Talk:Direct Action Everywhere

Edit warring on this page

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), you have been told by multiple editors that you must make statements from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) and cite reliable sources (WP:Reliable). You've also been warned that your edit warring - reverting more than three times in a 24 hour period (WP:3RR) - can lead to a block. Please respond here. If you continue your disruptive editing your actions will be reported to the appropriate admin noticeboard. Funcrunch (talk) 01:01, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Funcrunch you are using your bias for a group who is denying rape victims. This is a neutral point of view because this is factual information with Direct Action Everywhere on their actions. So your continued use of silencing truth with rape and sexual victims from the cited sources is sickening. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackson5Dr (talk • contribs) 18:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), this is an encyclopedia, not Facebook, a blog, or a tabloid. On here you can't make statements like "Despite what the group stands for their values are different than their beliefs" or refer to someone by name as a "sexual predator" without citing reliable sources that say this specifically. As has been repeatedly explained, personal blogs are not considered reliable sources on Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with my feelings about DxE or sexual harassment, this is about presenting factual information in a neutral manner.

Full disclosure, I have been involved in DxE actions and am friends with some of the organizers. But I am not an organizer myself and have no official capacity within the organization. If a Wikipedia admin decides I have an unresolvable conflict of interest I will recuse myself from editing this article. But that doesn't mean you are free to continue your disruptive editing; someone else will likely revert you. Funcrunch (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Funcrunch I know very well this is it not a tabloid but, is stating blogs about DxE very productive either? The statements were made by DxE they them selves even noted they have predators in their group and still do to this day? This is factual information they even admit to. It seems you don't quite understand rape culture or you're just a sexist person. As noted as well the blogs you seem to paste in the wiki have no credible value to explaining DxE does. You want to take out criticism that have been a major proponent in recent events.

I have met with them as well, I used to do actions but, due to the sexism and racism (which obviously you support racist,sexist, ableist, and classist ideas) I stopped going to them after they attacked many women and even stated those things. It seems you have a major conflict of interest as you're not an outside source like me that has seen the blogs. Your dedication to ensuring the brand is safe is shown here. You cannot deny that.

http://directactioneverywhere.com/theliberationist/2014/12/10/respecting-gender-identity — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackson5Dr (talk • contribs) 20:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I have already disclosed my involvement with DxE here. I also have my full name and link to my web site on my Wikipedia profile as I believe in transparency. I am saddened that you are accusing me of being sexist, racist, etc. when I am a queer black trans person who maintains a blog specifically about those issues, but none of that is relevant to your editing of this Wikipedia article.

If you want to post about DxE on Facebook or on your own blog I am not going to attempt to stop or silence you no matter what you say. But this is Wikipedia and there are rules here that all editors are expected to follow. Funcrunch (talk) 21:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), since you are continuing to insert the non-neutral edits I have requested dispute resolution. Feel free to participate there. Funcrunch (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I'm a regular volunteer at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard and I closed the request made there because it does not satisfy our requirements to be accepted as a case, but I thought that I'd say a word about one issue which is pretty simple: sourcing. The Wikipedia Verifiability policy says that any material which has been challenged, either by objection on the article talk page or by being reverted for being unsourced cannot be replaced until reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia have been provided. If this is the edit in question, most of the material in it is unsourced and the sources provided for the material which is sourced do not satisfy the definition of reliable sources required by Wikipedia so that material is, in effect, also unsourced. Blogs and other self published sources generally cannot be used for reliable sources. Issues of NPOV are irrelevant until proper sources have been provided. Repeatedly restoring unsourced or inadequately sourced material can cause you to be blocked if a report is filed at ANI. Moreover, inserting controversial material about living persons without high-quality reliable sources violates the Biographies of Living Persons policy and restoring that kind of material without adequate sourcing can get you blocked even faster. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 01:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Per the latest edits which inserted a reference to someone as a "cult leader" (again without citing reliable sources), I have reported Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs) to the BLP noticeboard. Funcrunch (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr is now indefinitely blocked and I've noted at BLP/N that the issue is probably moot. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Reads a little like an advertisement.

Yo

So I did some minor copy-editing of the article, it could probably use a little more. While I was editing I noticed that in some instances, the article does seem to read as an advertisement for the group. There are a few sections that I don't feel are necessary or are stated twice in the article. I don't want to start an edit war, as I've noticed online that if one disparages the group, a flame war generally ensues. Given that I'm a relatively new/inexperienced editor, I thought it would be best to post on the talk page first before doing anything.

