Jump to content

Talk:Bed Bath & Beyond (online retailer)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.34.73.97 (talk) at 18:23, 7 December 2007 (→‎Register Article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Bed Bath & Beyond (online retailer) article.

I'm changing this back to what we had posted a few weeks ago. Our intentions were to give factual and descriptive information about the company, and what is currently stated is a very vague overview - with half of the content referring to the company's lawsuit and Patrick's personal battle with Naked Short Sellers. (Although this may deserve a mention, it shouldn't account for half the content that describes Overstock.com - Patrick has his own article for this). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.116.113.10 (talk • contribs)

Spam reversion

While some of what was just added by Overstockwiki improved the article, the vast majority of it read as an advertising spam for Overstock.com. At the same time, sections of the current article detailing inappropriate corporate behavior by the company were blanked. If anyone would like to sort through the new information and re-add it, I'd appreciate it, but the entire article went from "okay" to "yay overstock!" because of the totality of the edits. That is just not appropriate for a wikipedia article. ju66l3r 18:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changing it back..

I am changing this back to the page we created a few weeks ago. Our intentions were to give factual and descriptive information abdout the company - and what is currently stated is a very vague overview. Half of the content refers to the company lawsuit and Patrick's personal battle with Naked Short Sellers, and although this may deserve mention it shouldn't account for half of the content that describes Overstock.com. Patrick also has his own page where the lawsuit and his personal views can be discussed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Overstockwiki (talk • contribs)

This is inappropriate. Please see WP:SPAM and WP:NOT. --Yamla 22:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"inappropriate corporate behavior by the company" - in who's opinion? Yours, Yamla? What's "inappropriate? For a company to defend itself against illegal "behavior" against its stock? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.70.155.234 (talk • contribs)

Updates - suggestions

We would like to update the information on this page - could someone please give us guidelines as to what we are allowed to do? We basically layed the page out as amazon did, but it seems that when we do it it's 'spam'. Do you think that instead of reverting the page back to it's original version - you could simply edit/make suggestions to the offensive parts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Overstockwiki (talk • contribs)

Given your username, advertising-like editing, and fervid interest with this article, it would seem that you may be employed or maintaining a self-interest in Overstock.com and that is cause for alarm for many other wikipedians as it is a violation of the autobiographical guidelines, since you will hardly have a neutral point of view. Beyond that, if you are the one that is adding information from the unsigned IPs as well, then you're sockpuppetting which makes it harder for others to trust that you're interested in fair discussion of the article. I'll add this article to my list of things that I'd like to do and I will see what information can be brought in while maintaining the importance of other facts that other contributors clearly see as important to maintain as well. ju66l3r 13:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ju6613r: You are correct - only "neutral points of view" should be included in this article. Which eliminates Herb Greenberg's CBS Marketwatch commentary - which is his opinion, not verifiable facts, as a legitimate source to use for quotes on Overstock and Patrick Byrne. Greenberg is named in affidavits in a suit against his some of his sources at Rocker Partners and Gradient Analytics. Even if this were not the case, including his opinions, not based on any facts, is "spin", one-sided, and not approriate for Wikipedia, regardles if his opinion can be linked via a source to CBS marketwatch. Perhaps we should start adding Forbes articles to balance out Herb Greenberg's personal bias against Overstock and Patrick Byrne, or decide to not include any "commentary" from journalists that isn't fact based. --- regards, my soon to be blocked IP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.70.155.234 (talk • contribs)

