Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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    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.
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    • 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-wp@wikipedia.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}}.
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    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.
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    Benjamin Wey Article

    Hi. I've never edited wiki, so I'm not sure where to direct this, but just noticed that there is an article for the individual Benjamin Wey which is entirely self-promotional, lacks any reliable sources, and asserts patently fraudulent information about the subject. According to the following Bloomberg article I just read in my Longreads queue, Wey is an established con-man under criminal & civil investigation for fraud and is notorious for waging relentless on-line smear campaigns, doxxing & harassment of his whistleblowing victims, including the author of the Bloomberg article. The article should be quickly deleted for lack of reliable sourcing, fabricated content & conflict of interest. If this complaint belong in a different forum, could someone direct me to it or better yet just go ahead a move it there? Thank you

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Wey

    http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-benjamin-wey/

    75.137.237.5 (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    If you actually read the entire article carefully, you will see it is has been extensively edited by multiple editors since its original self-promotional creation in 2014 and in its current state is not remotely promotional, nor is it a fabrication. The conflict of interest editors and their sockpuppets have all been blocked for over a year. I also suggest that you carefully read the extensive discussions at Talk:Benjamin Wey. The Bloomberg article you list above and its allegations were added to Benjamin Wey on March 17th, 2016 nearly a month before you posted here [1]. The article's current references are all from reliable sources. The majority are highly critical of the subject beginning in 2002 when he was censured and fined by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. They go on to detail his indictment by the United States Department of Justice on charges of securities fraud, stock manipulation, money laundering, and wire fraud in 2015; the award against him by the Manhattan Federal District Court for defamation and sexual harassment in 2015; and the current lawsuit for defamation of a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority regulator and Georgetown University law professor in 2016. Voceditenore (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Account possibly connected to digital PR firm FP1 Strategies

    editors

    An account named User:Lesbianadvocate has been POV-pushing, edit-warring, and adding copyrighted material to an article named American Council for Capital Formation. After consulting with User:1990'sguy, who had a similar run in with her on another article, I started investigating why she's writing so many hit pieces, and it looks like all of her articles for the past few years correspond with clients of the digital PR firm FP1 Strategies. (Her edit history can be seen here).

    • This year, John Shimkus employed a firm called FP1 Strategies to “build his digital presence”. [2] At around the same time, LA suddenly got interested in posting positive information about him, and negative info about his challenger, Kyle McCarter.
    • Also in 2012, FP1 Strategies handled public relations for Rodney L. Davis [3]. At the same time, LA suddenly got interested in rewriting the page of his challenger, David M. Gill. (which is now merged into another article.)
    • FP1’s Vice President, Ryan Williams, blasted ACCF’s ethanol position on Twitter the exact same day LA created her article attacking the group, using the exact same language. (“$1.6 million from ExxonMobil alone” [5])

