Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 19

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Archive 19


Contents

Moulthrop

Resolved. As a result of the AfD, Matt Moulthrop was merged into Moulthrop family. EdJohnston 03:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

LotusEliseBlog (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is the author of three articles: Matt Moulthrop (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), Ed Moulthrop (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) and Philip Moulthrop (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). These are three generations of woodturners. All three are essentially unsourced, save for a reference to "MOULTHROP: A Legacy in Wood", which has no publication details and does not show up in any of the usual booksellers' catalogues. I would say that, to a very high degree of probability, LotusEliseBlog is the youngest of these three. There is evidence of notability for Ed Moulthrop at least, but the article is heavily compromised by peacock terms. I do not know what to do next. They are not a slam-dunk delete as vanispamcruftisement, but they are not compliant with policy I think. Cruftbane 20:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Unrelated. I did a google search on the username, and it refers to this blog, which do not mention the subjects. There isn't a COI here, as far as I can tell, but you should nominate at least Matt Moulthrop for deletion due to notability issues. MER-C 02:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
By a strict application of policy, both articles would have to go, since they have no reliable sources. It is unfortunate that art-related articles are frequently difficult to source properly. The image licenses look a bit dodgy as well. (Since the ultimate source isn't noted, the pictures may have been scanned from a catalog. Possibly fair use could be claimed). I looked for anything on the web to substantiate Ed Moulthrop's connection to the Georgia Institute of Technology, but found nothing. EdJohnston 03:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Matt Moulthrop at AfD.. others have a good stab at establishing notability, tagged for sources. Deiz talk 11:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Office Open XML

An edit by an IP assigned to Microsoft corporation removed a link critical of adoption of Office Open XML. Office Open XML is a standard Microsoft is trying to get passed. This is a clear conflict of interest. The edit was a reversal of something that had been discussed lately. I wonder if any of the editors wanting the change also have Microsoft IP addresses. Kilz 01:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


Binary economics

Rodney Shakespeare has been editing this article and citing his own work. Generally, that would not be an issue, but it is when that's accompanied by aggressive reverts and a seeming general attempt at ownership, as well as an article which appears, to me, to be very POV in favor of its subject. Some additional eyes would be very welcome. Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh that stinks doesn't it? At a bare minimum {{COI}} tag it. --Blowdart | talk 20:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I tried that once. Then they reverted it as vandalism and speedy closed the AfD themselves 2 days I believe before it was meant to close. You may also want to look at the very serious ownership problems on that article as well as their efforts to whitewash unreliable self-published sources. For a while it was okay and I did make some suggestions about how to improve it. If you think it's bad now look at how it was around June this year. It was hardly even coherent back then. But then their most sensible editor left the project. Good luck with that article, I gave up months ago. It's just not worth it because they have several peer-reviewed articles to establish notability so we can't just nuke it as fringe as long as we aren't allowed to be more picky about what peer-reviewed journals ought to be considered reliable sources. EconomicsGuy 13:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh one more thing. Haemo seems to have some respect there, if you can get him to talk to Rodney he may be significantly more willing to listen. EconomicsGuy 13:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
The article seems to have issues of WP:SOAP and POV. Note this revert of one of Seraphimblade's edits. There is already some appropriate criticism on the Talk page, but the article in its current state seems to have enough defenders that the criticism hasn't yet made much impression. I see many statements that should have citations. Perhaps a determined rewriter could made a proposal for a rewrite on the Talk page. EdJohnston 14:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Here is how Rodney works: He views Wikipedia as a tool. If his message, in his own opinion, is important enough he along with his meat puppets who pop up whenever Rodney is in trouble will argue to death that it is of vital importance that we do not remove whatever information has been inserted by him. He will argue that you do not understand his poit of view and in extreme cases such as the before mentioned AfD he will even resort to accusing you of various not so flattering things such as having prejudices against muslims. When Janosabel was still active here it was possible to work constructively on the article through him because Rodney respected him. The only way to solve this now is to remove Rodney from the equation. I'm sorry but that's how it is. See his talk page for other examples of Rodney trying to apply his "good samaritan" defense when caught POV pushing. EconomicsGuy 08:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

CFQR-FM (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch) [watchlist?]

  • CFQR-FM (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
  • Q92fmPD (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - Revisions made by user were summarised as Programming and other station updates, as done by the Program Director. The edit was links to "talent" blogs for each programme, which smacks of SEO positioning and runs close to spam. I cleaned the links out and added a couple of fact and weasel tags and left a note on the users talk page highlighting the COI. Rather than address the issue the user reverted my edit and restored the links. Another opinion would be appreciated. --Blowdart | talk 16:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Jointcom‎ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - New user appeared, with a single edit to their name removing COI tag. After that no more edits; smells a bit. --Blowdart | talk 18:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the entry is shaping up now, perhaps the COI editor is realizing what the problem was. I'd deleted some more extraneous stuff. We'll see if the edits stick. There is only one legit reference. Are there standards of notability for radio stations? -Jmh123 04:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:Note should apply like anything else I would have thought; however when I've tagged radio stations as non-notable before some editors have thrown a major hissy fit. It strikes me as strange if there aren't any, but I can't find a policy. --Blowdart | talk 09:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

South African Patriot

South African Patriot (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

There is currently an edit war on this article concerning a small far-right extremist South African paper that has been exiled from the country since the end of Aparthaid. I'm not personally involved in the edit war, but one of the two editors involved in it has stated on the article talk page that he is the editor of the paper in question. That surely is a very big conflict of interest. (And now that I think of it, both editors have also violated WP:3RR.) Nehwyn 06:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This came to WP:RPP yesterday, with one of the users requesting a full-prot due to "vandalism". I looked at the history and saw that the reporter was more at fault than the person reverting him, and that the other user seemed to be trying to achieve NPOV. I was wondering, was the account that claimed he was the editor User:Mark Hasker? -Jéské(v^_^v) 06:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Viktor Kožený

Resolved. Offending editor has been indef blocked; this case has already been closed over at WP:BLPN. EdJohnston 19:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The user inserted pov edits into the article. He/she also threatened to take "libel and legal action" [1]. Keb25 19:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

See BLPN

I noticed the BLPN report and gave him a coi warning. The article is now protected, so let's see if he finally responds on a talk page. --Ronz 20:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Editor was an SPA account which, per own edit summary, was dedicated to disruptive editing of this one article. I've blocked him as a vandalism-only account. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 20:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The same sequence of events was discussed in a bit more detail over at WP:BLPN. The editor who claims to be Viktor Kozeny has been indef blocked and the article is now unprotected again. BLPN has closed their item about this article, so they consider it resolved. Editors may consider setting a watch on this article in case the offending editor returns in another guise. See his preferred version here. EdJohnston 19:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Rampartpress

Thnx to Dysepsion (talk · contribs) for nipping this spammer in the bud! :-) —72.75.79.128 00:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.rampartpress.com

Cross-posted to WT:WPSPAM#http://spam.rampartpress.com. P.S. there's no need to give them a URL that works... MER-C 13:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

FreeSWITCH‎

Resolved. After discussions, some people associated with FreeSWITCH agreed to stop editing the article itself, and contribute only on the Talk page. The Article and Talk remain semi-protected. Re-open this case if the problem resumes. EdJohnston 20:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Overrun with SPAs and desperately needs more eyes and/or uninvolved administrators. Attempts to neutralfy, or even tag disputes or wikify, are routinely reverted. —Cryptic 22:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

According to the change log it appears that there were 3 people editing at the same time, cryptic, mscollins1 and an IP. The changes were only reverted for the tags that were put at the top, and still no explanation was given on the talk page as to why. The IP requested that an explanation given why cryptic tagged the page, and suggests that its out of malice. The content was not just readded, it was reworked, and some new content was added. It seems questionable to me at best that tagging a page without explanation other than to say that someone else was editing at the same time, and then requesting deletion when most of the changes that were made by cryptic were to remove cites.
Can you show a changelog entry where an attempt to neutralify, or wikify were reverted?
Aside from the 2 tags that you added when another user was editing at the same time, were other tags reverted?

Trixter ie 13:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:AFD for lack of adequate sourcing. One reference is a conference listing, another is the firm's own press release, then a blog. Etc. Looks to me like at most one marginal source. Probably fails WP:CORP and WP:V. DurovaCharge! 06:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Please note that "Trixter ie" is one of the SPAs that cryptic is referring too. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Trixter's post didn't sway me; it just looks like it deserves an AFD for the reasons I listed. DurovaCharge! 17:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I have added a few today, there are 9 cites in total now (I think there were 5 or 6 when I started I dont recall). Admitedly its difficult at best to find something that is meaningful and will pass scrutiny. I ask that you revist this issue.
There are now 2 press releases (different companies selecting freeswitch for different reasons), the oreilly conference, beta anouncement, interview with the lead developer (commit states required to meet a citation request), and opinions expressed in 4 different trade publications (2 counter each other, so it should be a fair representation as required). Trixter ie 15:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I still advise putting the page on the block. This is about quality of sources, not quantity. Self-published material and non-notable blogs don't satisfy this site's standards for inclusion. More of the same doesn't change that. The O'Reilly interview is the only source that comes close to the level Wikipedia normally requires. If you can provide more like that then my opinion might change. Since there appears to be a conflict of interest here, I strongly advise posting suggested changes with citations to the article talk page so that uninvolved editors can review and adapt it as appropriate. DurovaCharge! 23:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the commenters above who think that FreeSWITCH should be nominated at AFD. These open source switches are in an area that lacks much mainstream coverage. Our policies tell us that we should be reflecting what mainstream sources find noteworthy enough to cover. Curiously, though Asterisk (PBX) is much better known than FreeSWITCH, at least to me, that article also appears to lack good sources. I wouldn't AFD the Asterisk article because I think that editors could easily find better sources. EdJohnston 02:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
that was one of my initial things that started this whole mess. Asterisk and FreeSWITCH had roughly the same cites, content, etc and asterisk wasnt getting tagged in any way, yet FreeSWITCH, YATE, OpenSER, CallWeaver were being tagged and 3/4 of them got deleted to date (all by the same person that tagged FreeSWITCH originally). So if they are roughly the same in content and 1 isnt getting tagged but everything that competes is, it doesnt seem unbiased. At one point I even went to the Asterisk page and basically cut and pasted the content changing only what was required to make it about FreeSWITCH, and it was still tagged.
So with an admission that there isnt good sources on the asterisk page you wont tag it just because you know the product and feel that authors can find better sources. That seems a bit biased to me. It should be that either everyone has to have the same quality or no one does.Trixter ie 10:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Auckland University Press

It appears that an employee of an academic press is creating articles on its professors. Bearian 21:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutral editors have been working on some of these. I cleaned up the language on Brian Easton, a notable economist, and removed the 'COI2' tag. EdJohnston 20:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

LBi

Article

Editor

User:LBigroup started this article as something of a puffery piece. It has since been cut down to size. I rejected the CSD since I beleive the company is possibly notable, but wanted to bring the existence of this user to your attention. The user has been warned about WP:COI. Best, --Shirahadasha 16:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I've tagged the article for COI and sourcing, indeffed the account for username policy violation. DurovaCharge! 20:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Smallman & User:Smallman Records

A quick investigation of these two accounts reveals a single purpose of editing articles relating to properties and projects of Smallman Records. All of these should be looked into. Unless we're happy to allow Wikipedia to be used as a marketing placard. Tom Doniphon 17:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA)

Blatant conflict of interest. Bearian 20:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is tagged appropriately. Please contact these two SPAs and explain site standards. Follow up at this board if problems continue. DurovaCharge! 14:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I popped the coi template on the 2 SPA's and had a look at the article. It is tagged for COI and cleanup (of which it is in some need for ad-like reasons...) Arakunem 00:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Obese Records

Another record label whose creator or primary editor has exclusively edited on the label's article or those of its artists. I am beginning to think that actually the majority of record label articles on Wikipedia are being created and maintained by owners/employees of those labels. Is this just a pointless exercise in fighting this trend? Tom Doniphon 17:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

This one does have a lot of edits from a variety of users. It's walking the line as far as WP:N goes, but doesnt seem excessively COI to me. Arakunem 01:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Rafti Institute

Resolved. Per User:Arakunem. EdJohnston 03:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User apparently created solely for self-promotion. Created an "article" on userpage for same purpose, admitted self-promotion here. -- Kesh 20:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like that page has been taken care of for now. Arakunem 01:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Sadi Carnot and Human thermochemistry

Resolved. Issue is moot here, since a request for arbitration has been filed. EdJohnston 04:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Could people watching this noticeboard please comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Sadi Carnot? Thanks. Carcharoth 19:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Per this request for arbitration, there is no need for further comment by the editors here, unless they want to put their two cents in on the arbitration. EdJohnston 04:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to help review and clean up the articles that may have been affected. - Jehochman Talk 04:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Twsx

Resolved. Not a COI. EdJohnston 04:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not totally sure if this is the right place to take this, but User:Twsx keeps changing edits to pages such as Sarcofago and Bathory. In the music infoboxes he keeps decapitalizing the music genres and putting commas in between them. I believe, in the music infoboxes, that the genres should be capitalized and breaks should be put in between them (so that the second genre appears on the next line and so forth). He keeps citing WP:MUSTARD and WP:ALBUMand saying they the genres should be decapitalized and commas put between them. I however, think he is citing those rules wrongly and I happen to notice that all throughout wikipedia on band pages they capitalize the genres in the music boxes and put breaks in between the genres. For example, I believe it should look like it does on the Venom or Judas Priest page in the music infobox for the genres, whereas User:Twsx believes it should look like it does on the Disturbed page. The difference is this:

Alternative metal, nu metal, hard rock, heavy metal

vs. this:

Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Speed metal

I would like to know which is the correct way. Navnløs 18:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You are totally in the wrong place. It appears that you are in a plain old editing style conflict; there is nothing in what you say that suggests that your opponent has any conflict of interest in this matter. (Furthermore, your position seems to be the wrong one: the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) clearly states that names of musical styles are not to be capitalized, and not wasting space in an infobox with spurious line breaks is just common sense). I cannot find any evidence that you have even tried to achieve consensus on the talk pages of the articles your dispute is about. Anyway, the tone you use when you do use talk page strongly suggests that you're the one who could do with a healthy dose of WP:CIVIL. –Henning Makholm 19:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Consider discussing this somewhere like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Metal. You and the other editors seem to be quoting style rules to each other in the edit summaries, but you can't all be right. Try to figure out what style is normally used in the infoboxes. Or see the featured articles listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Metal and use whatever is the majority style in *those* infoboxes. Regarding civility, isn't everyone supposed to be rude on a heavy metal page? :-). I believe this issue should be closed as a COI, so I'm adding a {{resolved}} template.EdJohnston 04:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Animated political cartoons

Good deed opportunity

We get a lot of depressing articles on this board. Here's a chance to help somebody who is trying to abide by the guidelines. User:Hkhenson needs assistance at Talk:Capture-bonding. Is there a volunteer who could help him with that article? - Jehochman Talk 04:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Iglesia ni Cristo

  • Iglesia ni Cristo (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - Most regular editors are members of this organization. They refuse to respond to mayor issues on the talk page, keep the unsourced lead "independent, nontrinitarian Christian church" in the article and like to oppose any kind of criticism or word choice. Their 'ghetto view' is tedious to deal with Coffeemaker 14:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this topic is a major hassle to deal with, but really this is a content dispute - it generally doesn't wash to try to invoke COI over church membership. That said, I think that in this case, the problem lies not with believers, but in your edits to try to impose a minority and hostile POV definition - "politico-religious sect", "quasi-Christian", etc - on the intro. "Independent, nontrinitarian Christian church" looks an accurate and neutral description. Gordonofcartoon 10:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Repeated insertions of his own name and 'expertise' in articles

Resolved. Blocked, indefinitely. MER-C 13:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

In spite of repeated warnings of COI, user continues promoting himself with additions to articles. ॐ Priyanath talk 20:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the report. He was warned several times [2][3] and continued.[4] The account was primarily used for disruption, so I indefinitely blocked it. If he wants to edit again, he can apply to be unblocked. - Jehochman Talk 20:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Varkon: Open source project advertising for people to write an article

Resolved. The Varkon article was deleted at AfD. EdJohnston 02:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a heads up. Some CAD project on Sourceforge is looking for people to write their article for them and apparently mention their project wherever possible on Wikipedia to increase their Google ranking. See the ad here. It's unpaid but still the kind of thing we don't really want. EconomicsGuy 12:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It's been deleted once already. :) MER-C 04:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
While you're busy patting yourselves on the back, I want to thank you for pointing out that this package exists! I did not know that it had gone back to being an open source product. (I don't use it, but think it a bit odd that you seem to think it's some kind of good to exclude it from the list of open CAD projects.) htom 18:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Go ahead and include it, I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is editors submitting vanispamcruftisement and passing it off as an encyclopedia article. MER-C 09:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
An appropriate thing to do would be to search through category:WikiProjects to find a project that's interested in the topic, and then communicate with them via their talk page to request an article and the appropriate links. We're not out to exclude any valid information. Trying to push content into Wikipedia won't work, but marketers can make their stuff available and invite us to take it. We treat for profit and non-profit marketers the same.- Jehochman Talk 10:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Exactly as predicted the article has now been recreated. And, as predicted without a trace of any assertion of notability. EconomicsGuy 09:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I created the article as a user of Varkon with the sole intention to spread relevant objective information about this piece of software. Apparently the article lacked notability and is judged subjective advert spam. Thanks EconomicsGuy for ensuring Wikipedia remains a heaven of notability and objectivity. For now I will refrain from submitting any more articles to Wikipedia and first learn how to incorporate objective useful articles without interrupting certain people's circle jerks. VeganEater 12:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia magic all begins with WP:CIVIL, so you might want to check that out first. -- Jreferee t/c 17:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Anthony Appleyard listed Varkon at AfD. -- Jreferee t/c 17:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Mtvlive

