Talk:International Anti-Corruption Academy

[untitled]

A well-written, clear, concise, informative article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weiss1234 (talk • contribs) 08:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Not encyclopedic

Moved here as this is not encyclopedic content but rather is PR. Perhaps the refs here can be used to generate encyclopedic content

Media attention

IACA is frequently mentioned in media around the world. Most of the coverage is neutral or positive in tone, although a small number of media outlets have carried highly critical reports.

Radio France Internationale recently broadcast a story about the Academy and its Master in Anti-Corruption Studies (MACS) programme. Its Dean has given numerous interviews to outlets including Austrian state broadcaster ORF, China Daily, Die Zeit, Atlas (Denmark) [1], and BFM Radio (Malaysia) [2]. The Academy is also frequently profiled in the FCPA Blog, both by the blog's editors and by some of the lecturers in IACA's master's programmes.

In July 2017, the award-winning German investigative platform CORRECTIV, in cooperation with the magazine NEWS, published an article claiming that a local old boys’ network is pulling the academy’s strings and that there is a conflict of interest over the appointment of the organisation's independent auditors. IACA’s sponsors are involved in choosing its financial auditors, and one of the organization's local auditors is implied in a corruption scandal..

Earlier on in 2016, IACA was critically covered by Austria's second-largest commercial channel Puls 4 in its TV show 'Bist du Deppert?!'. In February 2016, this show (which is about tax wastage) made a critical feature of the Academy and accused it of being overly expensive and lacking accountability. Earlier on, NEWS published a critical feature on the academy called 'Castle in the Sky'..

References

-- 12:11, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

needs revising

There may be something useful here but this is a mess of unsourced content and promotional writing.

History

IACA was created by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), and the Republic of Austria. It was set up on the basis of a multilateral treaty – the Agreement for the Establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Academy as an International Organization. IACA was inaugurated during the conference "From Vision to Reality", in the Viennese Hofburg in September 2010. More than 1,000 delegates were present, representing over 120 UN member states, as well as international organizations, and the public and private sector. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was the guest of honour. During this conference, 35 UN member states and one international organization signed the IACA agreement. By the end of 2010, it had been signed by 51 UN member states and two international organizations, and on 8 March 2011 IACA was established as an international organization. IACA holds observer status with the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Council of Europe's Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The founding group who set up the IACA were clear about its role as a practical training institution specifically for working practitioners, such as investigators and prosecutors, whose enhanced knowledge and expertise would have a trickle-down effect back home. Executive director of UNODC at the time, Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, highlighted the proposed practical benefits of the academy, particularly the training of experts working in anti-corruption agencies and financial intelligence units. INTERPOL Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble added that the academy was intended to "play a central role in enabling police and prosecutors worldwide to investigate and prosecute corruption". The UK Minister for International Development supported the initiative since it would "provide professional training and technical expertise to individuals and teams tasked with combating the scourge of corruption in both developed and developing countries" through a focus on UNCAC's four pillars of prevention, criminalisation, international cooperation, and asset recovery.

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 12:45, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

IACA page

Dear Wikipedia community,

This is Richard Eames, Senior Coordinator for Advocacy and Communications at the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) – again disclosing my COI in connection with this page.

Instead of the current edit war that has involved many user names since 16 March 2017, I hope that through the talk page we can all work towards a consensual, accurate, fact-based page about IACA that serves the public interest. In this spirit, I fully understand that this page is not the IACA website and will contain content from different perspectives.

However, since 16 March the vast majority of page edits (apart from mine) have been overwhelmingly negative towards IACA, for reasons that have not been made clear. In many cases users were allowed to add false and misleading content with the clear intention of damaging IACA’s reputation. In addition, on 7 July one user impersonated IACA’s Dean, Martin Kreutner, by editing under the user name Martin.Kreutner.

Following the most recent edits and deletions on 18 July the page now consists of three short paragraphs that are almost exclusively negative in tone towards IACA and rely on a very limited number of sources.

I understand Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines and am happy to work within them. I trust other users will do the same in the interest of reducing the conflict on the page about IACA.

Best wishes, Richard Richard.eames (talk) 14:39, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi. If you would like to propose content here that is based on independent sourcing, I would be happy to review it. Thanks for posting here - glad you found the talk page. Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi – I’d like to propose the following introduction. It contains basic objective facts about IACA that are of public interest. The IACA Agreement is international law.

