Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
Sections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution procedural policy.
You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Additional notes: This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period. Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wpwikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice. The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}. Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request: 1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}. 2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed. 3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days. Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline.
To begin a new discussion, enter the name of the relevant article below:

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Help answer requested edits

Category:Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests is where COI editors have placed the {{edit COI}} template: Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests Talk:108 Leonard Talk:A&P Talk:David Adjaye Talk:James F. Allen (businessman) Talk:American Speech–Language–Hearing Association Talk:Ames National Laboratory Talk:Amplify (company) Talk:Avery Dennison Talk:Avia Solutions Group Talk:Peter F. Barth Talk:BeiGene Talk:Bell Bank Talk:Boku, Inc. Talk:Doug Bremner Talk:Lewis Francis Byington Talk:Candalepas Associates Talk:Mike Cannon-Brookes Talk:Capital One Talk:Martin Casado Talk:Cboe Global Markets Talk:Sonia Chang-Díaz Talk:Character.ai Talk:Cheyne Capital Management Talk:Chicago Board Options Exchange Talk:Chime (company) Talk:Cyberattack Talk:Edmund de Waal Talk:Michael Douglas Talk:Dutch Bros. Coffee Talk:Edelman (firm) Talk:EF Education First Talk:Engine No. 1 Talk:Falling-sand game Talk:Family Court Building Talk:Scott Farquhar Talk:Fastly Talk:Mark Felton Talk:Nicholas Fisk (author) Talk:Flock Safety Talk:Bryan Fogel Talk:Foster and Partners Talk:Freudenberg Group Talk:Rich Froning Jr. Talk:Steven Furtick Talk:Marc Gafni Talk:Gensler Talk:Gibson Dunn Talk:Global Strategy Group Talk:GLX Digital Talk:Colin Goldberg Talk:Grail (company) Talk:Grove Collaborative Talk:Gulfstream Aerospace Talk:Shashi Gupta Talk:Michaela Guzy Talk:Roy Hamilton III Talk:Richard Harland Talk:Alexander D. Henderson Jr. Talk:Girard B. Henderson Talk:Henley & Partners Talk:History of the Jews in Charleston, South Carolina Talk:HOK (firm) Talk:Hyprov Talk:Don Ienner Talk:Infillion Talk:Institutional Venture Partners Talk:Sultan Al Jaber Talk:Simcha Jacobovici Talk:Jefferson Awards for Public Service Talk:Joe Biden judicial appointment controversies Talk:Justfly.com Talk:Amitabh Kant Talk:Jeffrey Katzenberg Talk:Labaton Keller Sucharow Talk:Karl Lagerfeld Talk:LastPass Talk:Kewsong Lee Talk:Jeffrey Leiden Talk:Lemelson Foundation Talk:Robert Luciano Talk:Anthony Marinelli Talk:Masdar Talk:Brent McIntosh Talk:Millennium Management, LLC Talk:Milwaukee Electric Tool Talk:Modern Meadow Talk:Moody Nolan Talk:MOPAC Talk:Neuroscience Research Australia Talk:Operating system Talk:Optiver Talk:Orphan Train Talk:Orphanage Talk:OutTV (Canadian TV channel) Talk:Overseas Development Institute Talk:Pacific Equity Partners Talk:Lubos Pastor Talk:Gareth W. Peters Talk:Matthew Pittinsky Talk:Poster House Talk:Programming language Talk:PureTalk Talk:Qiagen Talk:QIAGEN Talk:Qnet Talk:Quantitative storytelling Talk:Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership Talk:Marc Rowan Talk:Roland Rudd Talk:Sanctuary Housing Talk:Diana Senechal Talk:Simprints Talk:Site Number 4 Mnt 85 Talk:Sixt Talk:Dragan Šolak (businessman) Talk:SoundExchange Talk:Stichting IKEA Foundation Talk:Stikeman Elliott Talk:Still (film) Talk:Subway (restaurant) Talk:Sysco Talk:Joseph Tabrikian Talk:The Inter Faith Network Talk:Theatre Development Fund Talk:Titmouse, Inc. Talk:Tricentis Talk:Jean-Pascal Tricoire Talk:Bradley Tusk Talk:Union Pacific Railroad Talk:United Launch Alliance Talk:United States Postal Service Talk:UnitedHealth Group Talk:Bulat Utemuratov Talk:Versapay Talk:Dan Wagner Talk:Dashun Wang Talk:Wearable cardioverter defibrillator Talk:Maya Wiley Talk:Andy Wright (music producer) Talk:Sam Yagan Talk:Zearn Talk:Zero-day vulnerability Talk:Alice Zorn