By their very username, this editor demonstrates the POV agenda of their edit history ... I stumbled across them when they tried to restore deleted images to the article about Anna Cyzon (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). —72.75.79.128 (talk · contribs) 12:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You should try writing to Mtvlive to explain our policy about reliable sources. It looks like some of these people may be sufficiently notable, but the articles will probably get deleted at AfD if no reliable sources can be added to them. Surely TV hosts would have received some press coverage? It shouldn't be up to us to dig up this kind of material; the submitter should have access to professional CVs that would include their press coverage. EdJohnston 04:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
They have returned and are editing other articles, so I have placed the standard {{uw-coi}} and {{uw-unsourced1}} templates on their talk page. —72.75.79.128 21:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Octone Records

This is getting shameful. And these just happen to be the first few record labels that I checked that start with the letter 'O'. Is there an exemption to WP:COI for those in the music industry? It would appear that way, so I'm thinking that I'll just stop posting these violations. If nothing is going to be done to clean up the commercial influence on Wikipedia's content, why not just roll out the red carpet? Tom Doniphon 18:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

If you think there are really *a lot* of non-notable labels, we could do some things. First find an appropriate WikiProject that cares about music publishing, and see if they have any plans to improve these articles, or if they think they are just as bad as we do. Try to collect some opinions. Make a list somewhere of all the articles that you think are equally bad. Then pick one of the least-impressive articles and take if to AfD. Post at a number of places that you are nominating that one publisher as a test case, and invite people to comment in the AfD. For instance, WP:VPP and WP:AN would be suitable, as well as this noticeboard, and any appropriate music projects. If the AfD goes through, consider further steps. This is a just an idea. EdJohnston 04:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
So much for my wonderful advice. The submitter of this COI report, User:Tom Doniphon, has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Jon Awbrey. The thing he was complaining about could be a real problem, though. Is there perchance a new volunteer who could take a look at it? EdJohnston 21:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Greg Felton

User:Voxveritatis is continuously editing his own page (Greg Felton), removing all the critism he receives, name calling me, threatening me for libel, telling me to "piss off," and suggests that if anyone would like to know the "real" Greg Felton to contact him or visit his web site. I am requested that he be blocked or formally warned as no one has taken any action against him and he has ignored all previous warnings.

--Eternalsleeper 04:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Have you brought this up at WP:ANI? This seems to go well beyond a "mere" COI situation, but has WP:OWN and WP:CIVIL/WP:NPA undertones. Arakunem 00:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, looking into the back-and-forth in question, I suggest that you try to maintain a civil tone in dealings with other editors, even in conditions such as this. It is very hard to censure one half of a dispute for incivility when the other half has made a recent edit that could be considered imflammatory as well. Arakunem 00:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
It should also be noted that in many of his edits [5][6][7][8][9][10]etc User:Voxveritatis was removing material that was frankly false (incorrect name of his book) or was inappropriately sourced for a BLP article (see talkpage for details of the evaluations of independent editors). These poorly sourced allegations were being made by the complainant here. In these edits, User:Voxveritatis was acting well within conflict of interest guidelines. --Slp1 23:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

A. J. Weberman

A. J. Weberman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is trying to own the article A. J. Weberman, deleting sourced criticism and using it for personal P.R. --Leatherstocking 16:14, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, the first couple of observations I have on this are that his reverts are actually re-instating the COI and Cleanup tags that yours and other editors' reverts are removing. Secondly, your edits claim that he is associated with a group linked to violent attacks, and this statement is not sourced in any of the versions I checked going bac a few days. COI and self-promotion aside, this article does fall under WP:BLP, and therefore unsourced statements such as that are mandated to be removed unless they can be properly proven. That said, obviously when writing about oneself, COI is a danger, but at first blush, Mr. Weberman's edits suggest that he is trying to make a good-faith effort to call attention to the COI possibilities (by his re-adding of the COI and cleanup tags). Arakunem 17:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Wrong user name. I presume Leatherstocking means Ajweberman (talk · contribs). ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Specific off-wiki campaign to purge Mike Huckabee of criticism.

Yesterday, new editor Shogun108 arrived, stating his declaritive intent to clean up the article[11]. I tried to clarify things about how we work via citation and consensus, but he was adamant that most o the stuff should be folded into 'political positions' or lost because it was negative about HuckabeeTalk:Mike_Huckabee#New_Editor_on_a_mission.. This AM, I found the following section, Talk:Mike_Huckabee#Regarding_new_editors, which explains that Shogun108 is one of a group now actively campaigning to 'fix' the article. They were solicited to fix it. One editor actively solicits peopel to become editors to game consensus: "Better yet, since edits run by consensus at Wikipedia, the best case scenario is for SEVERAL editors to keep the Huckabee entries honest. If only ONE editor from "here" changes things, the trolls will gather support and beat the one editor down. The rules are very loosey goosey over there. I've fought the good fight on several issues, and unless I get support, the lefties will gang up on you. " That editor's comment match this edit[12] by User:Mactogrpaher right down to the rationale and comments on the message board. Although Shogun108's comments seem less absolutist, he is still here as an SPA whose only edits are about Huckabee, and who came here specifically to 'clean up' the Huckabee page after solicitation off-wiki. Further, mactographer's comments indicate a generally dismissive tone about WIkipedia, so it is unlikely he will actively work to conform to our standards, and again, a solicited editor. I further wonder if Mactographer's open call to flood the page doesn't count as recruiting Meat Puppets. Thanks for reviewing this. ThuranX 20:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I see what you mean, but I don't think this fits as a COI per-se, unless any of the users in question can be linked directly with Mr. Huckabee. I think that WP:BLPN might be the more appropriate place to air this. Arakunem 20:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
taken there, then. thanks for a prompt response for fast followup. ThuranX 20:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I encourage any editors who follow this noticeboard to keep the Mike Huckabee article on their watch lists for the next couple of weeks, to look for any unusual edits. Clearly there are neutral editors working on the Talk page, and we should be sure that they can call for wider review if it seems that the article is being manipulated by any one group. EdJohnston 21:14, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a reasonable course. Arakunem 22:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a point of caution here, these editors have not shown to be overly pushing a POV without discussion. They're participating and seem to be following the process. I only say this as it seems a couple editors have jumped in defense, without actually taking the time to read some of the debate, which creates a anti-cabal-cabal. And no such cabal as feared above has yet to surface. We need to AGF and let this process move forward, which it seems the approach here is to assume bad faith. Anyway... just think we might be jumping the gun. Morphh (talk) 2:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Just +Watching for now, as 3 noticeboards have now been notified. I've seen no real POV yet either, just disagreement on a graphic so far, but an extra set of dis-interested eyes never hurts, especially if 2 sides do in fact start ramping up their defenses. WP:AGF always! Arakunem 09:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Zendik Farm and related

Zendik Farm (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Wulf Zendik (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Jyre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
KyroZendik (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

Distinct COI relating to ex-members with a personal stake in the reputation of an alternative community. User:Jyre was at Zendik Farm for 10 years and openly states he is here to defend its Wikipedia entry. User:KyroZendik is an ex-resident [13] with a pattern of hostile edits. Gordonofcartoon 11:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

USwitch

Hi - USwitch would like a couple of changes to the article on their company - I'd take a look but I'm inbetween flights at the airport and don't have the time to do it properly. Can someone head over to the talkpages and take a look at the changes they propose. HOWEVER - can I also say that the U-switch team member who has been watching the article has (as far as I can determine) be entirely upfront about their presence and a) declaring a COI and b) suggesting changes on the talkpage or asking for comments about changes they would like to see made. So can I request that people don't go in all guns blazing and continue the cordial relationship that we current have on that page - because it's far less hassle than dealing with companies that don't identify themselves and get the impression that wikipedia isn't open to their input - which has been the case in the past. --Fredrick day 12:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

(Previous discussions: Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_18#uSwitch_and_Energy_switching_services_in_the_UK) --Ronz 19:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Albanian language

Resolved. Not a COI. MER-C 09:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Albanian language (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - Hello. I edited the content of the Albanian language article, adding some fresh updated data according the number of the population speaking it, and also correcting few misspells of places and names which were left writen in serbian (e.g Kosovo i Metohija for the 98% albanian populated region of Kosova). I received a message from a rouge editor, named Duja, which nationality is Serbian, that I, as an albanian shouldnt interfere in this issue. Excuse me? Knowing the great dispute among albanians and serbs, a serb editor is permitted to edit albanian articles? A serb says that me as an albanian cant edit a page conncted with albanian facts, but him yes? This is not good for the Wikipedia reputation. Please stop people with direct conflict of interest to get involved in articles. Serbs committed genocide against albanians. Now they enter to the pages talking about albanians and write what they want to? It is unnacceptable. Everything in that article is ofensive for albanians including numbers, hate speech, provocations etc. Please come and take a look. Bibliophilus 17:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed? Nothing in this greeting refers to your supposed ethnicity. What I do see is a request for neutral and suitably encyclopedic contribution, which the editorial assertion But Albanian is notabily higher developed and more noble than any slavic language, especially than the serbian one which has been created during the 1900-s is not. This is not a conflict of interest issue, but it is an editorial policy issue and a legitimate one. See Wikipedia is not a soapbox, the verifiability policy, the no original research policy, and the neutral point of view policy. DurovaCharge! 18:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


Cyber law

  • Rcannon100 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - Honestly not sure if this is a COI or not. This user identifies himself as the "Director of Cybertelecom" on his user page. His contributions - the majority of them - are the addition of links to his site in the 'external links' section of the referenced article and dozens of others. The site does bear a relationship to most articles the link is added to. Perhaps not overt COI, but certainly the appearance. I post here largely just for guidance. Anastrophe 00:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.cybertelecom.org

Yep, this is classic COI spam. However, the concerned user has other contributions apart from the spamming, so I left a note on his talk page. MER-C 09:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Rocketboom

Page is currently protected due to reverts and blind reverts by the above user. Article is highly promotional and the edit history reveals that any negative material is routinely removed. A cited BusinessWeek reference analyzing the popularity of the site was repeatedly removed to make way for unverified numbers provided by the site owner that were refuted by the BusinessWeek article. The Rocketboom article and the related Andrew Baron article would benefit from the attention from other editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cleanr (talk • contribs) 25 September 2007.

  • No diffs have been provided to show that "that any negative material is routinely removed" as part of a conflict of interest. There are numerous contributors to Rocketboom. See Wikipedia stats. The article largely is sourced to Rocketboom itself, bogs, youtube, etc. I did find many good sources for Rocketboom information and added one. I also posted a note on Pepso page since Pepso is a major contributor to the article. The Rocketboom matter does not seem to rise to a WP:COIN issue. -- Jreferee t/c 16:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Baron

Similar issues to Rocketboom above plus WP:VAIN. Article may be a potential merge candidate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cleanr (talk • contribs) 25 September 2007.

  • I went and checked both of these out. My initial take, knowing nothing of the history of this article and the related Rocketboom article: Notability here looks to be ok to me, though the tone of the article itself has some deep POV issues. Also, a lot of what is here is contained almost word-for-word on the Rocketboom article. Thus, I do not think I would support a delete of this article, though it seems like an ideal Merge candidate, as much of the content is already in the RB article; merging the material facts of Mr. Baron into that article would be easily done, and would only serve to further improve the Rocketboom article. Arakunem 00:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • There seems to be enough material to support a Andrew Baron article. This seems more like a content dispute rather than a WP:COIN issue. -- Jreferee t/c 16:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Martin Ruhe

First, I'm not sure whether reports of violations of WP:Autobiography go here or at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard, but I'm reporting it here. The article Martin Ruhe is almost entirely authored by User:Martinruhe, clearly the same person. However, this individual may be notable, as he is the cinematographer on a major motion picture. In any event, the article needs major cleanup and it needs to be made to read less like a resume. Any trace of simply self-promotion needs to be removed as well. Iamcuriousblue 17:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Anna Cyzon

Anna Cyzon (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Bee Vee87 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

The person appears to be notable, but the article is marked for inappropriate tone, and could use some paring down toward a neutral point of view. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 13:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I've given it a POV-ectomy. Obvious COI and a heavy-handed approach, but not copyvio. Needs independent sourcing. DurovaCharge! 20:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I added some info to the article There's a July 7, 2004 Etobicoke Guardian article that has some good biography information. The other references are blurbs. An AfD nomination could go either way. -- Jreferee t/c 18:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikianswers

Looks like this was either written by Answers.com staff or lifted directly from their site. I quote:

Our community is working toward nothing less than this: "To enable anyone, anywhere, to ask a question on any topic in their own words, and get a cooperatively written human answer."

The use of the word "our" is a bit of a giveaway... --FeldBum 14:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Hmm, yes this does read like a marketing brochure. I don't think I have the edit-fu to neutralize it, but I dont think it crosses the line of CSD tho either.... Arakunem 00:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Lots and lots (and lots) of press releases (100+) about Wikianswers going all the way back to ... January 2007. There seems to be no published information about Wikianswers before that date. A run through AfD might be appropriate since the article might not meet WP:A any time soon in view of the COI. -- Jreferee t/c 18:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Steve Hoffman (remastering engineer)

->See also:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Hoffman

  • Steve Hoffman (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) biography page is undergoing a conflict of interest between parties who wish the truth about Hoffman's dismissal from MCA to be documented in the article and moderators from Hoffman's own message board who are currently asking for the 'Controversy' section to be removed. As the information regarding this section is well documented, I believe the moderators are acting improperly due to a conflict of interest - they are representing Steve Hoffman in a biased way. I would like this page to either have the relevant section returned or to be deleted. 90.192.131.180 09:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Obviously there is no way for them to justify the removal of the controversy section, otherwise they would have responded by now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.31.184 (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There has been no response from the folks who kept removing the Controversy section. They have failed to provide solid justification for the continual removal of this section. Those of us who believe the Controversy section should be kept have provided many reasons while those against have remained strangely silent. In the interest of an unbiased Wikipedia entry, the Controversy section should be restored or the entire entry removed altogether. Huberman 13:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Huberman

Agreed. I don't know why Steve Hoffman's representatives (or so they call themselves) requested the page to be protected. There's ample evidence to support the "Controversy" section - not blogs or forums, but news reports and factual proof. I thought Wikipedia was a place where substantiated truth could be shared. I demand the section to be re-instated, unless proof is provided the accusations are false. ValerieSolanas 16:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The Steve Hoffman article has been a long-term edit war (which recently exploded) between those adding referenced information and those affiliated with Mr. Hoffman removing meaningful updates. Reiterating once again, those who remove such information openly reveal themselves as affiliates of Mr. Hoffman's website (as admins of his forum). Hence they are biased in their unrelenting urge to remove the Controversy section. Either the Controversy section should be restored or the article deleted. Sidar 17:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I recommend WP:BLPN --Ronz 19:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed for all the reasons mentioned above. I would sign this with my real username, but I find Kalowski's and EricGoberman's allegations of being banned from SH.tv for supporting the pro-controversy side credible, and I fear similar retribution. 70.253.208.182 18:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this report should be closed unless someone can come up with evidence that this is indeed a COI case. --Ronz 19:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Hoffman. EdJohnston 13:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
See WP:BLPN#Steve Hoffman again. EdJohnston 15:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
There's concern that the editors with coi might begin editing again once the article is unprotected. The editors in question have not contributed to the talk page discussions. Not much progress happening. --Ronz 19:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't even think they got involved in the AfD. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 06:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Interest between parties who wish the truth about Hoffman's dismissal from MCA to be documented in the article" = remove all such information from the article and protect until the matter can be resolved. The article now is protected. -- Jreferee t/c 18:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Oak Knoll Productions

Resolved. Deleted under Prod. ArakunemTalk 20:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Another self-promotional record label, created and built by single purpose accounts. Tom Doniphon 17:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Prod'ed for notability. Might be a CSD candidate as well, but let's see what the Prod results in. Arakunem 00:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

ALBANIANS BEWARE

Resolved.