    In short, all of LA’s major article projects for the past four years seem to be FP1 clients or their opponents, taken on exactly when FP1 takes on the clients. It would be mind-boggling if this was coincidence, right? Can any action be taken? More details about her problematic editing, including some examples of her copyright violations can be seen here if necessary. I'd be hugely grateful for any help or assistance you could offer. -- EllenMcGill (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The combination of Positive writing on FP1's clients, negative writing on their client's opponents, as well as the specific timing involved (when FP1 took them on etc) quack loudly to me. This combination of pro/negative editing was pointed out in 2012 by an editor who subsequently was banned for socking. However it does show that the editing pattern is a long-term issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:31, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm in the process of opening a thread at this user's talk page (and toned down the header here a bit and added userlinks above). Jytdog (talk) 17:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Another key connection to FP1 is this - an image of a person who had joined F1 as a partner shortly before the image was uploaded by LA. (shortening the user name); the documentation for the image says it is owned by F1 and has an accompanying OTRS tag giving permission from the owner releasing the image. We see this kind of coordinating between conflicted editors and their object of their outside interest quite often. LA never directly edited the article about the partner. At the time that person joined F1, the article about him was edited a lot by a User:Intermittentgardener (negative information removed) and then further by User:Iliketoeatpotatoesalot, which added the image in that series of edits. Which brings those two accounts under this same cloud.
    • Here are the relevant edits at Kyle McCarter mentioned in the first bullet, which are very negative. Not mentioned, the edit-warring to retain them here then here then here; no talk page discussion.
    • this set of edits to the Pete Gallego article are not so blatantly POV, but see this immediately next edit by LA, removing information that LA had just added with edit note "On reflection this is not appropriate". The first edit didn't add strongly negative information (although depending on your politics it might be upsetting, e.g abortion bill) but did remove a bunch of unsourced positive content. Overall did make the person less attractive to people in the other party.
    A connection with FP1 seems very, very likely to me. Jytdog (talk) 18:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Would other COIN denizens please review the evidence here and comment. This is a pretty significant case in my view. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding this [6] does anyone know what timezone Twitter uses? Was that Twitter post made before or after this edit [7]? And what was the outside impetus for this--something that Paul Ryan said? Geogene (talk) 04:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I also will add that I find this dialogue interesting: [8]. I'm seeing some overlapping personality traits that may be grounds for a SPI here. Geogene (talk) 05:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks so much, Jytdog, for looking into this. It's such a relief to finally get this into the open.
    I agree that IntermittentGardener sounds a lot like the enraged, policy-scolding tone I've gotten very familiar with from LA; I don't know if that means it's the same person, or just FP1's official policy to try to bully and shout down users who question their edits. Just at a glance I can see that IG and LA have edited several of the same obscure articles: Vocativ, Airlines for America, Robert S Rivkin, and Lenovo. IG and Iliketoeatpotatoesalot also overlap on both PJ Media and Terry Nelson. It would be extraordinary if this was coincidence. Is there a way to check if these accounts are all logging in from the same place? What are the next steps here? Thanks everybody. EllenMcGill (talk) 12:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Added Terry Nelson (political consultant) to case. Back to back favorable editing by eds Intermittentgardener [9] & Iliketoeatpotatoesalot [10]. Nelson happens to be "a partner at FP1 Strategies".
    Note similar language in edit summaries here (LA: org. "is only a reliable source for its own opinions") and here (IG: org. is "Not a reliable source for anything but iown opinions"). Brianhe (talk) 13:36, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Another pair of edit summaries with identical language "The article is about Nelson" here (ILP) and here (IG). It seems increasingly likely given various similarities in apparent motive, argument style and writing habits, that the three accounts named here may be operated by a single person. - Brianhe (talk) 14:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Geogene: Re twitter times see this - the time displayed depends on your user settings, but that tweet was posted after the edit was made.
    @EllenMcGill: "Is there a way to check if these accounts are all logging in from the same place?" WP:SPI is the place to find that out but checkusers will only be able to compare User:Lesbianadvocate and User:Intermittentgardener because User:Iliketoeatpotatoesalot hasn't edited in almost a year and there isn't a great deal of cross over between those two: [11]. SmartSE (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    More correspondences noted. There is clear (and unattributed) collaboration going on between editors if not outright socking.
    Correspondence #1. This edit to Alan Sears (IG, 13 July) corresponds to this revision of ILP's sandbox which was blanked over a month before the mainspace edit.
    Correspondence #2. LA's sandbox (permlink) (28 October 2014) contains a draft of an article on a thing called Copy data. The redlinked term is used in exactly one article on Wikipedia, Actifio. The term was introduced in this edit (1 December 2014) by Intermittentgardener. - Brianhe (talk) 20:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lesbianadvocate. -- Brianhe (talk) 20:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    great. Jytdog (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @SmartSE: I may need to add to the SPI case, but I can't see deleted pages; could you or another admin check if User:Lesbianadvocate/sandbox is a recreation of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Copy Data whose original author appears to be Reills78? Thanks. Brianhe (talk) 11:50, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Brianhe: You're pinging the wrong me again ;) I've had a look and no, there's no similarity between them. SmartSE (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Darn it, I have to get out of the habit of c&p your signature. Anyway, thanks for checking. Brianhe (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Evidence from Commons

    I've nominated File:TerryNelson.jpg for deletion on Commons because I see no indication in the file page or in the related OTRS ticket that permission has been granted by the copyright owner shown in the EXIF data, Michael Temchine. The file was uploaded by Lesbianadvocate and FP1 Strategies is listed as source and as author. I note that a licence was added to the page by Iliketoeatpotatoesalot; I'm very curious to know how that user – who was not the uploader and (I believe) is not an OTRS agent – was able to determine what licence to add. Neither Lesbianadvocate nor Iliketoeatpotatoesalot has edited any other Commons page.