Speaking of Paid Editing

• James L. Robo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• James L. Wainscott (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• James T. Morris (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Jeff A. Stevens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• James R. Verrier (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have asked EmmaJoanne to provide some further explanation about her interests that led her to contribute the above body of work to Wikipedia. Since joining WP last week, all of her articles appear to be about obscure CEOs (named James), which are only sourced (and can only be sourced, due to a complete lack of any other information in RS) to executive databases and official company websites. DOCUMENT★ERROR 09:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what is going on here. That list of CEOs has some of the lowest-profile CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Most of them barely have a mention separate from their company. Verrier of Borg-Warner is somewhat involved in an effort to turn Michigan around, and some of the others have some philanthropy mentioned. None of them have a notorious past, or show much effort put into self-publicity, so little has been written about them. I doubt this is paid editing. This looks like someone trying to make a legitimate contribution to Wikipedia.

All those article have been sent to AfD, which seems appropriate. John Nagle (talk) 05:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

In future, using WP:PROD proposed deletion might be easier. These articles are so uninteresting that nobody is voting on the AfD. John Nagle (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

World Affairs Conference

• World Affairs Conference (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• PCoxford (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This and prior editors persist in putting detailed conference program item details for the most recent of these conferences, instead of improving the actual article and its references. The persistence leads me to suspect they have some connection with that year's conference. Orange Mike | Talk 18:42, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

removed a bunch of unsourced cruft. watchlisted. thanks! Jytdog (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

OpenDNS

• OpenDNS (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Kdraps (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

See the message here Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#COI_at_OpenDNA - Kdraps declared herself a paid editor here and has been directly editing the article. I've added connected contributor to the Talk page and a COI tag to the article, and provided notice to the editor. Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. A paid editor trying to launder embarrassing events from the company's history is generally considered inappropriate on Wikipedia. John Nagle (talk) 21:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, as I have stated on the Talk page for the article, I was not trying to "launder embarrassing events from the company's history", simply trying to update the page to show that these features are no longer in use. I am sorry that I didn't go through the proper channels to make these edits (new editor here!) and will be sure to use the proper procedure in the future. I am just trying to keep everything updated, and am always open to hearing concerns about any changes made to the page.Kdraps (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

thanks for commenting, Kdraps. We'll review the article for COI issues and after that is done somebody will remove the tag from the article. going forward please use the "edit request" feature to propose changes on the article Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Bionics Institute

• Bionics Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• NiSmale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

NiSmale is a student there. When queried, he acknowledged that he works there, originally said was editing for money but then said he would not accept it. Still has a COI. Needs eyes. Also see related articles Graeme Clark (doctor), Visual prosthesis. I tagged the relevant articles and have watchlisted them but they need review. Jytdog (talk) 06:51, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Possible COI SPA at Mike Huckabee

I'm concerned about a SPA editor 71.57.118.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and now 7157.118.25a (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who showed up a few days ago to add some rather laudatory content to Mike Huckabee, a former US Governor who is a speculative candidate for US President in 2016. The editor has also removed some content critical of the subject. Here is their first edit. I would like to see if anyone else thinks this might be an editor with a COI. Thank you.- MrX 13:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You didn't give notice to the user; I did that. Jytdog (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought they would be notified when I added {{User links}}. Let me test it on myself: MrX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).- MrX 15:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Update: User links does not generate a notification. The more you know...- MrX 15:30, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I have suspected COI for this IP since his first edit. I know suspicions aren't proof, but his edits (removal of what he sees as negative and replacing with only positive content) at the very least appear to be whitewashing and promotional. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 15:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and they seem to be an experienced editor, although that's not proof either.- MrX 15:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Appreciated the notification Jytdog. In reality my concerns, as outlined on the Talk:Mike Huckabee page were that the former Mike Huckabee page had some overly negative sections. For example, the Mike Huckabee Recent Controversies section was in bad shape originally.[1] Both the Clemency Controversies and Recent Controversies sections when I arrived were clearly negative criticism sections designed to disparage, in violation of the WP:BLP policy. My understanding of the WP:BLP policy is that:

