Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
Sections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution procedural policy.
You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Additional notes: This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period. Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wpwikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice. The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}. Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request: 1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}. 2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed. 3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days. Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline.
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Category:Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests is where COI editors have placed the {{edit COI}} template: Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests Talk:A Time Called You Talk:A&P Talk:Advanced Research and Invention Agency Talk:American Water Works Talk:Anaxam Talk:Florence Ashley Talk:Astex Pharmaceuticals Talk:Avia Solutions Group Talk:Roy Bahat Talk:Bank of Greene County Talk:Marc Benioff Talk:William Bolcom Talk:BP Talk:Brookfield Properties Talk:Michael Calvey Talk:Mike Cannon-Brookes Talk:Carbon Trust Talk:Sukhinder Singh Cassidy Talk:Sonia Chang-Díaz Talk:Change Healthcare Talk:Character.ai Talk:Chicago Board Options Exchange Talk:Chime (company) Talk:Citadel Securities Talk:Civic Hall at Union Square Talk:Cohen Milstein Talk:Aaron Cohen-Gadol Talk:The Culinary Institute of America Talk:Dahua Technology Talk:Dark Castle Entertainment Talk:Paul Devlin (filmmaker) Talk:Daniel Diermeier Talk:Dixy Chicken Talk:Ed Dodds Talk:Mary Baker Eddy Talk:ESAB Talk:Ex Libris Group Talk:Far East Organization Talk:Scott Farquhar Talk:Fastly Talk:Randy Fine Talk:Anne Finucane Talk:Florida Power & Light Talk:Bryan Fogel Talk:Forecasting Love and Weather Talk:John Freund (business executive) Talk:Bradley Fried Talk:Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media Talk:Judy Genshaft Talk:Geotab Talk:GetYourGuide Talk:GLX Digital Talk:GoDigital Media Group Talk:Colin Goldberg Talk:Grail (company) Talk:Green Line (TRAX) Talk:Kenneth C. Griffin Talk:Grove Collaborative Talk:Gulliver Preparatory School Talk:Shashi Gupta Talk:H.B. Fuller Talk:Holly Ham Talk:Henley & Partners Talk:Heterodox Academy Talk:Eric Hippeau Talk:History of the Jews in Charleston, South Carolina Talk:Index Ventures Talk:Industrious Talk:Institutional Venture Partners Talk:International Churches of Christ Talk:Sultan Al Jaber Talk:Simcha Jacobovici Talk:Valerie Jarrett Talk:Jefferson Awards for Public Service Talk:Joe Biden judicial appointment controversies Talk:Edward D. "Ted" Jones Talk:Amitabh Kant Talk:Jeffrey Katzenberg Talk:KieranTimberlake Talk:King School Talk:King the Land Talk:Karl Lagerfeld Talk:Dion Lee Talk:Jeffrey Leiden Talk:Martin Lewis (financial journalist) Talk:Library of Congress Subject Headings Talk:Robert Luciano Talk:Masdar Talk:McCain Institute Talk:Metlifecare Talk:Christos Metskas Talk:MoneyWeek Talk:MP Materials Talk:Neuroscience Research Australia Talk:NextEra Energy Talk:Nondestructive Evaluation 4.0 Talk:Oasis Management Talk:Omaha Steaks Talk:Operating system Talk:Oregon Public Broadcasting Talk:Orphan Train Talk:Orphanage Talk:OUTtv (Canadian TV channel) Talk:Dana G. Peleg Talk:Perkins Eastman Talk:Pershing Square Capital Management Talk:Pink Ribbon (snooker) Talk:Matthew Pittinsky Talk:Plinabulin Talk:Programming language Talk:Pure Storage Talk:Qiagen Talk:Quantitative storytelling Talk:Shlomo Rakib Talk:Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership Talk:Revel Transit Talk:Eric Rubin Talk:Roland Rudd Talk:Jay Ruderman Talk:Scandia (theme parks) Talk:Stephen Schlesinger Talk:Schott AG Talk:Joanna Shields, Baroness Shields Talk:Site Number 4 Mnt 85 Talk:Dragan Šolak (businessman) Talk:SoundExchange Talk:South Fort Myers High School Talk:Subway (restaurant) Talk:Sysco Talk:Joseph Tabrikian Talk:TaskUs Talk:Tencent Talk:The Peninsula Hotels Talk:The Red Sleeve Talk:Titmouse, Inc. Talk:Jean-Pascal Tricoire Talk:Edward Trobaugh Talk:Maria-Ana Tupan Talk:UK Biobank Talk:Carla Ulbrich Talk:United Launch Alliance Talk:United States Postal Service Talk:Veris Residential Talk:Versapay Talk:Dan Wagner Talk:Terry Wahls Talk:Dashun Wang Talk:Washington University Medical Center Talk:Joey Wat Talk:Mark Weisbrot Talk:Thomas Albert Work Talk:Sam Yagan Talk:Zearn Talk:Zero-day vulnerability Talk:Zions Bancorporation

