Talk:Blackwater (company)

Controversy

Clearly Blackwater is to put it mildly a controversial company. Whatever your beliefs, to not structure this article around that controversy seems to be a violation of neutral POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.115.60 (talk) 14:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Should this article have a "Depictions in Media"?

I'm pretty sure the fictional company Ravenwood in the TV series "Jericho" is based off of Blackwater. There are some other fictional entities in other forms of media as well (I'm just not remembering them right now) we could list. But only a few obvious, clear or popular examples, please. Good idea? Bad idea? Please don't flame me. I won't put it in unless specifically told to, or if somebody else wants the job. It's just a thought.--FazzMunkle (talk) 02:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen Jericho or any of those depictions. I think it would proboly be better in the article about Private Military Comapanies. It can be hard to interperet what Ravenwood is and if it is a fictional version of Blackwater.

Also, another thing I just thought of would be the use of mercenaries in Rambo IV. This would go in the PMC section if you created a section over there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.196.14.14 (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Unless it is very clear (or, even better, the writers/director of the series specifically state this in an interview), I think it best to leave out mention of such references. I agree with the above comment that it might work best if added to a more general article (Private Military Companies, for example but I have not specifically checked that entry). DClearwater (talk) 20:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Controversial

I have no problem with calling Blackwater controversial but its placement in the first sentence is ridiculous. Blackwater is first and foremost a military contractor and that is all the first sentence should state. Blackwater's controversial nature would certainly be appropriate for discussion in its own section, or even maybe in the second or third sentence but as it stands now it is just going too far. To the other person who stated on this page that the only reason he or she had heard of Blackwater is because of controversy therefore it is appropriate that this be the focal point of the article I say this: If Wikipedia were to include only things you knew I have a feeling it would be a much smaller website. We read encyclopedias to obtain new facts not to see what we already know. By your logic anything you have never heard off does not even deserve a wikipedia entry. Apparently some people feel that being the single largest private military contractor to the most powerful nation on earth is not in itself notable. It is obvious that people are letting their own personal feelings on the Iraq War interfere with the integrity of the article. Bottom line: it's gone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultron1980 (talk • contribs) 23:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to say that the article is balanced, although it does seem to reflect the majority of press coverage I've seen of the topic, but to answer your very specific complaint about the first sentence:

Nearly 2/3rds of the article is spent describing controversies, legal dillemas, and other major crises surrounding company. Our manual of style calls for the introduction or "LEAD" to be an accurate summary of the article that follows. As such, it seems perfectly reasonable to have one negative word in the first sentence, given the make-up of the article that follows. MrZaius^talk 09:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The fact that 2/3rds is used to describe controversies is not a reason to do so in the lead as well, it only shows that this article unbalanced and non-neutral. This page shouldn't just deal with controversies, controversies need only be discussed in its own section, and when too big on its own page. Grey Fox (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

What percentage of coverage in reliable sources relates to controversies and issues involving Blackwater, rather than the company's day-to-day operations? Again, the answer is "high". This reflects neither a bias in news reporting nor a bias in the WP article--rather, it reflects a bias in what is "news" in the first place (status quo ≠ "news").

While many encyclopedia topics may achieve the holy grail of the balance that comes from the passage of time, as might be found in, say, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, it is not reasonable to expect articles on topics that change by day to be free from a bias towards current events—nor would the absence of current information serve readers. Bongomatic 00:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

But then again, WP:Wikipedia is not a newspaper. If this page should ever become balanced and neutral, we should take examples of other articles about blackwater from high-quality publishers. That would fix any undue weight. Grey Fox (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Most people who turn to this encycloædia for info on Blackwater would do so because of the controversies that surround it. In that respect the article is fulfilling its job just fine. But anyway, all the info that's available on Blackwater pertains to those controversies and/or is classified. What do you feel is missing? I could be wrong but I sense that you have an opinion, so what is it? Do you regret that there isn't more feelgood PR material? Niczar ⏎ 20:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus for new name. Reversing unilateral move from Blackwater Worldwide. Parsecboy (talk) 00:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

First, I recommend leaving the situation as is until the facts are clarified. Another company (a currency exchange) has the website http://www.xe.com and the www.blackwaterusa.com website doesn't redirect anywhere either - which makes me wonder just how 'effective immediately' this really is. IF the new name is official, I'd prefer to see the current Xe article be renamed Xe (disambiguation) and then use Xe for the Blackwater material (without '(company)' being part of the title), and having the usual pointer to the disambiguation page. (Perhaps Blackwater is hoping everyone in the world will check out the currency exchange's website, overloading their bandwidth, so they'll sell the url cheaply. Just a thought....) Flatterworld (talk) 22:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

• SUPPORT If Blackwater is really becoming Xe, then I support such a move --RaggieSoft (talk) 02:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose using Xe since clearly this means Xenon in most contexts in English. Xe (company) would be acceptable. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 05:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
• Are you kidding me? This is an encyclopedia and you want to move this company to Xe when there is a chemical element e^e^e... more important than a crappy company that just switchedwill switch their name????? Nergaal (talk) 06:20, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. The AP article states:

Blackwater said Friday it will no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter "z."