Articles on Albanians (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - Hello. I am writing here to report again the case of a clear conflict of interest according articles about Albania, Albanians, Albanian language, Kosova, Albanian religion etc. Please stop the interference of editors from Serbia or former Yugoslavia in articles of this genre. Since 1913 part of Albania have been under Serbian and Yugoslavian occupation. Especially in Kosova, one of the larger Albanian occupied areas, the popualtion have suffered genocide, forms of exploit, discrimination, mass deportations and many other crimes which were the reason of one international intervention in 1999 to stop this occupation from Serbia. For this reason, it is totally biased and unfair permitting people of Serbian ethnic background editing content of articles concerning Albanian issue given even nowadays the official policy of the state of Serbia does not accepts the crimes of the past, has not apologized, and conducts a policy of denial for the right of 98 percent of the population in Kosova, which is the independence. I have noticed that serb editors in Wikipedia, enter such articles and commit different forms of mislead, such as deforming figures (in order to decrease the number of the Albanian population) change the facts on history (look at the article on Kosova, where serbian or pro-serbian editors have destroyed all facts of Albanian autoctony in Kosova in order to justify their national interest to keep longer occupied that Albanian land). Also the terminology used in articles linked to Albanian issues is full of provocative terms towards Albanians, hate speech, aggressive behavior for any attempt to correct the data etc (I tried more than once to change the nationalist anti-albanian term “Kosovo I Metohija” used by radical and extremist circuits in Serbia to call the internationally recognized unit of “Kosovo” and the place popularly known as “Kosova” by 98% of its inhabitants, but serb editors such as Duja, or Durova or other people with strong conflict of interest in this issue, have challenged the Wikipedia rules. For example in Kosovo article, a the modern era section, there is nothing talking about continous waves of deportation of Albanians from Kosova. But there you can find only the serb side of the story. You can easily find there whole paragraphs without any citation, but full of hate speech, racism, generalizations, demonizations, e.g. “By now, Albanians were a clear majority in Kosovo, the final result of centuries of Serbian exodus out of Kosovo, which commenced in Ottoman times and continued throught the 20th century as a reaction to the backward socio-economic status of Kosovo as well as harassment and outright murder of Serbian civilians by the hands of Albanians”. Or “It is worth mentioning here that rights to use the Albanian language in education and government were given and guaranteed by the Constitution of SFRY and were widely utilized in Serbia, Macedonia, and in Montenegro long before Dissolution of Yugoslavia. The only thing that changed in that matter is that before NATO intervention in 1999, there were information services and news ("Dnevnik") broadcasted in Albanian language on the Serbian National Radio and Television, RTS”, a piece of total misleading paragraph which offends thousands of people which suffered from the Serbian regime since 1913. Please block Serbians or former Yugoslavians from editing articles on Albanians. Bibliophilus 16:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I would suggest you read the page on editing disputes and follow the steps and guidelines there. Being Albanian or Serbian does not automatically imply a conflict of interest on any Albanian or Serbian article, and any editor regardless of nationality is free to edit such articles, provided they adhere to the Neutral Point Of View policies established. From your above description, and following some of your edits, it seems that you and the other editors have a basic Point Of View dispute over the terminology used in the articles. The dispute resolution channels are the best places to get this resolved quickly. Remember the goal is to remain neutral above all else. Arakunem 16:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    • 48 hour block. This is the second frivolous noticeboard thread begun by this editor. Full reasons for the block are available at the user's talk page. DurovaCharge! 17:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Note, for context: in the best Colbert tradition, Bibliophilus has been editing the article on the Albanian language to triple the number of speakers (from the ca. 6 million mentioned by Ethnologue, to his "nearly 17,5 million people" original research), while simultaneoulsy altering "some scholars believe that Albanian derives from the Illyrian language" to say "[it] has been proven that...", and replacing the English name "Kosovo" by the Albanian "Kosova". Diffs: 14:43, 25 October , 19:28, 25 October & 21:47, 28 October 2007. - Best regards, Ev 00:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Podiatry

Resolved. Blocked, indefinitely. MER-C 01:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

North american podiatric surgeon collective (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

I noticed this account delete a large amount of information from Podiatry (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) and reverted him, then looked at the talk page, where, lo and behold, I notice that it seems to be against the presence of the section he removed information from. I gave him a warning and pointed him to meta:Role account, as well as asked for proof of his accusations (That Australian "podiatrists" are not true podiatry practicioners) on the talk page. Could someone keep an eye on things here if they escalate or see if this account really has any business editing Podiatry at all? -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 06:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

User:North american podiatric surgeon collective appears to be another incarnation of a multiple sockpuppet user with an agenda on podiatry: see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/PublicSafetyOfficer. I wonder if Podiatry needs semi-protection? Gordonofcartoon 16:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Whoa. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll check the history and prot if need be. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 01:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Alcohol Advertising

There is a professor named David Justin Hanson who is using the name David Justin to edit this page and insert references to his own webpage reflecting his beliefs about alcohol. He is erasing referenced statements which show that there is a substantial peer-reviewed literature on the effects of alcohol advertising on consumption, and replacing it with his claim that there is "no scientific evidence" of this. His reference is his own webpage. In reviewing his username history it looks like he's been in trouble with wikipedia several times before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danielralphberg (talk • contribs) 05:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Fellowship of Friends IP block due to COI

If you take a look at Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Mario_Fantoni you will notice that Aeuio tried to prove that Mfantoni (me) was being employed by the Fellowship of Friends (FOF) to edit the Wikipedia article and that Baby Dove was a either a sock puppet of me or was working under me. The accusations were never confirmed and neither Baby Dove or Mfantoni were warned or blocked. The article Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alexander_Francis_Horn is not about a critic of the Fellowship of Friends (FOF), is about a playwriter that started a religious group that included Robert Burton, the founder of the FOF. The article Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/James_Vincent_Randazzo is also not about a critic of the FOF, it is about a former member of the FOF that started a religious group and is a convicted felon. Mfantoni 02:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see IP block at the Fellowship of Friends page. Yamla, an administrator, suggested to take this case to COIN. Thanks. Mfantoni 00:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I added User:Baby Dove and User:Love-in-ark to the report, based on the discussion at User_talk:Yamla and after following some links. See also a previous sock puppet report, listed above.
Some of the editors above have been blocked at various times. Click on 'block log' for details.
This case seems to have a previous history in administrator-land. If there are more details we should know about, I hope someone will add them.There is a user talk page for MFantoni but no actual account there. His two working accounts are listed above. The one he is still using is Mfantoni.
Mfantoni has requested (on Yamla's page) that the IP block for the Fellowship of Friends building be lifted. He asserts that 70 people are affected. Based on the rather unrepentant COI, and the Wikilawyering responses by people who appear to be FOF members, I wouldn't support lifting the block. Comments? EdJohnston 13:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I am using only the Mfantoni account at the moment. I did use the account Mario Fantoni in the past but I was receiving personal attacks and false accusations of sock puppetry on the Talk page of the Fellowship of Friends article so I decided to open a new account with an ID that would not ne my real name in order not to jeopardize my personal and professional reputation. Finally, the Talk page for MFantoni was created by user Moon Rising when he left a message that was supposed to be placed on the Talk page of Mfantoni. I moved the message to the Talk page of Mfantoni today so MFantoni now redirects to Mfantoni. I hope this explains the situation, let me know if it doesn't. Mfantoni 02:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I am the blocking admin. A significant proportion of the edits to Fellowship of Friends have taken place from an IP address range owned by Fellowship of Friends. Almost certainly, not everyone who uses that IP address range is a member in the Fellowship of Friends but I am not aware of any evidence that anyone who has used the address range to edit Fellowship of Friends is not also a member. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, of course. While we can certainly expect that some people who are members of the Fellowship of Friends would edit that article, my concern here is that this is a case where a significant proportion of the edits are taking place from an IP address range owned by the Fellowship of Friends, and indeed many of the other edits are not in accordance with WP:COI. A closer example would be the Microsoft article receiving a significant proportion of their edits from Microsoft's IP address range. It is unclear to me how to resolve this. By that, I mean I really don't know. Perhaps Fellowship of Friends is simply contaminated with WP:COI issues and should be blanked, and we should prohibit people with known COI from participating in the article directly. Perhaps the contributions from that IP address range and from accounts with potential COI issues have been in strict accord with WP:COI. I'm simply unsure. I really haven't had the time to examine this matter in more detail. --Yamla 18:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the options might be to simply leave the range block in place. There would be more incentive to lift the block if those blocked showed a sincere interest in allowing a neutral and well-referenced article to develop. The FOF-related editors have been participating in Wikipedia for many months and I don't perceive that they understand and agree to follow our NPOV policies. They seem to think that our COI rules are an annoying formality that shouldn't be applied to them. Until Fellowship of Friends was protected today, User:Mfantoni seemed to be edit-warring on that page to keep out information that he didn't like. In an edit yesterday, Mfantoni removed some charges from the article attributed to Alexander Francis Horn and James Vincent Randazzo, saying that the information only belonged in articles about those men. At the same time, he has voted in AfD that articles about those men should be *deleted*. That's a neat way of eliminating criticism from an article! EdJohnston 19:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
EdJohnston, the phrase "The FOF-related editors have been participating in Wikipedia for many months and I don't perceive that they understand and agree to follow our NPOV policies. They seem to think that our COI rules are an annoying formality that shouldn't be applied to them" is vague and shows a negative judgement on your part. Could you specify who are you calling "FOF-related editors"? I also noticed that you are not an admin. May I ask what is your connection to COIN? Mfantoni 02:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
EdJohnston, related to the Horn/Randazzo situation, in my understading there are 2 things happening at the same time: (1) The information about Horn and Randazzo doesn't belong to the History section of the FoF article and (2) The Horn and Randazzo Wikipedia articles have no relevance to Wikipedia. Both situations should be treated independently, not as one. That's my opinion, and it's because of that that your phrase "That's a neat way of eliminating criticism from an article!" looks sarcastic and judgemental to me. May I remind you to assume goood faith? Mfantoni 02:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I'll give you an even better example:). During a mediation, the mediator Vassayana, suggests that criticism be combined with the rest of the article rather than being its own section. Which was done. A few days later - when Vass left, all the criticism was deleted piece by piece. So I kept opening a new criticizingly section because obviously this incorporating into the aricle in the end only got rid of criticism. Then the fof members say let’s incorporate it into the article as suggested by the mediator (ex [14] [15].) Then they would say “not relevant to the section” and get rid of it [16]. This was quite annoying at the time. (I could come up with a couple of more examples if needed). Aeuio 20:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
When I posted the FOF COI incident here I was expecting that Wikipedia administrators and users with experience in COI would discuss the situation and come to a conclusion. At this point, this discussion looks more like an exchange between editors with different POV. Is it OK for editors to try to solve their differences here? I thought that the Talk page of the article existed for that purpose. Please tell me if I am wrong - I am trying to get to a decision about this incident ASAP since several editors are affected by it. Thank you. Mfantoni 02:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I reverted the copying of some material here from Talk:Fellowship of Friends. Those editors chose their posting location deliberately, and there was no argument that what they posted was not appropriate where it was. If you believe that their contributions are germane to this discussion, please summarize what they said there and provide pointers if needed. This board has problems with becoming overloaded when issues are controversial. EdJohnston 18:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
EdJohnston, Yamla asked to discuss the case here, when he said "All further discussion should take place on WP:COIN, please. --Yamla 14:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)". Please see Talk:Fellowship_of_Friends#Discussion_in_Yamla.27s_talk_page. Mfantoni 00:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
EdJohnston, could you answer my 2 questions above please? Here they are:
1. Could you specify who are you calling "FOF-related editors"?
2. I also noticed that you are not an admin. May I ask what is your connection to COIN?
Thank you. Mfantoni 00:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:COIN is maintained by anyone who shows up here to put in their two cents worth. I have no authority here more than any other editor. Admins are welcome to make an appearance and take part in the conversation. 'FOF-related editors' I define by behavior. For example, by percentage of their edits on FOF-related articles and Talk pages, plus tenacious defence of the interests of the FOF organization. If you check WP:COI you'll notice that this type of connection is included under Conflict of Interest. It is my personal view that our Conflict of Interest rules call for FOF-related editors to refrain from editing the FOF article, and participate only on the talk page. EdJohnston 02:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

§:Dear Yamla -- I am a novice editor, still learning the Wiki-rules, and I am puzzled by your action. As I read the COI guidelines, the main criteria for an editor is an aim to produce a neutral and verifiable article. Further, the guidelines explicitly state that editors who may have a COI are not prohibited from participating but rather must exercise care in doing so.

An editor with a FoF-owned IP address certainly warrants scrutiny but it seems that the content (promotional or otherwise) of their edits and their tone (neutral or not) determines whether they have crossed a COI line. An editor pushing an overly negative FoF agenda is as subject to COI as one promoting the FoF, by this definition; the only difference is one COI is personal and the other is organizational (perhaps). If this is indeed the qualitative criteria, then it seems as if fair application of COI should generate scrutiny of several of the recent participating editors. Some of these are admitted former members of FoF, some are admitted members, and others are unknown (to me at least). I must add that most of the editors appear to be working in good faith to me.

So to this novice, your action appears to be hasty and unbalanced, though I remain open to having my judgment improved.StillWorking 18:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla - Stillworking is part of the FOF cabal. Wantthetruth? 22:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm being naive, but what about this famous quote: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." And, since COI is a guideline, not a policy, "it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." The situation here seems quite innocent; no major corporations or political figures are involved, just a couple of people who rent office space with a shared network with the subject of the article. Have there been allegations of sockpuppetry? Yes. Has there been sockpuppetry? No. Are the editors involved with this article biased? Yes. Are editors polite and civil? Well, we're getting there. Has there been tendentious editing? Not that I can see - not even from the editors I disagree with ;-). In my opinion, this has been blown out of proportion and the block should be lifted on the article and no editors should be blocked.--Moon Rising 02:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

How is this issue resolved? With Yamla's absence approaching two weeks (last post 17 Oct), it certainly seems as if the main Wiki-actor has abandoned the issue or at least placed it on a very low priority. What steps are available to us for a resolution? StillWorking 17:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The issue here is primarily COI. The block should remain in place AND if possible, the COI editors need to be blocked from editing. Although the block has helped to generate a little discussion on the FOF talk page, there still appears to be no sincere interest in generating a neutral and well referenced article. Editing and reverting of whatever the FOF editors don't like still, IMO takes precedence above a realistic approach to the inclusion of freely available information on the organisation, it's background and development.Wantthetruth? 19:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you give the informal mediation a chance? It hasn't even started yet - the mediator is getting up to speed. There is one main sticking point for you that no other editor seemed to agree with. Let's see what a third party has to say. There are other options in DR which we need to try if this doesn't work. COI is not the answer, IMHO. --Moon Rising 22:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but I still can't understand why an IP block will solve a problem of COI, since "COI flagged" editors that are affected by the IP block can edit the article from another IP address. So when they edit from the blocked IP range there is a COI, but when the edit from home, for example, there is no COI? And that is supposed to make sense? It seems absurd to me, and Yamla, the admin that created the IP block, hasn't comment for almost 2 weeks. I will take the next step: I will report Yamla to the Arbitration Committee. Mfantoni 07:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

mfantoni: The issue is conflict of interest, the fact that you circumvent measures to discourage it merely confirms your attitude towards Wikipedia and COI.Wantthetruth? 18:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

moon rising: Mmmmmm are you telling me that; - a number of FOF members, some of whom are paid salaries by FOF, all editing the FOF page on Wikipedia, some from a shared building and shared ip address are in disagreement with me ? I'm shocked, no really! I've put in a request for the mediation cabal to try and help resolve issues. FOF COI is blatant and ongoing. Absurdly biased editing from the FOF side continues without discussion even on a draft page! I believe we're moving towards arbitration, sadly it seems we can't move there directly. Advice from any Wiki veterans here regarding dispute resolution and arbitration would be very much appreciated by me - thanks Wantthetruth? 19:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Whantthetruth, I am not paid by the FOF to edit the article; it must be the tenth time I say this but I will say it as many times as it is necessary. Also, the FOF doesn't pay for my internet connection; I rent an office and I pay for the connection myself. You keep saying that I shouldn't edit the article because I am a current member of the FOF and thus I have a positive bias. What about you, a former member of the FOF with a clear negative bias? Anyway, the IP block has been lifted so I am not going to comment on this page anymore. Take care. Mfantoni 19:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

mfantoni: Calm down, take a break, read up on what constitutes conflict of interest - thanksWantthetruth? 20:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wicked Tinkers and related articles

Articles
Editors
I gave Warrencasey a coi warning and did some cleanup on the articles. He's not responded to the warning and has continued editing by copying information directly from his website. --Ronz 16:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I received a nice message from NeoVampTrunks a week ago [17], and there's been no problems since, so this could probably be closed. --Ronz 19:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • There is enought reliable source material for Wicked Tinkers and added some of what I found. As for the other articles, they probably could be listed at AfD or receive a merge to Wicked Tinkers tag. The topics could be spun out from Wicked Tinkers later if enough source material is located. -- Jreferee t/c 18:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Wicked Tinkers definitely meet the notability criteria. The other articles were probably spun out too soon. --Ronz 18:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Outside opinion wanted at Talk:List of network management systems

Please see the discussion at Talk:List of network management systems#Non-notable entries. A recent dispute with an dissatisfied COI editor (now resolved) set off a review of all the companies on this article's list. Many were not notable and have been tagged as such and, in many cases, processed for deletion using speedy, PROD, or AfD. I noticed what I thought were multiple COI situations and tagged both the articles and the user talk pages. Another editor has expressed concern that that my user talk page taggings were inappropriate. Could someone take a quick look at the list I prepared at Talk:List of network management systems#Comments and give us your advice/opinion?

