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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Johnadonovan (talk | contribs) at 23:52, 26 September 2010 (→Related article copyright problems). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Energy portal news

Multinational corporation

I just restored the description of Shell being

  • a multinational petroleum company of Dutch and British origins.

User:Sitethief had turned this into:

  • a Dutch multinational petroleum company of British and Dutch origins.

Which User:85.189.148.220 tried to restore in

  • an anglo-dutch multinational petroleum company]] of British and Dutch origins.

It seems to me the initial description is just fine. A company operates in over 100+ countries is generally just called a multinational, and not any national company. It is like stating it is a national international company. The "Dutch and British origins" indicates the origin just fine. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:58, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So why is Exxon-Mobil being described as an "American multinational company?" TL36 (talk) 00:13, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the revert was good. However technically it is not a company. It is a group of companies, and refers to itself as such on all the paperwork I have seen ("Shell is used to refer to the Royal Dutch Shell Group of companies" etc). Not a big deal of course --BozMo talk 15:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chart of the major energy companies

The "Chart of the major energy companies" has little on top of the history section. I reduced the size as a start, and moved it to the bottum of the history section. Maybe it is even better to move it to an other section of the article. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC) P.S. It would be nice to have some real historical pictures there.[reply]

New facts in the history section.

Last week Shell came in the news because "together with StatoilHydro, Shell may have unlocked a large gas find off Norway". Now todays news states, that "Shell settled a case in which the company was accused of being complicit in human rights abuses in Nigeria". And next week there is going to be new news...!?

Now I wonder if we should mention any of it, and if, if it should be mentioned in the history section. Personally I don't understand, why the first news tact isn't mentioned and the second is. I think it is better to leave these news facts out of the history section. This should only mention historical important facts. At the moment it is not possible to determine wether the first or second news fact will have historical significance. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I propose to remove these new news facts from the article, untill thing are more clear here.

To Stepopen

"The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy on the grounds that it is "POV"."

Why dont you read this before anything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO (talk • contribs) 04:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Read the whole paragraph. And do not vandalize articles as you did with this edit. Different viewpoints have a place in articles, but they should be reported as that, as viewpoints, and not be presented as facts, as your edit did. It is YOUR responsibility to fix that, not mine, and no one's else. Stepopen (talk) 04:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are contradicting yourself as you first deleted my whole writing, then "fixed" it, so what is it going to be?

It is a FACT known to the average, that in a trial, details are expected to surface. A fact that I wrote is sourced from the NYT, not myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO (talk • contribs) 05:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you would prefered if I would have deleted it? Because that is actually what I would have prefered, as Wikipedia is not a newspaper that rehashes recent events whose importance and significance is completely unknown. Treating "was expected to reveal extensive details of Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta" as a fact is rather original research, especially given the rather suggestive nature of this claim, and should thus be attributed to the New York Times. In any case there is not much informational value to the reader, except of course if one wants to suggest something. Stepopen (talk) 05:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can leave the condescending tone out, here its teamwork like it or not. Check the article Newspaper of Record, perhaps it will be of interest. Here is a little surprise for you, some newspapers have been and are used even by official historians to compile history. There is now academic source discussing the Shell trial, as you can figure out. Until then, you will have to bear with terrible newspaper sources. The line between fact, opinion, view, etc. as you well should know by now is not that clear cut.

