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Right time to remove advert template?

I'm still rather new here, but after doing minor edits to a couple other pages, this page and the related Bradley S. Jacobs article ended up being the ones I cut my teeth on. I was trying to improve both pages, but now I wonder: when is it appropriate to remove the advert template? I still have to finish some copy-editing, but getting this article clean has become a point of pride for me, and it would be nice to "check off" the article once I AM done by removing that big box up top.

Is there a rule to follow regarding this? Aussietommartin (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, according to Help:Maintenance template removal, the advert template can be removed by anyone who believes the issue has been fixed and doesn't have a conflict of interest. Based on this, I went ahead and removed the template. (The whole be bold thing!) If I did this in error, please let me know and re-apply the template! Aussietommartin (talk) 16:32, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the table with all the acquisitions

I originally created that table out of a desperate desire to pare down the insane bloat that dealt with all the acquisitions XPO has made over time. Reading it in paragraph form was exhausting. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that the table shouldn't be there, either. Wikipedia articles should be about broad strokes and major points (something I learned while considering additions to the Overwatch (game) article), and it's tough for me to imagine that anyone really cares about all those little acquisitions, except for employees of the subject company.

Given that I seem like the only one here who's trying to actively keep this page in good condition, I went ahead and made the change, but I also get it might be too drastic. TOO bold? I'm unsure. As always, feedback from more experienced Wikipedians is welcome. Aussietommartin (talk) 01:30, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Reversion of "Citation Needed" Edits

Looks like some anonymous user posting from an IP located in the UK (actually looks like it is VPN owned address) just came on here, did not read any of the articles posted that support all of the information provided and just put in "Citation needed" bullets that made things look messy.

I have been around Wikipedia for a while and am now coming back. I left before because you see a lot of this. People who either do not or cannot take time to actually read supporting sources. A quick pointer, you don't need to put a footnote cite next to every single assertion contained in a sentence or a paragraph, as long as the information is contained in the source information in articles that are cited (typically at the end of a sentence or paragraph). This is standard APA citation and that is widely used in the USA and all over Wikipedia. I will also add that I hope that this is not one of the "article wreckers" who are now becoming more common. Come in, mess up an article and then go and jack a company or a person for money to "repair" it. I am not saying that is the case here, but Wikipedia needs to get a handle on that and the folks who vandalize. It looks to me from a brief review that there were a couple of SPAs that originally did "work" (if you can call it that) on this article. They made a complete mess of it and it was a mess. Someone else seems to have dedicated a fair amount of time to cleaning up the mess and now (coincidentally) along comes an IP address only account to make it look messy.

Folks, please, before you request citations or make assertions read the articles. There is a world beyond Wikipedia and in that world real things happen, real rankings happen and real information is gleaned. If you cannot read then please don't request cites or correct or remove information that is clearly there. If you don't want to read articles then stay away too because you are causing problems when none exist. Leviathan2020 (talk) 13:37, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realize how much I needed to read something like this, Leviathan2020. I'm the guy who "dedicated a fair amount of time to cleaning up the mess," as you put it, and while I know the page is far from perfect, it's definitely a lot better than it used to be! I came online this weekend because I felt like some good ol-fashioned Wikipedia-ing, and got rather deflated when I saw what had been going on. Then I come to the talk page and see this message; I thought I was the only one that cared about this damned article! So, thanks for butting in. :) Aussietommartin (talk) 15:16, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Restructuring to match "Good Articles"

Hey, Talk page! I've been digging a bit into what makes a business or corporation page "good" on Wikipedia, particularly by going through various examples of good articles on the good articles/social sciences page. I've been particularly concerned about the Major acquisitions section.

If you care to dig into the history of this article, you may notice that acquisitions has gone through a lot of changes. Originally it was just part of a long-as-hell History section, and then I tried breaking it out into a table with all the different acquisitions. This made sense to me because, as I learned more about XPO, it seemed like the company was really defined by its acquisitions. But I think I went down the wrong path; the company may have been built around acquisitions, but that's not what it's for. It's a logistics company!

