Wikipedia talk:Articles about ongoing enterprises/Archive 1

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[edit] WP:CORP

Doesn't this just duplicate WP:CORP as well as a number of other pre-existing policies? Fagstein 07:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:CORP deals with notability. Fred Bauder 01:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
And everything else is covered under other policies. Is there anything new policy-wise here or is it just an essay about writing articles on corporations? Fagstein 05:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think so. Fred Bauder 09:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I gather from the "Rationale" section that the problem is that complaints from companies are creating an administrative load on the Wikipedia office. Libel (at least in the US) to the point of actually losing a libel suit, isn't really the issue. Is that correct? --John Nagle 16:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I doubt the current load is significant. I think the issue is fair articles and avoiding litigation, more than the prospect of losing a suit. Fred Bauder 17:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice start, but...

Almost all the primary information (Stuff from Jumbo) relates to WP:BLP withg a little note "about the related policy on living persons". I strongly suggest someone ask him about this proposed policy and if he likes it, ask him to do another mailing list post explicitly dealing with this , so we don't keep having to say "He said this about BLP, but this is about the same thing, so it applies here too" over and over. 68.39.174.238 15:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balancing the policy

The proposed policy was almost pro-advertising. With that policy, most company articles would be puff pieces. I've made some changes to balance it more. --John Nagle 19:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Balancing user rights is not sufficient because of the growing practice of astroturfing. A growing number of professional spin doctors are defending corporate reputations on the internet, and I have seen at least one case where they are using extensive wikilawyering to do it. This policy would really help them. In order to compete against their greater resources (they're paid to do this full-time!) volunteer critics should be given more freedom than corporate cheerleaders.--Yannick 02:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How big a legal problem is this?

How big a legal problem is this?

I don't want to see Wikipedia turned into a business directory, full of puff pieces. The bad news belongs in there too. Here are a few pieces of bad news about companies I've added, all currently in Wikipedia.

  • (From Moller Skycar): In 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Moller for civil fraud (Securities And Exchange Commission v. Moller International, Inc., and Paul S. Moller, Defendants) in connection with the sale of unregistered stock, and for making unsubstantiated claims about the performance of the Skycar. Moller settled this lawsuit by agreeing to a permanent injunction and paying $50,000. In the words of the SEC complaint, "As of late 2002, MI's approximately 40 years' of development has resulted in a prototype Skycar capable of hovering about fifteen feet above the ground."
  • (From PowerBook):
    Model and serial number location on PowerBook battery
    Model and serial number location on PowerBook battery
    On May 20, 2005, the Consumer Product Safety Commission ordered a recall of some Apple Powerbook G4 batteries. The official CPSC recall notice states that an internal short can cause the battery cells to overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. The defective batteries can be returned to Apple for replacement. Approximately 128,000 defective units were sold.
The following units have been recalled:
Computer model name Battery model number Battery serial number range
12-inch iBook G4 A1061 HQ441 – HQ507
12-inch PowerBook G4 A1079 3X446 – 3X510
15-inch PowerBook G4 A1078 3X446 – 3X509
Both fires and battery explosions have been reported.[1]

We need more of this, not less. WP:VAIN seems to encourage this practice, discouraging puff pieces - live by the hype, die by the hype. I don't want to face pressure to remove negative info like that. --John Nagle 23:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)'

Bad news should be included, and these are all important enough. However, Wikipedia is not a consumer rights magazine. Consumer warnings ("Consumers should stop" etc.), I think, should be deleted. Fagstein 16:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The "consumers should stop" language is from the CPSC. --John Nagle 20:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to stay out of libel trouble

The place to go for guidance on this is here:

The Associated Press (1998). The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Perseus Books. ISBN 0201339854. 

This is the working journalist's guide to libel law. It tells you how to stay out of trouble without being overly conservative. If Wikipedia management is worried about libel suits, that's the place to look for policy guidance.

