandalism.'[13]"

We have blocked at least 10,000 sockpuppet vandals over the past three years. I believe these same sockpuppets and vandals have shaped and controlled the article content. Can we get some help for a modicum of fairness and NPOV. Thank you. nobs (talk) 10:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Evidence of harassment and trolling: Since I've declared my COI on the talk page and stated NPOV concern, the initial response was from a red link user who's been active in Wikipedia for nine months; his comment was, "Your complaints are groundless."[71] which has since been altered to, "So amendment could be required." [72] [This user's talk page was activated minutes later by a RationalWiki user (User:Huw Powell's userbox, "This user is a Goat" links to Rationalwiki's home page). nobs (talk) 10:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Your most recent edit to that article was [73]. In that edit, you tag a living persons name with "unreliable source?" The "VC" tag is not designed to be a form of character assassination - it is to tag sources as possibly unreliable, not to impugn the character of living persons. If your attempt to malign living persons continues, I will ask that your probation from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others be enforced. Hipocrite (talk) 10:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you want us to do. The one user you mentioned, Huw Powell, hasn't edited the article recently. You've already brought this up at wp:POVN. Were there particular editors you believe have a COI? Rees11 (talk) 12:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

My most recent edit and only edit ever is supported by WP:BFAQ#ATTACK,

If you feel that the article contains unnecessary attacks or unreliable information for the purpose of portraying your organization in a negative light, please explain why and discuss it with other Wikipedians. (Done) Don't misrepresent who you are on a talk page. (Done).
If a claim in the article is questionable and not supported by a cited reliable source then it may be challenged by anyone. ... If it is inaccurate information from a dubious source put a verify tag on it ...You also may use Verify source, Verify credibility

The subject is (a) non-notable to warrant his own subheading as a source of criticism; (b) the entry states, "Several editors, including Lipson, started another website, RationalWiki ...According to an article published in the LA Times in 2007, 'From there, they (Lipson and his fellow [Rationalwiki] editors) monitor Conservapedia. And—by their own admission—engage in acts of cyber-vandalism." (c) As has been outlined on talk, Rationalwiki editors have admitted to be the source of brusque and offensive comments Dr. Lenski and Wikipedia attributed to Conservapedia. Peter Lipson needs to examined, based upon his own words, as to whether he reaches a standard of reliability as a notable critic. One of his first acts in founding Rationalwiki was to write an extremely slanderous essay on Conservapedia far outside the credentials represented to the L.A. Times and Wikpeida as a medical expert. [74] Rationalwiki editors appear to control Wikipedia's entry on Conservapedia and loaded it with biased, exaghgerated, and out false content.

Conservapedia has blocked over 10,000 sockpuppet vandals since Lispon and others started Rationalwiki (RW) three years ago. This makes it extremely difficult for Conservapedia (CP) editors, even after declaring a COI, to try and discuss the problems at Conservapedia/talk being the RW editors and socks control the page. We are only asking for simple fairness, and a place to discuss these matters with fair minded editors without charges of COI, etc. nobs (talk) 12:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Which claims do you feel needs verification, exactly? Please don't ask us to look at unreliable sources again. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 12:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Rob, your case is perfect...except that nowhere have you shown, or have I seen, that RW editors admitted to being the source for 'brusque and offensive' statements. Nor can I see these statements at CP on the project page. In fact, I retract my earlier statement that deceit was employed by RWians in encouraging Andy to send the letter; I can't see any sock accounts adding their names to the letter on the CP project page. EddyJP (talk) 12:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Network TwentyOne

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

Insider201283 - Constant self interest editing of Network_TwentyOne article, posting questionable non WP:RS self serving articles and constantly reverting any other sources such as court documents that are not pro Network 21 / Amway Financeguy222 (talk) 11:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

April Storm - paid editing by a PR

April Storm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Nikki Benz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Ashley Steel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (deleted}

After deleting Ashley Steel per WP:CSD#A7, I got a complaint from an IP: "Hey I am Ashley Steel pornographic actress and model. I had hired my publicist to do my wiki page, along with many other things. She did Sunny Leone, Nikki Benz and others that work along side me." Sunny Leone has been in since 2003, but Nikki Benz and Ashley Steel were both created by this new user. I have issued a COI warning. JohnCD (talk) 16:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Nikki Benz has been around since 2006, but the user is very likely to be the same as OfficialNikkiBenz (talk · contribs) who was blocked for username violation. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:39, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Xenon Pictures/Xenon44

Xenon Pictures (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Xenon44 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Xenon44 created the Xenon Pictures article, and has admitted to being the "internet/web guy at Xenon Pictures". User has removed "citation needed" tags and continues to restore unsourced or unverified material to both Xenon Pictures and Dolemite. TheRealFennShysa (talk) 15:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've given him a COI notice. I see you've been discussing verifiability with him at your talk page, but I've added a note at his about why he should not remove "citation needed" tags without adding citations. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

RationalWiki

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

Editor did not declare COI before altering content about Rationalwiki's founder, Peter Lipson. [75] The issue of factual accuracy of Lipson as founder of RationalWiki, as cited in two WP:RS publications, is already under discussion on another page where Sid 3050 stated he is a RationalWiki editor ("The thing that drove tons of members to us [RationalWiki] (especially after the Great Purge and once we went public with RW 2.0) was Conservapedia itself."} diff nobs (talk) 00:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I had made it clear on the Conservapedia talk page (which directly caused the RationalWiki article to be resurrected) that I'm a longtime RationalWiki member. That was before my edit to the RW article, and from what I saw, today's editors of the RW article had been involved in that discussion. After I made the edit, I also made it clear on that talk page that I as a RW member made the edits. And before the COI question came up, I indicated my RW membership on the RationalWiki talk page. All of this has been posted to the RationalWiki talk page following Rob's inquiry, long before he made his complaint here.

The edit had been to correct a factual (and verifiable) mistake in the article: The article stated as fact that Lipson founded RW while the existing source (and the CP article) contradict this. The only source for this claim (which Rob repeatedly stated as fact!) is a Register article that wrongly paraphrased the article it references. Nobody else is claiming that Lipson founded RW.

After the events on Talk:Conservapedia, I can't assume Good Faith anymore. Nobs is desperately trying to discredit Lipson and RationalWiki.

Finally, I find it interesting that, since posting here, nobs found the time to reply on the RationalWiki talk page... and yet failed to inform me of his accusation here. I guess it's not custom to inform someone you just officially accused him of pushing a COI... --Sid 3050 (talk) 01:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, unless you assume a lot of good faith and regard "I am asking neutral, non-RationalWiki Admins to oversee RW editors who have shaped content on both entries." (with no link to this section) as a proper notification. Though if I hadn't checked his contribs, I certainly wouldn't have recognized it as such. --Sid 3050 (talk) 01:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The question surrounds the factual accuracy of two reputable and verifiable sources citing Peter Lipson as the founder of RationalWiki. It took me four hours today to get a neutral Admin to hang a reverted NPOV tag on an article I clearly declared a COI with. WP:COI#Defending_interests states: it is unproblematic to defend the interest of the person or institution, yet the Talk/Conservapedia was incessantly trolled by RationalWiki editors inserting extraneous large blocks of text to confuse neutral Admins. Currently, I am engaging User:Sid 3050 in discussion at the Rationalwiki website, and hopefully we can resolve some of the extraneous issues there. Meantime, I request enforcement of WP:COI policy and other applicable policies as it pertains to the now restored version of the RationalWiki entry. Thank you. nobs (talk) 03:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Rob, I will not engage you on RationalWiki to discuss Wikipedia matters. I use RationalWiki to vent and Wikipedia to discuss Wikipedia.