--DTMGO (talk) 05:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So far your edits do not show that you like teamwork at all. A look at your edit history or the many warning on your talk pages shows that quite clearly. But if you are willing to change your behaviour, what about reading what I actually said? And in the spirit of teamwork, I will repeat myself: Wikipedia is not a newspaper that has to rehash all recent events, whose historical importance is not known at all. Only because you can source something, does not mean that we should include it. Read also the essay Wikipedia:Recentism that neatly summarizes the problem of concentrating on recent events. And that is even ignoring the problem that newspapers are frequently wrong, superficial and oversimplifying. Stepopen (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This article is not my core interest on WP but as far as I can see Stepopen has a pretty strong case on the bias on recent events/ "recentism". There is a lot of undue weight here as well. As an economic entity Shell is the size of Belgium (a couple of percent of the whole world economy) and we keep including recent froth without having any substantial balanced perspective. The complaints noted are a long list but represent a small part of Shell's activity envelop (only Nigeria is significant in scale) but Shell would not be as successful in over a hundred countries and have oil reserves allocated to it by so many serious governments (even people like Norway) if it were not regarded extremely highly by vast swathes of the globe. I don't know of any field allocation anywhere which does not consider repute and I don't know of any cases of Shell being rejected on those grounds. --BozMo talk 15:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1.A newspaper like New York Times or The Guardian is reporting on a major case that has dragged on for 10 years, it is not recent. The most known activist was executed in 1995.
2.To compare the size of Shell to Belgium is a misunderstanding, you are making a common mistake of comparing Shell's revenues to Belgium's GNP. But Shell has not only revenues but costs, which are basically inputs from other companies other than Shell. So for example if Shell's revenues are $100, and its costs are 90, the value added (attributable to the activities of) of Shell is 10. The 90 they bought from someone else, at least in part. Most people employed by Shell directly or indirectly are not Shell employees. So you would need to compare 10 to Belgium's GNP, not the 100. 90 is economic activity of Shell's suppliers, and its list could include small, medium and large companies, and all sorts of inputs, from the public utilities it pays in its head office to anything used by Shell.
3.Discussing a case of hanging of environmental activities by a military dictatorship allied to Shell is in place in a section of Shell's reputation and corporate responsibility.
4.What if a newspaper refers to an academic study, or if an reputable expert on a field is quoted in a reputable newspaper, does that qualify for you? Just wondering because you might delete valuable stuff.
5. Do you have your personal list of reliable academic institutions which you won't delete references of? What criteria would you use? How would you know? Do you think there is no bias in academics? It is not Wikipedia policy just to use academic sources.

--DTMGO (talk) 23:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know I haven't deleted anything but hey. Also 1995 is recent, clearly. Out of interest whilst we go throught the bold assertions you make, the Shell versus Belgium analogy works on lots of levels not just turnover. The energy usage of Shell own and directly contracted operations is similar to Belgium (obviously not including usage by Shell's customers which is far higher). If you include subcontracted and agency labour the total employment caused by Shell's operations is similar to the workforce of Belgium. Capital employed is certainly less than the value of the country of Belgium, and value added scores a lot less but most other obvious ways in which people have tried to compare the sizes of companies with countries puts Shell about eleventh or twelfth and when considering its activities people power and turnover seem pretty reasonable measures to me. There is lots of peer review publication on this, why not start with [1]. On what should be deleted I am afraid we don't just throw anything notable into any article; the issue is one of due weight (WP:UNDUE). Far more has been written over the years about say South Africa than Corrib, and by far and away most press Shell has received has been in the Netherlands, unsurprisingly. Including 100% of all notable material on one side of any debate would be to introduce bias I am afraid. --BozMo talk 11:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I was not referring to you on deletion.

1995 is not recent in he context of corporate social responsibility, which in the mainstream is a concept that is relatively new, and about of that age. Today multinationals have started producing annual CSR reports, but that is a few years ago (you can start by looking at some Fortune 500 company websites), and only some top multinationals. The environmental movement did not start until the 70s, and that is in the industrial countries. In Nigerian context, 1995 is very in place.

Good article the one you shared. It totally supports my point. I believe the activities of Shell are best measured by ...its activities...that is the ones directly attributable to Shell, that is value added. The article you shared says precisely this. Another thing is that being a multinational, its activities are spread globally, and when you bring them together, they look bigger than they are. Consider another popular misconception, something is for example, "Made in China", that has a lot of implications for how to measure things. Could mean anything. Designed by foreigners, owned and controlled by foreigners, sold by foreigners, assembled by Chinese, consumed by foreigners. So for example carbon dioxide emissions in Chinese territory, half of them are attributable to manufacture for exports and foreign multinationals operating in China. Should China be accountable for this?

Plus consider how Wikipedia grows, by adding...you cannot look for balance to maintain weights by deleting so things stay in proportion. A better more proactive solution is to add and edit so things are placed in context as the articles grows, not just square deletions like some do here.