Consequently, I feel like it makes a lot more sense to focus on what the company is and what it does, rather than what other companies XPO has bought. I've got a decent amount of time this weekend, but this is also a pretty big leap for me; I haven't done a ton of research since my college years, and I feel like doing this right is definitely going to require some serious research.

Here's my plan:

  1. Do some more general cleanup of the article first. It's gotten some touches from IP addresses since I last dug into it, and I'm not incredibly happy with the grammar (facts seem fine, but readability is lacking in a few places). I'm also seeing even more examples of inside baseball I missed last time, and feel like those could be cleaned up, too.
  2. Pare down the Major acquisitions section a LOT, to just provide a light overview of each purchase. Possibly fold it back into the History section? Not sure yet.
  3. Start expanding out the Operations section significantly. It seems like the logical place to put information about what XPO does! This will probably take me awhile, because I really want to get good sources, but my thinking is we talk about what XPO does by using examples of specific activities. Then again, that might be too research-papery.

I'll keep bouncing ideas around my head, but if anyone out there has thoughts or feedback, I'd love to hear it! Otherwise, onward we go.

Aussietommartin (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! I've gone ahead and started implementing the very changes I talked about here, starting with the Operations section, which you'll note is now WAY MORE MASSIVE than it was! In case you're wondering, no, I didn't do this all tonight; in fact, much of the work for this has been done in fits and starts over the past two months. I'm much happier with this section now than I was before, but I admit, there are still some issues:
  • The additions are a little... monotonous. I was trying really hard to be factual and readable, and I think I came off less engaging than I'd like. But at this same time, this IS an encyclopedia, so factual statements aren't all that rare. =)
  • All of the "largest X in the world" sentences DO come off as a bit aggrandizing, though from what I can figure out, they ARE factual, and those sorts of stats seem like the sorts of things that would be in an encyclopedia. I think they provide context, though I'm still not happy with how they read.
  • I was able to find some really solid sources for stuff (JOC's probably my favorite, although I'm tired of getting emails from them), but I'm still using an XPO source for some of the factual data. I think the facts are useful to have (again, context), but I haven't found better, non-original sources. If someone could help me out here?
  • This is my first time making such significant additions to any site, much less all in one go. Bear with me!
Despite these issues, I think the end result is significantly better than the two sentences that were there before. There was a graf that WKDash pulled about Smartway that I put back in; he (she?) said in his comments that he'd reposition it somewhere else, but he never did, and since it has to do with general operations, it DOES seem to fit the operations section. Although maybe, in retrospect, it's not as relevant as I thought? I'll have to think on that, but right now I'm not really trusting the most recent edits made before I came back from my two-month writing hiatus, so I'm erring on the side of reverting those edits.
Finally, this is just the beginning! I've also got changes for the Technology section and a much-shortened Acquisitions section, like I talked about back in September (see my first comment in this section, above). I'm just tired, and I want to give WKDash a bit more time to get back to me before I go messing with his stuff.
Aussietommartin (talk) 05:45, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey guys! Okay, between the History changes I made a couple months ago and the Operations changes I finally enacted a couple days ago, I was able to pull most of the relevant stuff from the Major acquisitions section up into other sections. (Relevant being, as I've already discussed, content that has a lot more to do with what XPO is doing NOW.) With that complete, I was then able to go in and really pare this section down to bullet points. It's interesting thinking about what this section has gone through; at one point I even had everything broken down into a table! But really, it was all too backward-facing.
This HAS meant the deletion of certain facts I'd originally left in, but I have a hard time justifying their continued inclusion. (For example, I don't really think anyone in the public cares that Tony Brooks is president of XPO's LTL trucking business. No offense if you're out there, Tony!) It's also meant getting rid of a number of recent edits that talked about various legal issues and complaints. Sorry to WKDash for pulling this stuff, too, but let's be honest: Does anyone really care about the bickering that happened during said acquisition? Aren't ALL acquisitions filled with that sort of bickering?
At any rate, these changes are FINALLY in! Woot! Speak up if you have questions or concerns and we can talk them over here. =)
Aussietommartin (talk) 04:42, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriateness of new legal content

Hey there, Wikipedians! (And particularly User:WKDash, who made all the most recent changes.)