What two RS claim that Lipson is the founder? The Register article references the LA Times article - but the LA Times just says "Lipson and several other editors quit trying to moderate the articles and instead started their own website", not that Lipson is the founder. So who is the founder? Andy Schlafly and several homeschoolers started Conservapedia, so should I call one of the kids the founder of CP? No. The Register bases its story (or at least that part of it) on the LA Times ("The LA Times explains") but then goes on to paraphrase "Lipson duly enlisted other disgruntled editors and started RationalWiki".

Lipson denies this. The first-generation RationalWiki members deny this. The LA Times doesn't say this. No other source independently says this. I see no reason to accept the Register article as a good source in this context if it openly contradicts its own source.

Yes, I think someone disputed the accuracy of the LA Times, but not to move into the "Lipson is founder" direction. So no matter how you twist and turn, I edited something that current consensus agreed was wrong. Worse, you were quick to cite this Wikipedia article to back your claim that Lipson DID found it ("Peter Lipson, founder of RationalWiki according to Wikipedia") in a discussion that questioned this claim!

Further, the source of the RationalWiki article was the LA Times (even before my edit), and the LA Times does not say that Lipson is the founder. I merely brought the article more in line with what the existing source actually says, regardless of outside discussion.

And I invite everybody to read through the Conservapedia talk page discussion. It nicely shows how you keep switching what issue you wanted to focus on. Your accusations merrily switched between Lenski, Lipson, the Hit List (which isn't even part of the article), the founder question, opposing a source, and your Original Research to include an essay posted on RationalWiki. In the end, you claimed that the article section (which merely echoes what a Reliable Source states) violates NPOV because it doesn't include your OR.

Yes, I opposed you in the sense that I disputed several of your claims and pointed out your OR. I was also the first to ask what you wanted to change when you declared that the section violated NPOV. I assumed as much good faith as I could muster in the face of your increasingly disjointed accusations and tried to work with you on that talk page, but you spent much more time on digging up dirt than on clearly saying what you wanted to change to what. And when you finally did get around to it, it was OR. You dragged this larger conflict to the NPOV and the COI Noticeboards instead of clearly trying to solve your issues on the respective talk pages. In my eyes, there is a troll here, but it's not me. --Sid 3050 (talk) 11:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, what admin inserted the NPOV tag you first inserted? The only one aside from you who inserted such a tag would be PCHS-NJROTC, who is neither an admin (or is "Rollbacker" WP's term for admin?) nor neutral. And the neutral user ShadowRangerRIT (who got involved when Rob ran to the NPOV Notice Board) didn't include such a tag.

I wish Nobs would be a bit more careful to get his facts right when stating his case. However, if I overlooked something that proves me wrong, I'll of course apologize when presented with a diff. --Sid 3050 (talk) 13:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Editors of a wiki are not conflicted with respect to that wiki. If the individual denies being the founder of the wiki, we err on the side of caution - per WP:BLP - "We must get the article right." Hipocrite (talk) 16:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite is spot-on. You need some pretty solid sourcing to be able to essentially call Peter Lipson a liar in the body of the article. As an aside, this Conservapedia/RationalWiki feud is tiresome. This has basically exploded all over various noticeboards, with little-to-no action, and I don't care to take a side. -- Atama頭 19:16, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No one's calling Peter Lipson a liar. The issue of the factual accuracy of two WP:RS, WP:V is unresolved, although a concensus has been raolroaded through by editors with WP:COI. nobs (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Again, users who edit a wiki do not have a conflict regarding that wiki - further, I have no conflict. Hipocrite (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

RationalWiki editors made significant changes to WP:RS claims as to the founder of RationalWiki. ~~Further, RationalWiki editors removed the{factual accuracy} tag without independent concensus.~~ nobs (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

(I've addressed the rest of this comment on the RW talkpage.) The tag was removed by Rees11 - is he a RW editor? I don't remember him saying so, and his username doesn't ring any bells right now... --Sid 3050 (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no COI. I had never heard of CP or RW before they were brought up here at COIN and have never edited or even visited either one. I removed the tag because the statement in question had been removed from the article. If there are other facts in question, then it would be appropriate to add a new tag, and quote which fact is in question on the talk page. Rees11 (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I stand corrected on that. My appologies. The issue of the factual accuracy of the L.A. Times being the source of Peter Lipson as founder of RW I assumed would be resolved where it began with other neutral Admins engaged. This is why I asked for 3rd party intervention, so a situation like this would not develop.

It will be unfair now for these same COI editors to return to Talk:Conservapedia and claim a concensus was forged on the L.A. Times and Register, and impose changes. As a neutral Admin, how do you propose we proceed? nobs (talk) 00:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

COI is not a bludgeon to beat people over the head with until they submit. What do you propose, that we ban all CP and RW editors from editing articles related to either Wiki? I don't think that's going to happen. That sanction would apply to you as well. And how do you determine who has a COI, do they have to have a position at one of the Wikis, or just be an occasional contributor, or have openly stated their support for one or the other...? The COI accusations are a smokescreen. Asking for 3rd party intervention is all well and good, but that's not the point of this noticeboard. Dispute resolution is a better set of tools to help. -- Atama頭 17:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I have begun that process with one editor already. I'd like to resolve the content issues with serious editors who are concerned about the integrity of Wikipedia. But I've also encountered much bullying and intimidation in just finding those Rationalwiki editors who do in good faith do seek to resolve disputes. nobs (talk) 03:30, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

As I noted in my new section on Talk:Conservapedia, Nobs' (RobSmith on RationalWiki) "dispute resolution" quickly jumped to ArbCom threats and drifted further and further away from content. My posts to Rob mostly tried to focus on content, but his "dispute resolution" started with the words "Sid, sorry to have to do that, but you violated process and trolled me. WP is not RW or CP where you can troll at will." (in the first link) and "Sid, trolling the WP COI Noticeboard is not the way to go about it." (in the second link).

In the end, Nobs had well moved on to the point where he openly ignored content concerns (such as pointing out that the things he was focusing on were OR in the first link and my long content-related posts in the second one) and was already making a case to drag to ArbCom ("Heads up" subsection in the first link, "Your contribs at wp:CP hurt the WP project. I'll prove it to Arbcom, if necessary." in the second link, and "contribs" here means my contribs of the last three years: "And tendentious editing covers longtime behavior. [...] you were right there from the beginning in shaping the article ... Do you think that content might have influenced peoples impressions of CP over the years?").

