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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RG at ICF (talk | contribs) at 17:54, 5 December 2019 (Update COI disclosure box). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Removed criticism

An anonymous editor removed this without any comments:

Currently, ICF is under scrutiny for its administration of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's "Road Home" program. According to several state and national media reports, including CNN and ABC News, more than a year after Hurricane Katrina, ICF has sent out less than 100 checks out of tens of thousands of applicants. ICF meanwhile has distributed $2.7 million in one-time bonuses to 30 of its top managers. Ms. Anita Rechler is an ICF manager in charge of Road Home activities, which has not accounted program travel expenses which comprise $19 million — or 2% percent — of its $756 million contract as reported by the State of Louisiana. According to a press release by Business Wire, in a resolution passed by the State Legislature on December 15, 2006, Louisiana lawmakers have called the contractor "ineffective" and are pressing the state to stop paying the contractor until more homeowners get aid. According to the Washington Post on January 29, 2007, the company's performance has been criticized by Donald Powell, federal coordinator of Gulf Coast rebuilding, and the State House and Senate sent the governor's office similar, unanimous resolutions, directing her staff to fire ICF.

Perhaps it should be restored. --24.184.131.16 02:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps--though it's more of a current event. I think the article, as a stub, would be unfavorably weighted in the direction of current news if it were to be restored. I think it should be kept on the side until the article is lengthened. Corsulian (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, the "scrutiny" seems purposely ambiguous. The company is not under investigation, has not been found liable for any wrongdoing. This line, "ICF meanwhile has distributed $2.7 million in one-time bonuses to 30 of its top managers" is absolutely out of place as it implies some connection with the Road Home program. It's a fast growing consulting company in northern Virginia--those numbers are to be expected. Corsulian (talk) 18:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ICF and nccic.org...?

This blog post of mine probably won't pass WP:A, but I thought it might be of interest to some. --Bi (talk) 03:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References

Here are some, but not sure how to incorporate:

Request for Page name Change

ICF International is no longer the company's market-facing name

Now simply branded as ICF, the company revealed its new brand in conjunction with the celebration of its 10th anniversary as a publicly-traded company. With a rich history of growth over the past decade—bolstered by acquisitions that have strengthened the company’s capabilities in areas ranging from technology to research to digital strategy and communications—ICF has become one of the most trusted and admired consulting brands in the sectors it serves. Today, ICF celebrates the diversity of both its business model and the deep expertise of its more than 5,000 researchers, policy specialists, technologists, social scientists, digital strategists and creatives through its new brand.

Catbird fox (talk) 16:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Catbird fox, we name our articles based on the name which is most commonly used in English. In this case, it seems that more or less everyone calls it ICF International – compare this search with this one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest

At least one major contributor to this article appears to have a close personal or professional connection to the topic, and thus to have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editors are strongly discouraged from editing the article directly, but are always welcome to propose changes on the talk page (i.e., here). You can attract the attention of other editors by putting {{request edit}} (exactly so, with the curly parentheses) at the beginning of your request, or by clicking the link on the lowest yellow notice above. Requests that are not supported by independent reliable sources are unlikely to be accepted.

Please also note that our Terms of Use state that "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." An editor who contributes as part of his or her paid employment is required to disclose that fact. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:58, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 April 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. There has been no response adequate response rebutting the PRIMARYTOPIC concerns at this article and a consensus exists against moving it to a page without a disambiguator. There is not a consensus for or against moving to a page with parenthetical disambiguation. As such, the page is not moved from the current title. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ICF International → ICF – ICF is a client of mine at Distilled, and their name is being incorrectly populated in Google search results as "ICF International"--please move this page to become "ICF" Zhjones (talk) 13:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://web.archive.org/web/20081222084425/http://www.icfi.com:80/About_Us/history.asp. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:36, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed expansion of this article

Hello, all. As anyone watching this page likely knows, Justlettersandnumbers removed most of the content from this article in May, citing potential copyright issues by other editors. This occurred about the same time I began working on a new draft for the article. I also found major issues with the previous version: not only did this entry rely heavily on primary sources, its content was choppy, fragmented and outdated. I've finished a new proposed draft of this article—ICF International (new proposed draft)— and it is ready for review. An important disclosure: I am working on behalf of ICF through my work with Beutler Ink. Therefore, I will not edit this article directly and am seeking other editors' input and assistance in updating this article.