The sections in question are "Philosophy" and "Tactics", as I don't believe that they state much new information that hasn't already been stated concisely. When new information is brought up, while it is cited correctly, I wonder if it is notable enough for inclusion in a wikipedia article.Rejewskifan (talk) 22:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

My latest edit was in relation to this -- while I don't think "Philosophy" or "Tactics" belong in the article, I removed the two most glaring subsections of "Philosophy" that violated WP:SELFPUB. I may take more of an axe to the article soon, but I would like some input before I do so. Rejewskifan (talk) 04:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Good to see WP:BOLD editing. I think there are issues of WP:PROMO here, but I like that this article has a lot of content and wouldn't want to see the content itself removed when it could just be rewritten without the PROMO. I'd add that notability, in the Wikipedia sense (WP:NOTABILITY), is about whether the article itself should exist. The bar for content within the article is lower, though editors disagree on exactly how low it is. (I'm an inclusionist. I like more content in articles than does the average experienced WP editor.)

For the specific edit with deleting those Philosophy sections, I'm not sure if they violate WP:SELFPUB. Do you think they do because they are "unduly self-serving"? I guess that's true in a way, so I guess I agree with your decision. I do think you should take more of an axe to the article soon. I would suggest that you only delete large chunks of content as a last resort. Try to just change the wording e.g. adding "DxE says" if the sentence is currently stating something as fact when it's really just DxE's opinion. Try to just cut the bad parts, to either shorten the section, or to combine the good parts with other sections. You can also try adding critical content to deal with issues of WP:NPOV, though I don't know how much noteworthy criticism of DxE is out there.

Feel free to send me a message after you make more changes, and I can provide a second opinion. Utsill (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Utsill. While I understand the concern of whether or not the content in question violated WP:SELFPUB, I felt that since there is other content in the article that demonstrates these parts of their philosophy, as well as the particular sub-sections only relying on sources self-published, in context it made sense to me that it would violate WP:SELFPUB since it did come off as self-serving and redundant to me. Regardless, I don't think this part of the article was all that important to begin with. When I make my next edit I'll ping ya on your Talk page. Rejewskifan (talk) 04:29, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

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Open Rescue Phrasing

So some of you might have noticed that I did a bunch of edits. One main discrepancy in the article seems to be in phrasing whether an Open Rescue is livestock theft or a regular old rescue sans airquotes. I put in my edits "Performed an Open Rescue on" in one section. Not sure what the solution here is, but I certainly don't think we should be saying rescue sans airquotes, and I don't think the activists that edit this page and perform these actions think what they're doing is livestock theft. Not sure what the style considerations are here, but hopefully this post can generate a discussion so that we can all edit this article with the same style in mind and stick to it. If you also have a problem with my recent edits or have constructive criticism, let's keep the discussion here in one place! Rejewskifan (talk) 10:35, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest/POV discussion

Wow. Nice fluff piece. — I don't know who's been editing this, but well done. This 'article' belongs in Slate as a sponsored piece. Way to hold up Wikipedia neutrality standards. 216.168.113.99 (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is highly POV. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Are we seeing the same article? It contains a criticism section which has, among other things, fellow vegans characterizing the organization as a "cult". Not something you'd see in a fluff piece.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:21, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

The article seems very tilted in favor of the subject. That is no surprise given that the organization itself seems to have heavily influenced the article through undisclosed COI editing. The fact that there is a bit of criticism way down at the bottom of the article doesn't really change that. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest — Solely based on being a single purpose account that POV pushes the user RasaPetrauskaite should be regarded as having a possible undisclosed conflict of interest. Based on easily obtained off-Wiki information I am nearly certain that the ToU terms on COI editing are being violated. I have tagged the article accordingly and am doing a dive into other users active here to see how deep this behavior goes. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 16:20, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Based on the single purpose nature of this IP and the POV that it pushes, there is probably an undisclosed relationship here as well. Please see 96.224.229.138. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:12, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Looking over the totality of your edits, you also appear to be a WP:SPA, with a strong interest in this organization.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