The new section on Talk:CP is my last attempt at discussing content (Clarification: Nobs' content concerns were focused on the RW section of that article, which largely overlaps with the section in the RW article under discussion here. If he wants to challenge another specific edit in the RW article, he can of course bring up such concerns on that article's talk page). If Rob wants more than just push his agenda as Conservapedia's "Director of Internal Counterintelligence" (his words in the first link), he can engage me there with specific content concerns and improvement suggestions. I have better things to do than being dragged through more and more wikicourts (like "Wanna see your Username on the sockpoppet Noticeboard for the next several years" in the first link and "Ever been through WP/Aribitration? Not pretty." in the second one) just because Nobs desperately wants to smear or silence critics. --Sid 3050 (talk) 11:41, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Whaddya say, Sid, let's get a Mediator, you and the alleged founder of RationalWiki, User:Tmtoulouse, please. nobs (talk) 04:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Didn't we have two people come in to mediate the situation, specifically hipocrite and ShadowRangerRT? --EmersonWhite (talk) 04:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

No. Did you read Notice posted here, Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Conservapedia long before intervention was requested in this article? (This article did not exist at that time). My cause for requesting intervention is stated there. nobs (talk) 08:13, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Nobs, you spent the last few DAYS pestering me on RationalWiki about your view of Dispute Resolution, which included accusing me of trolling this noticeboard, of controlling content, and of not engaging you in content disputes. The truth is that I repeatedly asked you to discuss and specify your content concerns. Your reactions consisted of threatening me with the Sockpuppet Noticeboard and with ArbCom unless I acknowledge that you have (not really specified and often changing) "valid concerns". Not once did you make any sort of visible effort to actually discuss content.

And right now, you are directly challenging the decision made by this Noticeboard - a Noticeboard whose view you requested. Hipocrite told you directly that "We are not reverting the article to a version that violates BLP. I do not see any conflicts of interest here. Move on, please." and yet you accuse me and other RW editors of bullying on T:RW?

Both I and Tmtoulouse asked you directly to specify your concerns on Talk:Conservapedia where all of this originated. You did not reply. I asked you to specify your concerns on Talk:RationalWiki, but you are STILL too busy overriding the very Noticeboard you asked for help just because you don't like their decision. As for your conduct on RW (as RobSmith), I just submit User talk:Tmtoulouse, User talk:Sid and Conservapedia Talk:What is going on at CP?. This shows that I and others repeatedly tried to discuss content (or at least to show out that all your digging is either not content-related or plain and simple OR) while you were busy threatening me and others with ArbCom or the Sockpuppet Noticeboard. I'm done trying to discuss this. I have better things to do than to play your games of you mindlessly dragging me through more and more official processes instead of discussing specific content concerns in the open. --Sid 3050 (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit to add: I have added my unanswered user talk page reply re: LA Times accuracy (which Nobs repeatedly mentioned) to Talk:Conservapedia. Maybe Nobs will at least reply there. Other than that, I'm done. --Sid 3050 (talk) 11:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Paul Bedson

Paul Bedson (talk · contribs)
Kharsag Epics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Christian O'Brien (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A new editor acting in good faith but creating articles with which he has a personal and financial interest[76] and with a "commitment to reveal this subject to the mainstream". The articles are Kharsag Epics (which I have taken to AfD) and Christian O'Brien plus another which he is working on in his sandbox. I've been advising him but it seems a bit unfair for him to get advice from only one person and that person the one who has taken an article of his to AfD. Dougweller (talk) 16:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this. My other article is George Aaron Barton who is one of the 2 primary sources for the Kharsag Epics page. I have no financial interest in these articles as Eden Tourism is a not-for-profit venture to help fund research in this field. It is not a functioning company as yet in any case. I have to admit some interest in this subject and it's exposure from having visited Kharsag, but hope that the academic linking articles I have prepared beforehand will show the articles to be mainstream enough for inclusion. Further advice is most welcome on this subject and how to edit the pages correctly, from a neutral position, in line with guidelines and for the benefits of the vast majority of people this affects. Paul Bedson (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The editor does seem to have a COI despite his denials. He runs a travel agency whose aim is "promoting tourism in Rachaiya" (where the subject of the article originated). It would be good to get more opinions, but I think he should be following the COI guidelines in this case. Rees11 (talk) 21:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I am currently under contract to a UK telecoms company and cannot profit financially from Eden Tourism at the current time or be employed by any other organisation. Hence it is a non-active, not-for-profit venture, any potential future profits will be directed into further scholarly research of the subject. The type of "tourism" that I can arrange is of the archaeological type to encourage the mainstream research this topic requires. I am personally involved after having visited Rachaiya recently, but this is only for experience in the subject. I was not an associate of Christian O'Brien when he was alive and so should not be directly associated with the topic of the posts. I am endeavouring to maintain a neutral point of view and meeting criteria, despite working hard on articles I feel are important, if perhaps controversial. Paul Bedson (talk) 01:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Paul, you are heavily involved in the 'Kharsag Research Project', and you told me you have a " committment to reveal this subject to the mainstream." It isn't just the Eden tourism thing, promoting O'Brien's ideas is the reason you are here and creating these articles, which creates a clear conflict of interest. Dougweller (talk) 05:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not employed by and have not mentioned any ideas or orignial research generated by the 'Kharsag Research Project' and will not do so until they can be verifiably sourced in a major newspaper. In such a specialist subject, I would hope Wikipedia values my experience updating subjects upon such an event. I have made some efforts to correct articles in line with a neutral point of view that does not seek to promote any single person or group's ideas and further suggestions to keep in line are always welcome. Paul Bedson (talk) 18:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess I have a question, has Paul violated any particular policies or guidelines? In particular, is he linking to web sites or other resources he is affiliated with (per WP:SPAM) or trying to put too much of a positive or negative spin on any subjects (per WP:NPOV) or trying to add his personal opinions or research (per WP:OR) or resisting changes to "his" articles that he doesn't agree with (per WP:OWN)? Those are the most common problems that occur when an editor has a COI. We do try to make experts welcome, and I know that I personally try to give some allowances to subject experts when they edit articles in their field. It can sometimes be difficult to find a balance between avoiding conflicts of interest but allowing experts to contribute. -- Atama頭 22:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this is mostly a case of an over-eager new editor. He's made some mistakes in adding poorly sourced material, and the article itself seems to be borderline wp:fringe, although it's hard for me as a non-expert to tell. But he has not been pushing his travel agency or adding spam, at least not recently. I do think he has a COI and should disclose it on his user page and the article talk page. But in general I think the situation is under control, he is trying hard, is obviously an expert, and should be encouraged. I don't think any kind of admin intervention is required. I should add that I've only looked at Kharsag Epics, not Christian O'Brien. Rees11 (talk) 17:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Kharsag Epics went to AfD with result of merge to Christian O'Brien. Should we mark this "resolved?" Doug? Rees11 (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

RapperDitch/Ditch420

Rapper_Ditch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Ditch420 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

By their own admission, Ditch420 is a paid PR account for RapperDitch. The spam guideline and conflict of interest guideline come into play here, as well as the policy that Wikipedia is not intended as a vehicle for promotion. TheRealFennShysa (talk) 19:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The COI is obvious, and admitted. I suppose the only real question is whether the Rapper Ditch article and the associated albums meet WP:MUSIC criteria, or should be deleted. -- Atama頭 16:24, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

West Shore Community College

West Shore Community College (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Wsccwebmaster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The name is certainly suggestive, and the article looks like a brochure for the school, not an encyclopedia piece. I ran across this doing RC-patrolling. Ray^Talk 19:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked the editor for WP:ORGNAME violations, though they can be unblocked to request a username change, or can create a new account that doesn't violate username policies. The article itself should be cleaned up, I've left a COI tag. -- Atama頭 16:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Sparksmedia @ Metalcallout