In its current state, this Wikipedia entry is essentially a stub, consisting only of a four-sentence introduction and a one-sentence section on ICF and the Road Home program. With my new draft, I have developed an article that fits in line with other Wikipedia articles about companies. Here's what you'll see in my draft:

  • My draft updates the infobox and creates sections for History, Operations and services, Major acquisitions, and Rankings and recognition.
  • My draft cites mostly neutral, third-party journalistic sources. For some very basic facts and figures, I have cited ICF regulatory filings, but nothing involving any interpretation, consistent with WP:PRIMARY.

I am willing to go through this draft with editors section-by-section or as a whole, depending on what others think is best. I'm also open to any feedback about article content or my process here. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:05, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done by Mean as custard. --WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:11, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Mean as custard, I'm not sure that this was a good idea. We appear to have over-written the previous (very short) article with a company handout, and incidentally to have removed the principal reason that people are likely to heard of it – the Road Home fiasco. The first of our edit request instructions is "Do not insert major re-writes or controversial requests without clear consensus. When these are requested, ask the submitter to discuss the edits instead with regular contributors on the article's talk page". Would that not have been the right approach here? May I propose that we revert your edit and add a |D|D parameter to the {{request edit}} template to stimulate some discussion on this page? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:18, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Most ot the earlier versions of the article have been removed from the history, so I have no idea how it used to look. The only mention of the "Road Home fiasco" (your words) was "The company received widespread criticism of its management of the Road Home program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina". If this statement is to be kept it needs clarification of the exact nature of the criticism and just how widespread it was. . . Mean as custard (talk) 11:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Justlettersandnumbers: Are there any specific issues or details you think should be discussed or reconsidered? I'm happy to discuss and work together on any specifics you see. As for ICF's work with Road Home, I want to point out that my draft and the current article contain the following: The company received criticism of its management of the Road Home program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In an article in The Washington Post, the company said it had addressed problems raised in those criticisms, and that state and federal fraud-prevention rules were in flux and made the grants administration process more time-consuming. The only difference in the first sentence vs. the sentence about Road Home from the previous article version is the deletion of the word "widespread". My draft then added the second sentence, as it only seemed fair to include the company's response if we're going to include the criticism.
Also, to be clear, I did try to gain feedback and discussion of the draft: I originally posted this edit request on July 20, which included pinging Justlettersandnumbers for having recently edited the page. I posted a message to WikiProject Companies on July 24; WikiProject Business on July 27; WikiProject Virginia on August 1; and WikiProject District of Columbia on August 4. None of those messages generated a response from Wikipedians, so I left a message for Mean as custard on August 9 (20 days after my posting this edit request) because he had edited the ICF article previously to "tone down promotional material" and I figured he'd be a good person to review the draft carefully and make sure it is NPOV.
Again, if anyone has specific details they would like to discuss, I'm happy to do so. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested move reflecting updated company name

Requested move 14 August 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved/withdrawn. Below WWB Too (the nominator) mentioned that they withdraw this request (Special:Diff/797666107), so am closing now. Even if it were not withdrawn, it is clear that the consensus is that this move would be premature at best and is ultimately against the move. (non-admin closure) TheSandDoctor (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