    Taken with the other evidence presented above, this is enough to convince me beyond doubt that there has been collusion (at the very least) between these two editors and that there is every likelihood of a connection to the company. I'm going to add the paragraph above to the SPI too in case that helps. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Further evidence at PJ Media

    I just noticed that Iliketoeatpotatoesalot and Intermittentgardener have both been editing the article PJ Media. I looked up online and found this link at the official website of PJ Media, which clearly states For Media Inquiries please contact:FP1 Strategies. I'm adding it to the list of pages above. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:07, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    An IP address that's been rewriting the PJ Media article, User:219.77.82.45, also just attempted to disrupt the sock puppet investigation as well [12]. It seems extremely likely that this IP address is connected with this ring. -- EllenMcGill (talk) 15:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Results of SPI

    The SPI has concluded that the following editors are socks of User:Lesbianadvocate and at least some of their edits fit the modus operandi of PR:

    This is an earlier SPA Lenovo editor from 2011-2012 with hundreds of edits by they've been trying to own articles since 2008

    There are quite a few articles affected but the main ones to check are related to these:

    SmartSE (talk) 20:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I suspected the Lenovo connection through Tt121673. It's curious to have a mix of commercial and purely political editing. I wonder if FP1 was outsourcing Wikipedia editing to another entity. - Brianhe (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That's what I'm thinking, a sockfarm for hire working on contract. Keaigougou8080's edits don't look politically compatible with Lesbianadvocate at all. Geogene (talk) 22:01, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Well I very much doubt we'll ever know, but that did cross my mind - writing laptops is hardly "winning messaging and professional execution for political and issue-based campaigns" and as you can see above the Lenovo history goes way back. As of Sep 2015 Vista Outdoor's agency was Backbone Media. SmartSE (talk) 22:11, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Smartse: are you sure it's backbonemedia.com not backbonemedia.net? – Brianhe (talk) 02:20, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah yes. Thanks for pointing that out! SmartSE (talk) 07:38, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Can somebody help me connect the dots here? How do a Rocky Mountain sporting goods marketing company, a California new media oitfit, and a D.C. political PR firm and a Singaporean who also edits from a Hong Kong IP converge? I don't get it. And by the way, I think we all missed this: it looks like Singaporebobby once disclosed his affiliation with Alliant, but deleted it in December 2015. Brianhe (talk) 13:00, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I am finding it hard to understand the connection as well. It is possible that jobs are being outsourced to another PR firm (possibly located in Hong Kong/Singapore). Considering that Lenovo is a Chinese company, it is plausible that the PR firm is Hong Kong/Singapore, cities which use Mandarin as an official language. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Shaun Gladwell et al

    And here we have a nice little garden of articles on Shaun Gladwell, his exhibition publication Patafunctions, his "masterpiece" video work Storm Sequence and Barbara Polla. By my count, the account User:Gladderz has logged 250 diligent edits on solely these three articles. Images of Gladwell's work added to the pages are mostly credited as "own work". It might be the artist in question editing the pages, or the gallery/dealer as suggested on the Gladwell talk page. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 16:17, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Gladderz may have (inadvertently?) outed himself by in this diff and per his contributions to commons. Mduvekot (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice catch! Seems obvious that we are dealing with the artist. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mduvekot:: At least User:Gladderz is amusing. From his/her user page: "An escalation in my activity has aroused COI suspicions from very capable and astute wikipedians. Suspicion is called for due to my unrestricted access to Gladwell's archive, including artistic output, hardware, correspondence (both personal and professional) and itinerary etc."HappyValleyEditor (talk) 05:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi, HappyValleyEditor and Mduvekot Incriminating as it may seem, I am Gladwell's biographer but totally unaccustomed with WP protocol and made contributions specifically on Gladwell and associated work with possibly the worst Nom de Plume. Regardless of the issue of identity, I'm now too close to the subject due to four years of research and unrestricted access to Gladwell's archive, thus open to the COI charges. I am however looking for advice on NPOV and feel it could be someone like user:Zaddikskysong. Am I on the right track to neutralizing this bio and editing out puffery? Apologies for distraction. Should I just let go and avoid WP:OWN charges as well as blundering into COI?