Thanks for your help. --A. B. (talk) 02:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think your coi tagging is appropriate in those cases. I left a note on that page that the coi tag does not imply bad faith nor stop those editors from contributing. ArakunemTalk 17:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for looking at this! --A. B. (talk) 18:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Get (conflict)

There has been a lot of new additions to the article by Sagbliss which look a lot like WP:OR. This individual has also been very aggressive with other editors. See User talk:198.23.5.73 and User_talk:Savant1984#Talk:Reform_Judaism and User talk:24.225.137.164. In additional to combining a lot of material from court cases around the world, this person is reshaping the article "to highlight the plight of the agunah." Since he or she claims to be part of an active Canadian court case related to the topic, this also falls into a conflict of interest. Bruno23 14:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

In general a conflict of interest can occur if somebody edits an article about a subject where they party to a lawsuit with the subject. Here the subject is a topic, not an entity, so there is no chance of COI. This is potentially run-of-the-mill POV pushing. As such, you should handle it through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution as a content dispute. - Jehochman Talk 01:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I'll take that approach as you suggest, but for the record, Sagbliss is rewriting the article completely from her perspective as a plaintiff in the case of Bruker v. Marcovitz. This distortion of the facts leads to a strong bias in the article - if not a COI, then what is it? Bruno23 13:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Sagbliss is no longer allowed to post or e-mail to users on wikipedia. The issue was resolved by the admins. Bruno23 23:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Rhodes piano

Resolved. Protected until 15 December. MER-C 02:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Rhodes piano (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

  • An edit war broke out on this article over the past few days. Today, the reversions were between Josephabrandstetter (t c) and Harold Rhodes (t c). Both of these usernames are names of people mentioned in the article and its reversions, and some kind of lawsuit between those two persons is also involved. It's not at all clear if the users are actually the people mentioned in their usernames (especially Harold Rhodes, see the initial version of his userpage.) --Darkwind (talk) 22:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The lawsuit is over the "Rhodes piano" trademark (or something like that). The article is unsourced, so any information in the article implying that one group is producing, selling, etc. official "Rhodes pianos" should be removed from the article. It's a long article, so if someone has the time ... -- Jreferee t/c 18:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • It may have been easier than I thought. I made this edit, which seem to remove the disputed material from the article. A once over by someone else may help get any lingering, contentious material. -- Jreferee t/c 18:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, the true test of whether that solved the conflict is what happens once the article is unprotected... –Henning Makholm 21:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
And that would be just before Christmas. Please come back if the problem resurfaces. MER-C 02:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Cflanagan68

Articles
This is a very inexperienced user, so he may not even be aware of the coi and spam warnings I placed on his talk page. However, he's continued to edit Innovation. I think it would be helpful for a third party to get involved rather than my escalating the warnings. --Ronz 18:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
He's continued to add the links. I've asked him to respond and given another warning. --Ronz 18:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Cumbrowski

Articles
Previous COIN
Another difficult one where a third party would be very helpful. This is an experienced editor who I noticed added links to one of his websites, cumbrowski.com, into Affiliate marketing. I haven't given him a coi warning, but just asked him about them on his talk page. He lists numerous other website of his here: User:Cumbrowski/AboutMe#Private_links. When I searched for cumbrowski.de, I found 11:48, 6 November 2006. When I searched for roysac.com, I found a past COIN report: Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_16 (last entry, "eComXpo"). At this point, I'm not going to investigate further because he has some experience with COIN and because I'm not clear on the eComXpo conclusions. --Ronz 18:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Hey Ronz, The eComXpo (virtual conference) conclusion was that COI does not apply to somebody who speaks at that conference without being compensated for it nor having any other financial stake in it. Having a personal interest in something is not the same as having a financial interest. COI applies only in cases like that, if the article is about the person for somebody close to the person, e.g. a relative. There is of course a conflict of interest in those cases.
I wanted to keep it short, but some developments at Wikipedia that started out sometimes in spring this year are IMO very disturbing and require spending the time and energy to work against them. Those developments are damaging, devaluing or even destroy the efforts made by many contributors to Wikipedia. More than "old" editors are the new editors affected who just started out to contribute. They are being scared away to never come back because of accusations that are often inaccurate. Something that I would not consider a warm welcome and also consider everything but encouraging to do anything to help at Wikipedia.
I have made over 3,800 edits on over 500 unique pages across Wikipedia over the past 22 months, including articles, talk pages, templates, project page and user pages [18]. I do not very much "admin work" at wikipedia. I add content to Wikipedia. I don't add content to sneak in spammy links into Wikipedia. The few links to sites I control are highly relevant to the subject and do not point to my commercial websites (I own a number of domains). They refer to non-commercial/non-profit projects that were created with the purpose to either provide information and resources or to preserve something that is more and more getting lost. I can only speak for myself, but I do rarely add substantial content to topics I have no clue about or are not interested in whatsoever (although I did it more than once for other reasons, e.g. teaching new editors about how to write better content and how to reference and categorize the stuff they put in).
Cumbrowski.com is a personal resources site to internet marketing subjects, including, but not exclusively to affiliate marketing. What the site is and does is explained in detail on the editorial note page, which is referred to from every page of the site [19], RoySAC.com is about text art, pixel art, cracktros, bbstros, demoscene, underground art scene. It started out as a site where I just put my stuff up, but it evolved to a lot more than that over time. See for yourself. The reference from the permanent resident card is to this page [20], which I created as a result of my involuntary 5+ years 1st hand experience with the subject. I collected information over the year. The subject is highly complicated and references to the book size official mumbo jumbo does not help a person who is not an immigration lawyer, senator, congressman, employee of the Department of Labor or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to get their head around the subject. But those people are the ones the article is about. I fell out of status in 2005 and had to leave everything behind and leave the country without knowing if or when I can come back to my new home again. Only because of a mistake by my lawyer and because I did not understand what happened. I collected all the information that helped me to understand the process, what I had to do and what I can do to make sure things go as smooth as possible. All references are part of highly visible articles in Wikipedia, which are constantly spammed (I removed plenty of that myself). They were seen and most certainly checked and verified by more than one editor and never removed, with the exception of one reference which was removed by anonymous edits from the same IP with misleading or missing edit summary without doing anything else (e.g. writing a note at the articles talk page to provide some arguments for the removal). I reverted those edits under the eyes of the RC patrollers for the mentioned reasons and nobody questioned them to this date. I also would like to note that I was a strong and vocal supporter of the re-enablement of the nofollow attribute for external links. You can find references to this all over Wikipedia. If I am so "hot" for links, why would I support any devaluation of them too? That would not make sense, wouldn't it?
I am sure that your intentions are only good Runz, you contacted me before you posted here and also did let me know about it, when you did it. However, I noticed that during the past months that the COI argument is applied (or tried) in way too many cases, which seem to escalate into something like a Witch hunt in some cases or are used against an editor to divert from the actual problem at hand. This causes a lot of damage to Wikipedia IMO, because the people who are affected the most are the ones who ADD content to Wikipedia. I noticed this development in spring this year and wrote a personal post at my private blog about this subject [21].
I was not scared away yet, because I still believe that this problem can be solved and because I am stubborn if I strongly believe to be right or if I believe that something is awefully wrong with something I do care about. It had an affect on me though, I did spend less time editing and adding new content at Wikipedia in the recent months, because I spent more time on things that should not be an issue than on being productive. I see myself writing long comments like these, just to cover every possible aspect in an attempt to avoid long discussions that can become off topic without solving the original issue. I also use those posts as reference to hopefulle spend less time the next time this issue comes up. Not just about me, but any other editor who gets into the same position.
This is all I have to say to the subject. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 02:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Hm, how about getting an opinion from the Reliable Sources noticeboard about whether cumbrowski.com qualifies? Most of the time personal websites don't satisfy WP:RS. If it's one's own website, then whether or not it's commercially operated it's simply better form to suggest it as a reference on the article talk page rather than citing oneself directly. This concern about COI interpretation generally would have carried a lot more clout if it had been registered prior to a noticeboard query rather than afterward. We're not a witch hunt; simply a venue to register possible concerns for investigation. The response, both here and particularly at my user talk page, seems over the top. DurovaCharge! 03:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I know this editor in real life and he's a good faith contributor, though he may be making some mistakes in determining what's a reliable source. I suggest dispute resolution by uninvolved parties. I am sure he will agree to abide the consensus. - Jehochman Talk 12:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed that the previous COIN continues in Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_17 (near the bottom, "eComXpo"). I've added both to the top of this report for easier reference.
I think we should start by Cumbrowski giving us a list of every domain he owns which he's linked to from Wikipedia, since he's suggested there may be others and I stopped looking for them once I found the previous COIN. --Ronz 18:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment: Durova referred to this response at her user page. I commented there to keep things out of this discussion that don't belong here. Just FYI. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 17:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I never made a secret about who I am and what I do. I even use my real name as user name for my edits. I don't mind and actually expect that any of my contributions and references will be reviewed by other editors who work on the same article as I do with edits by other editors myself. Nobody is perfect and everybody makes honest mistakes in good faith. I do expect though that this honesty does not result in a penalty of some sort and that different sets of rules will be applied than in cases where the editor is less transparent about himself. I mentioned already above all domains I own and refer to from a few of the many articles in Wikipedia, which I created or extended. I own many more domains, which I don't link to from any Wikipedia article, because I don't consider them appropriate as reference myself. I am also a writer who writes for other publications and websites, which I do not own or control. I hope this helps and makes sense. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 15:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. I've struck out my comment above. --Ronz 15:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
FYI. My User:Cumbrowski page is also a good place to look at to learn about my Wikipedia and other activities, including my mentioned writing activities. I maintain the information on my user page not only for myself, but also for other editors. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 15:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
To help you with your evaluation I suggest to also see article talk pages where you can see that I actively encourage others to review content and references that were added by me and to get more involved to improve the overall quality of an article. I even call upon editors directly in some cases, where I know that they are knowledgeable about the subject and even have conflicting opinions to my own. For example the work on the article to Nofollow where I contacted User:BozMo to review my significant additions to the article (1). We had "conflicts" in the past (2) but learned to appreciate each others openness and fairness (3). This is important, because it ensures that the review is done by somebody who is not favorable to your point of view on the subject, but at the same time also not prejudges to oppose anything you did without examining it faithfully. Also see Talk:Affiliate_marketing, Talk:United_States_Permanent_Resident_Card, Talk:PCBoard, Talk:ASCII_art, Talk:Superior_Art_Creations to just name a few. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 17:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Review_Needed_User:Cumbrowski --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 19:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for posting the request. DurovaCharge! 03:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Bronchiolitis obliterans‎

  • 199.181.114.193 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - This user inserted links to PopcornFacts.com into articles about Bronchiolitis obliterans‎ and Diacetyl. PopcornFacts is a website by ConAgra Foods, one of the companies who had the offending ingredient in their popcorn and appears to be a propaganda website. This IP address comes from Ketchum Communications, a "public relations and marketing agency which specializes in corporate and product positioning". If you look at the history of the articles, another user named ConAgra Foods has also edited to make the company look more favorable. Hannabee 19:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, someone's been citing the International Food Information Council Foundation as a source with positive articles about the offending chemicals. However, it is described as "Its staff members hail from industry groups such as the Sugar Association and the National Soft Drink Association, and it has repeatedly led the defense for controversial food additives including monosodium glutamate, aspartame (Nutrasweet), food dyes, and olestra. IFIC has been working on food biotechnology issues since 1992 and has a lot of pro-biotech and food industry propaganda on its website". Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Food_Information_Council (Sorry, I'm not so good at wiki formatting stuff yet) Hannabee 19:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Chartered Accountants

Both articles were created by Chartered Accountants, found by me at Alex's Bot list. The latter was created after being deleted as spam, and tagged by me as a COI. Incidentally, it is also a prime example of a WP:COATRACK. Bearian 21:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I've indeffed the account per the username policy and left a COI warning. Go ahead and prod if sources aren't forthcoming. A premier business award in Australia ought to have at least one verifiable outside source. DurovaCharge! 02:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

User Dbromage, suspected sockpuppetry, voting fraud, COI and self awarding of Barnstar

Resolved. Further discussion to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Dbromage. MER-C 05:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I have listed my concerns in both the Administrators and COI notice board as I believe there has been abuse and COI as I hope each notice board can find one way or the other. The principal aim here is to determine if COI exists though the use of sock puppetry, although you may examine all the facts.

User:Dbromage behavior warrants an investigation. If my allegations are judged to have basis, it goes a long way in explaining the editing warring, sock/meat puppetry, and general un-civility, which has occurred in Railpage article over the past year.

Having entered into a good faith discussion with a editor who admits a COI with the Railpage article (see 3-4th November 2007) [22], I've finally become sick and tired of this user Dbromage and his sock and meat puppets.

User:Dbromage I suspect is using multiple sock puppets Thin Arthur, The Null Device and possibly two other IP addresses (see end) to edit, vote and discuss changes to the Railpage article and many other articles (refer evidence) here at Wikipedia.

Reading the Railpage article the name Dbromage seems to match as the subjects founder - David Bromage .

I’m particularly disturbed that the user has awarded himself and an Administrator [23] a Barnstar using his Thin Arthur sockpuppet (a first on Wikipedia?). [24]

The user has also given false and misleading information to an Administrator User:Durova in order to conceal his identity. [25] [26]

This user has used the Thin Arthur and Null Device sock puppets and has not disclosed his conflict of interest when discussing Railpage article content. [27] [28] [29]

User:Dbromage would have a difficult case against ignorance of COI guidelines as he has advised others on the issue using the Thin Arthur sock puppet. [30]

And I consider the be the more serious, voting against its deletion and making comments against the articles deletion. Afd #2, Afd #3, #4.

The user has also attempted to take action against myself when there is disputed content on numerous occasions without disclosing his/her conflict of interest in the Railpage article. [31][32] [33]

I also suspect that the user is also responsible for meat puppetry using names such as FailpageMustGo, “DFC free Oz” and “Fundie Busters” using throw away IP addresses in a deliberate attempt to stymie debate and discredit any further nominations for the article’s deletion. Look at the timing of the nomination of Afd #4, user:The Null Device and 59.167.77.190.

If these allegations are proven, how will it affect the status of the Railpage Article? as Dbromage through his sock puppets have heavily edited the article. See 23rd July 2007 [34]

Evidence to support my allegations

Please look at this; [35] I consider Thin Arthur and 150.203.56.19 to be the same. IP 150.203.56.19 seems to be an in adverted error of not logging into Wikipedia by user:Dbromage.

If you agree then, please consider this Revision history of Deborah Lawrie

The article was created by Dbromage and then was amazingly edited on the same day by 150.203.56.19. It would be shear stroke of luck that another user with as much knowledge on a remote subject would stumble over it within a matter of hours, and providing finishing references to Dbromage edits. True, there is a two-hour break between edits. It looks as though the same editor is at work.

Please refer to the following link where one user corrects the other. Again, it looks as though the same editor is at work [36]

If your are still unsure, there is more evidence linking 150.203.56.19 to User:Thin Arthur. These are just a few, there are some more in no particular order which I’ve put on my talk page. If you fancy yourself as a Wikisleuth, you can start here [37]

Edits made within minutes

Evidence linking Thin Arthur, 150.203.56.19 to Dbromage

Some other examples

Thin Arthur supporting Dbromage’s vote in an Afd - there are more on my talk page

Thin Arthur, edits Dbromage's contribution.

Now look at user Thin Arthur’s edits with The Null device

Null Device and Dbromage

It seems to me the same user editing in the same manner, circumstantial evidence, maybe, but based on the link between Dbromage and Thin Arthur it is surely enough to warrant a check user request against The Null Device.

Based on the above evidence I believe it would be worthwhile the following user names for check user.