--DTMGO (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am struggling to follow your English but you are over-complicating something quite simple as well as not making complete sense. On the scale thing the article (and my comment above) said that on added value Shell is not as big as Belgium (about the size of Bangladesh in fact). However as I said when you look at the scale of the activity under the Shell brand or where its repute is on the line (which I think is better measured by operational scale, which is well defined in its published business principles for example to include subcontractors and branded resellers but not suppliers or Cost of Product) for which I gave three proxies (energy consumption, employment and operational expenditure) it is roughly Belgium-sized. Your comments on CSR are not right though. It may be that the phrase CSR has only recently become commonplace but the concept of corporate repute and behavioral coverage of oil companies goes back certainly a hundred years without even pausing to need examples. On the other part of your comment I suggest you read around a bit. [2] is one place to start. In the meantime I will support any deletion which in the short term improves an article whether from the point of view of balance otherwise. If you wish to store interesting material somewhere I suggest you do it in user space or talk space and not dump things which are disproportionate into articles. --BozMo talk 20:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reference 10

I call into question the validity of reference 10, [3]. While I have admittedly only looked into this reference for 45 minutes or so, I do not believe that it is a reliable source whatsoever. The site clearly references some of its own sites, most of which have dedicated themselves to attacking the Shell corporation. While I have no affiliation with the corporation, and have actually been quite upset with their alleged involvement in the 9 murdered activists, I believe that such a malicious source could not be and is not reliable.

I encourage anyone reading this to further look into this source and to consider removing it. --Potentialwell (talk) 18:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article, every word, is from Lloyds Lists and can be confirmed with that venerable organisation of high repute if you care to subscribe to their publication. Since it seems unlikely that you are you suggesting that Lloyds Lists acted maliciously in making their comments about the Shell reserves fraud, it seems reasonable to conclude that your allegation is directed at Shellnews.net. As the operator of Shellnews.net and royaldutchshellplc.com, I greatly resent allegations that we are "a malicious source could not be and is not reliable" particularly as it comes from someone hiding behind a pseudonym. Our reliability is such that Reuters have published articles based on information published on our site which Shell has not confirmed. The information proved to be true. There were recently articles in the FT - front page lead article, London Evening Standard and the Daily Mail, all based on information sourced from us. When Shell has made allegations against us, we have successfully sued the company for libel. When we make allegations against the company we do so openly and are prepared to back up what we say with evidence. Where is your evidence to support your allegations made without revealing your identity? Johnadonovan (talk) 13:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I would support Johnadonovan on the issue of sources. The rest of this conversation does not really belong here. Although www.royaldutchshellgroup.com is not necessarily a reliable source on everything (as it has a POV, as does shell.com) in WP terms it has proven a reliable verbatim recorder of published material from elsewhere. It is possible to produce a print citation for all of the articles they house but I am inclined to the view the ease of an online archive makes it a reasonable thing to include. --BozMo talk 13:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Section 5.2 Shell whistleblowers

This section was edited on 11 June 2009 by someone using the pseudonym Chocolateluvr88. No explanation was given on this talk page. I am the operator of royaldutchshellplc.com and have always edited using my name and declared my involvement with the site from the outset. The site has a track record of regularly putting into the public domain leaked information about Royal Dutch Shell including important revelations made by whistleblowers. Part of the information has been deleted and the reference to royaldutchshellplc.com which remains is out of place and meaningless. It should either be reverted to the original form or the remaining reference to royaldutchshellplc.com left by the editor should be removed. I would be grateful if an administrator would consider this matter. Johnadonovan (talk) 22:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, The Wall Street Journal published an article today based on information sourced from royaldutchshellplc.com courtesy of a Shell insider. Johnadonovan (talk) 22:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Wall Street Journal article provides evidence that one of the worlds leading news organisations is prepared to publish insider news sourced from royaldutchshellplc.com even after Shell has declined to comment. That is the degree of confidence now established in the integrity and reliability of the site and its insider sources. Johnadonovan (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Johnadovan- Before you ruin my name and accuse me of doing things, take a closer look at the history of this article. Try "compare selected revisions" for the version by chocolateluvr88 (me) and the person before me. I did not make any such edit. All I did was put brackets around Center for Constitutional Rights so that this page would link to that Wikipedia article.
In fact, if it's at all relevant, I'm quite a fan of royaldutchshellplc.com, definitely considerate a legitimate source, and visit it frequently. Chocolateluvr88 (talk) 21:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since you are a fan of royaldutchshellplc.com and I am a fan of chocolate, we should get on splendidly. Sorry about the mistake in identification. I hesitate to identify another contributor as being responsible for the edit in case I get it wrong again, but the responsible party seems to be 72.37.249.36. A few days after the whistle-blower edit, they removed on entire section about royaldutchshellplc.com from the Gripe site article. Apparently 72.37.249.36 is not a fan of royaldutchshellplc.com. I note they contribute to several Shell related articles and appear to be another Wikipedia contributor on a mission to promote the Shell image. Johnadonovan (talk) 23:14, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


How is there not one single mention of Ken Saro-Wiwa in this entire article?