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

Almost every one of user's contrubutions have involved adding the link to a website Metalcallout. I asked the user if he was affiliated but this was denied by him, see User talk:Sparksmedia#Metalcallout. But looking into the issue, I found some links to the username and the website. User had previously attempted to create an article WebHostDesignPost which has since been speedied, this website [77] suggests Sparksmedia, WebHostDesignPost and Metalcallout are all indeed affiliated. Rehevkor ✉ 23:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This looks to me like a clear case of WP:REFSPAM, looking at the list of links to metalcallout.com it seems as though they are all stating that bands will be performing at festivals this summer. I can't exactly see why this would be done but the fact that all of Sparksmedia's edits are using metalcallout.com as a reference, and the link you provided demonstrating that it is hosted on the same server as a site called Sparksmedia clearly indicates a COI. I think that all the links present need to be removed - for starters metalcallout is not a reliable source - if the fact that they are playing at festivals should be included in the articles (personally I doubt they should) then we should use references to the festival site, e.g. replace this with this. Smartse (talk) 17:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

There is this press release too about metalcallout, which was written by Cody Sparks, the same person who madewww.sparks-media.com. Smartse (talk) 18:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Cheers for looking into this, Smartse. I went ahead and removed every link from the articlespace. Most that were "X band will attend Y festival which is awesome" I removed the whole lot, while some that seemed to be used in good faith I fact'ed. In the case of festivals etc they can be re-added, written neutrally with an reliable independent source, or at the very least a primary source. Rehevkor ✉ 21:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for removing the links, I made a start myself but it was taking quite a while to do! Can we gain a consensus here that Sparksmedia does not add any more links to metalcallout to wikipedia without first discussing it on the talk page of an article? Smartse (talk) 10:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Considering his conflict of interest and the fact the website is likely an unreliable source, I don't see how the website can add to any articles at all Rehevkor ✉ 13:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I've indefinitely blocked. What we have is an editor who is spamming a TON of links all over Wikipedia for the Metalcallout web site, and they just happen to name their account (in violation of WP:ORGNAME) after the company who develops web pages and does search engine optimization (in other words, an online marketer) and who also created the WebHostDesignPost article, and all sites are hosted on the same server. The fact that they denied affiliation in face of the overwhelming evidence means that they aren't being honest. I've hardblocked them, which means that they aren't welcome to request a name change or create a new account. -- Atama頭 17:01, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, Atama. Rehevkor ✉ 04:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

David Gergen

David Gergen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Roadrunnerkmh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User Roadrunnerkmh states he is employed as David Gergen's "internet manager" and has made multiple edits on Gergen's entry. If true, likely COF.

I don't see substantial issues with the content of Roadrunnerkmh's edits. What edits are problematic? Hipocrite (talk) 17:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Their most recent edit was actually a very good one, which removed a very negative fact from a BLP which was attributed to a NYT article that was later clarified as having unsubstantiated information in it. I've left the editor some advice on their talk page, but overall I agree with Hipocrite, I see no problems with their edits. -- Atama頭 17:11, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Bedford School & Chrisdearmer

Bedford School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Glebe House School & Nursery (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Chrisdearmer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has a LOT of edits to two schools and not much else looks like a ex-pupil. I am probably 3RR'ed out on Bedford School today removing peacock terms and prases - can someone else have a look. Codf1977 (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The editor self-indentified as Chris Dearmer. Chris can be seen here as being a member of a boat club affiliated with the Bedford School. That's a weak connection but a possible COI. As far as the Glebe House School and Nursery, this shows Chris as an organizer for a choir event there. So there does seem to be conflicts of interest at both articles, especially as he's trying to promote the choir in particular. -- Atama頭 17:31, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Update : The COI tag was removed today from the Bedford School by 80.177.186.73 which if you run a whois on comes back as Glebe House School. I have tagged User_talk:80.177.186.73 with the whois info, but looking at the Special:Contributions/80.177.186.73 they have been editing the Glebe House School & Nursery page. Codf1977 (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Patricia Hogan

The article has been written by Pat138hogan (talk · contribs). Despite the long list of publications, I don't really see much notability. Woogee (talk) 07:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:AUTO applies here. The notability will depend on WP:PROF, if those works of Hogan listed in the article are cited often by peers, then they could be considered notable. -- Atama頭 17:41, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Digital Asset Management

Jordanrgray (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - only edits in three years have been to spamlink and otherwise advertise a particular computer service provided by a firm whose owner, according to the Better Business Bureau listing, is one Jordan Gray. Orange Mike | Talk 19:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

This edit in particular is telling, and seems to be a confirmation of the COI. I think that the spam is more of a concern than the COI itself. My suggested response would be to give a final warning if another spam link is added, followed by an indefinite block. An account that is used solely for advertising gets little sympathy from me. -- Atama頭 19:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

DeRose articles and editors

Articles

Master DeRose (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - new article on creator of SwáSthya Yôga aka DeRose Method
SwáSthya Yôga (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - this was a stub article until this month when the accounts below expanded it

Accounts

DeRose London (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - new editor, SPA, with a borderline username violation, that indicates a coi with these articles.
Derosemethod (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - new editor, SPA, with a borderline username violation, that indicates a coi with these articles.
86.139.208.231 (talk · contribs) - new editor, SPA, London ip address - could be one of the editors above

I've removed DeRose London's edits to other articles as overly promotional edits complicated by a coi, and given him an uw-adv2 warning for his continued problematic edits after he was given a uw-coi message.

I've given Derosemethod a uw-adv2 warning as well for continuing to make problematic edits after he had been given a uw-coi-username message.

At this point, I'd like to find some editors fluent in Portuguese to help evaluate these articles against our notability criteria. Hopefully, the editors listed above will respond to the warnings on their talk pages in the meantime. --Ronz (talk) 21:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

DeRose London has responded [78], alleviating my concerns. --Ronz (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I am willing to help, but I would have to get a good grip on the notability criteria --Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Salt Spring Coffee Co. and Cmtremewen

Resolved

– Editor indef blocked. Rees11 (talk) 13:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Salt Spring Coffee Co. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Ctremewen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I tried to advise User:Cmtremewen that their various edits and content-additions to Salt Spring Coffee Co. were both SPAM and COI, but the user blanked my message from his/her talkpage - see User talk:Cmtremewen and this edit of that page. Same user had previously removed templates from the coffee company page, which has only survived two AFDs by helpful edits from experienced users such as User:KenWalker and User:Maclean25; the latter recently reversed my re-addition of the {{notability}} tag due to those previous fixes and teh failed AFDs, but since then User:Cmtremewen has continued with Spam/Own/COI edits, including blanking the article's talkpage and, as seen in this reversion by Maclean25, blanked whole sections he/she didn't like of the main article, including fixes and updates by other editors. The gall of the line on the usertalkpage "If content on this page is not authorized or created by the owners of the company then it is spam. This site has been compromised." is, to me, bizarre, and the same sentiment was expressed in the edit comment in this edit which says "Removal of material not submitted by the company". I think both a userban, and a revived AfD, are called for, but then I'm not an admin and, well, not known for my brevity or politesse. The article is, to me, blatant spam for an inconsequential coffee chain with delusions of its own importance, and the user is clearly completely without any sense of wikipedia guidelines, or interest in learning or obeying them...and User:Cmtremewen has edited no other article than the coffee company page and its discussion page, clearly a WP:SPA.Skookum1 (talk) 01:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Editor is now indef blocked as a spammer. Rees11 (talk) 16:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

