Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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[edit] A header

Just to remind people that there may be a more appropriate message...

Warning Before posting, please make sure that this is the most appropriate place.

For articles written about a person, group, club or band by such person, group, club or band with no assertion of notability can be tagged with {{db-bio}} instead.

Obvious cases of corporate vanity can be tagged with {{db-spam}} instead.

Commercial usernames may be reported at WP:AIV or blocked on sight.

Any comments before I add this to the header? MER-C 11:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Perhaps a pointer to the BLP noticeboard would also be helpful. -Will Beback · † · 19:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
"Issues with biographies of living persons may be more suited to the biographies noticeboard" How's that sound? MER-C 11:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. -Will Beback · † · 19:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback

I removed the edits by McGrandWizard. because he's been blocked as a sockpuppet of indef-blocked user Mykungfu, who's had a long-running vendetta against Ccson. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Reappeared as an IP. Closed and archived. MER-C 02:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modified Luxury & Exotics

I did the COI report on the Modified Luxury & Exotics article yesterday. The article's now gone (CSD G11). What about the rest of the edits by User:Luxury&Exotics (see their contributions) that were basically self-promotion for the Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine? For just one example, see this edit to Fisker Coachbuild. (An article that has multiple problems, including a copyright notice for someone else's quote!).

I reported the problems here because the editor had started reverting my removal of their promotional edits, and I HATE edit wars. BlankVerse 04:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. MER-C 05:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corporate vanity link.

The notice in the header, "Obvious cases of corporate vanity can be tagged with {{db-spam}} instead", contains an external link that is off-topic. It's about logos and trademarks. Is there something more appropriate it should be linking to instead? ✤ JonHarder talk 03:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the one which may have been intended is this one, which seems to have a more permanent location here. I added the second one to the COI/N header template, because lists/mail wikimedia posts (like the one you noticed, and the first one I found) migrate mysteriously. — Athænara ✉ 07:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aliweb

I first asked on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Aliweb about solutions to the problem on Aliweb. It was recommended there that I post to WP:COI/N, which I did three days ago (Aliweb thread here). The main problem editor (one or more with at least six socks) has returned. Nothing has stopped him or slowed him down. Two questions: (1) is WP:COI/N the right place? (2) if it isn't, what place is? Athænara ✉ 10:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

(Answering my own post.) It was the right place. No specific action was taken, but the exposure of the issues on the noticeboard may have been an influence. The aliweb.com socks eventually ceased the previous pattern they'd established of repeatedly reverting encyclopedic changes to Aliweb and berating other editors at length on Talk:Aliweb. — Athænara ✉ 22:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing sections

Can someone explain why this page doesn't allow editing of sections individually? --Ideogram 09:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It does. Right now I am editing this section, and only this section. Does it show up on other pages, but not this? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
No, I mean the project page corresponding to this talk page. --Ideogram 09:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard allows me to edit sections as well, for example [1]. Sorry, I can't explain why it doesn't for you. What WP skin do you use? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 10:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Huh, don't know why I didn't see that before. Maybe I was confused by the fact there's no "+" at the top to add a new section. --Ideogram 10:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So peaceful

I didn't realize how peaceful this noticeboard was until I happened upon WP:BLP/N. *shudder* --Iamunknown 04:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

And that backlog—184 active reports! — Athænara ✉ 06:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, things are only painful when we whack people on the head with a cluebat. I guess being outed here is an effective deterrent and they try to cover up their actions. As for WP:BLP/N, I just wish I wasn't the only one doing the archiving. MER-C 08:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, OK. You aren't quite, any more. Down to 148 a few minutes ago! I'm not looking at the thing again until the earth has turned at least 120° on its axis. — Athænara ✉ 14:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LaRouche/Dking conflict of interest

→ (The message below was posted to my talk page. I moved it here for more exposure.) — Æ.