As I mentioned in the "Restructuring to Match Good Articles" section above, I've been planning some significant overhauls to this article for a while (though real-life concerns have kept me from getting around to it). I admit that I've begun feeling a bit paternal toward it, but I've also wanted other contributors to come in for a long time, so I was really excited when I saw someone else had come along to make improvements!

Initially, anyway. When I actually looked at what changes were made, I realized they're almost all legal cases related to XPO. (There's also some new information about CEO Bradley Jacobs, which seems out of place because that stuff really belongs on the Bradley Jacobs page, doesn't it?)

In my time on Wikipedia, I've noticed that while some pages do have accounts of legal cases, they tend to be restricted to matters of public significance. I need to do some investigation into the specific legal cases that were added to try and determine what's going on, but at first glance they seem to be... well... random. Doesn't basically every Fortune 500 company have a billion legal cases going against them at any given time?

I want to be clear, I'm all for fair and balanced coverage of topics on Wikipedia; I've worked hard enough on this article to want to make it as usable and comprehensive as possible! But these edits feel malicious to me. A new user account, which has done nothing on Wikipedia before, swooping in and adding nothing but legal cases? How is that not malicious?

If the user responsible would be willing to speak up, I'd love to hear your reasoning! Otherwise, I'm strongly inclined to revert many of these changes (not all of them, but many of them). I also want to make some of the changes that I'd already been planning to make for a while, which would override some of these changes anyway (the acquisitions section, for example, feels WAY too long, while the Operations section is pathetically short).

So yes, please speak up if you have reasons that aren't malicious for including all these legal matters! If not I'm going to start weeding through them. If there's stuff that seems to be in the legitimate public interest, we need to keep it in! If not, then: Come on, man.