DarkBlade4658 - GameZone

DarkBlade4658 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - User has been persistently adding content from GameZone reviews and previews to videogame articles, despite an editor there and being warned twice about the conflict of interest. I can provide specific diffs if necessary. Thanks! Fin ©™ 13:14, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

This is quite tricky. DarkBlade4658 has disclosed that they are an editor at GameZone and all the edits that I have checked were adding reviews from the site to articles. Whilst GameZone is presumably a reliable source, I'm not happy with an editor with a COI adding reviews all over the place. There are over 1000 links over the project to GameZone and DarkBlade has only made 100 edits so obviously others are adding them. Whatever happens to the links already in place, I would strongly suggest that DarkBlade stops adding more links to GameZone for the moment. Smartse (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

St. James' Settlement (Hong Kong)

St. James' Settlement (Hong Kong) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
2009076521fanpoyi09 (talk · contribs)
2009025027yuenloktung09 (talk · contribs)
2009578969laichukman09 (talk · contribs)
2009132703ipwaichingsandy09 (talk · contribs)

Came upon this one doing copyright cleanup (as usual), and it looks to be a very sincere and very unencyclopedic article about a charity in Hong Kong. It is being worked on by a series of WP:SPA contributors who are obviously interrelated, given their usernames. I've given them the standard COI notice, but I think the article could do with a look-over by somebody for neutrality and sourcing. I pulled some employee lists ([79]) under WP:NOTDIR, but I'm back to the backlog at copyright cleanup. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Knox College, Otago

Resolved

– Helpful feedback left on article's talk-page as requested. --Philtweir (talk) 21:31, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Knox College, Otago (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

While this article (on a New Zealand university college) has been extensively and informatively developed from a historical perspective, it has been left rather underdeveloped with regard to its functioning, idiosyncrasies and human history for quite some time and I've prepared a few proposals for changes to bring it into more rounded and into line with other articles on colleges at other collegiate universities.

However, as a current resident and recipient of a scholarship from this college (supplementary to a University PhD scholarship), as a consequence of being the nominated "Senior Tutor" (though not formally staff), I would be keen to check whether this brings me into a conflict of interest. I hope to demonstrate through the changes I've suggested and this declaration, that that is not the case and that I just happen to want to improve a Wikipedia article on a topic I know something about! While I would like to do something similar for the other colleges, my knowledge there is currently lacking (though please note that I've prepared samples of the Selwyn College, Otago and St Margaret's College, Otago articles using the new templates applied to the proposed Knox changes). If it is felt that this is a conflict of interest, I'll pop a Request Edit template on the talk page. Alternatively, if it felt that, provided I maintain WP:NPOV and edit as I would any other article, there isn't an issue, that would be even better.

For full details, please see the proposal under my user page or the article's talk page, which links there. Cheers! Philtweir (talk) 10:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel David Ryan

Resolved

– Article deleted and editor silent for a week. Rees11 (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel David Ryan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
98.225.201.233 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Urethra gauge (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) AfD

sudden massive editing burst on Urethra Gauging and similar topics. Seems to have clear COI, has not yet responded to attempts to communicate. Where now? DBaK (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried, but I'm close to rolling out {{uw-create}} if he keeps going... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and yes, quite. I am pretty sure it's good faith, but he's not getting it and he's not engaging with attempts to discuss it... he's edited his Talk page quite recently and one assumes must have seen all that stuff ... on the other hand he doesn't seem to be creating new articles either so maybe that has got through a bit ... DBaK (talk) 00:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: keeps going. Now creates articles including his favored link on talkpages instead of article-space. I've had it. uw-create-3 given. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a twofold problem here. Daniel doesn't seem able to properly communicate on Wikipedia, even on article and user talk pages he only writes external links or text that should go into an article. The other problem is the persistent advertising attempts. Urethra gauge has had the advertising information removed, so it doesn't necessitate a speedy deletion, but I don't know if it has hope as an article going forward. If Daniel makes one more attempt to advertise his device, I'll block indefinitely as a spam-only account if someone else doesn't do it first. I'd block him now if it wasn't for the fact that the urethra gauge article might have a slim chance of being notable. -- Atama頭 16:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I've been trying to be kind, and AGF, and so on, but it's tricky when there's effectively no communication taking place. And, indeed, there is I suppose the risk that rather than being an innocent new user thinking merely to tell the world of their device (my preferred view) there's also the risk that it's less innocent and more calculating than that and has to do with, perhaps, a desire to drive traffic to the website or manipulate its search engine results or whatever. I hate to be cynical about new people but clearly he can read and edit so he's either really not getting it in a very serious way - which I can empathize with - or choosing not to get it, which is not nice. Hmmm. DBaK (talk) 17:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: having said all that I should add that Daniel has currently stopped again, and has been stopped for a while, so maybe it's over? Best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 17:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Urethra Gauge seems to be a trademark, not a generic term.[80] And Daniel David Ryan has applied for a patent on it.[81] I think the article should be deleted as spam. Rees11 (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I think an AfD would be the best way to go about it. That way if the article is recreated in any form similar to the original it can be speedily deleted per G4. Although I do stand by my statement about blocking Daniel if he keeps trying to advertise his product. -- Atama頭 19:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Webcomic creator?

Could someone take a look at this editor's contributions? [82] 204.153.84.10 (talk) 22:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

See here, I think it has been well taken care of. -- Atama頭 16:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Diploma mill crusader?

This sockpuppet investigation resulted after an edit war between two groups of editors involved with the Washington International University article. One group was trying to spin negative information about the subject, while two other editors were assisting each other in trying keep negative information in the article, mainly about allegations that the institution is a diploma mill. The first group of editors, both as a result of the checkuser and other reasons, have been banned. I feel, however, that questions remain unresolved about the latter two editors who continue to edit.

One allegation raised during the sockpuppet investigation is that User:TallMagic is someone who actively works to discredit diploma mills, including doing so in Wikipedia. redacted per WP:OUTING

My question to the independent reviewers here is, if TallMagic is this same person who appears to be actively trying to discredit diploma mills, is it a COI for this account to be editing this subject on Wikipedia? Is any follow-up action appropriate here? Cla68 (talk) 06:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

You're trying to establish the real life identity and that makes me nervous although I can see why. Without commenting further on that, you've raised concerns about two editors but only mentioned one, I think you should state the problem with the second rather than leave it vague. As for the COI, I presume you are comparing this with editors like WMC? Dougweller (talk) 08:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I need to make one correction. Not all of the accused sockpuppeters were banned. Glasscity09 was cleared. Orlady appears also to concentrate on exposing diploma mills via Wikipedia in conjunction with TallMagic, but I have no opinion on whether a COI might exist with Orlady. I'm not comparing this situation with any other editor, just asking the experienced editors who frequent this board to examine the situation and give their opinions on whether there is any cause for concern or anything that should be done here. Cla68 (talk) 13:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

We should be grateful that an expert on the disingenuous tactics employed by the reasonably repulsive diploma mill "industry" is willing to help maintain Wikipedia as an accurate and reliable reference work that neutrally and accurately states the unvarnished facts about diploma mills. Hipocrite (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I was not notified about this discussion, although I see that I am being accused here.