I'm sorry -- I didn't see your comment/question, and then quickly thereafter someone decided the case was inactive and boxed it. Are you asking for diffs on examples where editors were accused of having pro-LaRouche secret agendas, because they raised the issue of Dking and COI? I would be happy to provide them. Incidentally, the other editor in question was User:172, not the anonymous editor you were looking at. Please tell me specifically what you need, and also, is it permissable to restore this section on the COI noticeboard? The matter is certainly not closed. --Tsunami Butler 04:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

172 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) has not edited the LaRouche article since 21:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)—over four months ago—and has not posted on the talk page (at least since June 2006 in the page history, which is as far back as I looked).
n.b.  That edit was an encyclopedic removal of COI larouchepub.com and larouchepac.com links.
Your last post said: "Input from neutral editors would be helpful." My input (more than a day before boxing the section—hardly "quickly"—which was not archived until several hours after it was boxed) included: "In addition, I read about fifteen Dking diffs. I am neutral. I don't think there's a case here."
If MER-C, Jossi, Ed Johnston, Iamunknown, and others overseeing WP:COI/N deem it appropriate, the section can be un-archived. My own view is that the issue was defunct for more than one month before it was placed in the archive. — Athænara ✉ 06:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no one has been editing the LaRouche article much, since it was protected due to edit warring back on January 17. The edits I refer to by User:172 actually appear on other talk pages, where he followed one editor in particular who had raised the issue of Dking and COI. See Talk:Rafael Correa#Deletion of Correa's comments on IMF and Washington Consensus. However, particularly objectionable was the bullying of User:Pascal.Tesson on the LaRouche talk page by User:Dking (diff,) and the insinuation by User:Will Beback that editors who raised the COI issue were paid by LaRouche (diff.) --Tsunami Butler 15:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In re the two diffs (both more than one week ago), quotes:
  • 1st: "26 out of 68 citations" countered the claim that "a majority of the sources are linked to these two editors"
  • 2nd: "What's most important is that everyone stick to making NPOV edits that summarize reliable sources, and to being civil with each other."
The article talk page section cited is an example of consensus building to improve an article.
User conduct and article content can be addressed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment (sections: Request comment on users, Request comment on articles). Personally, I don't recommend either one if the problem is simply one of not liking editor consensus. — Æ. ✉ 22:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need this noticeboard to continue study of this issue. WP:COI emphasizes behavior in which an editor promotes himself, suppresses negative information about himself (or his organization), or criticizes competitors. The analogy would be if Dennis King were to write about himself on Wikipedia. What's been offered here are some complaints about Dennis King's editing behavior, that appear to concern different views about a controversial character, Lyndon LaRouche. I doubt that whatever King may write about LaRouche on Wikipedia is intended to make King more famous as a real-world person or increase sales of his books. No comments have been quoted here to that effect on this noticeboard. Also I should note that Tsunami Butler has heavily availed himself of Wikipedia's complaint facilities over the last six months. He has filed a case with the Mediation Cabal, one that is still in progress, seeming to cover many of the same issues he raised here. He has used Wikiquette alerts (complaining about Dking), and the BLP noticeboard. He has made lengthy postings to a Talk page at Arbcom to complain about restrictions imposed in previous LaRouche decisions. He has even written directly to Jimbo Wales. Since there doesn't seem to be a COI here in the conventional sense, I think that the right thing to do is for us to close the issue. In the future we should perhaps be more active in asking about previous noticeboard postings, when an issue arrives here. EdJohnston 03:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