There is Royal_Dutch_Shell#Lawsuits_against_Royal_Dutch_Shell_with_respect_to_its_activities_in_Nigeria which IMHO is already pretty heavy attention given the relevance. --BozMo talk 21:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name change

If someone changes the name of this article, you could work on the links. I don't see any discussion about this issue on the talk page.Daanschr (talk) 14:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ireland

I made this edit. This involved a removal of text which has been better covered in other articles, some of it had problems with sources, eg ref'ed to Indymedia and An Phoblacht. Also there were some WP:POV issues, eg, calling security personnel "mercenaries" and linking them to activity in Bolivia (ex-employee of a contractor, acting on his own). In its place, I put a main link back to a dedicated article on the topic. GainLine ♠ ♥ 09:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gainline's edit has been removed by another editor. I put in some details on the opposition to the Corrib project. This was removed from undue weight so I put in very limited info. The protests in Ireland were and are extremely relevant. The response of Shell and Statoil to their retail outlets being picketed was to dispose of them.Cathar11 (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


The Philippines

Can anyone update this with the latest government charges that "Pilipinas Shell" (Shell in the Philippines) is facing right now? they are concerned that this may lead them to pull out of the Philippines... thanks! JoshuaCruzPhilippines (talk) 12:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

updated the article, please feel free to improve it JoshuaCruzPhilippines (talk) 13:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Profits and Revenue numbers

Hi, i was checking on the numbers for profits and so on, which appear on the little table on the top right. I think where it says billions it should say millions, according to the following sources:

No, you are confusing a comma in your source with a decimal point in the article.--BozMo talk 22:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Advance pay scam and Shell

Some clever person decided that it would be really cute to start a email scam, claiming they're from Shell. They also include a link to this article.[4] --Mithrandir∞ (Talk!) (Opus Operis) 22:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Related article copyright problems

See Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 September 22 for listing.

Please note that in addition to copyright issues, the articles also have WP:COI and related problems, being in part completely overdone and resembling an attack page. One suggestion if anyone wants to make repairs would be to restart by adding info at Royal_Dutch_Shell#Corporate_responsibility and seeing if that section becomes to big, or needs a separate page.

I would strongly recommend a fresh start on this topic, the content of the pages in question can still be viewed at present, and may contain notable stuff that needs covering, thoug I think the current pages and their titles are based on a false premise that 'criticism' pages are acceptable simply because information exists.