On a personal note, during the dot-com boom and collapse, I ran Downside, a web site devoted to predicting which dot-coms would go under and when. Predictions of corporate "death dates" were generated by automated processing of company SEC filings. The accuracy was suprisingly good. I received hate mail and occasional legal threats, sometimes from CEO-level people. But nobody ever actually sued. They knew they'd lose. So don't cave in to corporate pressure when you don't have to. --John Nagle 02:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Customer opinion sites

I've just posted a concern about linking to customer opinion websites on WP:WPSPAM:

What does everyone think about linking to websites which contain customer opinions? For example consider http://www.airlinequality.com/ which contains passenger opinions on airlines (all links). I beleive such a site doesn't meet any of WP:ELs "when to link" guidelines (for #4 it's hard to consider it neutral & accurate) and hits against some of the recommendations on when not to link:

  • 2: "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources"
  • 9: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself."
I wonder if there's a parallel here with the WP:BLP policy which is applied to biographies of living people... And has recently spawned a Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises proposal?

Your comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Customer opinion sites. Thanks/wangi 21:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of ongoing enterprises

What is the definition of "ongoing enterprise"? Cub scouts? IBM? Democrat party? Israeli government? Mafia? A child-porn ring? A terorist organisation? Why? What is the criteria? Why is that criteria used for this policy? WAS 4.250 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your question illustrates a major question. What is the basis for distinguishing between The Hunger Project, IBM and Hesbollah? Each could claim libel. Fred Bauder 12:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Is this a proposal that we should apply BLP for every statement anywhere in wikipedia even on talk pages if someone somewhere could claim libel? WAS 4.250 13:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Not at all, just something to think about. Fred Bauder 17:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
My understanding, that may be wrong, is that "ongoing enterprises" refers to "commercial ongoing enterprises", and not to movements, political parties, etc. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that BPL has to do with morality, wiki-love, and the fact that the whole point of a free great encyclopedia for all mankind is that is a good thing good people volunteer to help. I see no reason to extend that to not-livings-humans. Staying legal is a concern in every article and while a special consideration is due living people, I don't feel the same way about IBM. I believe we should maintain the distiction between saying "Fictional Tobacco company Predident John Smith is morally guilty of mass murder" which is covered by BLP versus saying "Fictional Tobacco company is morally guilty of mass murder" which is not covered by BLP but is covered by Verifyability, no original research and NPOV which is quite sufficient. WAS 4.250 23:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I understand the need to be extra careful not to hurt living people. I am not so sure about being extra careful not to impugn the Boy Scouts of America, Skull and Bones, or Macedonia. I certainly do not think we should be more careful of for-profit organizations that of non-profits. Tom Harrison Talk 01:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quote not supported by reference.

Moved this from the article to talk, because that quote isn't in the reference. "Addressing the question of biographies of living persons, a subject analogous to articles about ongoing enterprises, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, said: We must get the article right. [1]" Wales doesn't seem to have said that. The closest he came was to say "And the few people who are still sort of in the old days, saying, "Well, you know, it's a wiki, why don't we just... ", yeah, they're sort of falling by the wayside, because lots of people are saying actually, we have a really serious responsibility to get things right." --John Nagle 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When should this policy in the works be taken seriously?