(Point of information: I am a "she.") It is my contention that Dking is a problem editor who has gotten into huge fights on virtually every article he has edited, due to very aggressive pushing of his POV, which invariably takes the form of self-citing (which I believe to be self-promotion.)
I also believe that there are many, many problems with the LaRouche article, and as I understand it, Wikipedia considers heavily biased editing to be a particular problem on articles which are biographies of living persons. There seems to a sort of inertia about getting these problems addressed, and they do seem to be covered by very specific Wikipedia policies. I don't know what course of action would be more appropriate than reporting policy violations on the noticeboards, and I'm open to suggestion. (The mediation cabal seemed like a fall-back of sorts, while I wait for someone to enforce policy. Also, the LaRouche article is hopelessly deadlocked and protected at this time.) --Tsunami Butler 14:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Tsunami, could you list, clearly and succinctly, what the problems are, so that people can take a look at them? Or if that's too much work, perhaps list two or three, so we can get the general flavor of the concerns. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
It's very simple. Dking's edits of this article have been highly tendentious and have consisted mainly of importing material from his book into the article, material which is not factual in nature, but more in the nature of Conspiracy theory, alleging that there are esoteric coded messages in LaRouche's writings and so on. These theories are not widely accepted, and therefore it is my view that aggressively inserting them into Wikipedia is a form of self-promotion which is not permitted under WP:COI. --Tsunami Butler 01:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about the rest, but I agree that User:Dking shouldn't be editing the article because of close relationship to the topic, i.e. as a long-time high-profile critic of Larouche. It doesn't matter that these edits aren't promoting King; WP:COI includes the possibility that a "close relationship" may be an antagonistic one (Legal antagonists ... articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with). Tearlach 17:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
King has written the only significant biography of LaRouche that I know of, which is used by all major news organizations that write about LaRouche. The relationship is antagonistic, at least in part, because the LaRouche organization tries to discredit him in order to discredit the book, but that's not something we should pay any attention to. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Of the 19 items open on the COI noticeboard at this moment, the great majority concern editors who may be writing to promote the interest of the subject of a particular article. In these cases there is a real-life connection between the editor and the organization, and the editor is hoping to promote the organization. Any potential misbehavior of Dking (not described above except in quite vague, general terms and without providing diffs) is not reasonably interpreted as protecting the interests of a person or organization written about in Wikipedia. Moreover, I don't see the logic of relentlessly taking advantage of multiple complaint venues at the same time for apparently the same complaint. I'd still favor keeping this issue closed as a COI. Given that the LaRouche article is still 100% protected, and any edits have to be approved on the Talk page, the risk of Dking hurting that article seems limited. EdJohnston 02:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
The complaints may overlap to an extent, as do Wikipedia editing guidelines, but they are not the "same complaint." Dking is editing in violation of multiple policies. Here is one characteristic diff that relates to WP:COI#Citing oneself: diff. In this example he adds a substantial chunk of material. There are many, many other edits where he adds small segments of self-cited material. Of course, as long as the article remains protected, he won't be adding more; I have listed this on the noticeboard in hopes that pressure may be brought to bear by the community, so that the article may be unprotected without the same behavior erupting again. --Tsunami Butler 08:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help Needed

The article Anti-Iranian sentiments needs a LOT of help. I am almost afraid to start removing uncited and quite biased information, as more than a few contributors are in favor of the biased article. Halp!Arcayne 02:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Just do it anyway and see what happens. MER-C 12:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
It is, anyway, a content/neutrality issue rather than COI. Tearlach 13:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to prove Conflict of Interest?

What is the course of action or reporting that should take place if I think that an article on a living person is being edited by the subject of that article? There is a logged on user and anon users from the same IP range that only ever make edits that show the subject in a positive light and remove anything negative. - X201 15:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Just post as per the brief instructions which are shown near the top of the noticeboard. The easiest way is to use the + function for adding a new section, including a section heading, article links, userlinks and your concerns, as shown in the instructions. — Athænara ✉ 23:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Post it and I'll take a look at it. MER-C 12:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add a section to WP:COI/N to list active AfD discussions of COI-nominated articles?