It is entirely possible to have a COI without being paid. Just read the policy in question and look at the COI Noticeboard and you will see that this is the case on paper and in practice.112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest disclosure — I donate money to several non-profit organizations, including Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). I believe in helping people and animals. So this creates in me motivation to keep the pages related to DxE fair and to remove misleading information that perhaps is being inserted by people who have financial ties to the animal agriculture industry. I have in the past replaced inaccurate and perhaps deliberately misleading information with language directly from citations that the same people have found or I found myself in reputable online newspapers, including The New York Times. In addition, I volunteer with Direct Action Everywhere. I will going forward refrain from making direct edits to DxE pages, including this one, except if there's blatant slander present that does not actually appear in any newspapers. It appears that this slander is sometimes fabricated by people who either get paid to promote the meat, dairy or egg industries or perhaps is made by people who are stake-holders in these animal ag operations. These people routinely try to undermine our organization through both ethical and non-ethical ways. Also, worth mentioning, I work in an unrelated industry, at an investment company. I have never been paid by Direct Action Everywhere or any other non-profit organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RasaPetrauskaite (talk • contribs) 05:00, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:COI editing is strongly discouraged. I would recommend taking concerns of inaccuracies and possible slander to the talk pages of the articles in question and allow other editors without a COI to examine the edits and make the appropriate adjustments, per the Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:35, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, yes. I will refrain from making direct edits, unless it's blatant slander and I cannot remove it otherwise or have someone else remove it. In any case, I will try to refrain from making direct edits to this page or others that are connected with DxE. I will follow your recommendation. RasaPetrauskaite (talk) 05:53, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes slander appears on this page — I volunteer with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) and donate money to them periodically because I believe in helping animals. That said, sometimes I noticed that slanderous and false information had in the past been inserted into this article. I also know that the animal agriculture industry tried to undermine the work that DxE does to promote Animal Rights. So something to watch out for is people who try to undermine DxE because they may have ties to the animal agriculture industry. To give more color on this persistent problem, the animal agriculture industry had the US government pass the Enterprise Terrorism Act to put into prison Animal Rights activists who did "an open rescue" of animals bound for slaughter. This is something that several animal rights groups were battling over the past years. The animal agriculture industry also had influence over the FBI, which sent agents to raid two animal sanctuaries that may have adopted two piglets who were "rescued" from an agricultural facility. In addition, the animal agriculture industry petitioned the IRS to remove 501(c)3 non-profit tax-advantaged status from Direct Action Everywhere and PETA. They were trying to discourage donors from giving money to these Animal Rights organizations. So the animal agriculture industry uses ethical and unethical means to harm the Animal Rights movement. This appears to extend to Wikipedia where some people insert inaccurate information that is not found in any sources and that appears to be motivated to paint DxE in a bad light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RasaPetrauskaite (talk • contribs) 05:46, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

RasaPetrauskaite and C.J. Griffin: since that one IP editor keeps adding back the {{UDP}} template, I thought I'd pop in to say that the issue here is closer to WP:ADVOCACY than WP:COI. It sounds like RasaPetrauskaite has a POV in support of DXE. But having a POV does not, by itself, forbid her participation in editing DXE-related pages.

If RasaPetrauskaite were forbidden from editing this page just because she volunteered and donated to DXE, then any person who has ever donated to Wikipedia or freely "volunteered" for Wikipedia (which would include almost any productive editing on any topic) would be forbidden from editing any Wikipedia-related article. The same logic could extend to support for any other nonprofit org, religious organization, or even commercial fandom. Can a Catholic really be trusted to edit Catholic Church, or a Rihanna fan to edit Rihanna? Um, absolutely—indeed, it's often the case that those supportive, involved users will be quite well-informed about the topic they support/are involved with (funny how that works!). The important thing is to avoid pushing personal POV into article content, which an advocate can do by exercising restraint, self-awareness, and transparency when appropriate. That seems to have taken place here, too; I just wanted to point out that "restraint and transparency are a good idea" is not the same thing as "support for a topic results in prohibition of editing on the topic").