    additionally: User:HappyValleyEditor, I only mention user:Zaddikskysong after seeing they describe themselves as "a glorious dictator of NPOV", and hold and interest in Art history, have contributed to Australian artist bios such as Brett Whiteley et al and alma mater of two institutions connected to Gladwell– UNSW and Sydney College of the Arts. user:Zaddikskysong is also badged for verifiability. Incredibly qualified! Gladderz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladderz (talk • contribs) 22:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Gladderz, a couple of things. First, please do actually sign your posts with four tildas like this ~~~~. This isn't done for amusement nor aesethetics - we actually use the date stamps for stuff. If you don't sign, there is a bot that will come and auto-sign for you. Please don't delete that if it happens. Second, it is clear that you are here representing the artist. Would you please acknowledge that, and acknowledge that this creates a conflict of interest for you with regard to editing about him in Wikipedia? We can walk you through how to manage that but the first step is that we agree that the relationship creates a COI here. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 01:18, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Jytdog, thanks for this response. and apologies for not previously signing. And yes, as Gladwell's biographer, employed independently but professionally engaged in this task, and with the access i have, there is COI and i have stopped editing the bio accordingly and will await feedback on COI management. Just read your own story WRT COI and the use of an oversighter etc. But I have stopped editing Gladwell and will hope the page can be neutralised. My impartial attempt was to add the 'criticisms' section. Thanks. (talkGladderz (talk) 22:59, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks so much! I will pick this up on your Talk page as it will get too long for this board.Jytdog (talk) 23:38, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Snehilsharma

    More articles in contribution history, the above are the recent ones.

    Has been a longstanding PR editing account, with a lot of such articles and deletions in 2011/2012 including blocks for disruptive editing in this PR venture. I've just warned about COI editing and disclosure, but a deep look is required and possibly more articles have to be nominated for deletion. —SpacemanSpiff 15:56, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Some kind of collaboration apparent at Saksham - everyone is capable & Snehil Sharma (director), re-created Snehil Sharma.
    Nominated Snehil Sharma (director) for speedy deletion per repost criteria (g4). — Brianhe (talk) 22:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I missed that connection, SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Snehilsharma‎, the IPs in the two SPIs are in the same range so it's the same PR agent. —SpacemanSpiff 05:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Socking by Snehilsharma/Tanishrao2015 confirmed by checkuser, no surprise there. Brianhe (talk) 21:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The SPI needs admin action, no blocks have been done yet. —SpacemanSpiff 16:34, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @SpacemanSpiff: Snehilsharma was blocked at 19:06. - Brianhe (talk) 00:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's a boatload of stuff around SOMA (architects), it appears that these chaps have a contract to promote that company and their projects, a lot of titles have to be redirected or deleted. —SpacemanSpiff 16:06, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Abolitionism (bioethics)