I happened to miss the AfD debate on one of the articles that had been submitted, on Bloodless Bullfighting. (Yes, I know, tragic..) Would there be suppport for adding an 'AfD' listing at the top of the noticeboard? At present AfDs are mentioned by participants only in passing. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth there is a whole section for AfDs and CfDs, and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics a major heading is created for each new mathematics AfD that someone becomes aware of. I don't think this is canvassing. We would only list the AfDs of articles that had already been submitted to the noticeboard as having a COI. People who had gone to the trouble of analyzing a particular COI issue might be able to contribute useful tidbits to a corresponding AfD debate, if that happened to occur. A COI discussion is in a sense a 'pre-AfD' debate anyway, since if a problem can be worked out there may be no need to take it to AfD. Let me know your thoughts. EdJohnston 02:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I support the idea, based on the recent AfD on Barbara Schwarz. It was nominated by an editor I noted on the WP:COI/N. Anynobody 06:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:AlexNewArtBot - New Article Bot

Hi, I am in the trial runs of the User:AlexNewArtBot (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AlexNewArtBot). The bot reads all the new articles for a day and puts suspected COI-related articles into User:AlexNewArtBot/COISearchResult, the articles are suppose to be manually put into the portal page and/or removed if irrelevant. Or whatever you want to do with them.

The list of rules are in User:AlexNewArtBot/COI, there is also the log on the User:AlexNewArtBot/COILog explaining the rules that sent an article to the search results (the log is cleared every day, so try to look into the history of the log). Please contact me if you are interested in the fine tuning of the rules

That is all. Any suggestions are welcome.

If the feed is not helpful just revert it. Here the possible autobiography just mean that the nick of the author is matched in the article text Alex Bakharev 23:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks very good. A few false hits, and stuff that can go in the bin on simpler grounds, but it works well. Tearlach 00:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. MER-C 09:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Could it be modified to show [[Special:Contributions/(username)]] instead of [[User:(username)]]? — Athænara ✉ 13:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Better still, {{user|whatever}}. MER-C 12:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Great idea, I will implement it today Alex Bakharev 23:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lengthy disputes on noticeboard

The two sections on TM articles had together passed 80 kilobytes by the time I booted them to Archive 5. I don't know what we can do to prevent this in the future, but I'd hate to see any repeats.

A small coterie of editors used the noticeboard as just another platform to air their views without restraint while they treated the actual conflict of interest policy as a minor side show few cared to see.