I can understand your consternation and will definitely be examining the relevance of Greenberg's comments for inclusion in the article, but for not I left them in because I haven't had the time to give everything a full review and it's best if the page remain fairly static to avoid "edit warring" so that everyone can look at the issues on the page while deciding the consensus for possible changes to be made. I'll add the appropriate tag to the article to note that this is being discussed on this talk page. In the meantime, as we discuss it here, please be sure to use the macro for adding your signature to the end of your comments on talk pages so that other readers can follow the flow of discussion better. Just type four tildes (~~~~) after your last thought and the information and timestamp will be inserted for you. Thanks. ju66l3r 17:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paulfromatlanta 03:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)I know that for neutrality Wikipedia is trying to not over-emphasize the fight over short selling but should't there be a reference to the lawsuit filed February 2, 2007? The suit is for three and a half billion dollars and is against some very big names (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Citigroup). Here's an article we could use as a reference that seems pretty neutral. I didn't want to just jump in and do the edit without discussion, since I can see that there has been a lot of back and forth editing already. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070202/overstock_com_lawsuit.html?.v=1[reply]

I added on the SEC dropping the Gradient investigation, which is all over the news this morning. There were a few sentences on Reg SHO that seemed out of place so I substituted with a briefer reference more suitable to an encyclopedia. There was a "POV" box at the top of the section apparently because of the lengthy sentences that I took out, so I removed the POV box. --Samiharris 15:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Online Chat

On their website today looking for DVRs, when a little note popped up that was imbedded in the page asked me if I wanted to talk with someone to get help. Click yes and it opens a small window where an Applet starts. Long story short, they seem to have some sort of program dedicated to talking with the site visitors and asking them what they're looking for. It's basically an intuitive advanced search (it couldn't be a person i was chatting with because it would talk in circles), probably for people who know very little about finding what they're looking for. 64.229.147.133 18:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having worked with the company that did the support for that (before they shipped it offshore), it's called LiveAgent, and while it may have seen "robotic" it was probably some poor sod in Bangalore or somewhere like that. Bo-Lingua 06:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overstock.com editing itself

FYI: According to http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame/, someone at overstock.com is editing this article. Kwertii 22:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overstock IP address range banned by Wikipedia. I'm tempted to add that to the article, but it would run afoul of WP:COI for any Wikipedia editor to insert that into the article. Besides, it's more trivial than encyclopedic. Is there precedent for mentioning a company-wide "wiki-ban" within the article about a company? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't think their is any need for this discussion. Wikipedia actively urges editors to step back from Conflict of Interest subjects. Wikipedia does not support the discrediting of companies on its talk pages by refering to blogs. The discussions on this issue are already on Wikipedia without editors banging on about them. They done bad and have been stopped. enough already. Mike33 - t@lk 07:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute

I have protected this page for a while in order to force the dispute to be discussed here. This is not an endorsement of this particular version of the page. --Yamla 15:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The dispute hinges on whether Chris Bagley merits having an article in Wikipedia (the article is up for deletion; th eonly reason for the article to exist is because of the link here - so the existence of the article depends on the merits of mentioning his name here), and whether the website in question needs to be named. I fail to see how adding this content is required by NPOV, and how deleting it violates NPOV. It is not a view, it is information and I cannot see how this information comes close to meeting our standard for notability. Removing it from the article in no way compromises the articles's accuracy or neutrality. We ought to include notable criticisms of Overstock.Com, and notable defenses - good sources will be mainstream newspapers like the NYT, and newspapers and magazines that focus on business such as WSJ, Fortune, Forbes, etc. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Please read Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#BADSITES_.2F_NPA_in_articles as well as the Arbitrators' votes to accept or decline the case at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#BADSITES. They are trending toward offering a clarification of the MONGO case rather than opening a new case. Please note that WP:NPA governs interactions between editors only, and that two Arbitrators have said that it is "absurd" and "beyond merely absurd" to apply NPA to article space. Policies like WP:RS govern article space. If it has been reported in reliable sources that antisocialmedia.net has taken certain actions and may be connected with the company, that may be described in the article, and to call it an "anonymous web site" is partly misleading and partly censorship of acceptable reliable information. It is not an attack on any Wikipedia editor by another editor to state the name of a web site which has made controversial comments even if some of those comments are directed at Wikipedia editors. NPA does not apply in article space. Thatcher131 15:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, uh huh, I did not mention NPA in what I wrote above. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, Bloomberg (a highly respectable business news service) mentions antisocialmedia.net by name in this article which is already linked as a reference. Why obscure the name of the site? Thatcher131 15:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also the New York Times "Revisiting Overstock.com And Utah" The New York Times, March 10, 2007 page C1 Thatcher131 15:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you seriously think that we should have an article for every person and website mentioned in the NYT and Bloomberg? Mention in these newspapers may deomnstrate notability, but I do not think one or two mentions is sufficient to establish notability. Someone could propose a theory that relativity is wrong and it could be mentioned in Discovery magazine and the NYT but that would not make it a notable view. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't the deletion discussion for Judd Bagley. Phil Sandifer 15:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you seriously think that we should have an article for every person and website mentioned in the NYT and Bloomberg Um, what? The March 10 Times article doesn't even mention Bagley by name. There are a series of editorial judgements to be made in relation to this issue:
  1. Should the article on Overstock.com mention its crusade against naked short selling?
  2. If yes, then should the article report reliable reports in the New York Times and other places that Overstock.com is associated with an attack web site?
  3. If yes, then should the article mention the name of the web master of the site, who is an Overstock.com employee?
  4. Should this employee have a separate article?
Please to explain why even if you think there should be no article on the employee (I voted recommended delete, by the way) that neither the employee nor the web site should be named in this article even though it in all other respects covers the naked short selling controversy. Thatcher131 15:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that a reference to ASM in the article neither adds nor detracts from the article. We're talking about a three-sentence paragraph. Since NPA prohibits linking or references to off-wiki attacks against editors, I'd say that tips the scales in favor of not including. I previously would have said that it "mandates" not including, but that is no longer a settled question. --Mantanmoreland 16:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NPA only says that because someone slipped it in when no one was paying attention. Please read the comments at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#BADSITES_.2F_NPA_in_articles and the arbitrators votes to accept the case further up the page. The idea that NPA applies to article space is described as "absurd," "beyond merely absurd" and "nonsense on stilts." NPA applies to editors' dealings with each other. Thatcher131 16:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thatcher, members of the ArbCom have authority only in arbitration cases. Individually, they are no more an authority than you or I and if they are not active in this discussion on this page their opinions are not relevant. Convince me that the added content of naming Bagley and his site are important for this to be a good article. No one who has responded to my initial comment, I see, has even attempted to back up the claim that NPOV requires it. Good, we have gotten that bit of disingenuous argument out of the way. Now, explain why it is so important to name the name and provide the link. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The reliable news sites used as sources don't mind mentioning the name of the site; wanting to suppress that information is merely a silly intra-Wikipedia taboo, which should have no place in rational discussion of article content. *Dan T.* 16:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They are newspapers, and most people throw them out after a day. This is an encyclopedia. We are not a newspaper and while we post current events, our mission is not the same as a newspaper's. I brought newspapers up only as one way to illustrate notability and again, one or two mentions in newspapers is not enough to make something notable. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You don't think it is important to note that a person implicated in a supposedly anonymous web site that campaigns against naked short selling is actually a company employee? I would say that concealing that fact without having a good reason to do so is definitely a failure a write a good comprehensive article, whether it violates the letter of some alphabet soup policy or not. Thatcher131 16:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully a newspaper will report on it. That is their job. Feel free to send one of them a tip. This is an encyclopedia, not the Drudge Report or the NYT online. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My goodness, do you actually read the sources you cite? New York Times, Jan 20, 2007:
Emphasis added. Thatcher131 20:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sources I cite? i did not cite any sources. I was however making a rhetorical point. I thought you would understand that. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you are disregarding the sources, you were making a point about nothing, just filling this page with noise. Of course it should be mentioned that although Byrne denied knowledge it was actually an employee of his. --MichaelLinnear 23:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not disregarding the sources. Therefore, I am making a pooint about something. Slrubenstein | Talk —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 09:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comparing the versions

This dispute seems to have gotten to the point where the factual merits of the two versions are getting obscured. Looking at the NY Post article and the offending website, and using this diff, I see the following:

  • The Post names the website.
  • The website is no longer anonymous; it says "This website created and maintained by Judd Bagley" on the first page.
  • The uncensored version says that "Both Bagley and Byrne have asserted that Overstock.com has no direct connection with the site." I don't see that in the NYP article.
  • Once again it takes some digging to find the actual "outing". The article on SlimVirgin presently on the front page is certainly accusatory, but it tries to present a factual basis for its accusations; it's not just an ad hominem.