    It looks like there are several newly created or newly active WP:SPA accounts posting to a recent series of deletion discussions, centered around the topic of effective altruism (though not on that article itself). Some searches on Facebook have provided evidence of canvassing by involved organizations, to try and get people to prevent deletion. As I'm also involved in the discussions, I'll declare upfront that I have no COI with respect to any of these articles. NeatGrey (talk) 02:14, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    • I have been involved in the effective altruist community. I became aware of the abolitionism discussion through Facebook. However, I've been pushing for stricter standards of Wikipedia publishing and trying to prevent advocacy among effective altruists. I've been the one who wants many of these articles deleted, shortened, or made more neutral. 02:24, 19 April 2016 (UTC)Pawg14 (talk)
    • Edit: Added User:Ruairí Donnelly, as he created one of the articles involved (although that was several years ago), and appears to have a COI from being the head of the organization which is the subject of the article (per some quick Googling). NeatGrey (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:Brian Tomasik is involved in the same way, although neither of them has participated in the deletion discussions so I'm not sure it's relevant. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:53, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Huh. Did Brian Tomasik create any of these articles? Can you link the relevant diffs? NeatGrey (talk) 03:00, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    He made many edits to wild animal suffering, which cited his self-published essays heavily. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    FWIW, none of my edits involved my own writings. I also agree it could be good to remove the footnotes to my writings from the article. Brian Tomasik (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I became aware of the effective altruists on Facebook subsequent to becoming interested in this topic in the last few weeks, but have never met any of them in person. One member of Animal Charity Evaluators approached me on Facebook to talk about the views I expressed in the deletion discussions, subsequent to my voting. I am not personally connected to any of the individuals or ideas which these articles concern, and I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of effective altruism. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:48, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you provide a link to the Facebook discussions you are referring to? Meatsgains (talk) 02:51, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I would prefer not to. The discussion occurred about an hour ago in Facebook messenger. This was after all my comments, I believe. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:58, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    There are some FB links at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abolitionism (bioethics). Some have called them canvassing. - Brianhe (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmmmm, it looks like Animal Charity Evaluators is a non-profit whose article was deleted a few months ago (link). It seemed like there was some kind of off-wiki fight about Animal Charity Evaluators, which was bleeding over into the deletion discussions (link). Could someone explain what that was about? Thanks. NeatGrey (talk) 03:08, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know if there is an off-wiki fight about it, but most of the people above are connected to Animal Charity Evaluators. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:18, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Although I have been involved with Animal Charity Evaluators and the effective altruism movement, I have had no conflict of interest on these articles. I have never edited any of these articles. I am also not a "new account"; I have been on wikipedia since 2004. I have been active ONLY in the AfD discussion on these articles, and for good reason: because I am familiar with what the articles are talking about. This does not constitute a conflict of interest. I am merely an editor who knows about the topic and is explaining why the article should not be deleted on the related AfD page. I do not think it is appropriate to label me as having a conflict of interest here when the only edits I have made are to the AfD discussion page. — Eric Herboso 03:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the OP just indiscriminately listed everyone involved in the discussion. I wouldn't take it personally. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm also involved with the effective altruism movement and feel I can contribute in a similar way as Eric. I am a new account, but I've been looking over Wikipedia's standards thoroughly to try to make sure they're applied fairly. I think this is important because there seems to be a fair bit of misinformation going around and at least one user who is trying to delete articles due to their ideological views rather than Wikipedia standards. (Not mentioning who it is because of WP:HA concerns.) Tempo mage (talk) 04:14, 19 April 2016 (UTC) (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
    @Tempo mage: You're referring to me. And no, I'm not trying to delete articles based on my ideological views. What I wrote on Facebook was about my opinion of ACE and its "wild animal suffering" concept. It does not pertain to why I voted to delete those articles. The reasons for that were, respectively, the complete lack of independent sources for ACE, and the fact that "wild animal suffering" is not notable as a coherent subject in the academic literature and the article was a coatrack for a fringe idea about eradicating all suffering through either transhumanism or the destruction of nature; although some people are also concerned about "virtual animals" which exist in future computer simulations, extraterrestrial alien suffering, and the suffering of fundamental physics, a notion I will not bother to explain. It's true that also I think this is BS, and am of the opinion that it's bad for an animal rights charity evaluator to be involved in it. You can call that an "ideological view" if you like, but it wasn't the reason why I voted the way I did. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:30, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It's hard for me to believe that the alignment of your ideological views and your editing views that seem to clearly deviate from Wikipedia standards happens to be a coincidence, but I appreciate you sharing that. I hope you'll do your best to keep the two separate. Tempo mage (talk) 05:06, 19 April 2016 (UTC) (strike comment by a now-blocked sock per this SPI Jytdog (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC))[reply]
    • It is unclear to me what apparent COI has been identified here; no conversations have been opened with any individual here, on their talk pages. Is the concern about actual COI (and if so, with what company or organization?), or this about advocacy? Neatguy, please do explain. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 05:30, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. To use an analogy which I think is a good fit for this situation, suppose politician Bob Jones has a Wikipedia article. Bob Jones wants to look good, so he writes to the volunteer group Friends of Bob Jones, and asks them to all come to the article and write nice things about Jones. In your view, would this count as a COI, since the writers have a conflict between their interest in helping Jones, and their interest in improving Wikipedia? Or would it be advocacy? Or both?
    Or, to use another analogy, suppose there's a website at www.instantcure.com which sells Dr. Quack's Snake Oil (the issue here isn't medical content, but I think some of it qualifies as WP:FRINGE; see discussion here). John Brown is not himself Dr. Quack, but he really likes Dr. Quack and thinks it cured his cancer, so Brown goes to Wikipedia and writes an article about how Dr. Quack's Snake Oil cures everything. Is this COI, since John Brown is a member of the group "Dr. Quack adherents", and is conflicted when editing articles about "Dr. Quack adherents"? Or is it advocacy, since Brown is not himself Dr. Quack? NeatGrey (talk) 06:25, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for replying! In your first example, these editors are part of an organization that supports Bob Jones so yes, they have COIs with regard to the organization and Bob Jones. They have an interest in a person or an organization. In the latter John Brown is an advocate - a "fan, a "believer." I run into that all the time when I ask people if they have some connection to B. Plenty - maybe 25%, say "no, but I love B". Then I pivot the conversation to advocacy, explain how it creates problems and giving examples of other kinds of advocacy (something simple like a vegetarian who thinks eating meat is evil and comes here writing about how great vegetarianism is and how bad factory farming is, etc). COI and advocacy are distinct issues in Wikipedia. COI is a subset of advocacy, but a pretty well-defined one. Jytdog (talk) 07:06, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, cool. So, there are probably several issues here, but I'll start with the most obvious one. As far as I can tell, the article Abolitionism (bioethics) is really about the theories of David Pearce, although there's some window dressing to make it look like it's not just Pearce. Pearce, who openly edits Wikipedia as the account User:Davidcpearce, also runs a public Facebook group called "The Hedonistic Imperative" (link), which he started in order to spread and organize support for his ideas. When Abolitionism (bioethics) was put up for deletion, Pearce posted it to this group (link), with a direct link to the deletion discussion. This link was then re-posted to similar groups on Facebook, such as "Abolitionist Transhumanism" and "Transpolitica". From your explanation, it seems that if a user came to the deletion discussion this way, they would have a COI with respect to David Pearce, since they are trying to keep a separate article on Pearce's ideas in Wikipedia while being a member of a group that advocates for Pearce's ideas. NeatGrey (talk) 07:31, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I would point out, btw, that Davidcpearce, who is an active and experienced Wikipedian, has edited perfectly well around this topic, and IMO has done nothing even slightly wrong here. This is not so much a clear COI problem as a call-to-action problem. Many of the new/very-occasional contributors are contesting basic Wikipedia sourcing rules, for example - so they're entirely open and sincere, just approaching this in an unproductive way - David Gerard (talk) 08:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC) Withdrawn this. Blatant meatpuppetry from Davidcpearce at Facebook here - David Gerard (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's a distinction between having an interest in, and having a conflict of interest. Someone who writes extensively about, say, free-living animal suffering is clearly likely to be interested in the topic, but (s)he also has a conflict of interest only if (s)he has undisclosed shareholdings in a firm manufacturing veterinary anaesthetics (etc). I don't think this is the case here. Advocates of the status quo who believe that e.g. humans shouldn’t be tampering with the wisdom of Nature - or simply that humans have an unlimited capacity to screw things up even further - are unlikely to believe that wild animal suffering merits a Wikipedia entry in the first place. Critics will disagree. And so it goes on. In the case of (use whatever label your prefer) abolitionist bioethics, if I were writing or contributing to the entry, I’d give pride of place to the largely unknown Lewis Mancini (note the date of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2189064) for any discussion of scientific (or purportedly scientific) approaches. [I'd argue just as strongly in favour of a “Keep” if we were discussing the Flat-Earth Society. Cover the arguments of its proponents - Wikipedia would be poorer for their absence - but the Comments/Criticism section should make absolutely clear that their core tenet of belief is not consensus wisdom in the scientific community.] --Davidcpearce (talk) 08:14, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've been a Wikipedia editor for well over 10 years. Other individuals listed here are also longtime contributors. I do have an interest in effective altruism (as I declare in my homepage), but I think it's clear that this by itself doesn't constitute a conflict of interest. Furthermore, to my knowledge there has been no canvassing for any of the articles listed above, though I'm happy to be corrected if presented with the relevant evidence. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 08:38, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The post by Davidcpearce is a violation of WP:MEAT and is in my view, a post that calls for an indefinite block or TBAN. Blatant violation. Jytdog (talk) 13:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Meatpuppetry and a personal attack! Lovely. (There's a copy on archive.is at GGtOF in case that Facebook post disappears.) - David Gerard (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Sigh, sometimes I wonder... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html--Davidcpearce (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That is not a response that is helpful to you. This piece of this probably needs to be escalated to ANI. Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    If you can go through the procedure for this, I'd be most pleased to co-sign - David Gerard (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. It is here. Jytdog (talk) 10:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Curiously, the proposer under her normal Wikipedia editing handle seems to be a long-standing member of the FB group...Abolitionist Transhumanism. So I'm confused.--Davidcpearce (talk) 07:28, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Marek Glezerman