The Hype Magazine

• The Hype Magazine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Chastized (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Chastized is here to promote, mainly around The Hype Magazine.
"His photography work is celebrated globally" [1]. " a plethora of testimonials" [2]. Admins can see the promotional material added to Rahim Hirji

Claims to "have not connection to Jerry Doby" [3] but activity shows otherwise.
Primary edits have been around The Hype Magazine

Editor In Chief is Jerry Doby.

[4]

File uploaded by Chastized. "Evidence: The license statement can be found online at: http://www.fiverr.com/users/jerrydoby/manage_orders/FO424FB6EB83". User Jerry Doby.

[5]

Uploaded by Chastized. From Flickr [6] which shows a request from Jerry Doby, "Can you make this photo available for use on Wikipedia?"

[7]

Claims to be the copyright holder of a proclamation given to Just Jay of The Hype Magazine.

[8]

File uploaded by Chastized. "This file is directly from the magazine's archive and placed on it's Wikipedia page with permission from the publisher." The publisher being The Hype Magazine. duffbeerforme (talk) 10:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a pending AfD for this article: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Hype Magazine. It needs some additional opinions. John Nagle (talk) 06:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Result of AfD was "Delete". John Nagle (talk) 20:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Related COI. Paid editing clean up, Blanco Caine/TheUrbanLink, Edubb/Jdobypr duffbeerforme (talk) 13:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Some of the editors who were involved in the Walterlan Papetti article (now deleted, but edited by Chastized among others, see the first diff above) and its AfD discussion have now clustered to another AfD where they argue to have that article deleted - I'm not sure whether this is merely POINTY or what, but it is frankly a bit puzzling. People with more experience of the modus operandi of this group would be welcome to take a look. --bonadea contributions talk 11:36, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

That was deleted, too. We seem to be done here. John Nagle (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Cortes Wesley Randell

• Cortes Wesley Randell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Orlandosouth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 72.219.225.216 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 98.169.14.94 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Cwtrandell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Cortrandell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This was never a great article to begin with, but over the past few months it has been heavily edited by either the person who is the subject or someone closely associated with them. This has been done to remove or whitewash negative information about Mr Randell's past. I believe that the accounts in use are sockpuppets. I think it needs a great deal of reverting or rewriting, and something to be done about these sockpuppets PredatorsFan (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I did a big revert to before the anon edits. See Talk:Cortes Wesley Randell. Bogus info was being inserted; for example, the article said he had published three books. One of the three is a real book, but he didn't write or publish it. (It's a paperback version of public domain testimony before Congress, anyway.) The other two I can't find in Amazon, Bookfinders, or the Library of Congress catalog. LC does not show him as having authored anything. Please watch this article for further bogus additions. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 21:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Gustavo Ferraro

• Gustavo Ferraro (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• DaltonCastle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have come across the entry for Gustavo Ferraro. The editor DaltonCastle has blatantly disregarded all the removed information and reasoning behind it. This editor has taken their crusade against anyone they perceives has a connection to Néstor Kirchner or Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and created entries that are set up solely to include a section filled with quotes and theories by editors of publications to attack. The list includes Carlos Zannini, Miguel Ángel Pires, Carlos Molinari, Enrique Omar Suárez, César Guido Forcieri, Juan Pablo Schiavi and Federico Elaskar. And those are just the new ones the editor created. This editor allegedly used LinkedIn to create the background before the accusations against Gustavo Ferraro but that source doesn't exist. I will request speedy deletion of this entry but wanted to note the obvious non-neutral and conflicted agenda of the editor that should be examined. Wikipedia is not meant to be a venting blog for theorists.--SimpleStitch (talk) 15:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

This gets complicated. The article needs someone who's up to speed on the Argentine debt restructuring to straighten it out. It's going to take more sources to resolve where this person fits into that crisis. Mentioning this on the debt restructuring talk page. John Nagle (talk) 21:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Greetings. I have addressed this issue on the Talk page for Gustavo Ferraro but will make a quick note here. I have a long history of working on pages related to political corruption. I have many interests on Wikipedia but this is certainly one of them. I apologize if SimpleStitch feels offended, but I can assure anyone taking note of this that my work is based solely on personal interest and research. I do my best to use many sources and cover many viewpoints, although that can be difficult with controversial characters who have a great deal of negative press.DaltonCastle (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