What we've got here is something else I predicted when BADSITES was first being argued: that eventually Wikipedia disputes would hit the news, and then we would find it hard to exclude references to sites without affecting content. I don't think we need to have articles on Bagley or ASM.net, as it all fits into the general controversy about overstock.com. Even if we don't name the website, I think we have to say that Bagley is its author. But not naming the website is little protection from finding it, since it is named in the NYP article.

There is a long discussion of the matter in Sam Antar's blog here; I found a number of other sources which are less complete but which plainly show that Bagley set up an attack site intended to discredit Gary Weiss as being an editor here. So here's the problem: the very fact that ASM.net was created as an attack site (by any standard out there) is notable. Even if we don't name the site in the article, we're going to leave a trail to it. It'll just take a little typing on top of the click of a link. Mangoe 17:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is more complete and better sourced (Using at least two more reliable sources) material at Judd Bagley that, I suspect, will end up being merged here soonish. Phil Sandifer 17:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
New York Times Jan 20, 2007.
Thatcher131 17:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The longstanding, brief reference to ASM in the article is consistent with that.--Mantanmoreland 17:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Except that you have reverted to a version that obscures the name of the person and the web site. I can see no editorial reason for doing this, and as the arbitrators have made perfectly clear, the NPA policy does not apply. (7 votes to accept a case, followed by two people changing their vote and working on a clarification, may not be a definitive statement of policy--which ArbCom can't make anyway--but it sure as heck isn't an endorsement of the current application of NPA to articles. Thatcher131 17:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually this was SlRubenstein's revert,and it was to a version of the paragraph that has peaceably existed in this article for some months. There was no edit warring over the ASM name until you and Phil Sandifer pushed the point. Neither of you showed any interest in this article until the issue of the link naming arose. Evidently it was no issue before. As a matter of fact, a review of this talk page is almost amusing. There was zero controversy over pretty much anything until this recent jousting over this one paragraph! Look back over the past two years discussion and about 50% of it concerns this one paragraph and was added over the past 24 hours.--Mantanmoreland 17:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The name of the site or its owner are just too tangential to the real substance of this article, which already says about as much as is warrented in an encyclopedia. Look, if you want to be a journalist, find an appropriate venue. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the paragraph was added on 3 June and has stayed that way, unmolested, until recently.--Mantanmoreland 18:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See this policy - if you want to report on current events go to wikimedia. It just is not worthy of encyclopedic treatment. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, the revelation that Bagley is behind ASM.net is at least five months old-- hardly "current events". Whatever the rationale for naming or not naming the site, what pre-Sandifer version says is just inaccurate. What the sources really say, especially when you look beyond these two cites, is that ASM.net was created anonymously to attack Gary Weiss and that suspicions that Bagley was behind it were soon confirmed. Even if you don't name the site, the article needs to say this. I'm failing to understand why the article ought not to say what is citably true. Mangoe 19:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it should be acurate, but old news makes Bagley even less worthy of inclusion. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Too tangential? I cannot fathom the logic behind this response. In your way of thinking, the fact that the person who told reporters that Joe Wilson was a hack and his trip to Nigeria was a set-up was actually the Vice-President's chief of staff is tangential; you would be satisified with "a senior administration official" or some other obfuscation. If Mr. Bagley ran a blog on fantasy football or politics it would not only be tangential, it would be completely irrelevant no matter how big of an jerk he is. But when the company's director of social media runs an anonymous blog that attacks people that the company perceives as enemies, that is news. It might even be an SEC violation. (Some other exec who made anon posts to Yahoo groups about his company may go to jail; when executives of public corporations make public statements about their company or their competitors they are bound by certain rules.) It is unfathomable that this would be considered "tangential." Thatcher131 20:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your points are well taken. The article already describes the smear campaign, and observes that the SEC and Patrick Byrne are under SEC investigation. The question is how much more detail you want to put in the article. I think SlRubenstein seems to feel that it should not be given excess weight. I tend to agree. The current mention of the smear campaign is commensurate with its significance, I think. I assume SlRubenstein isnt arguing for exclusion in toto.--Mantanmoreland 20:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correct Slrubenstein | Talk 22:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merging Judd Bagley