    Strightforward COI editing of autobiography, with reverts and deletion tag removals. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 16:57, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    yep, nice catched. i noted your PRODing above. Jytdog (talk) 15:12, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    This could be closed now, I think. LaMona did a nice job bringing it up to snuff.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 03:15, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the article is ok at this point, but I don't see evidence of complying with COI as the user has not responded. Should we continue to try to have a conversation? LaMona (talk) 03:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Flag of Syria

    User has indicated that he is working for the Syrian Interim Government,[13][14] is editing at the instruction or request of the Interim Government,[15] and is a politician.[16] User has made changes based on a clearly partisan view[17] and has refused to provide secondary sourcing. Can another user provide assistance to make sure that policies on verifiability and neutrality are followed in this article? —C.Fred (talk) 02:38, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes this is a problem. I have written to them at their talk page. We'll see how this goes but my sense now is that this is person is going to end up being blocked per WP:NOTHERE. We'll see. Jytdog (talk) 09:35, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I left a note on his talk page. I doubt this will get anywhere, he will be blocked soon if he keeps this up. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 16:25, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @C.Fred: Can you remove the "all westerners are idiots" material from his user page, on basis of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL as he is attacking all western editors? ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 14:41, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh my! I just posted this a few minutes ago on the user talk page. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:14, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    If he continues, I'll send this to AN/I, due to his behavior being out of control and completely unacceptable. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 16:23, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    AN/I started, go to WP:AN/I for more. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 20:10, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    JaberEl-Hour Indeffed at ANI. (see here). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:01, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Mike Savage (radio personality)