And based upon the edit made here [38] & [39], and user who admitted to having these IP addresses, but was reluctant to disclose his user name to Administrator [40]

Thank you.Tezza1 14:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd take this as an advisory, and that all further discussion belongs at the suspected sockpuppets case. MER-C 05:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

UST Global

Are these reasons enough to block them - for sock/meatpuppetry and/or edit wars? Bearian 13:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Some of these edits border on bad faith, but also I see some editors who don't yet know where on the Talk page to put their comments. IMHO blocking is indeed appropriate in case of a COI editor who clearly understands the rules and chooses not to follow them, but a serious conversation should occur first. I still see some lack of understanding that more conversation might be able to remedy. EdJohnston 17:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I left messages for three of the new editors and hope to encourage some dialog. WP:SOCK was explained to User:Vishnu123. EdJohnston 03:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Oops. Chella123 is continuing to revert the Business Week information from the page without adding any new references, just saying it is 'outdated.' I think repeated COI edits against policy definitely put him in block territory. I left him a final warning. EdJohnston 13:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Chella123 has been blocked. Bearian 13:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Probable cause exists that Vishnu123 is a sockpuppet of Chella123. I am blocking that one, too. Bearian 13:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • An invitation to join the discussion was extended to me by Ed Johnston. I would be happy to assist anyone with requests for clarification or information as I originated the company in 1998, and retired in 2004. Regarding the Business Week Website, I just placed a request for their website to 1) show the start of the company as 1998 instead of 1999 (California first recognized "US Technology Resources, L.L.C" in October of 1998) b) show my status as retired.
Please let me know if I can be of assistance in any way.
Sincerely,
Steve Ross Stevejross 15:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Update. I feel it is quite probable that Steve Ross is, as stated, the founder of the company. There are hints of a disagreement between him and the company about his role, and his name is not found in their current web site. Chella123 contacted Business Week on behalf of the company and got BW to update the corporate profile about UST Global, to show the current officers' names correctly. Steve Ross is concerned that our article no longer mentions his role in founding the company, since no sources are available. I have encouraged him to be more specific about his concerns, since no mention at all is not an unfavorable mention, and it's not our fault that no published sources have chosen to cover the details of the company's founding. Opinions of other editors about this would be welcome. EdJohnston 18:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you on this issue. WP:BLP requires, in effect, "No news is good news." Bearian 19:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

User Armarshall and a Financial Conflict of Interest

Articles

User Armarshall has been editing on Davis Dyslexia Correction and on Dyslexia related articles. In her edits, she promotes the Davis Dyslexia Correction Method. For example, she is quick to remove any criticism of the approach in the orientation sections and to revert any removal of the Davis Dyslexia Correction Method from the Dyslexia article, even though it is not a mainstream approach. She also edits on articles describing products that are in competition with the Davis method, and is much quicker to allow criticism of these approaches. I have since discovered on gimpyblog that this user is employed by the Davis Dyslexia Association International, and manages their websites. In addition, these websites also recommend her book. Thus she has a definite financial interest in this issue. --Vannin 22:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What has happened here is that Armarshall has become the victim of Wikipedia's "Law of Unintended Consequences":
Unintended consequences.
If you write in Wikipedia about yourself, your group, or your company, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, and no right to delete it outside our normal channels; we will not delete it simply because you don't like it. Any editor may add material to it within the terms of our content policies. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want included in an article, it will probably find its way there eventually; more than one user has created an article only to find himself presented in a poor light long-term by other editors. Therefore, don't create promotional or other articles lightly, especially on subjects you care about. Either edit neutrally or don't edit at all. NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable.
This applies to all articles and to any subject, including pet ideas or favorite singer, regardless of who started the article. We need to cover the subject from all angles, and NPOV requires that both sides of the story are presented, so criticism is included. Many think they can write an article presenting a subject in the best light possible, only to find they have opened a can of worms and Pandora's box itself. Once the article is started, all kinds of negative things also become part of the article. So attempts to promote something often end up back-firing.
As we have often seen here, attempts to cover-up documented criticism only results in more unwanted attention and even better referenced criticisms being added to the article in question. We aren't interested in her idea of "truth", but in NPOV coverage of all aspects of the subject. Hagiographic and/or one-sided articles are fine on personal websites, but are totally inappropriate here.
Her proper role here (since she has a big COI) is to ensure that obvious libel or undocumented criticisms are corrected, and that is best done by participating at the article's talk page and convincing other editors to help do it if they can be convinced by good arguments.
The article should include legitimate and well-sourced criticisms. Such attempts to violate NPOV should back-fire in a big way. If necessary the website can be blacklisted. -- Fyslee / talk 22:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Her user page gives links to her blog and book website. Her book website says [41] she's webmaster for http://www.dyslexia.com --Ronz 01:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Response to AccusationI believe that User:Vannin is or may be a sockpuppet of Spoctacle and the banned user [HeadleyDown] for the following reasons:
* Vannin has provided no identifying information on his user page; thus there is no evidence of a real-world identity.
* HeadleyDown had a history of abusive POV edits to an article on Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). Vannin has a history of antagonistic edits to the Davis Dyslexia Correction article; the Davis program has strong philosophical overlap and similarities to NLP.
* Vannin's posting history shows that he edited the Davis Dyslexia Correction page almost exclusively and very heavily from 2 August 2007 to 9 August. User:Spoctacle appeared and begin edits & discussion along the same line from 14-28 September, then stopped. Vannin re-emerged on 18 October and I responded to his comment by deleting material he found objectionable (no argument).
* On 2 Nov I received an email via Wikipedia advising me that Spoctacle had been removed and suggesting I review the article; I assume this came from a Wikipedia administrator as my personal email is not listed with my user profile. On 4 November I archived the section of discussion with Spoctacle, noting that it was a banned user/sockpuppet, and I also deleted one contribution of Spoctacle from the introductory paragraph of the main article (which contained information repeated later in the article). I did this mostly as a trap to see if anyone would show up to object. Vannin did, within 24 hours, on 5 November specifically objecting to those changes and the archival of Spoctacle's posts. I found it odd that a supposed neutral and independent user would object to archival (NOT deletion] of discussion with a user that had been exposed as fraudulent.
* Vannin's history and conduct seems to be consistent with the [|modus operandi] attributed to HeadleyDown, and the instant action seems to be in line with the tactic of "alleging bias, promotion, covert support for topic X) to kill off any editors who might object to their actions."
* I have a history of working with legitimate editors to meet NPOV concerns. However, I do not think that Spoctacle and Vannin have been acting in good faith; Vannin's edits seem to be strongly agenda-driven.
* I have always posted under my real name and clearly identified who I am. This can be ascertained easily in my user profile. I am the author of a book about dyslexia written for Adams Media which is an objective book that covers a variety of methods and approaches. I am a self-employed writer, researcher, and web designer and I have done work for a variety of different publishers, agencies & organizations, writing mostly about educational topics and/or web design. I am paid for my services but that does not include contributions to wikipedia. I believe this is in accordance with the following wikipedia standard:
Editors who may have (or be perceived as having) a close connection with a subject are recommended to disclose this, and should take great care not to edit in a manner that may be perceived as controversial, promotional or agenda-driven.
* I have made an effort to carefully source statements that I have added to the Davis Dyslexia article and have on several occasions deleted information added by others that seemed hyped or promotional (example, reference to Davis' book as "best-selling").
* I have not removed any sourced criticism from the Davis Dyslexia article; I have objected to and removed unsourcedcriticism and tried to consolidate repeated postings referencing the same source to avoid redundancy.
* I am an active participant in the Wikipedia Dyslexia Project and part of this is to create a series of article summarizing different aspects of dyslexia research and treatment. I have contributed to other related articles as well; for example, I contributed significantly to the biography of Samuel_Orton, an important figure in the history of dyslexia. I have encourage Vannin and others to join the dyslexia project as well but this has not happened; Vannin's posts have tended to be be deletions rather than clarifications or qualifications of existing text, and rarely have been sourced. Armarshall 02:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't actually know how to defend myself here. I edit under only one username. I only edit when I have time, and have a lot of work commitments and family commitments. I did not know that I had to provide a lot of personal information about myself, and in fact thought that it would be a good idea for a woman not to do so. I'm not sure how to prove that I'm not someone else and welcome any suggestions. I have been concerned about the Davis Dyslexia Correction article ever since an advertising leaflet arrived at my house, citing the Wikipedia article, and wanted to make sure that it was more NPOV, as it did indeed appear to be advertising. I have found Armarshall to be rather assertive in making sure that the article stayed very positive towards the approach. I suspect that this attack against me is an effort to deflect from the subject at hand, which is that Armarshall has a financial interest in the Davis Dyslexia Association. --Vannin 03:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I've placed a one week full page protection on dyslexia and refer the dispute to article content request for comment with a few procedural comments of my own. First, administrators have no special access to editors' e-mail. If you haven't enabled that site feature you haven't enabled it. Second, I appreciate full disclosure of a conflict of interest. This doesn't mean every editor who participates at Wikipedia is under obligation to disclose personal information, but those whose job requirements entail participation here are welcome and encouraged to do so. Wikipedia also has a policy called assume good faith, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So unless something far more substantial than the statement above is advanced to support the speculation that Vannin is a vandal I will disregard the claim (it would be good form to withdraw it as it presently stands). Also, the style of writing generally used in the public relations profession is incompatible with encyclopedic prose. No one would dream of going to their local library and posting a press release into Encyclopedia Britannica; the same principle applies here. Editors who have a conflict of interest are strongly encouraged to post suggested edits with citations to article talk pages for impartial review and adaptation instead of editing the page directly. Real world public relations fiascoes have resulted from the latter approach. It is fully compliant with site standards (and considerably safer from journalists) to remain active in talk space and in Wikipedia namespace instead of editing articles directly. It's also considerably less time consuming. DurovaCharge! 03:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but if you look at the edit history you will see that the user Piechjo posed a NPOV template on 20 February 2007 and I refrained from editing for more than 3 months, until 24 April 2007, after a "wikify" template had also been added. In that time, no editors showed up to do something. So there was no one else on the talk page to work with or develop consensus.
As to Vannin, I don't know who she is or what the intent is, I just know that Vannin and Spoctacle showed up almost simultaneously at the beginning of August, and I was informed this week that User:Spoctacle was a sock puppet acting in bad faith. I would very much welcome the participation of good faith editors.
Is this the appropriate page for response, or should this discussion now be taken elsewhere? Armarshall 10:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Road & Travel Magazine

I'm trying to clean up COI issues and establish notability for Road_&_Travel_Magazine. I left a note on the discussion page citing a source about 10 days ago, but I'm not sure how to proceed next and would appreciate someone with NPOV taking a look at it. Thank you. Erikd7 10:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Lipodissolve

Check out the talk page and recent history, there's serious COI problems regarding drug companies here. I don't have the time to get to the bottom of this, so I'm requesting that the people that frequent this noticeboard do. Cheers, east.718 at 22:33, 11/6/2007

Specifically:

There is a mess of SPA editors with some kind of agenda, pro or anti (there are probably some sockpuppets in the above list). Gordonofcartoon 15:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Good call about the page protection. I've recommended an article content RFC at the article talk page. Follow up if problems continue. DurovaCharge! 15:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Enologix

I thought this could be resolved easily but it looks like the folks behind this wine consulting company aim to make this article an advertisement. The accounts of note include:

And judging from the article history there are a couple other older accounts that only edited this article. Back in May [42] I left a note on the Enologix account's talk page about the COI policy and offer to help edit the article. A few days ago they replied back and I offer to work on the article [43] and request again that they make comments/suggestion on the article talk page rather then edit the article. I then expanded the article from a stub, trying to maintain an NPOV tone, including a well referenced Criticism section. Unfortunately that hasn't solve much with two of IPs editing the article with a lot a distinctly advertising bent [44], [45], [46]. I fret that this is only the beginning with what is starting to look like a self interest disregard in our COI policy. AgneCheese/Wine 22:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the registered account indefinitely per the username policy and left some advice at the user talk page. Placed a COI template on the article and a month of semiprotection. Follow up if problems continue. DurovaCharge! 06:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Will do. AgneCheese/Wine 10:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Bamdad bahar

I suspect that the writer Bamdadb, may have a COI given the similarty between the username and article title. VivioFateFan (Talk, Sandbox) 01:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bamdad bahar. MER-C 13:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Jill Whalen

Resolved. Ronz fixed up the tone, and User:Albatross2147 took his COI tag off the article. EdJohnston 16:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This article on my watchlist was recently tagged for COI, but I am not sure why. Could somebody check the article please. - Jehochman Talk 07:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The editor who tagged the article for {{COI}} has just commented, at Talk:Jill Whalen, that it appears to be a vanity article and contains link spam. I was going to go for an AfD nom but decided a clean up would be the better way to go since this person has some sort of notability. EdJohnston 13:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I think this article may have been written by a fan, rather than the subject herself. Whalen has a mailing list with 25,000 subscribers. As such, NPOV or Cleanup tags might be more appropriate; even better would be for somebody to clean the article. I've done a few edits to this article a while ago, so I am not the best person for a cleanup. - Jehochman Talk 15:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I can see two directions to go with this article: (a) make it shorter, (b) make it longer. The appeal of (a) is that articles that seem too promotional are sometimes acceptable in shorter form. The idea of (b) would be to actually pull out a couple of bits of Jill Whalen's specific advice, and get reliable sources to comment on whether the advice is good. Current sourcing of the article is not too bad; while web sources are used, they are only of her words, so are not being used to determine questions of fact. EdJohnston 16:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
One thing we should be aware of is that Wikipedia has more male than female editors. This can create an unintentional gender bias. In fact, female technologists seem to be under-represented in our articles. - Jehochman Talk 16:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure the underlying bias is true. Aren't females under-represented in technology, and Wikipedia merely reflects that? Quatloo 19:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
This side issue should probably go to the village pump. Sorry for creating a distraction. - Jehochman Talk 21:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

José W. F. Valle

Looks like it's an autobiography. See first contributer. Ρх₥α 00:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, looks very much that way. The COI template is appropriate and so is the message to the user talk space. The article is referenced and he seems to be a notable physicist, although it would be in much better taste to direct that expertise toward improving science articles than self-promotion. Follow up if problems continue. DurovaCharge! 00:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Match (magazine)

Seems fairly obvious by a few of the names, however this article appears to be soley edited by WP:SPA's related to the magazine.--Hu12 07:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Simmonstony

Resolved. — Athaenara ✉ 21:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

→ See also: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-11-11 Maitreya Project‎.

This conflict of interest single-purpose account, used solely to edit one article, came to my attention via the Third opinion project. The article (which has the potential to become a good one) reads very much like an advertisement, so I tagged it with the {{advert}} maintenance template.

The user has so far removed the template twice, as he also previously removed other appropriate templates placed by other editors. After removing this one the second time, he posted:

  • "I do have a connection with this project however do not feel that this constitutes a conflict of interest" (diff1)
  • "I consider myself a neutral editor, thus I feel that I am entitled to remove this tag again" (diff2)
  • "makes one wonder if there is a hidden religious agenda afoot" (diff2)

I'm reluctant to move in on this guy unilaterally (which technically I could do, as I am an admin, albeit a recent one). I restored the tag again and warned him about the three-revert rule. May I also get some backup for encyclopedic neutrality from other editors? Thanks. — Athaenara ✉ 08:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate backup from others. I would also appreciate something specific from you regarding how you feel this article could be amended to be satisfactory to you... in other words, what specifically do you feel is the problem. Specific points please.
Having said that I will rewrite the entire article over the next few days. I take it that if the article is rewritten from scratch, then the template can be removed again?
On another note, just because you are an admin does not mean that you are right, and I believe that I have every right to challenge you on this.
By the way.. this user was created recently and yes, this is the only article I have edited, because it has taken all my spare time (I do have a life outside the computer) to work on this article. Every editor must have a first article.. no? And that does not mean that this username is solely created for this article, as I have no other usernames. Is there any policy against a new user only initially editing one article? I don't think so! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simmonstony (talk • contribs) 08:42-08:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The article isn't actually your responsibility solely: please also read the ownership of articles policy. Thanks. — Athaenara ✉ 08:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Please note that the purpose of the tag is not to put one editor under pressure. It merely marks a particular need for attention from any editors. — Athaenara ✉ 08:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know this.. your not the only Mensa member in the room. However, you still seem incapable of informing what exactly you feel is biased in the article. In any case.. seeing I wrote almost the entire article as it stands, I would also like to rewrite it to make it more suitable for Wikipedia. In this regard, why don't you help out a new editor and tell him specifically how the article can be improved. You also failed to answer my specific question above. Can you do that for me please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simmonstony (talk • contribs) 10:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment - Simmonstony has requested MedCab mediation and SJP has accepted the case. Also, I've left a note on Simmonstony's talk page concerning the uncivil "religious agenda" remark. Addhoc 11:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Point taken. I withdraw that statement Simmonstony 11:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have posted a Rewrite of the Maitreya Project Page on a subpage of my user page. In the interests of agreement between editors, can Athaenara, SJP, Addhoc, Johnfos, David Woodward and anyone else who is interested please read it. Please feel free to edit at will, or post constructive remarks or comments on my user page for now. Simmonstony 11:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Not a good idea. Given that issues of WP:COI and WP:OWN have been raised, it would be better to place the draft somewhere off Talk:Maitreya Project, with comments to go to Talk:Maitreya Project, to remove any implication of it being in any sense under one editor's jurisdiction. Throwing it open as an article request for comment (which would also have a standard redirect to Talk:Maitreya Project) would help get a broader opinion. Gordonofcartoon 20:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally - the result of a quick Google - if Simmonstony is this Tony Simmons, Executive Director for the Maitreya Project, the conflict of interest is so major that he should not be writing or editing the article at all. Gordonofcartoon 21:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I need to state this very clearly. Wikipedia Policy does not prohibit individuals from editing any page through COI as long as that persons POV remains neutral. Admittedly, this is always harder if one is involved personally, which is why I am asking other editors to check my work and make comment. So far, all I have received is roadblocks and criticism, rather than constructive suggestions of even other parties editing out what they consider biased copy. I would really like to make this a great article, and having connection with the project itself can also assist in this due to knowledge of the subject matter. For the record, Maitreya Project is a charitable project. There is no financial conflict of interest as all project staff are essentially volunteers working from the belief that the project will make a difference to other peoples lives. If I was trying to hide anything I would have chosen a more anonymous username Simmonstony 22:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia Policy does not prohibit individuals from editing any page through COI as long as that persons POV remains neutral.
Simply because it's not forbidden outright doesn't make it 100% acceptable, especially if you are making major edits (such as blanking much of the article without consensus [47] or attempting to take the role of custodian to the article). We are not here to "check your work". If you are the Tony Simmons mentioned above, you should be advising (and that means advising, not directing) via the Talk page. Gordonofcartoon 23:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Neutral opinion: I think the edit Gordon linked was good insofar as it removed material which was referenced only with citations of the project's own website. — Athaenara ✉ 23:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Yep, also thought reducing the article to a stub based purely on secondary sources was a good move. Addhoc 23:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed also, now that it's been discussed. I only objected because it was the kind of major edit that WP:COI strongly advises against. Gordonofcartoon 23:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so now we are at least on neutral ground. I will gently bow out of editing this article further, as there are concerns over COI. I will, however, check the article periodically for NPOV, as the project does have its known detractors who may addd biased negative content. I hope that is Ok will all, and I would like to thank you all for your participation in bringing the article to, at least, a neutral place. Simmonstony 13:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Neal Horsley

This article is about a controversial political figure in the United States and makes some highly controversial claims. Recently, 75.137.150.104 has edited it and claimed to be the subject. I do not know enough about the circumstances but the situation would certainly benefit from outside eyes and assistance. Sam Blacketer 11:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This should be looked at for BLPO concerns, which are many. You might list it there.DGG (talk) 13:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Objectivity/DB

--Hu12 19:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Kaleb Nation

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kaleb Nation. MER-C 04:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Massachusetts State Police

Likely the same person, and likely that they are either employed by the State Police or know someone who is. They first started by re-inserting copyrighted images (which weren't fair use on this article) [50] and [51] (among others). Now Ryser is trying insert pictures he took on the page [52] without first reading WP:IMAGES#Image_choice_and_placement. SashaCall 03:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

On the basis of a quick skim, I think the article certainly suffers from single-editor problems (whether that editor has COI or not). There's a lot of unnecessary hardware cruft: for instance, Massachusetts State Police#Vehicles looks unencyclopedic per WP:IINFO. This section, and much else, is also unsourced. Gordonofcartoon 21:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Addendum: this needs attention. 155.33.97.62 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log) is removing cleanup tags marking the article as unsourced. uw-delete2 warning given. Gordonofcartoon 21:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
They also have a thing for imagecruft, particularly Image:TroopUni.JPG. Ryser has been adamant about including this pic in the history section, despite the fact that its blurry, red-eyed, oversized, and far too recent to go in a history section. SashaCall 22:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
They've also engaged in harassments against me by creating the account Troop611, which added this to my userpage. SashaCall 22:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


Hey guys,

I just wanted to truly apologize. I am relatively new to wikipedia, and did not understand how serious it is. This is no excuse for my actions. I was immature, foolish, and stupid. I will never revert without discussing, add irrelevant pictures, personally attack editors, and be immature ever again. Also, I will never edit from my IPs, or another username ever again. Now I truly understand how serious this website encyclopedia is, and will do my best to learn how it works. This apology is sincere, and I promise that it will never happen again.