John Nagle the problem with this entry is it has no source for the background of the individual claimed. The editor used a dishonest practice to avoid an orphan tag, which was removed. The copy presented is opinions and theories of editors of the publications. This is not Occupy Wall Street and Wikipedia is not meant for individuals to slight anyone. It's not an opposing view or fringe theories, the point is Wiki has no views, it's facts.--SimpleStitch (talk) 14:37, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no opinion one way or the other on this. My point was merely that dealing with this problem knowledge about the Argentine debt crisis. So I put a note on the talk page for Argentine debt restructuring to ask for help. John Nagle (talk) 18:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Integris and the advertising agency Ackerman McQueen

It appears that articles related to the company Integris Health are the subject of highly promotional editing by the advertising agency Ackerman McQueen.

Articles affected:

• INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center
• INTEGRIS Cancer Institute of Oklahoma
• INTEGRIS Health Edmond
• INTEGRIS Bass Baptist Health Center
• INTEGRIS Southwest Medical Center
• INTEGRIS Orthopedics
• INTEGRIS Health
• Draft:INTEGRIS
• USBWA National Freshman of the Year (award sponsored by Integris)
• Ackerman McQueen
• List of hospitals in Oklahoma
• User:Marlowpuck/sandbox

External link:

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

Editors:

• Ackermanmcqueen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ajoseph213 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Toddstogner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• WhitleyOConnor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Marlowpuck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Lowpuck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These editors are all essentially single-purpose accounts creating the Integris articles, adding promotional content to them and the related articles, and/or adding external links to integrisok.com across multiple articles. The user Ackermanmcqueen has an obvious username connection to the agency. Ajoseph213 said, "I'm the Digital Marketing Specialist for INTEGRIS Health". WhitleyOConnor started the article Ackerman McQueen. Deli nk (talk) 13:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

USBWA National Freshman of the Year and Ackerman McQueen turn out to be relatively decent articles at present. The first one doesn't even mention Integris, and there are lots of news references to players winning that award, so that's probably OK. The Ackerman McQueen article is just a stub, it says they're the ad agency behind the NRA, and has a good reference to a non-flattering Washington Post article about it. So we're left with the hospital articles. John Nagle (talk) 18:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The hospital articles have too much advertising-like prose. I've been taking out lines like "Each of these facilities uses state-of-the-art technology in its battle against illness and is led by highly skilled, experienced and caring individuals who are committed to staying at the forefront of medical technology to give patients from across Oklahoma the best care available." That's ad copy, unsuitable for Wikipedia. See WP:PEACOCK. John Nagle (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

There are only four hospitals, but there were seven articles, some of which were about subunits of the hospitals. We're now down to five articles, and if the merge for the cancer center is approved, we'll be down to four. John Nagle (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Removed some more peacocking and brochure-like language from the hospital articles. They could use more information from reliable sources, and less from in-house sources. These are reasonably large hospitals; they should be covered well in Wikipedia. As paid editing goes, this wasn't too bad.John Nagle (talk) 18:34, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look and fixing/improving the articles. Deli nk (talk) 11:36, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

RealPlayer

• RealPlayer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• CorporateM (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have a conflict of interest and would like to advertise the discussion I started "poorly sourced contentious material" primarily regarding the second half of the "Controversy" section, which relies heavily on blog posts and forums, as well as the section on RealAlternative, which seems to rely on equally poor sources like personal blogs and download.com.

I didn't think it would be appropriate to remove poorly-sourced criticisms myself, so I have used the Talk page and asked that a disinterested editor take a quick look. If someone has a few minutes to make whatever edits seem appropriate, I'd appreciate it. CorporateM (Talk) 15:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It's better to add cites than to remove criticisms. I added an additional cite to the Washington Post in the Controversies section. Added "cite needed" on one remark. The download link to FileHippo was removed, but the link to CBS's Download.com, as a more reliable source, was left. See Talk:RealPlayer. John Nagle (talk) 19:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

New Covenant Ministries International

• Template:New Covenant Ministries International
• Template:MuzickMaker

Please see my talk page for my declaration of relationship with New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI)

I am concerned about a possible COI by the editor Sineng. I have had a very protracted discussion with Sigeng about numerous violations of content policy. (See my talk page, the NCMI talk page and Sigeng's talk page)

I am concerned with a systemic pattern of editing that Sigeng has demonstrated in choosing quotes and placing interpretations in the article that are misleading and have UNQUALIFIED inflammatory terminology. By “unqualified” I mean that when quotes like these are given in isolation, without context and without qualifying them (that is, without being clear what they refer to and how they are applied) they are misleading and in many cases pejorative. I chose a grouping of quotes below that illustrate this, because they together demonstrate a pattern of choosing quotes with terms and wording that stigmatize and subject those so labeled to pillory, scandal and defamation. They are provocative. They stir up indignation and contempt. They incite antagonism.