I am baffled by such sheer disregard for the noticeboard's purpose. — Athænara ✉ 06:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, especially that Yoga one. 17 A4 pages in 12pt font as of last night. I think we should reserve the right to ignore anything over 500 words or so, we don't want to have to read entire essays. And POINTish stuff should usually be closed - the only reason why I'm leaving the WMC one on is that the initial poster looks a bit dodgy. MER-C 07:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Apologies for that. Dseer never did give any diffs to show that my mainspace editing has been problematic. (In fact, he noted just the opposite -- that my work has been good.) I apologize for his long diatribes and unsupported accusations and allegations. At first I tried to ignore them, but eventually thought that I needed to respond to such public attacks. In the end, I realize i should have just ignored the whole thing. My thanks to whoever archived this. TimidGuy 10:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
There was a genuine COI issue in there that that got buried in all the irrelevant content dispute material. However good someone's edits, "I've been at Maharishi University of Management for decades" is a problematic relationship. But if not even the complainer is capable of focusing on the COI aspects alone, there's not much that can be done. Tearlach 11:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I am baffled by such sheer disregard for the noticeboard's purpose
One possibility for cutting to the chase: do we need to get bogged down in discussions of whether an editor with a demonstrated COI is editing fairly? Seems to me that WP:COI is as much about being seen to avoid COI, as it is about actual proof/disproof that a known COI is biasing edits.
I might be the most objective ever editor of the article on the hypothetical Tearlach Wonderful Products Inc of which I'm CEO, but there would always be some level of suspicion if I took a leading role in editing it: reason enough that I should stick to the Talk page so that propriety was seen to be observed. Tearlach 13:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Damn. I'm so afraid that this will turn into another marathon exchange. I'm already embarrassed by the first. If Dseer shows up, I'm outta here. I promise.
Of course the ideal is that as an editor with a perceived COI, I never make any mainspace edits and a neutral editor implement my suggestions, if warranted. The problem is that no neutral editors have ever been involved in the Maharishi-related articles. Those involved are either people who practice Transcendental Meditation or those who oppose it or Maharishi or both. In the past opponents controlled the article on Transcendental Meditation, and the results were wretched from any point of view. Since I arrived last September even opponents have praised my work on that article, as has Bishonen, a highly respected admin. Anyway, it's a major question, one that as you probably know is currently being debated on WkiEN-l. TimidGuy 14:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
In my final response here (to Tearlach), I sincerely hope not, the burden should be on the COI editor once a prima facia appearance of COI has been established, not on the complainant(s). This is my first time here, sorry for my part how painful this became, but the issue was/is always COI, aggravated by denial that it applied to them, from 5-6 editors from/involved in a specific group with documented, repetitive information suppression patterns demonstrated by the provided illustrative "content", when weak/lacking criticism was itself not acknowledged as sufficient here. TimidGuy says: "Dseer never did give any diffs to show that my mainspace editing has been problematic. (In fact, he noted just the opposite -- that my work has been good.) I apologize for his long diatribes and unsupported accusations and allegations." The point was COI combined with incremental information suppression, not any one or a few specific edits, those were just examples. That TimidGuy considers collected endorsements and interprets comments from Durova and Athaenara to him as having resolved his COI issue in his favor shows how important making appearance the baseline is. I'm going to assume that those two editors meant it when they stated: "Durova posted: "TimidGuy has a clear and immediate conflict of interest and for this reason would be well advised to restrict participation to talk pages for all transcendental meditation-related articles." Given that this is the Conflict of interest noticeboard, a response like "Not sure why you're making this point" is not straightforward and intelligent. This section is about editors, you for example, and in fact you in particular, with, yes, clear and immediate conflict of interest issues which it would behoove you to take seriously. It is not about Mason's (or anyone else's) book. Wikipedia does not need another ream of paragraphs out of you, it needs you editing neutrally or not at all." I won't bother you further with details, it's time to move that point to other, Durova suggested conflict resolution venues, now that endless talk, this board, and mediation have all still failed to make this simple point obvious to offending editors.--Dseer 15:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
If anyone wants to mandate a 500-word limit on postings to this noticeboard, I'm with you. How about 'Posting removed for length -- please submit a shorter version.' EdJohnston 16:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Yep. Even 500 is probably way too much. A basic report of COI just needs brief evidence of the relationship ("editor X is chief of Y's fan club - see Google/diffs/whatever"). And reams of "oh but everyone says I'm a good editor and Bad Things would happen if I stopped" waffle in defence are irrelevant. If such a relationship has been shown, editor X should follow the advice at WP:COI full stop. Tearlach 17:27, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Again, my apologies to all. If it helps you, this guidance on what the complainant should present is much clearer to less experienced editors like myself who've never been here before, thank you. If I ever come back here again and take more space than a brief statement of the editors involved and evidence of the COI, feel free to ignore it. Being my first time at this noticeboard, I knew about WP:COI but not how to deal with it, and just followed another editor over here to see what was going on regarding the COI. I was confused by the dialogue following the original complaint from another editor which documented the same COI for the five TM associated editors but without apparent resolution. I erroneously thought from this that I also needed to refute the "good editor, no harm, essential to the article" defense used here as well as the talk pages. Lesson learned. --Dseer 01:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. I've changed it to 200, as we might need to write a short paragraph or two every now and then. MER-C 02:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Assume that will require each comment added in a discussion to also be less than 200 words. EdJohnston 02:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
That's exactly what I meant. I've clarified it. Now to poke the admins towards cleaning up the prod backlog. MER-C 03:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
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