Regards, Ryser915 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryser915 (talk • contribs) 07:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

update - I have removed the pictures, and the unencylcopedic sections. Once again, sorry guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryser915 (talk • contribs) 07:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Well then, welcome to Wikipedia. You may just have the makings of a good, enthusiastic contributor, once you've absorbed a bit more of the culture here. I have put a "Welcome" template on your user page (User:Ryser915) that will help you learn the most essential things about how to helpfully contribute to the Project. You can access this at any time by clicking your username in the row of links at the top right of each page. Again, welcome aboard. --Dynaflow babble 07:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

COI: Jack Morton Worldwide

→ See also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Morton Worldwide (May 2007).

This article appears to be written almost entirely by an author who call himself JMorton. Their userpage is non-existent, but a discussion page does exists at this time, and the user does not confirm nor deny that they are Jack Morton, however the close username and page that they have almost exclusively edited appears to point that way. Anyone else think so ? KoshVorlon ".. We are ALL Kosh..." 20:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Morton or some other company person(s). — Athaenara ✉ 00:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
After I added the {{COI2}} template to the article, the following was posted on my talk page:
“Hello. I'm Dion, the steward of the Jack Morton Worldwide page. Firstly, please notice that though my username is JMorton, I am not Jack Morton. He passed away in 2003. Secondly, I respect your view and have made several changes to the page. Please see Jack Morton Worldwide so that we can discuss any other changes I should make to have the tag removed. JMorton 15:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)”
I have forwarded it here for the noticeboard discussion. — Athaenara ✉ 21:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not Jack Morton. He passed away in 2003. This is well documented in other sources such as the obituary section of The New York Times.

You'll see from Jack Morton Worldwide's previous page discussions, I have been up front in saying that yes, I do work for the company. This is no different from employees from say, IBM, GM or Shell Oil and countless others who solely maintain their companies' Wiki pages.

The username is only so close to the company name so that anyone within the company can amend the page.

All that considered, can we begin to discuss that "COI" label on the Jack Morton Wikipedia page? JMorton 23:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

First you should know that on Wikipedia, there is no such thing as a "steward" - anyone can edit an article. Secondly, are you suggesting that multiple employees use this account? Shell babelfish 23:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I fixed the link supplied above by KoshVorlon so that it actually points to JMorton's user talk page. EdJohnston 00:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Username policy#Sharing accounts:

“For reasons of attribution and accountability, you are not allowed to share your account or password with others. If you do, and this becomes known, your account will be blocked. Please also note that "role accounts" associated with an office, position, or task are currently prohibited.
      [Exceptions: Wikimedia Foundation and internal Wikipedia committee accounts.]
“Role accounts for the purposes of conducting public relations or marketing via the encyclopedia are strongly discouraged and will be blocked for violations of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guidelines.”

The policy applies to the JMorton user account. — Athaenara ✉ 01:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

JMorton posted the following statement (diff) on the article talk page: "To address the sharing of the username/password - I am the sole contributor to this page. No one else on in the company knows how to login using with the JMorton name and password."

That is inconsistent with the statement (diff) JMorton posted on this noticeboard: "The username is only so close to the company name so that anyone within the company can amend the page."

I have asked the user(s) to post here, where the discussion is centralised, whether or not s/he/they also post elsewhere about the COI. — Athaenara ✉ 03:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Two days ago on Talk:Jack Morton Worldwide (diff), JMorton posted "I will move my messages there" (to this discussion) but has not done so. I've blocked the account as per the Wikipedia policy regarding shared accounts. — Athaenara ✉ 11:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Mercy Corps

→ See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Mercy_Corps_COI_spam

mercycorps.org Linksearch current

Senior writer for Mercy Corps won't cease editing. Editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote Mercy Corps . Contributions to wikipedia under RogerBurks and IP 207.189.98.44, consist entirely of promoting Mercy Corps.
--Hu12 00:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I have further edited the main article, and am watching it. DGG (talk) 13:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

COI question

I've posted this in three places now because the process for resolving this is not clear. I am starting to be as steamed about not knowing how to get to the bottom of this as I am about showing up on a faulty conflict of interest list. I don't know what this means, how it happened, and how to get rid of it, but if googling to cite an article gets me listed as a COI, I Am Not Happy. User talk:Beetstra#COI I also need to know if this means the site is not a reliable source, even though news.google returned it number five on a search. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm only guessing, but it looks like a bot noted when you added a link that is on its watchlist. --Ronz (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
That's all I can come up with, so several aspects of this really trouble me. First, was anyone going to tell me? Second, what is wrong with that site? It looks like a reliable source to me. Third, how long am I going to have to wait to have that besmirching of my name removed; I distinctly do not appreciate being listed as a conflict of interest. Thanks for the response, Ronz. At least someone has finally replied. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot is monitoring that particular website because someone (63.149.249.63, check the whois) has a conflict of interest related to it and has edited the relevant article. MER-C 05:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that; what does that have to do with me? I've been listed at a COI page for almost six hours now, with no answer on how to resolve this. Shall I delete the entries myself? And was I going to be notified that I would be listed as a COI for merely linking to a news source? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason this isn't being resolved is because the botop, who has exclusive access to the watchlists and the whitelists, is offline. MER-C 10:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Why it matters

This business troubled me a lot. Thanks to everyone who helped sort it out, but it's not sorted properly until the underlying issue is addressed.

By pure chance—because I followed What links here on an article that I had cited after it was submitted to AfD, to see if it was orphaned—I encountered my name listed on a spam page and a Conflict of Interest Report. Spam and COI are hefty labels for any editor, and particularly one who has gone to great pains to avoid any such issue. I was, to say the least, shocked to find myself there. More troubling was that I was unable to figure how to resolve it, so that needs to be cleaned up so future editors don't go through this.

Here's another reason it mattered to me. The article—¿Por qué no te callas?—was at AfD, its notability questioned. Anyone checking on notability might check "What links here"—as I did—to see if the article could be merged elsewhere or to see if it is orphaned. Editors who don't know me or my editing would have noticed on the very short list at What links here that it was linked to a Spam and COI report. So editors who don't know my editing would see my name as someone involved in COI editing. This needs to be fixed. Not only could it have influenced editors' opinions of me; it could have influenced the AfD, as not everyone would necessarily take the time to understand that I happened to end up on that list because I googled a news source that had been previously involved in a COI. This is not right, and I hope it will be addressed. I was the last to know, because the bot that dumped my name to a spam and COI list didn't dump that same information to me.

In my case, it was resolved by someone else removing my name from those lists; what if I had removed my name? What is the process for resolving this? Having your name associated with COI and spam is not pleasant. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Dana Ullman

The subject of this article has been editing his own article under this account. His edits typically consist of adding links to his commercial websites and material that downplays negative coverage he has received in the media.[54] He has also edited the homeopathy article, where he adds links to his commercial website, homeopathic.org, or deletes external links critical of homeopathy.[55][56][57] I also believe he has edited under the aforementioned IP address, judging from the similarity in edits and edit summaries. He has not responded to several invitations to discuss matters on talk pages or to contribute positively to the homeopathy page. His edits are sporadic, often coming several weeks apart, so I am unsure how much of a problem this really is. Full disclosure: I nominated Dana Ullman for deletion several months ago, but withdrew it when better evidence of notability was established. I'd like to get some uninvoved input on how to proceed. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 23:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that the page Dana Ullman was created at the request of the subject, as evidenced in this[58] edit summary. Skinwalker (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Neal D. Barnard

  • NealBarnard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is a single purpose account editing Neal D. Barnard, a controversial physician turned activist. It was a promotion piece, so I've been attempting to re-write it as a more balanced bio using 3rd party sources (though may not have got the balance absolutely right yet), but the editor reverted to remove all non-promotional material. Additional comment would be welcome. Rockpocket 00:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Princess Diana: The Evidence

Paperbackrighter's only contributions have been on the subject of one specific book which makes claims about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He has created an article about the book which reads like the publisher's blurb, and added mentions to the main article about the death of Diana even though the book may not be significant. Given his user name, I think there is more than a chance that he may be connected to the authors of the book. Sam Blacketer 09:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to note that Paperbackrighter has acknowledged the conflict of interest on his user talk page. Sam Blacketer 19:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
but still seems to be adding his book... --Fredrick day 12:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Andre Douzet on Wikipedia

Resolved. Article deleted. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

→ See also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/André Douzet.

Is an ongoing problem - Andre Douzet is a recognised hoaxer and charlatan in France in relation to Rennes-le-Chateau and writer of pseudohistorical books - his supporters in the UK who have websites promoting him are the ones responsible for placing the article on Wikipedia - meaning that it cannot be written from an unbiased and neutral POV. Does Wikipedia have its article on L. Ron Hubbard arguing that Dianetics was a "scientific fact"? The same difference applies to Douzet.Wfgh66 (talk) 09:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The Andre Douzet article on Wikipedia is contributed by his Supporters Corjan de Raaf, Filip Coppens and Andrew Gough who also run websites that promote him - therefore the Wikipedia article cannot be Neutral or Unbiased in nature. My comments in the article that he is a writer of pseudohistorical books and my comments in the Talk Page about who contribute the article get blanked out by his supporters. Can something please be done about this? Thanks. Wfgh66 (talk) 09:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who the people Wfgh66 mentioned are. I added article links and user links above. — Athaenara ✉ 11:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The article has been deleted.--Slp1 (talk) 14:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Marina section at Greystones

The user (full name Basil Miller) is a member of the Greystones Protection & Development Association (he personally added their link here, and a Google search of their website brings up his name 14 times), which is a group vehimently opposed to plans to build a marina at the town of Greystones. He has not declared this association, but continues to edit the section in question.
The user is continually adding POV statements and information he claims to have heard at 'oral hearings', which he cannot provide any references for. When I challenged him about this on the talk page, he replied "'Citation needed': Yes, in the same sense as the medieval scholastics required 'citations', condemning Europa to centuries of ignorance. There is no official textual source for this."
His current problem is with the fact that a landfill on the site is 'inert' (meaning non-toxic). Even though there is a valid citation for this fact, the user has twice removed it, here and here. On the talk page he has tried to argue that the citation is not from a "reputable" source. Any help would be appreciated, as I feel there is a clear COI here. Thanks. Schcambo (talk) 14:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The Greystones marina issue seems to goes back to at least April 1996: Godson, Rory; Woods, Richard. The Sunday Times (April 14, 1996) Beer and food key to Irish super-rich;Ireland. Section: Home news; Page IR (writing, "Yet another retailer with Irish connections, Albert Gubay, is worth Pounds 275m. He is developing a marina in Greystones, Co Wicklow.") To keep the Greystones, Ireland article relatively free of trouble, you may want to create a Greystones marina article so that such matters may be debated there rather than on the coastal town article. Also, there is plenty of reliable source material for an article on Greystones Protection and Development Association going back to atleast March 1998. Creating an article on Greystones Protection and Development Association may further help protect Greystones. -- Jreferee t/c 15:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions; I'm not sure if splitting the main article is what is needed, we don't have a problem with edit warring because the user actually only comes online every few weeks, it's just that when he does he changes what he likes and adds some more pointless arguement to the talk page, which gets a bit frustrating. I think perhaps just a strong-worded warning from an admin might make him think twice before he does it again? Thanks. Schcambo (talk) 15:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if splitting the main article is what is needed
Agreed. I don't think it's the general practice here, or desirable, to deal with problematic editing by creating sub-articles as ablative armor (Greystones is anyway such a small place that I doubt Greystones marina, and even more so Greystones Protection and Development Association, are separately notable). More useful to deal with the conflict of interest, which looks very clear. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 21:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Parapsychology article being edited directly by an advocate for an association promoting parapsychology

User:Annalisa Ventola is quite an active editor at Parapsychology and has a definite conflict of interest as she runs "Public Parapsychology", which she states is the 'official blog' of the "Parapsychology Association." ([59]) Part of this work includes solicitations for donations to support parapsychology. She is also a paid parapsychology advocate as is quoted below:

Annalisa Ventola, CV
Page 2:
Grants and Scholarships
2007 Skeptiko Media Monitor Grant
Awarded for monitoring and improving the accuracy of information about parapsychology on the web in various ways.

This kind of advocacy is very problematic considering she is being paid by an organization to portray a controversial subject in a particular light. I have no problem with her commenting on talkpages, but I don't think that edits to articles on parapsychology should be done by this individual. I suggest a notice placed at talk:parapsychology indicating that this particular user should not be editing the article directly.