Aussietommartin (talk) 01:17, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hey WKDash? Any input? The more I look at your changes, the more malicious they seem, so I'd really love to hear your reasoning. If I don't hear back soon, I'm going to go ahead and start reverting them, for a couple reasons:
  • Like I discussed back in September here on the Talk page, I've actually been planning on reducing the size of the Acquisitions section for some time, because which companies XPO acquired just seems to be nowhere near as important for an encyclopedic entry as what the company is doing right now. (See my "Restructuring to Match Good Articles" entry and follow-up above.) However appropriate your additions are to those sections, they pull the focus of the article further away from what XPO is right now.
  • Pretty much all of your additions paint XPO in a negative light. I really want to portray the subject of the article accurately; this was one of the first articles I came across in my early days at Wikipedia and having spent so much time on it, I admit I've probably become a bit protective, a stance that could mean I'm being more lenient on the company than I should be. But at the same time, I've worked really hard to get RID of language in the article that's biased. Then you add content like this:
"In October, just prior to the acquisition a Con-way investor had sued to prevent its takeover by XPO. The lawsuit charged that Con-way had violated its duties to stockholders by agreeing to sell at a price that was unfair to them.[60]"
First, if this should be anywhere it should be on the Con-Way article, since the lawsuit wasn't against XPO. And second, it was a single shareholder; it shouldn't even be on the Con-way article, as it doesn't represent a "significant minority view" (see Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources).
I haven't had time to go through all of your additions, but the ones I've looked at are sketchy at best. So, please, PLEASE speak up and tell me where you're coming from. Because seriously, if you don't I'm probably going to end up reverting most, if not all of them.
Aussietommartin (talk) 06:03, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there. Thank you for reaching out. Upon review, I do think your suggestions are largely headed the right way. Let me trim down the section. WKDash (talk) 00:04, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I listened to your advice and left only the most notable of cases that have been widely reported on. I think you are right that the others weren't notable enough. WKDash (talk) 00:23, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that just leaves the Conway portion in question. My rationale was that it appears to be a pretty notable case as well. I may be wrong in this assumption, but since there does appear to be some media attention to it, shouldn't it have at least a mention? Seems notable to me. WKDash (talk) 00:28, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, WKDash, I was wondering if you'd respond! Thanks for getting back to me, and for paring down the Legal cases section to major issues. Good stuff. =) I'd still like to go over them and see if they're relevant (no offense!), but as first glance, rock on!
On a related note, sorry for pulling your content from the Acquisitions section during the pare-down (see my other comments on this page from today, above); it was something that I'd had in the works for a while, steadily moving relevant content from that section to other sections so that I could really shrink things down. No offense to your efforts, good sir (ma'am?); it's merely a matter of trying to keep the article focused on what XPO is, rather than what random acquisitions it went through to get there. (For the record, that decision came after I looked at a lot of other company articles and realized that acquisitions are rarely given much billing, if any.)
Last related note: Your additions to the History section have me a tad concerned for reasons I've already mentioned, and I'm about to start going through them. More commentary on them soon, if I have any!
Thanks again for speaking up,
Aussietommartin (talk) 04:51, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Quick follow-up and then I'm going to bed: I pulled the extra details on what Bradley Jacobs did before he became CEO, because he has his own page and if he wants to feel special, he can look at himself over there. I also pulled the Moody's stuff. Like I explained in my edit comment, I looked at the Wikipedia articles for all of the Top 10 companies by revenue, including outfits like BP, Apple and Toyota, AND a random smattering of others on that list (List of largest companies by revenue), and not ONE had this sort of information listed. That makes me very concerned that it treads a little too far into inside-baseball territory. The nail in the coffin was when I looked for an update on the story, and couldn't find any evidence that Moody's had gone through with the downgrade. They merely considered one, and then apparently didn't even go through with it.
Yeah, that's definitely not Wikipedia-worthy info.
I don't have time to do it now (sleep time), but I'm going to set aside a few hours tomorrow or Saturday and research how other Wikipedia articles handle this sort of information. If paragraphs about these sorts of threats and disagreements between companies during acquisitions are commonplace, okay then, we'll leave them in. If not, I'd guess they're best removed.
Aussietommartin (talk) 05:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again! This is going to be a bit of an introspective post, so please forgive me ahead of time!
I've spent some time today looking into other company-focused articles on Wikipedia, and I have to say, I haven't found any evidence that either a) legal concerns surrounding XPO's acquisitions, or b) concerns surrounding the particular stock fluctuations, warrant inclusion within the context of, well, Wikipedia.
Let's start with the legal side of things. An obvious place to go to was Walmart's page, since we've all heard about the legal and ethical concerns that surround that particular company. Over there, there's substantive discussion about major corruption charges on the international stage (a worthwhile inclusion, I think anyone would agree, since it directly pertains to how the general public engages with the company), and about concerns surrounding labor relations within the company (which again seems worthwhile to talk about because it pertains to anyone who might think about being employed by Walmart). Yet even here, specific details related to particular legal cases aren't even mentioned; they're far too granular.
So I kept looking, and came across Criticism of Apple Inc. and Criticism of Microsoft. "Aha!" I thought! Here are entire articles devoted to the numerous concerns surrounding two major corporate influencers in their industry! But when you dig deeper, you realize that none of the discussion surrounds litigation that pertains to acquisitions, or really any kind of minor dispute between companies. If anything's included, it's included because it bears some measure of import to the public interest.
What about the stock stuff? The paragraph in the History section about XPO's Relative Strength Index on Forbes, or the one about David Trainer's opinion article on XPO's stock being overvalued? Again, I can't find evidence of these sorts of facts being discussed on other Wikipedia pages. Granted, there is PLENTY of discussion of litigation, especially among major companies -- you need only look to the articles on Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs for evidence of that. But things about relative strength index or small opinion pieces by Forbes contributors (which are different from employed staff, and I would know, since I work in journalism)? Nope.
All this adds up to something pretty fundamental: I can't actually find reason to keep the aforementioned paragraphs in the History section, and I feel like the Legal cases section has dubious material, at best. At the same time, I worry about deleting it all outright in one fell swoop, because removing content that could provide a balanced perspective on the company sets a troublesome precedent. It seems weird to say, but I don't think I'd have the same reservations if we had other sections that discuss XPO in some negative way. At least then we could showcase both positive and negative aspects of the company, and fulfill our responsibility as Wikipedia editors to be dispassionate about our subjects. Right?
The realization I finally came to: This is actually a classic logical fallacy that the "media" gets pummeled for all the time. It's called false balance, and it's pervasive. I believe it's important that we don't include minor legal concerns, or news and opinions that project a subject in a negative light, simply because we want to appear balanced. Instead we should restrict our coverage to matters of greater public interest. If and when XPO falls out of the Fortune 500: That belongs in the History section. Evidence of corruption within its leadership? Definite inclusion. Some opinion piece about XPO's stock value, or a squabble in state court over trademark infringement with YRC Worldwide Inc. or R+L Carriers? (Neither of which mention any matters of litigation on their own pages.) I just don't see it.
This is a really long-winded way of saying, "I'm going to pull the added content." But I wanted anyone who came across this article and saw the changes and reversions to understand the thought process behind it. Added value to the article is good; additions that source opinion articles or discuss corporate squabbles in the wake of a major acquisition don't really qualify.
Last note: I'm really sorry to WKDash for cutting so much (not all, but most) of their additions. While I'm still not 100% convinced they weren't malicious (from what I can see, XPO Logistics is the only page the account has ever touched), I'd like to think they were just trying to provide balance and context. That's good! But we can figure out a better way to go about it! :)
Aussietommartin (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am in full agreement with Aussietommartin. If the cases are "reported cases" (those are appellate cases) then possibly if they set precedent they might be of interest. It seems from notes here and elsewhere that people have been setting up SPAs in order to post information that is solely negative in effect and impact. Millions of legal cases are filed every day in the US and in other nations. As XPO is a publicly traded company there is obvious cause for concern as people will post cases out of context, without verbatim transcripts or copies of judgments (all of which can be obtained easily by lawyers).