In particular the overblown and over expansive coverage total negates any impact the article might have had in terms of cataloguing any real (or perceived) problem at shell in terms of corporate responsiblity etc. (ie unreadable brownwash.) Sf5xeplus (talk) 20:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be a concerted campaign by a parties or persons unknown to remove all articles containing true information critical of Shell, despite the fact that all sections on every article were/are supported by independent reputable verifiable reference sources. This is censorship on an industrial scale.
On this article, once again allegations are made against me under the cover of an alias. Sf5xeplus says I am lazy and launches a general attack alleging the pages and the titles are based on a false premise. Those remarks, coming from someone using an alias, attacking a contributor who has always posted information under my own name and declaring my background, are offensive and cowardly.
Sf5xeplus complains about copyright issues and directs me to the section within the Wikipedia copyright article which appears to support their contention, but does not draw my attention to the section/page which says it is okay to use quotes, subject to stated provisos. This does not strike me as someone acting in an honest way. I deliberately routinely included brief quotes rather than adding my own version based on the quotes, because I knew that anything I wrote would be attacked as being biased. I have spent a great deal of time on research for the various articles over the years, finding verifiable sources etc and consequently greatly resent being described as lazy. I have been under cowardly attack from the outset - some very nasty stuff - since 2006 by people using aliases to conceal identity, unfortunately as permitted by Wikipedia rules.
The situation now is that the articles in which I have been involved are being systemically removed even though they contain information added by other contributors and despite the fact that the content added by me was always properly sourced. Very soon Shell's extensive history of misdeeds - all factually based information - will be cleansed from Wikipedia. As I said, censorship on an industrial scale.
The argument seems to be that they are "attack articles" not because on any specific section or bias in the drafting, but because of the volume of sections containing factual information about Shell misdeeds. The fact that there is so much material is not my fault.
Shell will of course be delighted, though probably not surprised. I have several Shell internal emails supplied to me in response to an application under the Data Protection Act. The correspondence shows Shell's concern over the relevant articles being read by shareholders and students. It reveals Shell's concern about being caught out editing the articles. Shell was caught once before doing exactly that. The Wikipedia set up of allowing editors to use aliases is perfect for reputation clean up activity. I understand there are agencies which perform this service.
I am not suggesting that everyone involved in having the various articles removed are engaged in a conspiracy. I do know that the articles I have initiated or have edited have been monitored from the outset by Shell with malicious intent. Why have others contributors not been willing - with one exception - to carry out work on the articles to eliminate alleged problems, instead of acting to have them removed?
I have been engaged in another project, which took longer than anticipated. To be frank, given the lack of a level playing field at Wikipedia for those making editorial contributions, I am not sure if it is worth investing any further time. Contributors who act in a completely transparent manner are at a disadvantage and open to abuse and dishonest manipulation from people hiding behind aliases, which allow them to conceal their background and true motives.
I regret to say that it all smells and is a major disservice to the public, including shareholders and students, who would like to have access to information providing a rounded picture of Royal Dutch Shell, not the sanitized PR version that will remain after the censorship campaign is completed. I reserve my position.--Johnadonovan (talk) 12:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't indulge in personal attacks on me.
The wikipedia guidelines are clear - the article should be written in your own words Your contributions have had two issues: balance and copyright problems, a third is the way you have presented the information. Why not take a look at Category:Corporate scandals and see how this information has been presented elsewhere.
You are welcome to fix the problem with copyright, on the banner on the affected pages see the section that begins "To write a new article without infringing material" - alternatively to preserve information you could make a list of the notable issues, preferably with references and post it here.
It's up to you, I recommend you don't repeat the allegations and personal attacks against me or anyone else working on this project again. see WP:AGF. Also please note that the vast majority of editors use a pseudonym and their privacy is a right you should respect not attack. (I'm also going to leave a message on your talk page about this topic - because it it quite serious).Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I note there is not the slightest hint of an apology for your personal attack on me, which prompted this exchange. Please do not abuse your decision to use an alias. I prefer to be open. Yes, the vast majority of contributors use a pseudonym. I contend that Wikipedia would be less open to manipulation, and discussions between contributors would be more polite, if this was not the case. --Johnadonovan (talk) 16:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What personal attack on you are you refering to? I criticised the article, I can't see where I criticised you. There primary reason why two of your other articles were deleted was not because of a conspiracy, or because the topics were not notable, but because the style in which the articles were written - making them look like an attack page. The conflict of interest issues you have, which have been repeatedly pointed out to you on your talk page seem to be having a negative effect on the quality of the articles, to the worst extent. That's what I would like to explain to you.
If you want to fix the copyright issues and collaborate on making the articles acceptable for an encyclopedia (which is different from a blog, or corporate exposure site), then I am willing to try to help.Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You have described me as being lazy, as being responsible for "attack" articles on Wikipedia and having a conflict of interest. You also accuse me of making a personal attack on you. How is that possible when you choose to use an alias to conceal your identity? Do you not feel that there is far greater weight to a personal attack on a person whose name and background are known - you can't get much more personal than accusing someone of being lazy - than criticism directed against someone using an alias? I do not have the option to change at will to a completely new Wikipedia identity casting off my past record on Wikipedia and starting again under a completely new unblemished persona. Turning to copyright matters, as far as I can recall, no one else, including administrators, have ever raised the subject of overuse of extracts and the extracts being too long. Why did you not shorten those you consider to be to long? Putting that all to one side, I welcome your constructive suggestion of helping to fix the alleged copyright issues. Given your comments about me, would it not be best for you to redraft the articles. Since we know nothing about you, there can be no suggestion of conflict of interest in converting source information into your own words. I appreciate that this would be a considerable task bearing in mind that you have cited three articles, but the outcome would restore important factual information about Shell on Wikipedia. Finally, I am well aware of the difference between publishing blog articles and contributing to articles published on Wikipedia. I am sure you have already visited royaldutchshellplc.com and if so, will have noticed that there is no comparison, nor should there be. --Johnadonovan (talk) 12:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see where I described you as lazy anywhere on this page, or on the pages in question or on your talk page. It's possible I've used the term lazy somewhere but I can't see it.
As for the part of your complaint - look at your user talk page, and see the various messages you have already received regarding conflict of interest issues.
As to copyright issues - I'll repeat what I said before - the best thing to do is write in your own words I'm repeating the basic advice given at Wikipedia:Copy-paste
As to general advice on article construction - I'd recommend trying to be concise - for example in one of the articles Royal Dutch Shell environmental issues there were five separate sections for misleading advertising - I would have placed all these in one section, and covered those which related to the same advert together. One or two paragraphs would probably have covered this topic. As I mentioned above I think you overdid it - I don't think the details of the individual cases such as shell's responses need to be gone into in detail. Simply the fact that the advert was deemed misleading, and a brief reason why.