Can we talk about this a bit?

I tend to support the merger. This guy doesn't really seem to have any importance outside his association with this company. But the thing is, this article would then need to be more forthcoming about his actions. Mangoe 19:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The AFD is determining that at the moment. Yes, it looks like a merger or a delete. However, that needs to be determined in the AfD process, now that that is underway.--Mantanmoreland 19:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think addition of substantial amounts of data on Bagley would tend to skew this article dramatically. One short paragraph is really all that you need, and one short paragraph is what you have here currently. To go on about the Bagley smear campaign at any length may be titillating but it strikes me as sheer undue weight. Overstock.com is the subject of two SEC investigations, one directed at Overstock and the other at Patrick Byrne himself. These investigations are far more important than the smear campaign being conducted by Bagley, and they receive just one paragraph for each probe.--Samiharris 00:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yuh. Mr Bagley's hard work has received attention from the proper media, and this should be noted, but I'm sure it can be kept in proportion. Anyone really interested can go through the references as further reading. There's a blogger claiming they've found a link, but I certainly wouldn't put that in here unless and until confirmed by a high-quality media source - David Gerard 20:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of sentences on Bagley's website and its actions probably need to be added to the Gary Weiss article also since it has been mentioned in a couple of major news sources. In fact, the NY Times article likened the dispute between Bagley and Weiss to two 14-year old adolescents. Cla68 00:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Only if that was a major notable thing about Gary Weiss, which is outside the scope of this talk page - David Gerard 14:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A newspaper likening something on the web to a spat between two 14-year olds sould to me like a put-down of the whole thing as silly and trivial ... in other words, precisely a reason why it is not worth adding this stuff to an encyclopedia article. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, come off it. A newspaper saying that an executive of a corporation and a notable financial writer are acting like children is not a dismissal of the incident. If it were a dismissal, they wouldn't cover it. Phil Sandifer 16:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Antisocialmedia site name

The article is currently protected on a version with the wrong sitename of that criticism/attack site... it's antisocialmedia.net, not .com. *Dan T.* 16:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Non-attributed nearly direct quote from hedgeworld

In July 2006, John J. Byrne, Patrick Byrne's father, resigned from the board of directors, reportedly due to his "new role at White Mountains Insurance Group," though that departure came soon after a public airing of the elder Mr. Byrne's unhappiness with his son's crusade against naked short selling. [1] Uncle uncle uncle 22:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by JulesH [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle uncle uncle (talk • contribs) 01:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS check needed

This article has some serious WP:RS issues. It's full of references to bloggers and opinion writers.

Policy states that reliable sources are those with fact checking and editorial oversight.