Thanks,

-- ScienceApologist (talk) 17:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Paid to promote a topic and rewarded for accuracy on a topic are two different things. You're framing a grant or scholarhip award for accuracy as a reason to support restricting a user from participating in an article about a subject -- not an association, organization, or biography. WP:SCOIC doesn't even call for blocking from editing an article where there's a strict conflict of interest, much less a topical subject matter where they have a professional expertise. It's like asking someone who has an affiliation with the Republican National Committee not to participate in politics articles. It'd have more merit if this were the Parapsychological Association aritlce, and it's not. --Nealparr (talk to me) 19:13, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a problem here either. The fact that Annalisa Ventola belongs to an organization related to the article or has received grant money should not make any difference. The policy states that "Editors who may have (or be perceived as having) a close connection with a subject are recommended to disclose this, and should take great care not to edit in a manner that may be perceived as controversial, promotional or agenda-driven." as well as "Editors proposing to write about themselves, their own organizations, or matters they have very close ties to, are strongly advised not to edit or create such articles at all (except for certain non-controversial edits) but to instead use the talk page to request help from neutral editors." This means that Annalisa should be allowed to edit the article if her ties aren't so extremely close to the subject of the article (which they don't seem to be) or she should be prohibited from making "controversial edits" to it. Wikidudeman (talk) 19:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
From looking at Annalisa's website I think no one can disagree that she operates a Parapsychology advocacy site. IMO, soliciting donations, urging readers to join the PA, and presenting material which highlights only one side of a controversial subject is a bit more than "having an affiliation" with the subject. It certainly isn't a neutral informational site. Rather than deny one has a COI, a person involved in such activity "should take great care not to edit in a manner that may be perceived as controversial, promotional or agenda-driven." Questions raised as to the nature of Annalisa's editing are quite legitimate. - -- LuckyLouie (talk) 20:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
There's a burden of proof in establishing that edits made are "controversial, promotional or agenda-driven". That's a requirement of the policy. And the request is that the editor not edit the mainspace at all, which isn't even part of the policy. ScienceApologist is posing her -edits- as advocacy. That's not established. On the parapsychology talk page he stated that it's not about "content disputes". It is completely content-related, per the policy. Every edit Annalisa has made recently is to re-establish the FA consensus article similarly to what it was already before ScienceApologist stepped in. Those aren't controversial edits, by the definition of prior consensus. A disruptive COI editor is one who actually edits in a manner that is promotional, and they must be disruptive for the COI to matter. ScienceApologist must first demonstrate that he is right on his content dispute before he has a legitimate COI complaint. --Nealparr (talk to me) 21:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

ScienceApologist, you are paid to teach science. If parapsychology is for real, it will blast your form of science out of the water: causal relationships, for example, will have to be re-evaluated. Thus, it is quite obvious that you have a vested interest in defending your form of science, and that you have an interest in bashing anything which would undermine your job and your vested interest in the subject. I suggest that you not edit the Parapsychology article any longer, because it is a conflict of interest for you. You are paid and make a living for your COI, while Annalisa merely has parapsychology as a hobby- if she nets any money at all from it I would be rather surprised. ScienceApologist, a person involved in such activity as yourself should take great care not to edit in a manner that may be perceived as controversial, promotional or agenda-driven- as your editing has continually been relative to the Parapsychology article and paranormal articles in general. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 20:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think saying a teacher has a conflict of interest is a little bit of a stretch and not very fair. Outside of research projects, a teacher or professor doesn't necessarily "create or shape" the subject that they are teaching. Rather they convey the general and present knowledge of that subject. In theory, if some tenets of Parapsychology became verified and accepted applications of Science it is quite likely that ScienceApologist would be teaching that subject as well.AgneCheese/Wine 21:13, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Which is why Annalisa teaching parapsychology through her blog, or doing a little unremunerative research on the side, is not COI. SA, since he makes his living teaching a science which would go out the window (making his knowledge obsolete) if parapsychology were true, has a far greater COI. They are both teachers, but one makes his living at it, and the other doesn't. Or, would you say that SA would have a COI if he did research? You know, he does edit conventional science articles. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 21:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a conflict here. Annalisa's edits are not pushing a point to an extreme and seem rather balanced to me. She's writing on a topic she's knoweledgeable about. By the logic ScienceApologist presents here, he should stop editing science articles. Now if Annalisa were the rep for a certain organization and only wrote how great they were and ignored their weak points, that'd be COI. ScienceApologist needs to stop grinding his axe on this topic and get on with happy editing. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example of Annalisa removing a source that is critical of her POV as stated at her webpage: [60]. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
A check of the page revisions shows there were 11 works listed, three of them by Randi. The editor simply removed one of them and left the other two. And it looks to me like it deserved to be removed: it's a link to a self-published bloggish criticism of a chapter in a psychology book by somebody that isn't even mentioned in the main article. The link doesn't warrant a cite in any scholarly sense. How much room in the reference list needs to be reserved to the same guy? He's already given plenty of coverage in the article, including his picture, and cited twice more in the footnotes. All of it left intact by this same editor. You can be pretty sure any of Randi's other published material on the subject would largely cover the same tracks. This evidence is pretty weak. It's curious that you raise these issues now, since this is an old edit, and the same editor appears to have demonstrated quite well the ability to work cooperatively with others since together they succeeded in taking this article to FA status. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Context is everything, ScienceApologist. Here the diff is from August 2007, during the major rewrite that earned parapsychology its FA status. During this rewrite, the article was being structured and cleaned up. The edit summary "one of these things is not like the other" is your tip off to assume good faith. Look at the Further Reading section and then look at the part that was removed. It's an online essay where all the remaining items are books. Literally one, and only one, of these things is not like the others. You'll note that An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, also by Randi, was not removed by Annalisa. You'll note that all the other references to Randi in the article weren't removed either, not then, not ever. --Nealparr (talk to me) 00:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
He has no chance of making anything like this stick. Why with all the wds? ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 02:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I have always been upfront about my interests and affiliations, as you can see by my user page. Science Apologist has not uncovered any information that I haven't volunteered myself at one point or another. The Skeptiko grant was awarded to me for my work on Public Parapsychology and it was only $500 (enough to pay for a few professional memberships and journal subscriptions). The only thing that I get paid to do regularly is teach little kids how to play the piano. My activities at Wikipedia are purely volunteer.

Additionally, Public Parapsychology is not the official blog of the Parapsychology Association (this was a misunderstanding of mine at the time), it is the official blog of the Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP) at Lund University, Sweden as you can see here. Note also that the blog was something that I was doing voluntarily before that grant was awarded and before the head of CERCAP requested affiliation with my work. It is incorrect to portray my blog as an advocacy site for parapsychology since as it says clearly at the top it is also devoted to public scholarship for anomalous psychology (a field that looks at paranormal phenomena and experiences in purely psychological terms). The blog reports on the activities and research of those who publish research on parapsychological topics in peer reviewed journals, regardless of their conclusions about the reality of ostensibly paranormal phenomena. I have a reputation in both fields for being fair and even-handed in how I interpret their activities to the general public.

And to save Science Apologist the trouble of doing more supposed detective work on me, I was once reprimanded for posting a link to my own blog during my first week at Wikipedia. That's when I became aware of WP:COI and retracted the link without further argument. Science Apologist has also failed to point out that I am an associate member of the Parapsychological Association, but as you can see, I have never edited that article. My own particular research has to do with apparitional experience but I haven't edited that article either.

Science Apologist has characterized me as a 'true believer' to strengthen his own arguments against me at Talk:Parapsychology. What he has failed to investigate is the fact that my own research studies paranormal beliefs and experiences, and which factors (i.e. priming effects) may lead people to interpret ambiguous stimuli as paranormal (in other words, skeptical research). He has also characterized the Parapsychological Association is an advocacy group, which is also incorrect. The PA is an association of scholars and scientists with common interests in particular research areas, but as a group they do not have a particular point of view. (In fact, a number of members of the PA characterize themselves as unbelievers in their personal lives.) If physicists can edit physics articles, and psychologists can edit psychology articles, then I see no reason why parapsychologists should not be allowed to edit parapsychology articles.

The request on this noticeboard is Science Apologist's bad faith attempt to silence an editor who has stood up to his recent disruptive editing behavior (behavior that is currently being investigated by the Arbitration Committee) at a featured article on parapsychology. This article was brought to FA status through the efforts of myself and several other editors. I think that Science Apologist will be hard pressed to prove to that I am a disruptive or aggressive editor. Rather, I am here to lend my expertise and I am committed to portraying research on parapsychological articles neutrally with the cooperation of others. I've been at Wikipedia for less than a year, and I do make mistakes, and being somewhat entrenched in academia, my perspective can be a bit narrow sometimes, but I try make sure that my contributions are approachable to the general public.

I will be out of town for the weekend. My ability to respond to further comments will be limited.--Annalisa Ventola (Talk | Contribs) 02:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Obvious bad faith attempt. His own COI is much greater. Be sure and click Annalisa's link. Here are some more: [61] [62][63]. And that doesn't even count the previous ArbCom findings against him. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is my take: (1) Annalisa runs the blog Public Parapsychology. (2) Annalisa has stated on-wiki that this is the official blog of the Parapsychology Association. Taken together, these implicate Annalisa as a public mouthpiece of this group, presenting a potential conflict of interest with regards to the fringe subject of parapsychology. Great care should be taken in writing the parapsychology article, especially by those who have a conflict of interest. I do think it is worth notifying the community about this, as ScienceApologist has done. As an involved editor, I would greatly appreciate insight from uninvolved parties. Antelan talk 22:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

(1) I don't just run the blog. I founded it.
(2) I explained above that statement was a mistake. It is NOT the official blog of the PA, rather it is affliated with CERCAP (see the link above). The person who requested this affiliation was both the director of CERCAP and a PA member, which is why I misunderstood him. If it was 'the PA's blog', there would be a link from their site saying so, but there is not. There is a link from CERCAP, which I provided above.
None of this really matters though. The important thing is that Public Parapsychology is my site. It was a self-started venture that attracted the attention of people in the fields of parapsychology and anomalous psychology, some of whom rewarded my efforts with grants and affiliations. I am nobody's mouthpiece and I am the sole person who decides what gets published at my site.
Now that we're clear on that, the concern shouldn't be over who recognizes my blog, but the fact that I am an associate PA member (an association that was granted rather recently) and an active researcher in the field. I have always been upfront about my interests and affiliations and I have not been aggressive about my edits. And great care has been taken in writing the parapsychology article. Since I started collaborating here, the article has quickly risen to FA status. --Annalisa Ventola (Talk | Contribs) 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for being forthcoming. I would call ScienceApologist's inquiry successful in that it has resulted in your provision of a more accurate and complete picture of your vested interests than had been previously provided. Had you not stated earlier that the Public Parapsychology blog was the official blog of the PA, I don't think there would have been so much concern (and I'm not faulting you for this misunderstanding, just saying it was probably the root problem). Antelan talk 00:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
ScienceApologist didn't make an inquiry, he made a request that Annalisa be blocked from contributing in the mainspace. That requires a demonstration that her edits were promotional. ScienceApologist was not successful in doing so. --Nealparr (talk to me) 01:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome. But it doesn't take a request at a noticeboard to resolve this sort of thing. It's a lot simpler to just ask me on my talk page ;-). I thought I did a pretty good job of providing a complete picture of my interests at my user page, but perhaps it is time to update it. --Annalisa Ventola (Talk | Contribs) 00:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


Antelan, please read the section before commenting. And your continual harassment of editors over COI is just tiresome. Since you're a medical student, I really should have remembered to report you here for your disruptive and highly POV editing of Psychic surgery. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I expect a retraction of that claim calling my editing "disruptive and highly POV." Antelan talk 23:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I doubt very much that you actually expect such a thing. For one thing, you know that I usually consider what I say. For another, you know that anyone can go see the diffs. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
No, I expect a retraction because your claim is false and highly offensive. (1) You didn't make this claim months ago, while the incident in question was actually occurring. (2) I believe that no reasonable user would consider my editing "disruptive and highly POV," as evidenced by the fact that the article, as currently implemented, uses much of the wording that I advocated, and it even uses entire blocks of material that I wrote for it. (3) This is an out-of-place attack on me for the inappropriate purpose of hurting my credibility, not for the appropriate purpose of asking for community input to see if your allegations require a community response against me. Yes, your allegations will still be in the diffs, but I expect you to remove them from the page. Antelan talk 00:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
"You didn't make this claim months ago, while the incident in question was actually occurring." Yes, I said that was my mistake- You and SA hadn't taught that these false harassment claims are the done thing. Not that I really would have done it, because that's not me, but I could have. I think it is entirly appropriate to note that you are here supporting ScienceApologist's attack on Annalisa (without reading the secion, BTW), while you are quite willing to make, as I said above, highly POV edits to articles which involve medicine. [64]placing fraud above history sectionPOV pushing ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ——

01:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Editing "List of Mind Mapping Software"

Resolved. Editor who opened the complaint is now satisfied. EdJohnston (talk) 19:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

List_of_Mind_Mapping_software

Hi, I want to raise an issue of links to websites in this article. I feel like it's time to edit this article, adding links to websites in the FOOTNOTES section. Reason for it is that this article is about mind mapping software, which presupposes that people coming to this page actually WANT to find out information about different software, try it and make a choice. So they will go to these links in the FOOTNOTES section in any case, but because most links are not clickable at the moment, it makes it harder for people to do that (copy+paste operation is simple yet it takes more time and effort than simply clicking on the link). So I (and many other users) think that links should be allowed in the FOOTNOTES section of this exact article (due to its solely practical nature). Otherwise, I believe all links in the footnotes section should be deleted, because the way it looks now makes people think some software is superior over other (or some editors are favoring some software), which is not good and that's the reason I'm raising this issue here, in WP:COIN
Please consider this option. Thanks! Julia sova 09:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe you have a conflict of interest for the very links that you've added, and have asked you to respond to this concern. It's probably best to do so now and here.
The article is in my opinion a failed experiment to present additional information than is normally found in lists. Best to discuss those issues on the article talk page. --Ronz (talk) 16:29, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm concerned not only about links I've added, but also about all other software that you have deleted from that list. It doesn't seem like a reasonable action to me, I think what you've done simply robs people out of their choice to try and decide. Julia sova (talk) 08:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
This list has faced a long struggle over the issue of allowing direct links to vendor's web sites where the package in question is not notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article. I have seen many such links removed in other articles such as List of search engines, and to me it seems a sensible application of the WP:EL policy. This issue does not qualify as a normal COI posting which requires (a) an article name, (b) the name of a problematic editor who has a COI, and is not staying within the rules. I think Julia sova needs to give a more convincing argument why the issue should be here. EdJohnston (talk) 14:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
EdJohnston, thank you for comprehensive answer, I now see why this issue shouldn't be here. I thought Ronz was being prejudiced against particular software, because his first cleanups of the article didn't have any system, so when Ronz deleted all software that doesn't have its own Wiki article, I decided that Ronz didn't want to bother thinking about which software is worth having a link and which is not, and simply deleted all of them. Now I see that it has been done in other articles, which makes it reasonable for me. Thanks again and I'll stick to Wiki policies (it's just that sometimes they should be articulated better...) Julia sova (talk) 16:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Digital Entertainment Network and The Digital Entertainment Network

Digital Entertainment Network (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Tdenusa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

The article is about the old DEN.net portal (which someone else has put online, and is restoring the old video content to). Someone else -- User:Tdenusa -- insists his company owns the trademark to the name "The Digital Entertainment Network." He has repeatedly posted content about his current company on the top of the article here, insisting he has a "legal right" to do so. I've suggested to him that his information would be better served in a separate article, The Digital Entertainment Network, which would reflect his company's name, and preserve the historical record of the original article. I also noted to him that his information would be subject to WP notability guidelines, as his information appears to be little more than an advert for his company.

Some guidance here would be helpful. Thanks! --Mhking (talk) 16:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Tdenusa has disclosed he is Ralph Press,[65] President of TDEN, USA.[66] — Satori Son 16:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to note, Mr. Press has indicated that he plans to restore the disputed information once 24 hours has elapsed, so as not to be in violation of 3RR; and has threatened to "report" me for vandalism if I remove the advert information again. --Mhking (talk) 20:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Please don't revert again. Even though the information is clearly not appropriate, there is no need for you to risk a block for possible edit warring as well. WP:3RR is a touchy area. — Satori Son 21:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Understood; I'll stand apart from it, but when I note it, I'll report such here. --Mhking (talk) 21:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
If http://www.den.net and http://www.tden.com are separate companies with no overlap, then it's reasonable we should have two separate articles, and use a DAB or a hatnote to distinguish them. Putting unrelated material into a single article seems mischievous. EdJohnston (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I kind of thought so - I thought I was being reasonable. I did note to him that the advert-related info would certainly be subject to possible removal under WP guidelines, but I thought I was being reasonable (at least I was trying to be). I know I can be heavy-handed at times, plus I needed some guidance in the matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhking (talk • contribs) 21 November 2007
  • I have created the separate article with a dab link at the top of both of them.--Matilda formerly known as User:Golden Wattle talk 23:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


I see a new page was created for The Digital Entertainment Network. That's fine. I will work on improving it. Our trademark ownership can be verified at the uspto.gov website by typing in Digital Entertainment Network in the trademark search page. The trademark registration# is 2347797. I am a little surprised that the Wikipedia experts are not aware of this capability. The problem here is the patent and trademark office does not distinguish whether the 'The' is in front of Digital Entertainment Network or not. They will not issue that mark to another company. By having two separate pages it just adds to the confusion that existed almost 10 years ago. Our website has been using this registered trademark continuously for 11 years now. I am not going to reinstate the prior edits for Digital Entertainment Network. However the trademark infringement problem between our 2 companies is an historical fact which I can document with references from articles in the NY Post and correspondence I have with their attornies. I will add some information about this at the bottom of their page. I don't see why there should be a problem with this as it is part of that company's history just as the lawsuits against Collins Rector are.

Sincerely, Ralph Press Tdenusa (talk) 05:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

If you have references from the New York Post it would be good to list them here. We can use published sources but we can't use your correspondence with attorneys. I suggest that you not make any edits to the articles yourself, since you have a conflict. If you see a change that needs to be made, ask for it on the article Talk page and neutral editors will address the matter. EdJohnston (talk) 05:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Archives search of New York Post did not come up with anything for me [67] [68] [69]. I found the patent registration under 2347797 (filed 22 May 1998 and live). I also found 2 dead registrations to the other comapny though they weren't for the Wordmark Digital Entertainment Network but rather the wordmarks DENMART and CHATDEN to a company of that name. Further also at the patents office - [70] : A petition to cancel the registration identified below having been filed, and the notice of such proceeding sent to registrant at the last known address having been returned by the Postal Service as undeliverable, notice is hereby given that unless the registrant listed herein, its assigns or legal representatives, shall enter an appearance within thirty days of this publication, the cancellation will proceed as in the case of default. ... Digital Entertainment Network, Inc., Santa Monica, CA, Registration No. 2366329 for the mark "DIRECT DRIVE", Cancellation No. 92045801. I found no record in the patents office website of a trademark dispute but that might be my poor searching skills although I did search the Decisions of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and I think the matter must not have been tested there eg [71]. --Matilda formerly known as User:Golden Wattle talk 22:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
See this link for the current status of a service mark #2347797 on the Digital Entertainment Network. It was granted on 5/22/2000 and is now owned by a company called TDEN USA which is based in Plantation, Florida. The service they provide is called Computerized on-line ordering and retail services in the field of digital audio recordings, featuring previews of the recordings. However, the original Digital Entertainment Network is reported to have gone bankrupt in May of 2000 so the timing doesn't work out for the trademark issue to have played any role in their demise. There is apparently a successor company that still runs http://www.den.net and maybe *they* have had dealings with TDEN USA. However our article doesn't say anything about them. So unless the New York Post has something to report about the trademark issue it's not yet obvious that anything about the trademark belongs in the original DEN article.
Our additional article called The Digital Entertainment Network has these sentences:

That company infringed upon the tden.com trademark. After a period of negotiations to license the trademark to DEN, DEN went out of business.