“ Biographies of living persons ('BLP's) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy... Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times. Pages that are unsourced and negative in tone, especially when they appear to have been created to disparage the subject, should be deleted at once if there is no policy-compliant version to revert to; see below. Non-administrators should tag them with db-attack. Creation of such pages, especially when repeated or in bad faith, is grounds for immediate blocking. ”

As I furthermore pointed out in Talk:Mike_Huckabee#Recommendation_on_Controversy_Sections such sections are seemingly in violation of the WP:CRITS policy which states:

“ An article dedicated to negative criticism of a topic is usually discouraged because it tends to be a point-of-view fork, which is generally prohibited by the neutral point-of-view policy.

Likewise, sections within an article dedicated to negative criticisms are normally also discouraged. Topical or thematic sections are frequently superior to sections devoted to criticism. Other than for articles about particular worldviews, philosophies or religious topics etc. where different considerations apply (see below), best practice is to incorporate positive and negative material into the same section. For example, if a politician received significant criticism about their public behavior, create a section entitled 'Public behavior' and include all information – positive and negative – within that section. If a book was heavily criticized, create a section in the book's article called 'Reception', and include positive and negative material in that section...

Sections or article titles should generally not include the word 'controversies'. Instead, titles should simply name the event, for example, '2009 boycott' or 'Hunting incident'. The word 'controversy' should not appear in the title except in the rare situations when it has become part of the commonly accepted name for the event, such as Creation–evolution controversy.

”

At any rate, I did not try to remove all mentions of criticism. I simply tried to add detail mentioning Mike Huckabee's defense of his clemencies to the Clemency Controversy section (which I've since renamed Clemencies to adhere to WP:CRITS, he has cited 6 factors in his decision which were summarized as follows.[2]

I remain concerned that given the recent revert of those changes, both the Mike_Huckabee#Clemencies and Mike_Huckabee#Notoriety sections are in violation of WP:CRITS and WP:BLP with primarily negative material. I did try to add some positive material to what were some highly negative sections, for example two positive paragraphs to the Notoriety section (previously named Recent Controversies) so that they wouldn't be entirely negative. However, I believe that, per WP:CRITS, "sections within an article dedicated to negative criticisms are normally also discouraged" and "pages that are unsourced and negative in tone, especially when they appear to have been created to disparage the subject, should be deleted at once."

Both of these sections were clearly negative by using the word "Controversies" in their original titles and shouldn't have been named like they were in the first place. Even with the changes they still remain overly negative in tone. Both sections devote considerable writing to attacking Mike Huckabee and Mike Huckabee is not even quoted at all in the Clemency section now, and is only quoted in the Notoriety section when those quotes are being criticized.

I strongly believe that if negative criticism is to exist on the page of a living person, the person who the page is about should at least be quoted regarding the subject matter so their defense is presented as well. And the Notoriety section has 6 of 8 paragraphs that criticize Mike Huckabee, even with the two paragraph additions I recently added, and remains heavily negative in tone. --7157.118.25a (talk) 06:34, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Also to clarify, I am not arguing for the deletion of the sections, just that if they are to remain they should be severely balanced so they are no longer pure criticism sections. Although, the Notoriety section is in such bad shape that I question whether it might be better off deleted, as it will be tough to salvage. The Clemency section though has figured prominently in the news and I agree the material deserves mention on the page.

However, I do think the section should be less clearly negative and present Mike Huckabee's side of what occurred more proportionally in the Clemency section, rather than trying to fit a single, barely noticeable sentence on his views in, and spending the rest of the section criticizing him, as is currently the case. I don't think the page comports to WP:BLP, WP:CRITS, or WP:UNDUE standards at all even with all the recent changes made (and most of my recent changes were not controversial and involved fixes to dead links and source formatting). --7157.118.25a (talk) 06:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

"New draft" problem at Jerry Yang (entrepreneur)