ICF International → ICF (company) – Since 2016, ICF no longer goes by the name ICF International, so I propose we move this article to ICF (company). As evidence, here are two articles from this summer in the nearest major paper to the company's HQ, The Washington Post, referring to the company as "ICF": [3][4].) I am aware that a previous move request in April was declined, however, that request was to move the page to ICF. Since ICF is a disambiguation page, it's completely understandable that this article can't be renamed simply to "ICF". With that said, it looked like some editors were in favor of ICF (company) and I'd like to see if that would be considered an appropriate move. An important disclosure: I am working on behalf of ICF through my work with Beutler Ink. Therefore, I will not edit this article directly (nor will I unilaterally move it) and am seeking other editors' input and assistance. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:06, 14 August 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. DrStrauss talk 18:45, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one has responded to this request to move ICF International to ICF (company) yet, I am pinging editors who weighed in on the previous move request. @TonyBallioni, MSGJ, Anthony Appleyard, Justlettersandnumbers, and Zzyzx11: Might any of you have time to consider if this is an appropriate move? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the previous closer I have no opinion, but I think it would be inappropriate to execute a move without a positive consensus to do so given the previous move request failed fairly recently. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: What we need at the very least is evidence that recent secondary sources have adopted the new name... that is, commonly drop the International. I thought of relisting to try to find this, but even then, given the company history ICF International is an acceptable natural disambiguation and might still be preferred. From the point of view of reader experience it seems (subjectively) far more recognisable to me. The current official name should be given in the article lead of course, but so far as Google rankings go, I'm afraid we can't help the corporate image engineers. Andrewa (talk) 08:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Andrewa—as pointed out in my move request, the Washington Post refers to it as "ICF" in the most recent coverage. This certainly counts as recent, secondary sources, and as WP:NAMECHANGES states, "we give extra weight to sources written after the name change is announced". Since you didn't mention the Post in your reply, I'm curious what you make of this. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 04:41, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I linked above to WP:NAMECHANGES to point out that recent sources do have extra weight. But so far as the Washington Post is concerned, what I make of this is well covered below... One swallow does not make a summer. I will add that these mentions may be primary sources if they are merely repeating a press release, as seems possible. That's another unaddressed issue here. Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Zzyzx11—the key difference, I believe, is that this ICF uses only ICF as its name, whereas the Integral Coach Factory uses ICF only on second reference. Therefore, it doesn't stake a primary claim to the initialism. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 04:41, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That still does not really address common usage. You cited two recent Washington Post articles, but that it only ONE source. For example, many of the sites displaying the current stock prices for the company, like finance.yahoo, Forbes, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, marketwatch.com, Buinesss Insider, NASDAQ, Google Finance Barrons still use "ICF International". WP:NAMECHANGES says "sources" -- plural. The convention used by a single news source should not be a deciding factor. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:03, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, even if it doesn't stake a primary claim to the initialism, that's quite irrelevant here. See WP:primary redirect for the principles we use in such cases. Andrewa (talk) 21:33, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Yet another issue that has not been addressed. Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks for the considered replies, Andrewa and Zzyzx11. I am now persuaded that such a move would be, at best, premature. I withdraw my request, at least in spirit; looking at WP:RMCI it seems best that I not formally close it. However, I won't object to anyone closing it now, and I will convey this information back to ICF so they understand what their coverage needs to look like before this can be considered again. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:24, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – Andrewa has said it more cogently than I could have. A move request needs to be accompanied by convincing evidence that the move is necessary for compliance with our article title policy, and I see none here. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:47, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. There is no primary topic for the 3-letter acronym so we must disambiguate the title in some way. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies) supports either disambiguation with a parenthetical (company) or natural disambiguation using the official name, or the common portion of that, which is how the title is currently disambiguated. While I generally personally favor natural disambiguation when possible, the agent making this request has clearly indicated that the company prefers the parenthetical. As reliable sources generally honor companies' wishes in this regard, I think we should fall in line with the Washington Post usage, which for Wikipedia means using the parenthical. wbm1058 (talk) 10:59, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Just because the Washington Post -- just ONE source -- is doing it does not automatically mean that it is now the common name. What other sources are using just "ICF" instead of "ICF International"? Wikipedia's guidelines are to prevent such a consensus like, "Well, we'll just look at what the Washington Post is currently doing, and call it a day, never mind waiting to see what other reliable sources will do." Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:21, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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