This content and sourcing follows the pattern at the top of Wikipedia pages about many other international organizations (e.g. UNODC, Interpol). I trust it will not be problematic for anyone.

--

The International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) is an international organization and post-secondary educational institution based in Laxenburg (Vienna), Austria. It was initiated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the Republic of Austria, and other stakeholders.

IACA became an international organization on 8 March 2011 on the basis of a multilateral treaty – the Agreement for the Establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Academy as an International Organization.

IACA’s mandate, stipulated in Article II of this agreement, is “to promote effective and efficient prevention and combating of corruption” through education and professional training, research, technical assistance, and international cooperation and networking.

Best, Richard.eames (talk) 10:19, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

We don't use embedded URLs like this. We use references. The general help page for citing sources is at Help:Citing sources; there is a quick introduction at User:Jytdog/How#Formatting_citations.

Please use independent sources. The website of the organization is not independent.

The content needs to be supported by the references (everything in the content, needs to be found in the reference). Content in Wikipedia summarizes what independent, reliable sources say about things. That is how we achieve "neutrality" as we define that, and avoid becoming a vehicle for promotion. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi - Richard Eames here from IACA. I've removed the embedded IACA URL while keeping the links to other Wikipedia pages. I've added independent external references that support all the proposed content:

The International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) is an international organization and post-secondary educational institution based in Laxenburg (Vienna), Austria. It was initiated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the Republic of Austria, and other stakeholders.

IACA became an international organization on 8 March 2011 on the basis of a multilateral treaty – the Agreement for the Establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Academy as an International Organization.

IACA’s mandate, stipulated in Article II of this agreement, is “to promote effective and efficient prevention and combating of corruption” through education and professional training, research, technical assistance, and international cooperation and networking.

Best

References

Richard.eames (talk) 07:49, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

The first source doesn't mention IARC. It is an index page.

The second source is a press release by one of the agencies that formed the academy. This is not independent.

The treaty is what we call a "primary source" and not independent. We could cite this as an EL for anybody who is interested in it.

Please also see WP:Avoid mission statements.

Please try to understand and follow the mission of Wikipedia; this is the IARC website nor a vehicle for public relations. The goal is to summarize accepted knowledge and we find that in independent, reliable sources. Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

If you want to improve this page, the best thing you could do is provide a list of independent sources that we could use to build content. that would be great. I am finding the history hard to work out. The UNODC press release says an agreement was signed in 2008 and the thing was supposed to launch in 2009. The 2010 UK press release in the article says that it launched (past tense) the day before the press release was put out. The infobox and "headoverheels" say it launched in 2011; there is no source for that at all. Independent sources discussing the history and what it has done would be very helpful. Jytdog (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, I will provide such sources. Regarding treaties as primary sources: International Treaties are international law binding worldwide under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. They are legal facts, whatever you call the source. One may like or dislike their content, but that's another story. If you want to inform about NAZI-Germany and you are citing NAZI-law that's as authentic as it gets. It can never be a wrong source. Regarding the founding dates: IO-treaties have depositaries which are almost always explicitly stated in the treaties. They are holding the treaty in custody, administering any accession/amendments/ratifications, etc. The UN-Charter, the NATO-treaty, and many others for example are held by the US state department. Noone would ever think of sourcing to the US state department, to support whether a treaty has 20, 30 or more parties. Please read WP:SOURCING which in particular says that "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material". That's why Wikipedia text is not hyperlinked and referenced all over (a terrible idea). Who would really challenge the number of parties to an organization, or its founding year? All IOs on Wikipedia I have browsed, are self-sourced. So if you are right about sourcing, Good Night Wikipedia, there goes basically all content about IOs. Naturally that's not the case and you will find plenty of other articles where this interpretation is not applied. However, for the sake of progress and because I may work on other IO and Anti-corruption articles in the future, let me help out with the link to the depositary of the IACA Treaty which according to the IACA-treaty is the Austrian Foreign Ministry, and the source is fairly easy to google and find at https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/european-foreign-policy/international-organisations-in-austria/international-organizations-based-in-and-around-vienna/. By the way, as you mention the UK, they are NOT even party to the IACA treaty (also easy to find through reliable sources on the web), so far on authenticity of that source, but 71 states and organizations are. Are we linking now to all 70+ country-websites to support these data? On the confusion of the UNODC article: Here is another one in their archive http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2010/July/international-anti-corruption-academy-in-countdown-to-opening.html. Reading both I understand that the first article of 2008 was a prospective one, and referring to an agreement between UNODC and Interpol. The second article seems to support the information available at the IACA website, that this plan did not materialize and IACA was founded years later as IO. I understand that writing about IOs requires a specific knowledge and mindset which naturally not every editor/admin has. Here I hope to make a useful contribution to this and other articles. I understand that controversial content has to be properly supported. But exactly here this article still suffers in one or two instances, as I explained multiple times, which is just sad.

