User talk:24.163.255.34

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please stop reverting the Angie's List article without any attempt to discuss the issues you see with it. Why do you insist on having non-neutral language without providing a source? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding what you said on my talk page, I don't know what makes you think I could be affiliated with Angie's List. I have not expressed any "positions", and my edits to the article have all been in line with an effort to ensure that the article complies with Wikipedia policies and guidelines such as maintaining verifiability by citing reliable sources, reducing or eliminating original research, and rephrasing both overly positive and overly negative statements so that the verifiable information is stated neturally and is as readable as possible with decent spelling and punctuation. This is the same sort of thing that I do for any Wikipedia article I edit; I copyedit, look for and cite sources, request citations where there are none, remove original research, and look for compromise language that reflects a netural point of view.
Regarding what you said on the article talk page, per the verifiability policy, and the reliable sources and external links guidelines, yes I should have removed those links. However, those claims have now been reprinted in a newspaper, which is a reliable source, and I have re-added them to the article with a reference to said newspaper. When you said on the talk page that I should not have removed those links, even though I was certian that I was right to do so, I asked at the villiage pump for other opinions. Foxhill explained better than I probably can why links to forums are not considered reliable sources. Here is what he said,

In my opinion you are correct to remove these links as per WP:RS#Bulletin boards, wikis and posts to Usenet. However these claims have been published in a newspaper [1] (specifically referencing a blog [2] and one other source) which really should have been what the original poster looked for. Sure it just restates elements of those forum posts verbatim but it's from a reliable source.

No public forums or other means of non-controlled, open and potentially inflammatory or libellous content should be used as a source for a person or company; it wouldn't take me 2 seconds to find a forum posting saying (for example) "microsoft sucks" and it also wouldn't take me more than 2 seconds to find a reliable published mass-media source for the same. I could if I wished even write the post myself and reference it into the article. The source has to be verifiable or more importantly responsible for their actions. Most areas of mass-media and publishing have Codes of Practice and oversight bodies, they are accountable for their actions if they mis-state facts or publish erroneous or otherwise inflammatory items. Books, journals, news media and even large websites are likely to have lawsuits thrown at them like confetti if they printed wildly unfounded statements that could be easily refuted or found to be baseless. Individual small web forums are not. If the comments on a forum are deemed notable enough for inclusion as a cited source, then surely they should be notable enough to have been reported in a WP:RS.

As for your statement that, "...their is a case to be made that the whole article is merely an advertisement. You don't suppose that's why there is an Angie's List employee on this site checking on it" in my experience on Wikipedia, articles about companies are the hardest type of article to beat into and manintain in a netural shape. Beacuse anyone can edit Wikipedia companies will always try to use it to promote themselves and their products. Look at the recent flap about Microsoft hiring a blogger to "fix errors" in the article about Vista [3]. Likewise there isn't a company out there that doesn't have at least one customer who had a bad experience and feels ripped off and considers the company evil. Such people will always try to edit the Wikipedia article to make the company look bad. Look at this version of another article, for example. The whole thing is nothing but unsourced "controversy" and a section on lawsuits the company has been in which reads like it was written by someone upset by the conversion from free-licensed to copywrited that the company underwent. Nike, Inc. is also heavily critical, but there's a difference in that all of the criticism in that article is sourced to reliable sources. Just because an employee of the company is "checking on it" does not make it an advertisement. Also, turning the article into nothing but a bash-the-company fest does not make it neutral. An advertisement is what this article was before I worked on it. No version of the Angie's List article has been nearly that bad.
Regarding the section you added on "Membership Data & Financial Information" I would suggest you read the policy on original research. Basically, Wikipedia articles are only supposed to parrot information found elsewhere and leave readers to draw their own conclusions. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to draw conclusions for the readers. When you say such things in an article as, "...leaving one to only speculate..." and, "...expenses are likely significant and likely to include..." you are, essentially, making an analysis of the facts presented which is by definition original research. If you can find someplace where someone else has made such an analysis and published it in a reliable source, then of course it should be in the article; but if you are putting two and two together in your own head and coming up with 4 (or 5, or 6, or whatever) then you should have enough confidence in your readers to think that they are not stupid and can put two and two together to come up with 4 all on their own; and if they are stupid enough that they cannot do that then it is not Wikipedia's place to do it for them. Moreover, the data you are using to draw these conclusions is the data in the article, and your conclusions have changed as I and others have updated the article with newer information, thereby demonstrating that you are not even trying to do your own research or find reliable sources on your own. Hence, if you could read that information between the lines in the article, what makes you think other people can't? And if other people can, then why do you feel it is necessary to come right out and state it?
Do you understand where I'm coming from now? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your edit summary for this edit, what do you mean, "unilaterally removed by ONUnicorn without discussion"? My edit summary said, "removed original research" and I went to great lengths to explain here on your talk page why that is original research and why I removed it. Looking at the time stamp that was nearly two hours before you restored it; certainly enough time for you to read and respond to my message. So I don't understand what you mean by that edit summary. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../2/4/2E/User_talk%7E24.163.255.34.html"