For the record, other than having graduated from several well-regarded fully accredited schools, I have no real-life interaction with educational accreditation, diploma mills, or related matters.

I first got involved with Wikipedia articles related to the topic of accreditation in 2007 after receiving a message from another user who questioned the credibility of a particular U.S. accrediting organization. I concluded that it was a legitimate accreditation agency for primary and second schools, but not for tertiary institutions, and edited the article and replied to that effect to the other user, but that experience led me to become interested in the problems of explaining in Wikipedia how accreditation works (particularly in the U.S., but also worldwide) and researching/documenting the status of entities that represent themselves as academic institutions and/or accreditation agencies, but appear to exist only as websites. Along the way, I've learned a lot about accreditation and about how to find out about the status of an educational institution. In pursuit of this interest, I've interacted often with TallMagic, whose knowledge of the topic dwarfs mine. The fact that he and I have both edited a lot of the same articles does not mean that we are working together -- and I wouldn't recognize him (nor would he recognize me) if our cars collided on the highway.

I've also interacted often with single-purpose accounts whose only "contributions" involved repeatedly changing the text of one specific article from something along the general lines of "Stupendous University is an unaccredited provider of distance education that does business from a post office box at the South Pole...[reliable sources cited]" to "Stupendous University is a world-class educational institution that is renowned for the quality of its programs and the success of its graduates...[only source an EL to stupendousuniversity.com]", and several of those SPA contributors have accused me of POV-pushing, COI, etc. -- I figure that it comes with the territory.

The case cited by Cla68 appears to have been a rare instance of an unaffiliated good-faith contributor (Glasscity09) running across some edits by a SPA, echoing and expanding upon the SPA's criticisms of the article based on his/her own investigations, and inadvertently "inspiring" further involvement by other accounts that may have been SPAs, but more likely were persons intent on disrupting Wikipedia for the purpose of disrupting Wikipedia. --Orlady (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Orlady has been editing Wikipedia for 6 years, in good standing (no real blocks), and has been an admin for a year, with almost 800 articles created and over a dozen barnstars. I'm not really concerned about her. ;)

And honestly, I have to side with Hipocrite here. I'm confused about the concerns of people "discrediting" diploma mills; that's like saying that someone is trying to ruin the reputation of a felon by mentioning their felonies in an article. I suppose anyone that's on a "crusade" about anything, trying to expose "THE TRUTH" is going to cause problems no matter what the subject. But honestly, any institution that truly is a diploma mill isn't going to have a very positive article if given proper treatment. I've looked over the talk page of the article, and the pro-WIU arguments are ridiculous in large part, complaining about bringing up "old laundry" about the institution. -- Atama頭 15:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I must echo Hipocrite and Atama's confusion - how can ensuring accuracy by someone who has some knowledge on the subject be a COI? COI is I wrote a book, let me tell you how wonderful it is (and delete all negative comments) it isn't expert contributions to the betterment of Wikipedia content-wise and NPOV-wise. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 15:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

My edits stand on their own. This person is not attacking my edits which cover many articles instead they appear to me to be attempting to attack me as a person. I edit Wikipedia in areas that I'm familar with. I'm familar with accreditation and unaccredited institutions. I primarily edit both accredited and unaccredited educational institution articles. There are just far more edits in unaccredited articles because that is where vandelism is most frequent. If a police officer decided to edit Wikipedia in article topics that he was familar in say crime, would that be conflict of interest? What kind of conflict of interest am I being accused of here? It is a vague and unfounded accusation. I suggest that Cla68 either puts together a list of my edits that violates Wikipedia policy or they prove that I'm affiliated with some accredited/unaccredited institution or they apologize. I am also dismayed that the admins here are allowing what appears to me to be attempted wp:OUTING. These vague accusations are just sad in my opinion. TallMagic (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

TallMagic has correctly detected an odor of wp:OUTING in this discussion, in effect continuing an effort by a now-blocked user. The sockpuppetry case has already been blanked. I'd like to request (on another user's the behalf) the same treatment for portions of Cla68's first post here. --Orlady (talk) 16:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

We are allowed to out editors on this board, because that is how a COI is frequently established. If anyone doubts this, please look through this board's archives, in spite of what the banner above the editing window says. Nevertheless, I was careful not to mention the account's off-wiki name, which may, in any case, be a pseudonym. Besides, the editor had created an account under the "real" name, so no actual outing is occurring. Anyway, I think I need to remind everyone who has responded so far that Wikipedia doesn't take sides on the subjects it reports on. We, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, don't care if diploma mills are getting away with fooling the public. So, if someone who is actively involved in discrediting diploma mills decides to use Wikipedia to do so, then we should be concerned about it. Orlady and TallMagic ask if any of their edits are problematic, well, here you go. If negative information about the school was removed from the Oregon database, most likely by a legal challenge, it is a violation of NPOV to report on it in the article. Now, should Wikipedia play host to a campaign by an advocate or activist? Is that what we're here for? Cla68 (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Outing is never allowed even here. You may be thinking of cases of self-identification. "Posting another person's personal information is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." I'm not sure this is a case of voluntary posting, it looks like a mistake to me. Rees11 (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Cla86, continuing to push this is not wise, as outing an editor is grounds for an immediate block. Outing someone without realizing it was a violation is one thing, being told to not do so and insisting that it's okay to do so is really pushing it. I've redacted the information, don't restore it. -- Atama頭 00:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Cla68, you say, "most likely by a legal challenge". You believe that to be true based on? ... on what? Oh, based on nothing but your own wild guess? I have great respect and appreciation of Wikipedia. I do my best to try to produce the best article that I can. Seldom is there a chance to add positive information to an article on these unaccredited institutions. When I do run into that chance I don't hesitate to do that. [83]TallMagic (talk) 00:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It hardly requires saying, but of course Atama and Hipocrite are correct. I suppose one might write something like "I have reason to believe that in real life X works for Y", but any form of outing (such as linking to a wiki or external page with clues about a real life identity) is prohibited.

While POV-pushers can be irritating, there is a strong distinction between someone interested in, say, someone promoting a particular political POV (where validity can never be established), and someone promoting the exposure of documented cases of fraud. A quick scan of User talk:TallMagic shows that editors should be grateful that TallMagic is helping to remove unwarranted promotions from articles seeking to portray diploma mills as top-rate educational institutions. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with John above. Whether a COI is in effect should be judged on edits, and I don't see anything wrong with TallMagic's edits. The outing, though, seems to be a problem. Cla86, it clearly says "When investigating possible cases of COI editing, Wikipedians must be careful not to out other editors." on the edit page for this board. Dayewalker (talk) 00:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Good grief guys, this account self-identified by naming his/her first account after their "real" name, then later started using an alternate account and signed an edit by the first account using the second account. Isn't that illegal socking? Does that sound above board or like there might be something to hide? Cla68 (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, these two accounts were editing at the same time. That isn't a problem for any of you? Cla68 (talk) 01:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, well, I've filed an SPI request. Cla68 (talk) 01:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay Cla68, I don't know what put a bee under your bonnet regarding me. But you've stretched my ability to assume good faith to the breaking point. Please stop your personal attacks. I didn't request that your account be blocked for harassment simply because after looking at your contributions to the encyclopedia I was impressed and pleased. However, at this point let me just say PLEASE STOP YOUR PERSONAL ATTACKS AND HARASSMENTS!!! Sincerely, TallMagic (talk) 04:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The SPI request has been closed, no attempt to deceive. I concur. Dougweller (talk) 05:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