Thanks Richard for informing me about the DR/N request. Still need to see what that is doing, but any channel to make this article a useful and informative one is certainly welcome and supportive of Wikipedia's mission. I will come forward with new non-IACA sources about the IACA history, as soon as I'm finding some. HeadOverHeels (talk) 21:43, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I look forward to the list citations of independent sources. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:45, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Information about IACA

Good evening,

I just edited the article about IACA to start building up something useful. I found some information suggestive and not supported by any external source. The cited NEWS-articles are in German. Does it serve the Wikipedia-mission to add credentials in another language than the article, making it impossible for 90 % of the readers to review its content and verify the text? My wife is German and explained me that the cited NEWS articles are making various hear-say claims, but neither the unusual staff turnover in 2015/16 nor any claim pointing to a revolving door is made therein. Has obviously not been reviewed by anyone...(because it's in German). I suggest not using foreign language links and sources for reasons of independent verifiability.

My particular interest is international organizations. That's where I am able to give to and share with the Wikipedia-community. I feel that a lot more of data and facts about IACA could be placed on this site. It's a public entity so governance is key. How about that? Activities are critical (just look at UNODC, UN, Interpol and other related articles on Wikipedia). How about partnerships? True, that state relations can be fuzzy but what about international joint activities, funded by tax payers money? What about IACA's efforts in contributing to the fight against corruption? Should that not go in here? And if not, why not?

Would be glad to hearing your commments...Be patient with me I am a NewBie!...and hope to hear from you on other related articles as wellHeadOverHeels (talk) 20:24, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Your edit removed negative content, added WP:OR to mushify other negative content, added invalid embedded URLs, and added promotional content. It was not OK. Jytdog (talk) 23:36, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Hey Jytdog,

Thanks for commenting my edits. I responded to your question of a possible Conflict of Interest (there is none)on my talk page, where I also explained my motivation to make this article a useful one, which currently is absolutely not the case. Just compare with other organizations.

Regarding the edits made:

With all respect, I removed wrong content not supported by the articles cited. Read and judge yourself. I rectified errors and typos which you reinstated (e.g. IACA was established in 2011 not 2010, IACA is not IARC, etc...). Apart from a missing source on IACA's staffing (I explained that nothing of these statements are supported by the cited NEWS-article) I found this information as insignificant for an Encyclopedia, as the menue-plan of their staff-canteen (if there was any). Now as I have closely studied the history of this article, and particularly as you seem to discard facts and data about the organization, which are of encyclopedical value as promotional, could you provide guidance if there is any information about IACA, which you deem encyclopedical, apart from two or three articles in German which most readers do not understand? Don't get me wrong, I do not oppose negative facts about any entity if they are reviewed and supported. But that seems here only the case in the third paragraph. And that's reinstating text which has been found "un-Wiki" by other adminstrators on other articles. If however, you have good reasons to limit this to you and Richard, and don't want to get anyone involved to improve quality then just let me know and I'll move on to the next arricle. It does not have to be IACA.

This is an excerpt of how IOs are portrayed at Wikipedia, with noone even thinking of promotional aspects:

"The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (in French Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime) is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna.[1] It is a member of the United Nations Development Group[2] and was renamed the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2002.[3] In 2016–2017 it has an estimated biannual budget of US$700 million.[4]"

Curious to hear your comments. HeadOverHeels (talk) 11:49, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Content in Wikipedia is based on independent reliable sources. Jytdog (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's not true! Facts about organizations are regularly and almost entirely pointing to their own archives. Just see the above excerpt on UNODC. Entirely UN-sources. Who else should know about numbers of staff, organizational purposes, new projects etc. Just like a state, which informs about the size of its territory, number of inhabitants, etc. Who else should have these data? Please look up the IO websites as the fragment above and judge yourself to what extent external independent sources are being used. It's naturally very rare. HeadOverHeels (talk) 21:31, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

It is true. Please don't rely on other articles here; many articles are subject to corruption and promotional pressure by their subjects, just as this one has been, and currently is. I will not continue this specific discussion with you as there are other articles I am trying to improve, and I do not have time to keep running around the same tree.