eg the sections:

UK Advertising Authority rules Shell advert misleading
On 7 November 2007 The Guardian published an article under the headline “Shell rapped over CO2 advert”[4]. The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that a Shell advertisement featuring flower heads emerging from refinery chimneys implying the oil giant used its waste carbon dioxide to grow flowers, breached ASA rules. According to The Guardian article, “The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint that the press advert, which featured the drawing misleadingly implied all CO2 emissions helped produce flowers and decided it breached industry code clauses on truthfulness and environmental claims.” The article went on to say that the advert is no longer appearing and that Shell had informed the ASA it would not be used again. Shell stated in its response to the investigation, that it supplied 170,000 tonnes of CO2 to local greenhouse growers in 2005 and expected to supply a further 320,000 tonnes, explaining that this “stopped the equivalent of the annual CO2 emissions from about 102,894 vehicles being released”. The ASA ruling was also reported[5] in The Independent. The Guardian covered the story again in a green themed article [6] published on 21 January 2008.


Dutch Advertising Authority rules Shell advert misleading
On 5 July 2007, Reuters reported [7] that the Dutch Advertising Standards Authority had ruled that a complaint made by Friends of the Earth Netherlands about a Royal Dutch Shell “green” themed advertising campaign was well founded and that the advertising was misleading. According to the article: “The environmental group had complained about an ad designed to show how waste carbon dioxide grew flowers and depicting a “refinery emitting flowers from its chimneys instead of smoke.” Shell maintained that it was creatively using its waste carbon dioxide to help grow flowers. The Financial Times also covered the story reporting [8] that Friends of the Earth had “concluded that only a tiny proportion of Shell’s carbon dioxide emissions were piped into greenhouses”. The FT stated that “The environmental group took a similar argument to the Belgian advertising authority, which rejected it.” The FT went on to conclude that “Win or lose, the cases have brought attention to a clever term that the environmentalists hope will challenge claims dreamt up by big advertising agencies: greenwashing.”

could have been written (markup, links and refs etc omitted):

Complaints about misleading adverts
In 2007 the British Advertising Standards Authority ruled that a shell advert featuring flower heads emerging from refinery chimneys was misleading since it implied that shell used all its waste CO2 to grow flowers; in repsonce to the investigation shell stated that it did supplied 170,000 tonnes of CO2 to greenhouse growers. A similar advert was similarly censured by the Dutch advertising authority, but a compaint to Belgian authorities was rejected. A spokesperson/report(?) from friends of the earth pointed out that only a tiny fraction of shell's emissions were used in agricultural production.