So far I see no case for keeping those sentences, since no evidence has been provided, and the date of bankruptcy of the original DEN doesn't fit. I'd like to see User:Tdenusa comment on the situation, though. EdJohnston (talk) 05:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Although registered (granted) in 2000 the application was filed in 1998 and thus the time period does overlap. I was unable to find evidence on the web of negotiations (there was less on the web then). Obviously cites from newspapers or other reliable sources that are not online are fine - but there need to be cites and correspondence between attorneys would not meet our guidelines - wouldn't be encyclopaedic.--Matilda formerly known as User:Golden Wattle talk 05:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually the overlap period started in 1996. A trademark doesn't have to be registered for there to be infringement. We started using it on our website in 1996 while DEN's website started 3 months after ours. The conflict wasn't discovered until the end of 1998. While attorney's correspondence may not be 'encyclopedic' they are direct evidence of the situation. Newspaper articles are second hand sources and can contain misinformation. I have a copy of a NY Post article that was written about this stored somewhere. I will dig it out and post it on my website for all to read.

Tdenusa (talk) 13:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

You can read the article here http://www.tden.com/NY_Post_Article.pdf. It was written on June 17, 2002 by Ben Silverman of dotcomscoop. There are 2 articles on the page. The first is about DEN the second is about us. The company he refers to Digital Masters USA was the original company I set up to run the website and own the trademark. When I moved to Florida I started TDEN USA and transferred everything over to it.

Tdenusa (talk) 20:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Rick Cesari

The author of this article has a name similar to the subject. According to User talk:Cesaridirect, the same user has deleted sourced material. I tagged it. Bearian (talk) 23:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks like all of his edits are to promote himself and his business. Hopefully, he'll respond to the warnings soon. --Ronz (talk) 23:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Highgate Vampire

Highgate Vampire (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Vampire Research Society (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

It's an article about a supposed vampire sighting, and I think it's in need of attention. It is edited by User:Vampire Research Society, who is one of the self-described vampire hunters who claim to have discovered and destroyed the vampire in question. There is a bitter rivalry between VRS (Sean Manchester) and David Farrant, another (ex-)vampire hunter (don't laugh), as well as with sceptical authors who have written on the matter. I had a very hard time keeping the article neutral and the discussion civilized a year ago or so (mostly as an IP). Now I see VRS is active again, and while he doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly terrible at the moment, I'm quite nervous about what can happen next. If I were active on Wikipedia at the moment, I would keep watch on it, but as I'm not and won't be any time soon, I'd be relieved if a more regular Wikipedian occasionally takes a look at what is going on there.--Anonymous44 (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I added some further reading and moved some of the external links. -- Jreferee t/c 00:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
It also has a flavour of WP:SYNTH; the whole article is very authorially-framed (e.g. "The growth of its reputation is a fascinating example of modern legend-building"). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 14:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

uSwitch

  • USwitch (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) — After the previous edits to the article uSwitch caused a big fuss here, I recommended to my colleagues that we propose the changes on the article's Talk: page. These proposed changes have been listed there for over a month now. Can someone please make these changes for us, so the article is actually neutral and accurate? OwenBlacker (Talk) 09:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

American Apparel

Relevant thread at WP:ANI#POV edits of User:Leftcoastbreakdown to American Apparel and others. Relata refero (talk) 13:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Sav Remzi

MRC LTD (talk · contribs) has a clear conflict of interest in editing the Sav Remzi article, but feels that he/she can blatantly remove the coi tag from the article because Sav Remzi isn't editing it. Corvus cornixtalk 23:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Brightcove

brightcove.com Linksearch current

Article was created by an WP:SPA account with no other edits other than related to Brightcove. Was speedied six times previously.--Hu12 (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Perry Institute for Marine Science

Clear evidence of COI can be seen in phrases like "We offer...". Despite the promotional tone, the subject seems notable, so cleanup would be preferable to deletion. It's a big job, so be prepared to devote at least ten minutes. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 17:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The whole article is copied directly from the Perry Institute website [72] and is a copyright violation. I have speedied it. --Slp1 (talk) 22:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Laissez Faire Books & Sharon Presley

Could somebody have a look at the Laissez Faire Books and Sharon Presley articles and their relationship to User:SPresley. This user refers to Sharon Presley as her article [73]. There maybe nothing wrong here but there is at very least a strong potential for COI--Cailil talk 01:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles tagged for COI that need to be cleaned up

Ego Pharmaceuticals

  • Ego Pharmaceuticals (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - While the article was created by someone apparently associated with the company, I and another editor have cleaned it up. Unfortunately a 3rd editor thinks that the stub still has NPOV issues (see talk page discussion). Would appreciate another pair of eyes. Thanks Golden Wattle talk 03:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC) (not associated with the company)
    • Still looking for another pair of eyes please Thanks Matilda formerly known as User:Golden Wattle talk 00:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Looks ok to me, I'm making a few minor edits --AW (talk) 15:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
        • Actually I added an importance tag. --AW (talk) 16:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Eagle Forum & Phyllis Schlafly‎

Schlafly (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), whose mother Phyllis Schlafly‎ is the founder of the Eagle Forum, is far too personally involved per WP:COI to be editing either the Eagle Forum or Phyllis Schlafly‎ article. Yet not only has he been editing these in a ccontroversial manner since October 16, namely deleting sourced critisms, he's been waging edit wars at each to keep criticism out: [74] He's been informed about WP:COI before and dismissed it, and I'm too involved to take action myself. FeloniousMonk (talk) 07:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have not removed any properly sourced criticism. I have corrected the article by using the actual quote from the cited source. I have discussed the changes on the Talk page, as per guidelines. FeloniousMonk is someone with personal animosity towards me, and he should not be reverting my edits. Roger (talk) 15:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Regent University

Ttnrwtvl (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - This user is making many edits to the page to remove all critical information about the school. S/he has repeatedly removed well-referenced citations and material over the protestations of multiple other editors, apparently to push a particular point of view, raising concerns that the editor is working on behalf of Regent University directly.

Examples of removed references and material:

Many subsequent edits removed a large amount of content, and replaced it with more promotional material. --GoodDamon 17:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

67.86.11.24 and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

67.86.11.24 admits to being associated with Character Arts, which handles the licensing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and has repeated inserted links to www.rudolphstore.com, including one time after having the external link policy explained to them on their talk page.Kww (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Heres a link analysis, seem the spamming has stoped.
--Hu12 (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Further inappropriate edits today. Kww 18:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Robert Frazier

This article has been edited by the subject multiple times and most of the content is from him. There is probably a lot of bias, and at the very least, the Family section listing his completely unnotable wife, daughter and (obviously very young) granddaughters is vanity and unnecessary. The article currently currently contains the text "((This Wikipedia entry has been checked by the Subject -- Frazier -- for accuracy. 8/22/07.))", and this date has been modified when he has edited in the past. Look at the article history. As far as I can tell, there has been no non-maintenance/minor edits to the article since he started editing on April 29, 2006. Here is the last revision before he started editing: [75]. --Michael WhiteT·C 02:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Cervarix

212.8.185.36 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

The IP address 212.8.185.36 made several edits to the Cervarix article. The WHOIS for the IP address list the netname as Aventis. The mailing address listed on the WHOIS page is for Sanofi Pasteur MSD. Sanofi Pasteur MSD is a joint venture of Aventis’s successor company. Sanofi Pasteur MSD co-develop and in Europe markets Gardasil, the competitor of Cervarix. BlueAzure 19:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Frances Lynn

Frances Lynn (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
I have logged my concerns both on the BLP Noticeboard and at Franceslynn (talk · contribs). It seems to me that we have either COI or impersonation, since the entry at Frances Lynn suggests a journalist of substantial reputation - something the article does not display in quality. Fiddle Faddle 15:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced of the notability anyway (the test being reliably sourced material about the subject). Everything on the web seems to be either self-posted, or on promotional sites and webszines. I can't find any references on NewsBank. The novels are self-published (see here). And so on. Gordonofcartoon 16:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm more looking at the "journalist for the London Evening Standard", though I agree that not every journo is notable :). I looked briefly at Eiworth Prublishing - it wasn;t obvious that it was vanity or mainstream publishing. I shall remain neutral if this goes to AfD. I'm more concerned that, should it remain, it is neither COI nor personation. As it stands it doesn't sit right. Fiddle Faddle 16:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
User:Franceslynn has now self-identified as Frances Lynn. I've sent it to AFD. I'm all for helping keep it if third-party sources can be found, but she's not exactly taking the hint about the COI of editing her own article. Gordonofcartoon 20:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The New School of Classical Art

This looks a possible COI: rather promotional articles about an art school and its founder by an editor with near sole interest in these topics. The former article's content all comes verbatim from www.danalevin.com, so it's either a major copyright breach or added by someone with an assocation with the school. Gordonofcartoon 03:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Doctor3uk

The editors of the Orang Pendek article are having issues with user Doctor3uk (talk). I am requesting that he be blocked from editing the article for however long you feel appropriate.

Since Friday Doctor3uk, who appears to be Richard Freeman, has been trying to add unsourced, autobiographical information to both the articles on Orang Pendek and on himself (there is currently an AfD request open on the Richard Freeman article). We have attempted to notify him of original-research and conflict-of-interest problems with his edits via the articles' talk pages and his user talk page, but he either is not reading those or is not responding. Because a) his edits are added without references (or, briefly, references to his own writings on external websites), b) they appear to represent original research written in a self-promotional manner, and c) he is uncommunicative, we have been commenting out or reverting his edits. However, he keeps adding the material back into the article with no explanation.

Some diff examples showing his re-additions: [76] [77] [78] [79] [80]

Doctor3uk also appears to be alternating between editing under his own user name and using IP addresses of the form 86.*.*.*, and it appears he may have used other user names in the past to edit his own article.

If you don't think blocking is warranted, please advise regarding alternatives. Schlegel 03:32, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether blocking is warranted, I think this might be better off at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 03:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I hadn't noticed that section. Moving now... -Schlegel 03:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocking him for 1 week. - UtherSRG (talk) 03:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Pitzer College

Golden319 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) : Not certain if this incident qualifies as against wikipedia policy, but i belive this user is a member of the PC PR staff. This user has exclusively edited the colelge page, made significant edits to this page, and on october 22, 23, and 24th edited the page for approximately 12 hours a day. see:

and

consider blocking account or sending message to school expressing conflict of interests if it is in fact against policy? -Shaggorama 05:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Watchlist-details

MediaWiki:Watchlist-details (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - This page, editable only by admins, forces a message to appear at the top of everyone's watchlist. This is being used to promote a contest organised by members of the for-profit Wikipedia mirror Veropedia. (This fact is not immediately obvious as their response to criticism has been to remove all mention of Veropedia from the contest page) Putting this notice in the watchlist gives the false impression that this is an official wikipedia move, as that is the sort of thing usually advertised there. Objection sto this have been reaised by multiple people in multiple places, and the response has been rather dismissive and sometimes patronising- "If you don't like the the fact that the watchlist has a message about it, dismiss it"; "It is very simple to click that little box that says [Dismiss] to make it go away"; "If you don't like the contest, ignore it and the worst "If you cannot ignore it, maybe a Wikibreak until December 9?" Lurker (said · done) 14:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you please provide diffs where this issue has been discussed elsewhere? Thanks. — Satori Son 14:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Add #watchlist-message { display: none } to your monobook.css. MER-C 02:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The solution doesn't seem to be working for me. Is it dependent on whether or not you have script-blockers active? -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 02:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Did you bypass the browser cache? MER-C 13:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The solution to a conflict of interest in the watchlist is to not look at the watchlist? If there is a COI in an article, is the solution to tell people not to read the article? This is more or less the same dismissive non-answer on the pages I've linked to above- if you don't like it, don't look at it. The issue of a Wikipedia admin using their privileges to promote a for-profit business they are involved in hasn't been adressed. This is a conflict of interest noticeboard, not an "I don't like this message" noticeboard. Lurker (said · done) 15:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, now it's gone. Thank you to the admin who removed it. Lurker (said · done) 15:17, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Philiped (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log): Not sure if this belongs here or on the biographies page, but this article was created by and the majority of the edits were made by Philiped, who would appear to be the same person as the subject of the article. Not that the person is entirely unnotable, but the entry currently stands as a self-promoting collection of clippings and links to work. Additionally, user was advised not to write articles about himself a year ago and has continued to edit this and articles pertaining to himself. -steventity 15:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Ysaye Maria Barnwell

This article is being edited by User:Ymbarnwell. I'm not sure if this user actually is Dr. Barnwell and therefore needs to be told about WP:Autobiography, or if it is just someone using her name. I suspect the former, but can't prove it. What should be done here? Aleta 19:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

the only conceivably problematic edits the insertion of a birthdate. DGG (talk) 06:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Luigi Masi

Aterciopelados

Nacional.records (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - pretty blatant conflict of interest edits on several articles for bands which are signed to Nacional Records. Aterciopelados is only one of them; check their edit history. The user pastes in copyright violations, uses "we" in articles, and refers to itself as the record company in edit summaries. Chubbles 02:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

PIPC

Currently, and for quite a while, this has been a redirect to Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Mid month last month, it (the redirect) came under assault by a number of SPAs and IPs, seeking to either blank the redirect or convert it to a unsourced stub about a company, claiming that the company owned the trademark to the PIPC acronym. Given that the company article gives no evidence of notability, let alone even a real claim that it can pass WP:CORP, the redirect was repeatedly restored by me and a couple of other people. An ANI report was filed, in good part because of the quasi-legal threats of the trademark claims. I ended up semi-protecting the redirect for a week, and things quieted down, until today. Today the redirect was once again replaced, this time by a bit fuller article for the same company, but still no real attempts made to show how WP:CORP is met. I have left a note on the replacer's talk page, laying out how I see this needing to go forward. But given the fireworks that occurred last month, any additional eyes on the situation would be greatly appreciated. (Oh, and this is a COIN report because the earlier edits make it fairly obvious to me that these efforts to replace the redirect with the company page are coming from one or more people associated with the company.) - TexasAndroid 21:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how PIPC Global Holding Company Limited is in a position to assert unique ownership of the abbreviation. It's just one of many organisations called PIPC (e.g. Palisades Interstate Park Commission Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Polska Izba Przemysłu Chemicznego, Plateau Investment and Property Development, Pender Islands Parks Commission, Pacific Islanders' Presbyterian Church, and so on).
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd have thought a disambiguation page PIPC, rather than one solely redirecting to Palisades Interstate Park Commission, would cover the situation. Gordonofcartoon 02:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
And as soon as we have more than one article that properly shows notability of an organization or company that uses the acronym, then a disambig will be appropriate. But as long as only one shows notability, there is really IMHO no point to a disambiguation. - TexasAndroid 14:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I dunno: disambigation pages not uncommonly contain redlinked entries. Gordonofcartoon 15:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The idea is supposed to be that they can contain red links if the target could be reasonibly expected to get an article at some point in the future. At this point, I'm really not certain that any of the other potential targets, especially not the company in question, are notable enough for articles. So red links are doable in disambigs, but not really red links to non-notable subjects that are not likely to ever have a lasting page here. If the PIPC corp people can provide sourcing to show that they pass WP:CORP, then this argument is moot and a disambig becomes the right way to go. Until/unless that is provided, I see little reason for it to be anything other than a redirect. - TexasAndroid 17:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Silanis

An IP address, 66.46.217.132, registered to SILANIS TECHNOLOGY has pluged the websites of that company in articles such as Digital signature, Electronic signature, and Digital signatures and law since August of this year. The spam continues even after warnings. Silanis provides services in the digital signature field. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

www.silanis.com

www.esignrecords.org

Spammers

If they return again, we'll probably blacklist the links. MER-C 01:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree with MER-C, feel free to request @ MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist refering to this if there is a resurgence.--Hu12 (talk) 13:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The spammer 66.46.217.132 has returned; here is a diff of the spam addition. I suggest that the IP address 66.46.217.132 be blocked indefinitely and the domain silanis.com be blacklisted. I will post a blacklisting request as suggested by Hu12. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Gerry, I've added the links to the local blacklist per your request. I'd preffer not to block the IP because the links can no longer be added. --Hu12 (talk) 19:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I've been involved in tracking this problem and giving warnings. I think that blacklisting should be enough. It's a pity that the editors never responded to the warnings. --Ronz (talk) 20:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

66.46.217.132 recently contacted Gerry Ashton and me about the situation. Gary has responded at length, while I recommended she join this discussion. --Ronz (talk) 23:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Automated Valuation Model

Automated Valuation Model (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) Bearian 16:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Article was created by spokesperson from Calnea Analytics. The article attempted to be neutral and recent edits have been made to try to address any bias, e.g. no one provider is mentioned more than another. Written by a new user who was unaware of the need to inform WP about COI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seal1234try (talk • contribs) 16:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I will review and remove the COI tag if appropriate. Bearian (talk) 15:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)