So, this could be:

1) Someone who is ignorant of law and legal process and has just selected one company (unlikely). 2) Someone with an axe to grind (sometimes we see this with paid editors who are fired and then vandalize so they can get their own back). However, a paid editor has to post that they are a paid editor or they risk serious charges as that can be stock manipulation if no such disclosure is given, and no one has divulged that. OR 3) Someone is attempting to adversely impact the stock price (akin to greenmailing but illegal stock manipulation).

As an enforcement arm the SEC can help in tracking folks down to see if there is manipulation or an attempt to vandalize for the purposes of blackmail or revenge of some kind. I would suggest (if they are reading this) that the company simply liaise with the enforcement agencies in the nations mentioned and also divulge if anyone was paid (paid editors in many states / nations also have to charge sales tax, GST, or VAT as well as pay income tax). It could also be benign and someone who thinks they can do this and wants to do it, but if so why so one-sided. Also look to connected sites and pages and see if anyone has been grinding an axe or hitting back there. That should tell you a lot.

I would also suggest sending a 1099 (or equivalent for overseas) if there were paid editors reflecting the amounts paid, to whom and when. Too many people evade taxes already and that needs to stop. I know people charge a lot for editing professionally and so the amounts are not small.

Wikipedia rules say that legal threats should not be made, but also say don't ignore legal threats. My advice here (I ran across it as the purchase and trading is so vigorous for this company that manipulation and attempts to harm are always likely) is not to threaten, just to do. I will ensure that XPO receive the advice through the proper channels. No threats, but a solid investigation should clear it up. SECLawFirm (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for giving your input, SECLawFirm! (Although, no offense, but your username makes it feel like you're being a little promotional yourself. :) ) I'm not remotely a legal mind, so it's nice to have someone who seems like they have some grasp of that speak up! Aussietommartin (talk) 18:56, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote before about vandalism. Looks like someone got butt-hurt and started posting negative again. I have looked around pages related to this and people linked to this and there are people hiding (archiving) sockpuppet investigations after making almost 100 nasty edits between them to one page. So, I think that all concerns are justified. The folks doing this have trodden on a land mine this time as this is a publicly traded company and anything that is posted that is one-sided (it all is) will be looked at as attempts at stock manipulation. A word of advice (probably better coming from the lawyers for the company though though) you start playing with things that manipulate stocks then you get in trouble. There are a lot of cases that people can read (Harvard Business Review is a great start) about people who wound up on the rocks over this. I am waiting for the "don't make legal threats" post though as if that makes it OK. I am just stating fact and it's not illegal for the company to hire someone it's just (depending on where they are) illegal and seen as attempts at stock manipulation to not divulge (why journalists on NBC say when they are reporting about companies owned by same parent; they don't want to be looking at 30 years in the big house)