Again, if you want to improve this article please provide independent sources that we can build it from. Jytdog (talk) 00:42, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog: I am determined to make this a better and more accurate read. But at the start of everything has to be the removal of errors? You have not only been acting as Admin but also as editor. I understand that the current text comes entirely from you. Please revisit WP:INVOLVED, WP:NPOV, WP:NONENG and you will understand.

The Quoting of non-English sources If you quote a non-English reliable source (whether in the main text or in a footnote), a translation into English should always accompany the quote. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians, but translations by Wikipedians are preferred over machine translations. When using a machine translation of source material, editors should be reasonably certain that the translation is accurate and the source is appropriate.

Here is the literal translation of your reference regarding „unclear staff-turnover“: "It is said that in recent months a double-digit number of employees left the Academy. This has been officially explained by the increased „Internationalization“, due after the built-up phase of the organization." So it's hear-say and not a fact, as currently stated. It has not been a product of the author's research. And the writer makes clear that an official explanation has been provided on staff-turn-over. So "unclear" is simply a false and unsupported statement. Furthermore the article informs that two public servants from Austria were working for IACA, before leaving again. Where is a „revolving door“? No support by this Article. You are eagerly preaching the use of independent and reliable sources. Should that not apply to your contributions too?

You are mentioning corruption and personal pressure. How do you judge other IOs articles. Why has Wikipedia a cooperation with the UN if almost entirely UN-sources are being used? If you know that facts and data provided by IACA are false, wouldn't that be something to disclose and support by proper sources, instead of making suggestions which are not supported by your sources. If there is more behind this article, then please share. The community has a right to know. If not, then please consider my humble inputs, since it's also your reputation as Wikipedian editor and ultimately admin, which suffers with the current text in the article.

Now before I start editing, three questions, to avoid wasting our boths time:

1. Do you agree removing typos/errors, wrong/unsupported statements, as outlined above? 2. Do you agree with adding general data about IACA (no IO-article has external sources on that) which are the basis for every article on IOs? 3. Why is the founding treaty of IACA, which is an instrument under international law, a improper reference for IACA's mandate?

Thank you, HeadOverHeels (talk) 10:47, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Primary Sources and References

Jytdog, Richard,

Good news for all of us, and it will also ease your conscience and safe you time. No need to be worried about primary sources for using basic facts and data about the organization. The use of facts and data of an organizations website in an article is not only the standard at Wikipedia but is explicitly approved under WP:PRIMARYCARE which reads in its relevant part:

An article about a business: The organization's own website is an acceptable (although possibly incomplete) primary‡ source for information about what the company says about itself and for most basic facts about its history, products, employees, finances, and facilities. It is not likely to be an acceptable source for most claims about how it or its products compare to similar companies and their products (e.g., "OurCo's Foo is better than Brand X"), although it will be acceptable for some simple, objective descriptions of the organization including annual revenue, number of staff, physical location of headquarters, and status as a parent or child organization to another. It is never an acceptable source for claims that evaluate or analyze the company or its actions, such as an analysis of its marketing strategies (e.g., "OurCo's sponsorship of National Breast Cancer Month is an effective tool in expanding sales to middle-aged, middle-class American women").

I do not want to withhold, however, that I tried to be constructive and found some additional links supporting the date of inauguration (which is different from coming into force), the mission, the partners etc.

http://www.epac-eacn.org/news/latest-news/47-international-anti-corruption-academy-inaugural-conference http://www.cna.md/pageview.php?l=en&id=115&idc=59&t=/International-cooperation/IACA/IACA/ http://www.ehfcn.org/agreement-signed-ehfcn-iaca-international-anti-corruption-academy/ https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-media/News/2017/N2017-013/

I also found protocols of deliberations in the Australian parliament about their decision to join IACA, which supports plenty of relevant details.

The date of establishment derives from the logic of these links, the text of the IACA-Treaty, which is a primary source and law, and a simple calculation (60 days period stated in the agreement). Yet, in the light of this revelation about primary sources, I suggest that we spare the community this math, which is found nowhere at WP, and start working on a good article in line with well-established and approved practice at WP, including the use of primary sources for basic facts and data about the organization.

Happy to hear that?

HeadOverHeels (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2017 (UTC)