The paid editor for Jerry Yang (entrepreneur) sent me this: "Hello! I've created a new draft of the article for Jerry Yang, per an earlier discussion on the article's Talk page. I know you had some trepidation about a COI editor writing a new draft, so I wanted to be sure you have a chance to take a look and share feedback if you like. Thanks, and happy new year! Mary Gaulke (talk) 16:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)"[3]. Do we have a policy that COI editors can't try to replace the entire article? This is the third article where some paid editor has proposed a "new draft". Such "new drafts" typically contain little if any critical or negative information. A new COI draft makes the COI editor's content the default. Rebalancing the article requires extensive editor time. Comments? John Nagle (talk) 19:27, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I had a quick look. The edit left pretty much all the negative information there, and just interwove it instead of segregating it in a "Criticism" section, which in many ways is usually preferable. See footnote 1 in NPOV, in the WP:STRUCTURE section; see also Wikipedia:Criticism#Integrated_throughout_the_article. I intend to look the proposed edit over again with more care, and implement what is good over the weekend. Jytdog (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan. Taking parts of the proposed draft and incorporating them into the article is much better than replacing the article with content from a COI editor and losing all the useful history. John Nagle (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I implemented the idea of integrating the criticism, and I copy/pasted the alibaba stuff. Otherwise that was all me - there was a lot of unsourced crap in it that I cleaned up. Please feel free to look it over. Jytdog (talk) 06:02, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Review of my involvement at David Ross (businessman)

David Ross (businessman) has a long history of POV editing. It has recently been reported at ANI and that is when I noticed it. I've done a lot of cleaning up etc since 6 January but am being challenged by people who have either outright admitted to being aggrieved shareholders in one of the guy's companies or give the impression of being such.

In the spirit of open-ness, having spotted something of which I was not initially aware, I posted this note. I've subsequently added this one. I would be grateful if someone could review the situation, which will probably entail reading the entire talk page and at least sampling my many recent edits to the article. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

"New draft" problem at Dany_Bahar

(Previous mention on WP:COIN: [4])

A paid editor, HOgilvy (talk · contribs) wants to replace Dany Bahar with their own draft. They sent me a note on my talk page. Discussion at Talk:Dany_Bahar#Article_rewrite. COI editor draft at User:HOgilvy/Dany_Bahar. Most of the issues revolve around Bahar being fired as head of Lotus and the subsequent litigation. Anyone want to look at this? Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 02:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Orion Edutech

• Orion Edutech (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Shankarprabhu123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User created article and is writing from a first person POV. e.g. "We offer several courses that prepare our students..." The Haz _talk 05:23, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I marked it for proposed deletion as advertising. It's also partially copied from their Facebook page, at [5]. John Nagle (talk) 07:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Jim Webb

• Jim Webb (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Webbfooter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Jim_Webb.2C_current_U.S._political_candidate. Account is a WP:SPA working as of today only on this article, and edits are mostly promo/puffery, and the account has not talked to other editors on his/her talk page nor on artucle Talk page. Looks very much like WP:NOTHERE. I COI-tagged the article and added the connected contributor tag to the Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello - I am wondering why there is a problem with my edits. I admit that I am relatively new to this, and, therefore, I have been reading and trying to follow the Wikipedia rules and guidelines. I am thinking it is the name I chose. It's a name I have used elsewhere. Maybe I shouldn't have used it here. I am related to him, however, I am not involved with his exploratory committee, I live in a different state, and I belong to a different political party. I have been a Wikipedia user for some time, but had only ever made one edit until his. My purpose has been to make sure that it is accurate and connected. When I looked at his Wikipedia page a couple months ago, it seemed so hodgepodge and was missing information. I looked at some other individuals with similar stature, and noticed how professional they seemed. I gathered facts and sources and filled in many of the missing areas and corrected some errors (with sources). Along they way, I witnessed 8 cases of vandalism, which were caught by someone. When I saw the paragraph written about the PAC finances, I undid it the first time it was posted, because of the Wikipedia rules on living people. It was posted before there was a response, it was contested, it was posted by an unregistered person (the only edit they have done), and it was poorly written. I have noticed since, that the individual who posted it filed a complaint and reposted it. I did not touch it, but was very surprised that it was left as it was for as long as it was, because it sure seemed to go against Wikipedia rules about living persons. (I added a quote from an article after it was rewritten.) It is still a contested report, btw. Lastly, I have searched for a way to contact an administrator. I couldn't find anything that clearly explained how. I only hope that I am writing in the correct place now.