I hope XPO board members look at this as it is time for them to get to the bottom of it. Again, the legal changes were done via VPN so tracing back is easy as they fold and give names with a request letter while promising customers they don't (how do people think the child pornographers and inside traders get busted every day). Courts recognize that investors look at wikipedia for insight. Look to see how value went when the "legal issues" (I can't see any of those type of cases on any other pages) showed up. Looks like someone was either on a mission to hurt or to make money and either way that carries serious time (more so in Europe, as I see they posted Europe related cases). Anywhere this is read is a fair game jurisdiction. Leviathan2020 (talk) 23:53, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again, Leviathan2020! How in the world can you tell if WKDash was posting from a VPN? Aren't VPNs blocked by Wikipedia anyway? Aussietommartin (talk) 18:56, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Aussietimmartin:

Admins have the ability to do a check IP then you can check who owns the IP. Many computer science students can do that one for you. I am very close to someone who is an admin; she has been my admin for over 30 years :-)

Wikipedia does their best to block those kinds of accounts and also has a zero tolerance policy on people who manipulate stocks for personal or corporate gain. Another issue is that they did not check their sources (and copied direct from the sources) and so posted stuff about this company that anyone who spent time on it would see, was not actually about this company. Each day it stays up is republication as is each time it is read. You should probably contact the company in question, tell them that someone has done this and they can take it from there. As I say, you may just be dealing with a fool, or with someone who wants to vandalize so they can offer "services" to clean it up or stock manipulation. The fact this was all negative smacks of manipulation and something the SEC (and counterparts overseas) would have interest in. It was not balanced, it was all negative and there were a lot of views. 50.25.158.184 (talk) 22:14, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just did mine from IP address to show that right now I am in Tyler, Texas. Each username has one of those behind it that can be checked and tallied to see who the owner is. Happy hunting! Leviathan2020 (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, @Diannaa!

Sincerely, thank you! After the ridiculousness that happened a few months ago with WKDash, I come back and check on the article every couple weeks to see whether or not he's returned. It looks like he didn't, but someone else did and posted a crapton of copyrighted stuff? Whatever it was, you rock for cleaning it up!

The other changes that the IP address made -- the ones you left -- aren't written very clearly and kinda, well... all the talk of proprietary-this and PR-speak-that is quite frustrating. I'm busy tomorrow, but I'm going to log in on Sunday and try to clean some of it up.

Thanks again!

Aussietommartin (talk) 03:41, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm such an idiot. I didn't see a way to notify myself whenever someone changes a page on my watchlist under my Notifications settings, not realizing that that option is under the main preferences at the bottom.
Le sigh.
Well, no more running back after two or three weeks and checking whether someone's been obnoxious. =) Aussietommartin (talk) 03:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, changes made! I did a final re-read of the article just now and... oh, boy is it dry. I think I've looked at it too long. I'm going to go edit some other stuff in the supply chain universe; try to learn more about the field so I can be a better editor. I also noticed a couple absences that would be cool to fill, like contract logistics -- there's not a page for that! I've never created my own article before, but maybe that's a good place to start? Dunno, I'll have to think about it.

Thanks again for helping out with those copyrighted edits, Dianna! Aussietommartin (talk) 23:40, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Potentially malicious removal of Awards and recognition section

I just reverted an edit by a user who deleted the entire Awards and recognition section. A cursory glance at this user's edit history and talk page shows a wealth of similar deletions across the site -- most of them quickly reverted by other users, and many resulting in frustrated conversations on his Talk page where he accuses anyone who doesn't agree with him of being malicious themselves. It's clearly a stance he's taken for quite some time, and equally clear that others don't agree with him.