COI Edits Swami Sivananda Radha

Resolved

– article deleted via AfD Smartse (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Swami Sivananda Radha (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Yasodhara (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
207.194.70.105 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Are the only users on this article except for matniece edits that added tags, 6(?) articles Created all praising this Guru. Curently her page is the only one left of those. After i slapped the COI tag Yasodohara went dormant, the ip how ever continued. The Ip according to the Geolocate Tool traces back to the vicinity of where this woman's Commune/Retreat in canada. Very suspicous Weaponbb7 (talk) 18:31, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yasodhara is the name of Swami Sivananda Radha's ashram, so that does seem to be a COI, although as you say Yasodhara has not edited recently. The article is up for deletion. Rees11 (talk) 23:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

i know the Ip popped up at the discusion, Thats why i brought it here Weaponbb7 (talk) 02:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The article was deleted at AfD so I'm marking this as resolved. Smartse (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Dpyb and autobiography found by aosasti

Dpyb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Dionne Brand (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Article about Canadian poet Dionne Brand seems to be in violation of conflict of interest since it seems it is being entirely edited by the author herself or users with few other contributions to Wikipedia.

Dionne Brand —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aosasti (talk • contribs)

Someone really should look at this. The article reads somewhat like a resume, with an exhaustive list of the author's works. Editor continues to edit after being given a COI warning, and doesn't put meaningful comments on edit summaries. Editor has not responded to COI either on her talk page or the article talk page. Rees11 (talk) 15:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Gallet & Co.

Resolved

– Editor denies COI and is conforming to relevant policies. Rees11 (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Gallet & Co. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Flying Officer Chronograph (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Galletgroup (talk · contribs)

This well organized, beautifully illustrated, carefully referenced article, an example of some of our best work in all other regards, appears to have been written by its subject. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not that good. I've seen worse, but it's full of unsourced peacock words and has a generally promotional tone to it. The user name probably should be changed as it's obviously promotional. The editor has a couple of copyvio notices on his talk page. I'll leave a COI warning. Rees11 (talk) 20:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, the editor seems to admit to a COI, as he claims to hold the copyright on many of the images used in the article, images that apparently belong to the subject of the article. Rees11 (talk) 20:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to need some help with this. The editor has created a ~~whole slew of~~ few articles connected with his company and edited several others, and I've found one copyright violation so far, in addition to the dubious status of the images. Can someone help look into all this? Rees11 (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

For the past 30 years I have been working in the capacity of an amateur timekeeping historian and have contributed my personal research to a number of related publications. As the oldest watch and clock manufacturer, Gallet has been of particular interest to me to a point that borders on obsession. Besides having acquired the one of the world’s largest collection of their vintage timepieces, I probably possess the most extensive reference library of documents on the company’s history. As a result, I have found myself in the unique position of providing the bulk of the images and content that appears on the Gallet Company’s website, as well as the Wikipedia subject page. As such, the matter of copyrights is not a personal concern in this case. That said, I am relatively new to Wikipedia and am still learning the process. The recent issues that have arisen are a blessing, as they have pushed me around the learning curve to quickly become a more effective editor and contributor for Wikipedia. I am also addressing the matter of changing my username to better comply with Wikipedia policies. Thank you for everyone’s help. Galletgroup (talk) 02:34, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This article was not written by the subject of the article I am not affiliated with the subject in any professional capacity, and have never received any sort of compensation from the subject except for a thank you for the donation of my personally authored works and images for use on both Wikipedia and the subject’s website. For over 30 years, I have been an amateur timekeeping historian, even though my words and images have been copied and utilized in numerous publications, both in print and on the web. The assumption that I am closely affiliated with the subject of the article is understandable due to my unusual level of knowledge and enthusiasm with the subject, and I greatly appreciate the concern of others for maintaining the quality and integrity of Wikipedia. With this said, I wish to have the COI and advert tags removed from this article. Time Maven (talk) 16:04, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to believe that you don't have a conflict of interest in this case. However, please be aware of our policy on original research. If you want to use your own words that have been officially published, that is allowable per WP:COS, but use caution in doing so. Keep in mind, also, that you don't have to be affiliated with Gallet for what you have written to be considered an advertisement, any information that is unduly promotional either in tone or with specific "peacock words" as mentioned above by Rees11 can be considered advertisement. Other editors should be willing to help you with such problems at the articles you edit. This is, after all, a collaborative project and everyone who edits in good faith is more than welcome, especially a person with expertise who can help us find reliable sources to add more verifiable information to such articles. -- Atama頭 00:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

So you're not affiliated but you are the copyright holder of trademarks the company used 131 years ago? Rehevkor ✉ 04:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I think there are still problems with copyrights on the images. There was also a hunk of text copied from the company's web site, which the editor claims he wrote and contributed to the company's web site. It all seems very suspect but I'm still willing to assume good faith at this point. Rees11 (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The editor is engaged on the talk pages, has changed his user name, is observing the relevant policies, denies COI, and is working to fix the copyright problems. I'd like to mark this "resolved" if no one objects. Rees11 (talk) 21:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Medifast1

Resolved

– Username spamblocked. – ukexpat (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Medifast1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be a SPA and in violation of the username policy. He clumsily added some content to Medifast in Feb. that probably should have been caught by the edit filter, but wasn't. Cites corporate websites where an independent source would be preferred. It either needs to be cleaned up or simply reverted to the Jan. 11 version. 69.221.163.227 (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I've done a quick clean up, the article is still a mess but it is better than before. The username would be blocked if we spotted it when it was created but won't be now. Thanks for posting here to bring it to our attention. Smartse (talk) 15:52, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Why shouldn't it be blocked now? Where does it say that if you have a CORPNAME, but manage to avoid detection as such for some period, that you cannot be blocked? This is pretty blatant and I have reported it to WP:UAA. – ukexpat (talk) 17:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Nezzo, Equilar refspam, and paid editing?

Equilar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Latinsavedlatin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Nezzo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
equilar.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