The ongoing enterprise article has been helpful to me and I saw the enterprise template and added it to the Starbucks article. But another editor removed it the next day saying it is only a proposed policy. Should we not be using the enterprise template afterall? And should we be using the proposed policy as a guide now, or ignore it until it becomes official policy? Thanks for any input you can provide. Mr Christopher 19:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The enterprise template was mis-worded given that this is just a proposal. I've fixed that. As for your other question, policies become policies because they are widely supported by the community. If you feel that this proposal should become a policy, you should follow the proposal right now. If the community is in agreement, other people will start to do so as well. If a lot of people disagree with it, then that should become pretty obvious really quickly. Note that this is not an opinion on the validity of the proposal itself, just a suggestion as to what you should do if you feel the proposal is valid. JYolkowski // talk 19:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I have upgraded this to a guideline. If there are objections, please revert and provide proposal to reach consensus on how to get it there. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry... does not seem we are ready yet. The text needs work... ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
This proposal should be neither a guide nor a policy. We should not have a certain sensitivity for IBM. Following all our other rules with regard to IBM is quite sufficient. Special sentitivity for humans, not organizations or statues or books or professions or countries or religions or ... WAS 4.250 12:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
How do you send a proposed policy to AfD? --John Nagle 16:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Same as any other article, but some version of this will be policy, simply because of the potential legal liability. As an alternative, I suppose we could shut the site down. Is there consensus on that?Fred Bauder 19:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
That comes close to being a legal threat (WP:LEGAL). What we're reading here are unsubstantiated claims that there's a legal problem. There probably isn't. Here's a list of almost every Internet defamation and libel case. Find one where a service provider in the United States lost. Also check out the Chilling Effects database. Companies complain about "defamation" now and then, but they don't win cases on it in the US unless there's malice. Please read the Chilling Effects Defamation FAQ. I'd recommend that Wikipedia staff worried about this talk to ChillingEffects.org staff; they're the experts in this area. --John Nagle 04:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Then let Wikimedia lawyers write it and Jimbo declare it as policy. WAS 4.250 00:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Sure, but they can benefit from our collective input in this regard. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Generally, we do not AFD good-faith policy proposals. Instead, we discuss them on the Talk page. If the consensus becomes clear that the policy proposal was not a good idea, it is tagged either with {{historical}} or {{rejected}} but kept as a reference for future discussions. Rossami (talk) 18:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redunadant with OFFICE

Apparently the whole point of this was "legal liability". OFFICE was created for that, so this proposal seems redundant to the extent that is is needed at all. If "legal liabilty" is the excuse for it then OFFICE makes it redundant. WAS 4.250 00:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Office has a very small staff, really only 2 people. We need to get the 1000 administrators and the 100,000 users involved also. This needs to be routine Wikipedia practice. Fred Bauder 00:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Why aren't you helping us work on the problem? Fred Bauder 00:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

"Remember what we are doing here. We are building a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. We are trying to do it in an atmosphere of fun, love, and respect for others. We try to be kind to others, thoughtful in our actions, and professional in our approach to our responsibilities." Jimbo Wales 16:49, 26 August 2005 (UTC) [2]

I help with THAT. WAS 4.250 05:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Great. Then allow others to work on this if you are not interested. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Tough cases that cannot be dealt by concerned editors, can be brought to the attention of WP:OFFICE. There is no replacement for the eyeballs and concern of all our editors. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV is important for every article. Special sensitivity (enhanced awareness for privacy rights and morality concerns) is for living people. Providing special sensitivity for IBM is nonsense. I note Fred has changed the actual proposal to take some of this into consideration. Perhaps a litle more tweaking to say hardnosed application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV anywhere in wikipedia that legal liability comes into play and don't limit that to enterprises. WAS 4.250 03:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no contradiction between a policy of NPOV, V and NOR and this proposal. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit

Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit so far only deals with biographies of living persons. Fred Bauder 00:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit is a proposed monitoring group that doesn't even exist yet. WAS 4.250 05:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

...but that have already a few users engaged, as well as a noticeboard @ Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
LPU is an active monitoring group currently determining specific focus and processes by consensus before beginning active monitoring. Spin! Electrawn 01:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two real cases

[edit] Livedoor

Livedoor says:

"Livedoor's registered headquarters is located at 16-9, Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-0021, Japan, but its principal corporate offices are on the 38th floor of the prestigious Roppongi Hills Mori Tower at 10-1, Roppongi 6-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 106-6138, Japan. US headquarters is located at 7300 Corporate Center Suite 303, Miami, FL 33126 and Innovation Interactive NYC office is at 18 W 18th St, New York, New York 10011."