Maybe the Awards and recognition section could do with some trimming, but actions like these feel angry and blunt. In the future, I'd encourage him to talk about possible changes of such magnitude on the relevant Talk pages before he implements them. Aussietommartin (talk) 15:33, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't want to respect Wikipedia:Assume good faith. I will not respect it.
When I look a your contribution : You only contributed on subject related to XPO and related to Bradley S. Jacobs, the CEO of XPO (contributed to subject on the CEO of a entreprise is the archetype of a paid editor). Moreover you have deleted the negative aspect of the article and you don't accept the suppression of the promotional content about the article... So I'm very doubtful that you don't have a link (or a financial link) with XPO Logistics. I remind you, if have a financial link with a subject, the Termes of USe force you to deplace explicitely that you have a link with the subject.
I copy the text :
"Paid contributions without disclosure
These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
a statement on your user page,
a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.
Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.
A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page.
For more information, please read our FAQ on disclosure of paid contributions." --Nouill (talk) 19:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nouill,
You're right, I've only significantly contributed to two articles in the 1.5 years I've been an editor. I tried my hand at a few others early on, but found that going back and forth with other editors was exhausting. I never intended to work on these two for so long, but they -- especially this XPO article -- has become my baby. I tried stepping outside of them to do other ones, but my heart just wasn't in it. It IS in these, but only because I've spent so much time on them! I've written and rewritten, taking an article that used to be an advertising-filled monstrosity and slowly adding to it, evolving it. Take a look for yourself at what it was like before I stepped in. I like to go back every so often to see where things were.
I freely admit I've become protective of this page, and probably to my detriment. As you can see on this talk page, I've fended off malicious users in the past, and was grateful then to get the support of other Wikipedians. That's probably why I reacted so bluntly to you, and for that, I'm sorry! I try to be very aware of advertising language, but am also wary of going too far in the other direction. That's why I try to stick to the facts, and source absolutely everything I add. It seems safest.
I'm not being paid to write this, though I don't know how to prove it. All I can do is point to the full body of my edits, and hope they speak for themselves. I even agreed with you that the content you deleted came off as promotional, and deleted more than half of it. But I explained why I did this, as clearly as possible. I tried to provide context, because I believe context is important.
I'm frustrated that you used my example of Adaptive Insights to take down yet another Awards and recognition section on yet another article. Would you mind explaining why you feel that these sections are inappropriate on articles about companies, but not on articles about people or products? It seems that the focus of your edits is almost entirely on these sorts of sections, but you never provide a reason beyond "it's promotional." They are statements of fact, no more or less promotional than awards listings on biographical articles. What is the difference? Aussietommartin (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If I might chime in with my 2-cents. @Aussietommartin: I am glad to see you are so dedicated to maintaining this article. Is is clear the article has gained a lot from your efforts. But please do keep in mind that no single editor owns an article, and that removing content is also part of the editorial process.
and @Nouill: I am glad you continue to take such a strong interest in keeping advertisements out of WP. A noble cause. However, WP:CIVIL and "Avoid accusing other editors of bad faith without clear evidence in the form of diffs" apply to everyone, even if you feel you have been wronged.
Both positive and negative information on a company are encyclopedic, but you both are correct that the article must have a NPOV. As a compromise solution, might I suggest what has found consensus elsewhere: Avoid a lengthly list of random awards, which often looks like puffery. Summarize the awards as prose rather than using lists. And simplify and combine when the same award has been won repeatedly. If controversial, the exact prose/style can be discussed here.Dbsseven (talk) 04:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nouill-

I have been looking around Wikipedia for a while and came across XPO a few years ago. You seem to make a leap from someone making edits and cleaning up what was a really messy article to that person having to be a paid editor pretty quickly; what if someone said, "well, he is quick to undo this and that is a sign of someone paid by a rival". If I'm not mistaken, @Aussietommartin: was requesting, in fact pleading for other editors to jump in and work on the page well over a year ago. Sorry, but that does not sound like a paid editor to me. Some people work on just a few articles and do so because they invest time in them, try to bring them into line with others like them and do spend a lot of time on them. That doesn't make them paid editors, just people who like things done right. I see awards and recognition being akin to awards and recognition for scientists, politicians and even members of royal families or military people; if the list is not correct, then say why it is not correct. Deleting huge amounts of material without going to the talk page does seem quite discourteous and an "assume" good faith is simply an assumption and not binding on anyone if there is any evidence that a load of material was removed without explanation. Time to step back from the allegations and mudslinging. If someone wants to improve articles and make it a labour of love then why not let them?