The other sections on advertising could also be merged into separate paragraphs in the same section.Sf5xeplus (talk) 13:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I have just posted this reply to your comment on my talk page:
"No, I am not suggesting that someone who has openly declared their identity and background has a license to attack or abuse someone who uses an alias. What I was pointing out is that there is a vast difference between posting information under your real name and posting using an alias. As to copyright issues, I have already pointed out that the relevant issues which appear to be glaringly obvious to you have not been commented on previously, not even by administrators who at times have paid very close attention to my contributions. Exactly what help are you offering? What can I usefully do when you have already rubbished the contributions I have made? I also note there is no apology in respect of your allegation that I am lazy. No comment at all and no denial, because it is on the record. I don't think you have a clue about the amount of time I put into gathering the information over a long period to properly source the information which appeared in the articles. I have explained why I deliberately used brief extracts in line with Wikipedia guidelines, so that I could not be accused of spinning that information. I have published over 26,000 articles on the Internet without ever receiving a complaint concerning the length of a featured quote. I have received advice from leading specialist legal counsel in chambers many times over the years and received written opinions, sometimes on behalf of blue chip clients such as Shell. There is no breach of copyright on any information I have posted whether in the use of brief extracts, or the associated text I have composed, based on information in the articles."
I then found the further posting by you here.
It seems you have made so many postings about me, that you cannot recall all of them.
This is an extract from your posting on the talk page of "Royal Dutch Shell environmenatl issues".
QUOTE Writing articles "by quotation" as has happened here is unacceptable and lazy. UNQUOTE
Note that I kept the quotation short. Check it out on the talk page in question. It was a reference to me. It hurts because I have put a huge amount of time and effort into the relevant Wikipedia articles.
I have no problem whatsoever in agreeing that the articles can be improved. I am not a gifted writer, as will be obvious. What I have tried to do is gather properly sourced information and put it on the record here on Wikipedia hoping that others would chime in and edit as deemed necessary. The other point, which is also probably equally self evident, is that I am not IT savvy like young people.
If you restore the articles, then I will ASAP do what I can to improve them taking your latest comments into account. It will probably be three weeks before I could put the time into doing this because I am heavily engaged in two current projects plus the day-to-day operation of our website. If you can help in the meantime then that would be great. --Johnadonovan (talk) 15:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry you took that comment personally, I can see how you could see it as an attack on you, though it was a comment on the article. I apologise for that.
There's instructions on what to do if you intend to remove rewrite the articles - on the page's main page follow the link To write a new article without infringing material, follow this link to create a temporary subpage., alternatively if you want to make alterations offline you can access the older content via the page history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_Dutch_Shell_environmental_issues&action=history , if you don't have a copy of the information you need to make alterations then I recommend getting one soon - the page may be deleted within a week if not corrected in that time. If you then create a page after that you can still resubmit it. But please read and follow the instructions on the main page eg Royal Dutch Shell environmental issues eg this bit:
"State that you have done so on this article's discussion page."
"Note that simply modifying copyrighted text is not sufficient to avoid copyright infringement—if the original copyright violation cannot be clearly identified and the article reverted to a prior version, it is best to write the article from scratch. For license compliance, the new article cannot incorporate phrases and sentences that were placed in the original article by other contributors unless credit is given as set out at the copyright policy. You may, however, duplicate non-infringing text that you had contributed yourself. An administrator will move the new article into place once the issue is resolved."
I don't think there will be an issue with other contributions ie the part :"For license compliance, the new article...", unless there are parts from other editors. If you need help you can get how-tos and advice at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup.Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:13, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I greatly appreciate your apology, your patience, your time, your diplomacy and your constructive advice. I doubt unfortunately that I will be able to find the time to revise the article before it is removed. If you feel personally upset by anything I have said, then please accept my apology. --Johnadonovan (talk) 20:34, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
PLEASE BE ADVISED: I AM CONSULTING WITH SPECIALIST LAWYERS CONCERNS ALLEGATIONS PUBLISHED ON WIKIPEDIA AND ASSOCIATED WEBSITES CONTAINING COMMENTS ABOUT ME WHICH ARE FALSE AND DAMAGING TO MY REPUTATION. FOR EXAMPLE, THAT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR A HATCHET JOB ON SHELL. THAT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR ATTACK PAGES AGAINST SHELL. THAT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR "A BIASED ATTACK PAGE". THAT I HAVE CONSTRUCTED ARTICLES BY CUT AND PASTING COPYRIGHTED INFORMATION FROM OTHER PUBLISHERS ON A BASIS BEYOND FAIR USE. OTHER COMMENTS OF A MORE PERSONAL NATURE HAVE ALSO BEEN MADE WHICH ARE EQUALLY UNFOUNDED. THE PUBLISHERS OF WIKIPEDIA WILL BE MADE AWARE OF THIS SITUATION SO THAT WIKIPEDIA HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENSURE THAT ALL LIBELOUS COMMENTS AND ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ME ARE REMOVED FORTHWITH AND NOT REPEATED. THE COMMENTS HAVE ALL BE MADE BY PERSONS WHO HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO REVEAL THEIR IDENTITY. --Johnadonovan (talk) 23:52, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
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