This kind of detail about living person is not appropriate and is deleted inder BLP. This Ongoing enterprises proposal was modeled afer the BLP policy, yet enterprises are public in critical ways that living people are not. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, some advertise their address, some hide it. And, as in this case, have different addresses for different purposes. But to tie it in with BLP, it would be inappropriate to include the home phone of the CEO, or his home address. Fred Bauder 16:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Enterprises, as opposed to individuals, have to make certain information public through filing and registrations with government entities. While individuals may have a "right to privacy" via the legal system, enterprises have no such protection. Can you put your business phone on the US national do not call list? Nope! The CEOs home address and phone is protected by that right to privacy precedent, but his office phone, office email and office address are not. Still, putting CEO stuff in a wikipedia article is Advocacy journalism and a good example of WP:NOT Electrawn 01:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tokyo Stock Exchange

Tokyo Stock Exchange says:

"During the initial public offering of J-Com on December 8, 2005, an employee at Mizuho Securities Co., Ltd. mistakenly typed an order to sell 610,000 shares at 1 yen, instead of an order to sell 1 share at 610,000 yen. Mizuho failed to catch the error; the Tokyo Stock Exchange initially blocked attempts to cancel the order, resulting in a net loss of 347 million US dollars to be shared between the exchange and Mizuho. Both companies are now trying to deal with their troubles: lack of error checking, lack of safeguards, lack of reliability, lack of transparency, lack of testing, loss of confidence, and loss of profits. On 11 December, the TSE acknowledged that its system was at fault in the Mizuho trade. On 21 December, Takuo Tsurushima, chief executive of the TSE, and two other senior executives resigned over the Mizuho affair."

It is based on firm evidence in the sources section. Morality concerns for living people indicate the morality of providing accurate data on enterprises that can harm living people through profit based desicions. Not including data that can harm a company can harm the public. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but that is true also of perceptive original research. If someone has personal knowledge of fraud, disclosure here could help the public, but still violate NOR, in addition to exposing Wikipedia to liability. Not all that is true can be proven. Fred Bauder 16:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
If the material above was described in a reliable source, Wikipedia is off the hook, as we are merely citing that source. But when editors develop original material (even if it is super interesting from a journalistic perspective) we are failing policy and making ourselves liable. As per WP:BLP we need to exercise extra caution, and this is an excelent example why we should have this as a policy. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Both companies are now trying to deal with their troubles: lack of error checking, lack of safeguards, lack of reliability, lack of transparency, lack of testing, loss of confidence, and loss of profits. This statement is an opinion. If its citeable, make it a direct quote.

The entire incident is notable for its severity in one persons action affecting the bottom line of two companies so greatly. The entire paragraph may be WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, but I am not for that particular argument. Electrawn 01:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It is an accurate summary of the sources. WAS 4.250 05:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with BLP

Please justify the Merge idea or delete it. It makes no sense. BLP is a well defined policy. This is not even a fully defined proposal. What it applies to is not identified. What is to be applied is debated and modified. Merge what? This proposal is not well defined enough to be able to be merged. WAS 4.250 08:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, the merge is the wrong way to go. There will be parallels and differences between the two standards. If anything, it looks like this started as a cookie cutter copy of BLP and we are now trying to work out here what the differences ought to be. BLP started 17 December 2005 as a proposal, was upgraded to a guideline at some point, and was upgraded to policy on 18 July 2006 (on the it is being so used basis), and the community as a whole is still coming to realize that BLP is a policy and figure out how to apply and work with it. If it still looks like basically a cookie cutter copy of BLP this time next year, then merging will be a good idea. For now, let's work out what this ought to be. GRBerry 15:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

This page does not seem to have a high visibility, or at least I had never heard of it until I inquired on the BLP page about a similar thing for companies. Ansell 02:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree that the merge is the wrong way to go. As for visibility, the official place to look is Category:Wikipedia proposals. You can mention it in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) if you want it to get more attention. --John Nagle 06:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. The merger proposal is a bad idea. As was said in the section above, different expectations of privacy apply. Since I can't find anyone actually arguing in favor of the merger, I'm going to remove the merger tag.
The next question is how soon we start debating whether to tag this as {{rejected}}. Once we get to the standards that really apply to companies and other organizations, you're back to our regular standards of verifiability, etc. Rossami (talk) 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

"Law.com: What is your liability for inaccurate information that's posted on the Web site?