Global forwarding subsection

Hello, everyone! I stared at the Global forwarding subsection that a nonexistent account added (it looks like it was specifically created just to modify this page, then was deleted, so... yeah, corporate much?), and finally just deleted it instead of rewriting. The intro paragraph to that section (Goods management) already talks about global freight forwarding, and there's just nothing useful to add beyond "they do it." I ended up getting rid of it instead of rewriting it, because that advert tag was right, it was just pure schlock.

I also reverted the edits to the introductory graf at the top of the page, the ones that switched "U.S." for "American" and inserted LTL as though it's all the company does. It's not. Also, using "American" instead of "U.S." seems a little rah-rah to me, but I could be overstepping my bounds here.

Dropped the advert tag because I deleted the advertising content, but put in this talk page if there's something else that needs fixing / removal. I'll skim the page right now and go through it more thoroughly on Sunday; I'll need an escape from family anyway! Merry Christmas, everyone. Aussietommartin (talk) 03:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

tags

Hello, I see Nouill has recently tagged this article with multiple tags for NPOV and COI. However, there is no discussion here of the issue, and so I am beginning one here. Regarding COI, I hope Nouill can explain the COI they observe and provide diffs per WP:AOBF's "avoid accusing other editors of bad faith without clear evidence in the form of diffs".

As for the the advert tags, I don't see the evidence of promotion directly. For the entire article, the subject is clearly notable and the article well cited, and don't see how it is promotional. For the sub-section I don't see the facts of awards being promotional, and this content was previously discussed, though perhaps Nouill believes this should be revisited (?) (pinging editors in the last year, as this isn't a super active article: Aussietommartin, Mandishaa, Dirkbb, AYDaBoss, AlanYoung, Drseussyzz, Mean as custard, Ira Leviton, DrMichaelWright, Diannaa, Shortride) Dbsseven (talk) 16:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NathanBermann is a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account. Rmchater is a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account and he have already be describe to be a COI. Aussietommartin is a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account who contribute also on the CEO of the company, which it's a huge clue to detect COI, and in the both article he contribute in a promotional way... --Nouill (talk) 16:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Rmchater is an account that hasn't edited in 4 years. And NathanBermann hasn't edited in 2 years. Isn't tagging the article for them a bit silly? And a single-purpose account miss the is not automatically a COI under WP:SPA. Do you have diffs to support any COI? Dbsseven (talk) 17:05, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents

I made one lone minor edit to this article ten months ago, for grammar. But since I was tagged, I looked at the article in more detail, and have an opinion, so I'll state it – just a little more briefly than that edit – and then back out.
A good deal of the article is promotional. Many of the references are from the company's own financial filings, and it's full of – or perhaps overflowing with – jargon, so it's not written for a general audience. Maybe that means that whoever wrote those words (I haven't reviewed the edit history, maybe it's more than one person) works in the industry. A huge proportion of the article simply gives statistics to tell about the company – OK, I get it, it's a huge company in its field, the numbers sound very impressive, which I suppose is their main purpose. But there's not much useful information, there's no "story", and after reading the article, I don't have much of a sense of what the company is about – that part could have been done in two or three short paragraphs. (They deliver things, including very large items and loads, and they have a lot of equipment to do it.) The article could use a substantial rewrite so that people who read the entire page get a feeling that they've just finished a feature article about the company in a newspaper, not a glossy brochure written by the company's own marketing department, and could tell a friend something useful about the company. (I do not mean that there's a conflict of interest and have no opinion about this, although I can easily see why that suspicion was raised. Taking too much information from a company's stock filings and financial statements is not a good idea, even if it's easily accessible on the Internet - it's not independent information, and is often promotional itself.)
Ira Leviton (talk) 18:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ira Leviton: thank you. I agree that the article could use a re-write to make it less a collection of facts and jargon. Business articles like this are often limited by what is published, and care should be taken to exclude PR. Though I'm less convinced that its promotional, the facts described do not appear to be "promoting" anything to me. (Stating if relevant and noteworthy award was won isn't the same as saying "buy from this company" or "this company is better than another". Though I get how irrelevant awards are puffery.) Dbsseven (talk) 22:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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