So while it's good that RasaPetrauskaite has disclosed her involvement with DXE, volunteering/donation is not a conflict of interest. In short: conflict of interest policy is about a person or organization paying the editor, not the other way around. The term "affiliation" in the COI policy's term "employer, client, and affiliation" seems open-ended, and it is to some extent, but it's just a catch-all for any other relationship that involves paying an editor. That could include e.g. a contractor, who is not technically in an employer-employee or client-agent relationship but is still being paid for their contributions. The term is purposely open-ended, but not so open-ended that it includes any affiliation at all—only an "affiliation with respect to any paid contribution to Wikipedia". —BLZ · talk 07:11, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that clarification.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@Brandt Luke Zorn: Good points. I created this article, and as you can see if you scroll up to the top of this talk page, I was involved with DxE at the time. But I have never been paid by them and never had any official role in the organization, and this article as I created it was neutrally worded and sourced entirely from mainstream publications. It's changed quite a bit since then... Regardless, I left DxE years ago, but still have the page on my watchlist as with (nearly) all articles I've created. Funcrunch (talk) 15:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that the issue with RasaPetrauskaite is that she appears to be a WP:SPU, considering virtually all of her edits (including rejected draft articles) concern DxE or DxE organizers. Funcrunch (talk) 16:44, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Truthfully, I don't think I see a major problem with RasaPetrauskaite's recent edits. For instance, most of the changes in this string of 8 edits from February/March seem like generally productive, noncontroversial additions supported by reliable sources. Now I haven't reviewed all of her edits, nor am I saying her contributions are perfect and impossible to improve upon—but on the whole they're reasonable and good-faith attempts to improve the page, especially for a new user. More good than bad. Sure, it would take a lot of work to get this article up to something like good article status, and that process would include a fine-tooth comb review for NPOV and writing quality/tone. But I'm not seeing the level of bias in her edits that would tip into problematic territory.

I'm not even quite sure that it tips into WP:SPU territory, since interest in a topic alone does not make a user a SPU. Interest in only one topic plus unproductive edits or POV, sure, that's a SPU—but again, where is the POV? This is not a rhetorical question; I'm open to the idea that there have been POV edits, but none of the IP's statements have been specific enough to identify what content they find objectionable. Also worth noting that she backed down immediately and came forward with her connection to DxE when she was told she may have been doing something contrary to policy, which demonstrates the kind of earnest good-faith effort to play by the rules that is characteristic of new users but not exactly characteristic of COI, SPUs or POV warriors.

Which gets to the issue that we don't actually know what the basis of the IP's accusation is, because they haven't bothered to articulate it. I understand what the IP has accused RasaPetrauskaite of doing—introducing POV statements, having a conflict of interest—but I don't understand why. When C.J. Griffin pushed back on their accusation that it was a fluff piece, they said it "seems very tilted in favor of the subject"—too vague to be actionable—and the alleged tilting "is no surprise given that the organization itself seems to have heavily influenced the article through undisclosed COI editing." This is purely circular: it's POV because I say there's a COI, and there's a COI because I detect a POV. The only thing close to a substantive critique was saying that a separate "Criticism" section alone cannot make up for pervasive POV throughout. In theory that could be true, but separate "Criticism" sections are bog-standard across Wikipedia—and again, what pervasive POV throughout? What specific language in the article is the IP objecting to? And if they see problems, then why aren't they making productive improvements to the page instead of prosecuting another user's motives? —BLZ · talk 20:33, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Off-wiki evidence suggests that RasaPetrauskaite does substantial communications work for Direct Action Everywhere and is intimately involved with this rather small organization.112.119.86.128 (talk) 14:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I've just consolidated the discussion so far under a single section heading so it's more linear and easier to follow. The editors who are already following this discussion are probably are, but the same IP is also litigating this issue at the talk page for the article on Wayne Hsiung, who is a cofounder of DxE. —BLZ · talk 21:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I have definitively determined that User:Brandt Luke Zorn has some kind of connection, probably a substantial one to Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere. The proof is here if you look closely. Evidence that this connection is ongoing and related to both Direct Action Everywhere and Wayne Hsiung comes to us via his attempts to whitewash the fact that there is obvious misconduct going on here and his attempts to improperly remove tags that I have placed to warn readers and editors about the problems with these articles. It is very clear that we don't know how many editors are involved yet, in the case of BLZ we don't know the exact nature of his relationship yet, and no one has vetted the text of the article against its sources and check to see if other sources have been omitted in order to whitewash this article. A lot has to be done before these tags can come off.112.119.86.128 (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

BLZ is a long established editor whose wiki account predates the establishment of DxE by several years. Your edits, on the other hand, started just recently with a primary focus on this organization and in particular calling out wiki editors/contributors you believe have connections to it and persistently tagging the article with what I believe are frivolous tags. I'm starting to wonder about your motivations and possible connections given your behavior here.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:40, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

In two cases so far, my suspicions have been confirmed. One editor has now disclosed. I have presented proof that BLZ has or at least had some type of connection to Wayne Hsiung. There is nothing frivolous about those tags. There has been serious COI editing going on here for a long time and we are going to get to the bottom of it, even if you don't like it. FYI until this article is vetted, rewritten to be NPOV, and no undisclosed connected contributors are active those tags are going to stay up unless an administrator removes them. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)