Based on that standard, references to opinion columns by Antilla, Nocera (2), Norris, should be removed and replaced. Similarly, Greenberg and Jayson are columnists, not reporters and should be replaced. Finally, bsalert.com fails as a reliable source. If you want help finding replacement sources, please let me know. --Wally Ball 01:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

"BSalert.com" is gone. The rest are indisputably RS sources. There are no blogs cited.--Samiharris 02:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that references to opinion writers in notable, credible journals or publications are allowed if it is made clear that the sourced information comes from an opinion column or editorial. Cla68 02:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I just checked the policies and can't find anywhere where it says that citations from opinion columns or editorials have to be identified as such. If so, then they can be used as sources just the same as any other reliable source. Cla68 02:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Register Article

hmmm, interesting article over at The Register —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamie Kitson (talk • contribs) 10:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that The Register is, by our description, a "tech tabloid" I have trouble with the idea that they are a reliable source. Widely used and read, clearly, but I really don't think they're reliable, and I think that this matter is, in general, sensitive enough that we need to be absolutely bulletproof in our sourcing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Register is a quite highly regarded tech tabloid, and by common wikipedia democracy is currently regarded as a reliable source. Are you disputing that? Also, yes, this issue is sensitive, but it is explosive enough to require a notation on this article, even if it is just a very small quick dispute note and link to the Register article, especially now it has hit slashdot. Kirrus (talk) 16:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Explosiveness does not point towards the use of less reliable sources. If anything, it demands higher reliability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So yes, you're disputing the communities reliability consideration of The Register. If anything makes wikipedia look bad, its ignoring the democracy that attempts to keep it neutral. Better to link to an article, saying "This may be a problem here" and also possibly NPOV'ing this article as a whole, than leave this issue to get referenced by people like Encyclopedia Britanica as to why wikipedia is useless. Kirrus (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be some serious bias to the selected sources in this article. Opinion writers and columnists are considered reliable, especially when they are bad mouthing the subject, but the Register article is considered unreliable? C'mon. WP is starting to lose a lot of credibility with these high profile edit wars. Perhaps I was wrong to have so much faith in an Encyclopedia anyone can edit, especially when the administrators start manipulating the definition of anyone, and claiming that they are more equal than others. From the mailing list debacle to the allegations in the Register, this cabal is starting to remind me of the evils of Russian communism.Cfpresley (talk) 18:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tried adding a quick note about the controversy to the article a few minutes back. I am an anonymous user with no axe to grind against any side of this issue - we just read the register articles on Slashdot and wanted to test what would happen if light was brought to a controversy within wikipedia. Now we know. In a few short minutes the edits were removed by someone and the article was "protected".

The current Overstock article reads like trash. Really, folks. You should be embarrassed. You don't like the guys running the company? Who cares? Write a good article with an NPOV (there is an obvious negative bias when read by this outside observer).

I have donated in the past but will not do so again until there is more transparency in the wiki process. I don't care about overstock or any of the other articles but am concerned when honest information is kept out of the light by those with an agenda (any agenda).

What is transparency?

It's fine to have a group of uber-admins that ride over the herd. Essential, I would argue. But the protections and control sggested by the Register and quickly confirmed by my own research suggests foul work at play. You folks need to face the ugly and bring it into the open. Admit mistakes were made and strive to prevent them in the future. This requires introspection and honesty.

For example, who is at IP 209.200.52.180 making tons of edits on the very same articles the Register is talking about? The IP traces back to somewhere in NYC (just checked myself a minute ago). Can anyone say for sure this is not this Weiss guy? Or someone close to him? Where is that ban hammer? He/She just removed the reference I made with no cause. Also removed somewhat exculpatory info from other articles that did not meet his/her own bias.

This type of junk will continue in an open system. The job of the editors/admins is to mitigate the damage. But from what I can see (and the Register spent more time at this than I did) the admins are taking sides.

What happens to an encyclopedia or reference work that loses credibility? 68.34.73.97 (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Protected

The edit warring is continuing on this article. As such, I have protected the page. If consensus for changes can be reached here, it may be unblocked immediately. --Yamla (talk) 17:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the page is closed to general editing, shouldn't there be an appropriate template at the head of the article? Gunstar hero (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, sorry. --Yamla (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AntiSocialMedia.net

I don't really believe this section is relevant to OverStock.com. I say it needs to be removed or moved to the article on Judd Bagley. 70.230.18.214 (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bed_Bath_%26_Beyond_(online_retailer)&oldid=176409569"