    Autobiography/COI/puffery centered around Mike Savage. Radioexpress is also likely username volation. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:37, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: kudos to Orangemike for noticing that the now blocked Msav123 had outed himself in edit comments as an artist management company with the same name as the article title! Sharp eyes. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 23:19, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Worse yet, his edit comments over nine years of editing make it quite clear that he was only here to make articles conform to his and his clients' preferences, rather than NPOV, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    User Msav123 identified himself or herself as the manager of Meiko (American singer) with this. They have edited the article from 2007 until late last year. Same editor created Mike Savage (radio personality) about ten days ago. - Brianhe (talk) 09:59, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It's Mike Savage (insert role) week at COIN.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:55, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I actually got confused seeing the similar name and was wondering where did the legal threats go. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:42, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    updated articles etc and have filed an SPI. Jytdog (talk) 03:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice work, Jytdog!.......HappyValleyEditor (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Cleveland Clinic

    Articles
    Users

    There appears to be a years long promotional effort associated with these articles. Charles Parks Richardson is a doctor that is affiliated with Cleveland Clinic and Reliant Heart. The four accounts named above are essentially single purpose accounts adding promotional content to these articles. The username DRCRichardson matches "Dr C Richardson". This user claims not to be Dr Richardson himself, but is rather creating articles "on behalf of Dr. Charles Richardson" (diff). DRCRichardson created Charles Parks Richardson. The user Cleveland Heart, with an obvious username connection, started a second version of Charles Parks Richardson. The user ReliantHeart, again with an obvious username connection, has edited at ReliantHeart Inc. The user Jlambert1984 connects all the users and articles with promotional editing at each article. Deli nk (talk) 20:19, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Jlambert1984, Cleveland Heart, DRCRichardson, and ReliantHeart: the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require editors who have been paid for their contributions to say who is paying them and who the client is. See WP:PAID for details. SarahSV (talk) 00:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Two of those accounts should be blocked per USERNAME; I have tagged them, and opened a discussion with JLambert on their talk page. Jytdog (talk) 09:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Jytdog, you wrote to him or her: "There is a place for paid editing here." There isn't really a place for paid PR editing, at least not direct editing, per WP:NOPAY. That some people get away with it doesn't mean the community wants it. SarahSV (talk) 22:51, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for pointing out that I wrote sloppily there. I just fixed it. Thanks again. Jytdog (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for making the change, but it's still misleading. You wrote: "There is a place for paid editors in the community, but getting paid to edit absolutely must be disclosed per WP:PAID and you must follow the other policies and guidelines as well." The terms of use advise that local policies or guidelines may have stricter requirements, and they do, namely WP:NOPAY. Why not point that out to these SPAs? We do make exceptions for non-PR paid editing, but given that you're dealing here with paid advocacy, why not just advise them to stop editing articles directly? SarahSV (talk) 23:04, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Your issue seems to be that I didn't say the part about "not editing directly", at this point. With JLambert we do not have a disclosure of paid editing yet, nor a self-disclosure that JLambert has a COI. WP:APPARENTCOI is very clear, for sure. You will note that in what I have currently on their page, I did not actually say that they are editing for pay nor claim that they actually have a COI, because I don't know yet. I said it appears that that they do. The first step is to get a self-disclosure. Cramming everything into the first step of what I am hoping becomes a dialogue is not something that promotes actual dialogue or voluntary disclosure, which is what I am after. I left the door open so that in subsequent turns of the discussion I can bring up the no-directly-editing thing. But getting folks to disclose is the first step, and enables management that doesn't run afoul of OUTING. Bringing a heavy enforcement mentality before we have a self-disclosure is unwise and unproductive, in my view. Jytdog (talk) 01:39, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems pointless to tip-toe around it when it's so obvious. Lots of other people read those messages too, so saying "there's a place for paid editing" without explaining what you mean risks misleading them too. Better to stick to what the policy (WP:PAID) and guideline (WP:COI) say. SarahSV (talk) 03:04, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The Reliant and Richardson articles contain(ed) a great deal of background information that is not directly related to the subject of the articles. I have removed that from the Reliant article - The Richardson article will take a greater effort, but in the end will be much briefer than it is today. LaMona (talk) 14:51, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    LaMona, I had a little go at Charles_Parks_Richardson and was able to reduce the character count/obfuscation by 50%. I'm actually finding that rewriting promotionally-toned articles in very simplistic (aka bad) prose creates very objective Wiki articles. E.g. "He started company X. He was the director of X. In 2010, X was sold." HappyValleyEditor (talk) 00:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The Breakage of the Sunflower: pain of a war correspondent, diaries, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Iraq (Documentary_Literature)