An apparent single purpose account, User:Latinsavedlatin, has racked up 77 edits, all of which appear to be WP:REFSPAM, inserting links to equilar.com as citations. In some cases, this includes replacing more direct sources with Equilar webpages, which almost certainly do not meet our criteria for reliable sourcing. My feeling is the editor in question should be asked to cease adding these links, all of the existing links should be removed, and prior reliable sources should be restored. I wanted to be sure this was the proper course of action, and the likely conflict of interest seemed to be most problematic? jæs (talk) 00:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The more I dig, the stranger this seems. The articles for Equilar, TuVox, and VisiStat were all created or significantly edited by User:Nezzo, who is apparently a "web marketing professional" and who appears, from a simple web search, to have been employed by at least two of those three companies. That same account has also inserted links throughout Wikipedia, sometimes en masse, for each of those three companies. Other single-purpose accounts related to these three companies are User:CDwrites (who is apparently employed by VisiStat and originally created their article here) and User:Ck415 (who has solely inserted numerous links to Equilar). jæs (talk) 03:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive555#Problem, looks like people found Ck415's edits to be problematic before. Smartse (talk) 09:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Certainly the ones where Latinsavedlatin replaced a reliable source with his own web site should be reverted. The ones where he added info that wasn't there before, I'm not sure about. Either way it's a big job, we might even need a bot to clean this up. There is a COI template on his talk page but someone should try to engage him directly. Rees11 (talk) 11:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Based on that ANI thread, I suspect there were many other articles that were eventually deleted due to copyvio, Smartse? I agree with you completely on undoing any edits that removed reliable sourcing, Rees11, but I've also come to feel that any and all of these external links should be removed. First, they are nowhere near reliable by our standards. Second, they were spammed here. Third, given almost all (if not all) of these articles are BLPs, I'd frankly rather have no source (and, if necessary, no content) than an absolutely unreliable refspam. In any event, if these facts are accurate, they can easily be cited using the publicly-available primary source documents available from the SEC. jæs (talk) 20:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'm the person who has been doing these edits, and yes, I do work for Equilar. You guys may consider this spam, but the fact of the matter is that if we don't add this information (which we also provided to the New York Times, and which they published on Sunday: http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation), no one else is going to add it-- no one on Wikipedia seems to really care about this subject, considering that over half of the Top 200 CEOs don't even have their own pages. Isn't it more of an instrumental good that people have the data on the subject within their reach? We're clearly the leading reference on this subject (look up the company name in Google News to see how many times we were cited as a reference just in the past three days), and the information is independent of the companies and unbiased. It's not like we're adding a bunch of advertising; we're just referencing the pages, which in 90% of the cases was already done for the 2008 figures on a given CEO's page.

Why cite us instead of the Times? Well, our information is much more detailed and complex than the condensed version the Times published, with past-year info and graphs. In the case of the Iger entry, I thought our info was better and more detailed than what was there before, which only linked to the proxy statement-- you're going to have to spend a ton of time searching through that giant PDF to find less information than what we provide plainly on one page). If you want to delete all the work I put in, go ahead: I can't stop you. But no one else is going to go in and put in correct and up-to-date information, guaranteed.

Side note: Nezzo is someone who used to work here; I have no idea who CK415 is, nor does anyone else here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Latinsavedlatin (talk • contribs) 22:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello Latinsavedlatin, I very strongly suggest you read this article which is from a public relations magazine explaining why using Wikipedia to advertise is a very bad idea from a business perspective. My guess is that it's part of your job to spread the word about Equilar (marketing) but Wikipedia is not a good place to do it. If your only interest is truly in correcting inaccuracies, you can do so on the talk page of your company's article, which is completely within our conflict of interest guideline (it's not only allowed, but encouraged). Other editors will be far more receptive if you do so. Thank you for participating in this discussion. -- Atama頭 00:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The article you linked to here contains the following paragraph: "Wikidpedia [sic] has laid down guidelines to prevent what it construes as an abuse of its resources, and states that to qualify for inclusion, the business must be the subject of multiple non-trivial works whose source is independent of the company itself, listed on ranking indices of important companies produced by independent publications or used to calculate stock market indices."

Our company is the subject of multiple non-trivial works whose sources are independent of the company. Our research is used by the U.S. Treasury. Our research is prominently featured in major packages done by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Financial Times, Fortune, and over 40 other newspapers. CNBC discusses our research on television. I think that's a pretty non-trivial and independent group of sources. The media calls us for information on these stories, and not the other way around. http://www.equilar.com/Executive_Compensation_Equilar_In_The_News.php

You didn't address any of the things I said above. Who is going to update the content on these pages if we don't? I understand that you don't want people advertising on this site, but considering that no less a publication than the New York Times uses us as its source, I think our role in this sphere is extremely non-trivial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Latinsavedlatin (talk • contribs) 16:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You are in a role not dissimilar to, say, LexisNexis or even Gartner and other companies. Sourcing is a very important issue, and one of our principles is relying on the editorial judgment of publications, periodicals, journals, and so forth. While your research and compilation of data is being used by highly reputable reliable sources, that does not, in turn, make your company an acceptable primary source for direct citation on Wikipedia. The best citations, by our standards, is your research being cited in The New York Times, or, barring that, the direct primary sources of the proxy statements and other filings from the companies themselves. Your role to The New York Times is certainly not trivial and is obviously a measure of success on the part of your company, but our position here isn't a reflection of the quality or integrity of your work. Our policies on sourcing were not written to try to exclude your company in particular, they were designed to try to ensure Wikipedia itself is not used for original research (among other reasons). Your company is exactly that, a company that specializes in research. I hope this helps clarify. jæs (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Latinsavedlatin has confused notability (of an article's subject) with reliability (of a source). Rees11 (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, these links should be removed. This is a spam campaign, plain and simple. - MrOllie (talk) 18:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

If he doesn't "get it" mighty soon, suggest an indef block. In the sense of indef until he agrees to behave and play by our rules.(unsigned by Wehwalt)

First of all, I'm not planning on editing any more pages until this gets resolved, so there's no need to block me. I am just trying to understand your byzantine rules (which greatly challenge the notion of this being "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit," considering that all these governance entries you cite are basically unreadable-- and this is coming from a graduate of a top school).

I greatly understand your need to keep overt advertising off the site. But the New York Times and other media outlets are businesses themselves. Furthermore, links to those sources are filled with advertisements. Ours are not. Simply put, we are enriching these entries in a non-commercial manner. Compensation of executives is a critical subject, and if we don’t spend the time to enrich your entries, Wikipedia itself will lose out, since no one else will. While you may call this "spam" in your rules, this is not spam as the general public would define it; in my opinion, you are using the term flippantly and recklessly. It is 100% contextual to the subject being discussed, and we are making every attempt to serve readers with useful content (which spam, as the layman would describe it, is not). Additionally, there is specific IP in our complex methodology to compute executive compensation – that IP is why the NY Times, CNN, Fox, WSJ, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Reuters and countless media come to us for support. There is a reason why these publications don’t simply cite “proxy statements” as a source. We have information and computational resources that can't simply be found in a proxy. --latinsavedlatin (talk) 19:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand your perspective, but we do not permit those who have a COI under these circumstances to directly make such an edit. You are free, of course, to draw other editor's attention to the proposed link on the article talk page, and advocate that it be done, of course disclosing your COI. Many thanks, --Wehwalt (talk) 19:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I still believe that the site as a whole won't benefit from this decision, but I won't edit any more pages from this point forward. I'm aware that this is a difficult site to moderate and I wish you the best. --latinsavedlatin (talk) 20:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

[1] ttp://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/notices/lctbd.jsp

[2] ttp://www.uspto.gov/products/catalog/trademark_products/page2.jsp

[3] ttp://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=trademarkia

[4] ttp://www.google.com/intl/en/toolbar/ie/features.html#pagerank

[5] ttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/trademarkia.com

[6] ttp://www.quantcast.com/trademarkia.com

[7] ttp://delicious.com/url/d8d2fdee14b9f1d011817ef8ad855dbf

[8] ttp://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=trademarkia

[9] ttps://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/

[10] ttps://www.calbar.ca.gov

[11] ttp://www.linkedin.com/in/uspatentattorney

[12] ttp://www.trademarkia.com/about-trademarkia/about-us.aspx

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]