Bradford A. Patrick: Our belief is that since every post is attributed to an individual, is time-stamped and is retained in the database, the foundation itself is not publishing that content. We view individual editors as responsible and have prominently displayed on every edit page that individuals are responsible for their own contributions. We take the position that we are a service provider and are protected under §230. We try to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. "[3] WAS 4.250 06:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Our good defense does not abrogate our responsibility. Fred Bauder 12:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Morally, yes of course. But some have said that efforts (some? all?) to assume responsibility create responsibility in the eyes of the law so that the more sucessful we are at this, the more legal liability. I'm not a lawyer. While this may not be your specialty, you are a lawyer. So, without giving legal advice, can you shed light on this? WAS 4.250 04:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Neither you nor I are employes or officers of the foundation, thus our efforts to remove unsourced negative material does not constitute editorial control by the foundation itself. Fred Bauder 16:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Highly questionable. The Foundation owns and operates the servers. Foundation employees have ultimate control over the software on the servers. This software determines who has permission bits assigned within the hierarchy of admins, bureaucrats, stewards, etc. These permission bits collectively play a huge role in shaping the content on Wikipedia in terms of blocking editors, banning editors, deleting articles, and protecting articles. 68.91.90.53 23:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Test Case: Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

The following was added yesterday to the article about a church body:

and is sometimes derisively referred to in ELCA circles as the "Misery Synod".

No citation information provided. I reverted as uncivil. Were this proposal a policy, I would assume it would be removable under it. --CTSWyneken(talk) 15:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

That's just verifiability, per WP:V. The term "Misery Synod" does appear in a few hundred places, but most of them are blogs. It's a good candidate for Urban Dictionary, but not Wikipedia. --John Nagle 16:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restored "fact" tag

I put a "fact" tag on "Well-founded complaints about articles about ongoing enterprises from their subjects arrive daily in the form of e-mails to the Wikipedia contact address, phone calls to the Foundation headquarters and to Jimbo Wales, and via postal mail." That unsubstantiated claim doesn't belong in the policy without substantial backup. Discussion here hasn't established that there's a real problem, and putting that line in the article lead asserts that there is. I know that it's not customary to require WP:V in a policy, but because that's being used as justification for the policy, it's appropriate and necessary.

Let's see a monthly summary of complaints for the last year. Then this issue can be discussed effectively. Thanks. --John Nagle 18:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I have emailed the principals. Fred Bauder 19:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. We need more hard data on this. --John Nagle 03:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Any hard data yet? It's been a few weeks. --John Nagle 05:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General values/numbers

Could they be posted here for public review, without getting into specific names? I think this may be a bad idea; as organizations/groups/companies and corporations are not people. Negative press and sourced facts are that; and we don't have to concern ourselves with the hurt feelings of a given political party or corporation, in the same regard as we do a living human being. · XP · 16:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess it depends on whether WP:BLP, as our only specific effort to prevent Wikipedia:Libel (with the possible exception of WP:OFFICE) , is viewed only by its ethical considerations, as opposed to its Legal considerations. I believe this page is more about the legal considerations involved, something which we cannot just ignore. Ansell 04:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Certainly, the legal comes first, and then consideration for the ethical. What I mean is that if negative press about Megacorp, LLC is uncovered by a reliable source, it would be negligient to not report on it at least in passing. For example, a very small incident could be handled safely by a line or two, with a link or two to RS detailed it more fully. I simply mean that this proposed policy should not be used to shield organizations or corporations from "bad press" simply because Google or other SE results will have disproportionate weight via Wikipedia being what it is. The goal is not to assist in spin control or minimizing negative associations for the subject of an article, but to be the sum total of human knowledge as Jimbo has said. And, of course, companies are not and never will be people to have hurt 'feelings'. · XP · 16:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)