My concern is that Sigeng has taken the position of majority editor of the NCMI page because he has a personal agenda. Sigeng is a smart person who knows that using these quotes the way he is will disparage the group the article is about. My concern is that he is doing this on the NCMI page and other pages because he believes that it is his “public service duty” to “warn users” about groups that he personally believes are “dangerous groups” or that he believes “hurt people”. I have addressed him regarding what appeared to be a bias, a COI and a non-NPOV almost right from the beginning of my being an editor. A few days ago I stumbled onto the following post (below) from Sigeng in which he expresses the reason why he has involved himself in editing the NCMI page and others. I believe that his objectives as he has stated them are in violation of WP:COI particularly, "when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." I have included some examples of edits below that illustrate this bias. There are many more that are more subtle than these.

I can show that every one of these quotes and numbers of other edits to this article made by Sigeng are either completely incorrect, not applicable to NCMI, or a misappropriation or wrong interpretation of source material. I have also expressed a major concern regarding the use of minority opinion to weight the article. I can address that as well. One problem I am finding is that there is so much information that is inaccurate that it is hard to address them all, particularly when an editor is very resistant to input because of his personal agenda. Sigeng's statement of personal interests in editing are as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_April_12

I mainly work on articles that involve hate and fringe groups, many of which have self-promotional or friendly POV articles on Wikipedia...The hate group designation means that these are dangerous groups, and they hurt people. They are dangerous actors. SPLC is a reliable source and they do not give out this designation lightly. It is important to warn users about dangerous groups, and I think the public service duty here outweighs other concerns. -Sigeng (talk) 18:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

The article that Sigeng has mainly worked on up to that April 23rd 2014 post is the NCMI page. Almost half of the edits up until that time were on the NCMI page, all the rest were divided among a number of other articles. I have been addressing Sigeng on his and my and the NCMI talk pages about this apparent WP:BIAS, WP:COI and WP:NPOV since the middle of August. I am leaving the decision regarding this with administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_April_12

-Sigeng (talk) 18:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Special:Diff/578376866 "NCMI discourages churches from making decisions through democratic processes,[19] since they do not believe this is biblical." Special:Diff/578376866 "the NCMI team effectively exerts hierarchical control over local churches leaders tend to make unilateral decisions”

Special:Diff/594288781 "Allan Anderson quote - NCMI churches are "highly patriarchal in leadership;" Special:Diff/580973983 “"leadership structure of distinct hierarchies" Special:Diff/594288781 “"dominated by white South Africans, who lead many local churches and church plants around the world, preside over NCMI conferences, and predominate the membership of the apostolic team". Speaking of South African Pentecostalism in general and explicitly mentioning NCMI, Anderson contrasts the rise of expensive megachurches and "jet-set" apostolic networks in white, middle-class South Africa to the poverty of majority black Pentecostals .

Special:Diff/580978115 “Raoul Tuul, former NCMI pastor, calls NCMI "fiercely patriarchal". He writes that "subservience of women is practiced" and that "members are driven to exhaustion to prove their godliness and 'leadership potential'". He expresses his opinion that NCMI churches do not welcome disagreement nor "questioning of the system".”

Special:Diff/621721251 “A former NCMI pastor wrote a brief account of his experiences for Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS), an Australian support network. The anonymous pastor wrote, "I gave almost a quarter of a century of my life to NCMI's 'vision and values' and have not one [...] friend left to speak of.... The leaders are generally all uneducated, and know of little else except the manuals and 'NCMI speak'." CIFS notes in their disclaimer that "an account from one person must be read as that" and they encourage "readers to research widely before forming an opinion."

Note on Special:Diff/621721251 & 621721251 Please see the NCMI Talk page item for discussion on WP:SOURCES, WP:QS, WP:EXCEPTIONAL, WP:BALANCE, WP:BALASPS WP:RS : Question for administrator Regarding CIFS quote violation of multiple Wiki content guidelines

I can show that every one of these quotes above and numbers of other edits to this article made by Sigeng are either completely incorrect, not applicable to NCMI, a misappropriation or wrong interpretation of source material.

The problem is where do you start to try and fix this kind of information that is woven through an entire article. MuzickMaker (talk) 00:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)