It is not ripe to discuss a name change until there is more information. First, the move should not occur until the name change occurs. Second, it is unclear what the scope of the name change is—does "no longer operating" under the Blackwater name mean that the company is changing its name, or simply that it's rebranding some or all of its activities? Bongomatic 06:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• STRONG OPPOSE If the company survives under the name for some years and somebody can show me that most of the people going for Xe want to end up at Blackwater we can move it.--Stone (talk) 06:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Xe is a disambiguation page and would have to be moved to Xe (disambiguation). I doubt that this article is that much more important than other Xe entries, in particular the element abbreviation for xenon. Cacycle (talk) 07:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose the name is the name it will be historically known by, which is the name it had during the last several years. I am not surprised they want to change it, but I would not change the article unless people stop calling them by the name the whole world is familiar with, and I doubt people ever will. At some point, we may want to have two articles. DGG (talk) 02:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

• Support - It seems ludicrous to write off the potential for the company to pull off the name change or to jump the gun and talk about historical judgments far down the road. It seems more appropriate that this page reflect the current naming of the otherwise largely unchanged enterprise. (I do not yet see grounds for splitting the article into two Xe and Blackwater articles, although that would definitely be good writing and boost readability if the organization were to dramatically change after dropping their old name). It seems an inappropriate breach of WP:OR to insist that our own predictions about future histories and press coverage outweigh the organization's official name change, when we're discussing something as basic and fundamental as the name of the article. That said, it is far more important that the old name is given heavy weight in the article and nearly exclusively used when discussing actions taken under that name. This should extend to other articles, as well. For instance, while I cannot in good faith oppose the previously completed move of this article on anything more than procedural grounds, I would full-heartedly and vociferously oppose a move of Blackwater Baghdad shootings, etc. MrZaius^talk 18:26, 15 February 2009 (UTC) (Struck support for move proposed at head of section: My response was based on an antiquated proposed move template and the comments above that seem to suggest a move back to Blackwater Worldwide. I do not now, nor have I ever, seen a strong rationale for moving this over the disambiguation page. The few extant links seen in the WhatLinksHere list for the disambiguation page seem to be fairly widespread, and none point here. This seems to imply that retaining the current naming should be preferred over moving this page or anything else to Xe, and that editors seem to be able to manage typing in the extra 10 characters to get add the (company) label in place. MrZaius^talk 15:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC))

• Support - I support leaving the Xe/Blackwater page as is because there will undoubtedly be people visiting Wikipedia to check on this change as the story circulates. However, we should be careful until more information is made available, especially from the company itself. It is not surprising that a controversy-ridden company like Blackwater/Xe would announce such a change just before a weekend starts. And I very much disagree that the change should only be made after a few years (as Stone argues above). Also, it does not matter if many (or a majority of) people might still refer to the company as Blackwater. As a reference work, Wikipedia needs to be accurate informationally. In fact, I would prefer to see the entry titled "Xe (company, formerly Blackwater Worldwide)" as that would be very clear. I am not sure the Xe entry needs the disambiguation addition since Xe (or XE) clearly refers to all those listed and users can quickly find what they are looking for. It also does not matter which entry (i.e. the chemical element) is most important or the most popular. Again, this is a reference work and all instances need to be made clear and so the entry for 'Xe' needs to be clear as to all instances of use (be it natural, business, or cultural). DClearwater (talk) 20:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The primary topic for Xe at the time of writing is the chemical element. Maybe the company will be known more widely than the element in the future, maybe not; that is not our business. As soon as someone shows evidence that people looking for Xe more often want to end up at the company's page, I will support the move. At the time of writing, this is not the case. And wp is not a WP:CRYSTALBALL, we should not try to anticipate the future popularity of companiesJasy jatere (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Is there information on what Xe means? It looks faintly Chinese... 76.66.196.229 (talk) 05:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why is there controvery with the External Links?

Can anyone clarify why there is a controversy over the external links? I checked with the link to "What Wikipedia is not" and it 'merely' says the following:

Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia.

I do not think that the list of external links detract from the purpose of the article and they surely are not excessive.

Thanks. DClearwater (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Strange move closure

Why was this page moved back without discussing moving it back? The two previous proposed moves were a mangled up mess, with at least three different things being discussed, and none of them in a sane coherent manner. Moving it back unilaterally without a clear discussion of just that (as it surely seems controversial) was a strange decision. Possibly not the wrong one, but a strange one all the same. MrZaius^talk 02:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The move to "Xe (Company)" was performed during an open request to move the page, which shouldn't have happened (and it makes things more confusing, as you pointed out). The move back wasn't unilateral, but rather, reverted things back to the status quo after a move that was unilateral. That's my reading of what happened. Dekimasuよ! 03:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Xe is only one of 3 new names for Blackwater.

Two other innocuous-sounding names were reported in the Wall Street Journal (probly 2/13 or 2/16) for other corporate units. Curiously, these details don't appear on the internet. So that means there are 2 other former Blackwater sub-corporations (?) that you might not recognize if you read about them in the news. 24.10.62.11 (talk) 02:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Move Completed

Evidence of Xe as the final name: the bottom of http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ says "An Xe company" which confirms that the final name is now Xe.

With this in mind, the move has been completed. No consensus/further discussion is needed as there is no dispute.

71.163.59.115 (talk) 05:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Except that there is a consensus for the opposite course of action. Reverted. Bongomatic 06:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying that just because there's a consensus about something wrong, it's fine to keep the wrong in place? The company's name has changed to Xe; keeping it at Blackwater makes this page inaccurate. It doesn't matter what consensus says, the Blackwater USA page clearly indicates that the name has indeed been changed to Xe. Reverted again. 71.163.59.115 (talk) 15:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I've moved it back per consensus discussion and semiprotected the Xe(company) page to prevent disruption for 3 days. Gain consensus for any page moves please. R. Baley (talk) 16:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

License data

Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq was revoked by the Iraqi Government on September 17, 2007... The license was reinstated by the American government in April 2007 - I presume one of these dates is wrong? --GenericBob (talk) 00:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

According to this article, Blackwater's contract was reinstated on February 2, 2009. It also appears that Iraq didn't revoke it until January 2009. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/new-deal-for-blackwater-bucks-decision-by-iraq/ LeftyAce (talk) 23:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Baghdad Shootout

This seems significant:

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection.

[1].

CENSEI (talk) 12:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)