    I just have a hunch that this is not the nost objective editing possible as there is astrong promotional tone to these articles. The novel pages both list/listed a list of other works by the author. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 23:33, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you HappyValleyeditor for pointing this out as it will promote me to revise the content carefully. In fact, all these articles were originally written in Arabic and translated to English. Indeed, I am interested in providing an idea about this writer and his work especially with all the wars going on in our area. However, that does not mean that it should be with promotional tone, rather it should be written and received objectively. I will spend time revising and I would be grateful if you can point out what is meant, for example, by "The novel pages both list/listed a list of other works by the author".
    thanks again..
    --Katib-mo (talk) 00:19, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Katib-mo: Hi, thank you for replying here. What HappyValleyEditor means is that an article about a book should not contain "a list of books by the same author". An article about an author can have a list of books. I would also like to ask you a question. Are you by any chance related to Jamal Hussein Ali (for example, friend/family/employee/publisher etc). Please let us know here. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:38, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Added another book, has same section with list of author's works. Under-referenced. LaMona (talk) 13:23, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you much Lemongirl942 not only for pointing out to me that lists of publications of an author shouldn't be included in a book page, but also fixing it. I actually didn't know that. I will go now to the Arabic pages and fix accordingly. As someone new here and despite intensive time in educating myself about Wikipedia rules, it seems there is always something new to know. so thanks for people like you who help in that regard. In terms of any relationship with the author, I don't know him in person and he is not a relative or a friend or a colleague. I wrote about him as someone who is interested in the situation in the middle east (wars and human tragedies), he is a known writer that I found his work and publications unique in terms of his approach to what is facing this area. thanks again for your help. I will actually go back to all the posts in few days time to look at them with a fresh eye. let me know if I can do anything to make them better please. Katib-mo (talk) 07:11, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi LaMona, do you mean the list of books published by the author, as it has been removed by another editor thankfully (please see my response to Lemongirl942 above)?. If there is are other remarks, kindly share with me. Thank you. Katib-mo (talk) 07:33, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Katib-mo - yes, that is what I mean. I saw in the Arabic WP that those lists of books were included and that seems to be ok there. English WP uses different article styles so those don't work here. It's good that others are doing edits - the style/content norms here are hard to explain in words, but are fairly obvious when we look at articles. LaMona (talk) 15:26, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Gianfranco Lotti

    First report. Please be gentle. Feedback appreciated.

    User seems to be heavily promoting in the Gianfranco Lotti article, and is injecting the business name into other articles. He has also redirected a long-standing redirect page GFL (reverted by me since) and created generic redirects (Florence Leather, Luxury handbags which would appear to be candidates for speedy deletion).

    A couple of users attempted to engage the user via talkpage in February, without obvious reciprocation (ping @Blythwood and Mabalu:)

    Username suggests involvement with the company. Would appreciate experienced CoIers taking a look. Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 13:45, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks for spotting this! Redirecting names for generic products to your company is blatant spamming and the kind of thing where you can't say that you just didn't realise that it isn't allowed. They've only added one genuine citation to the GFL article so constructive activity is basically non-existent. I think they should be given a final warning or blocked. I haven't tagged the redirects for SD yet so people can see them. Blythwood (talk) 14:24, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict × 2) Thanks for bringing this up. The user seems to be clearly trying to promote a business by redirecting generic terms to Gianfranco Lotti. I am tagging the redirects for speedy deletion at the moment. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've reverted a couple more of the user's edits at Italian design and History of Italian fashion where the edits were clearly misrepresentative and not supported by sources. Is the image inserted at Rick Yune acceptable? Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 16:32, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The photo there is unrelated to the article, other than being a picture of Yune, but it doesn't support any content in the article. I see it as promotional and think it should be removed. Note that all of the photos are listed as "own work", which I somehow doubt. LaMona (talk) 23:47, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've temporarily removed the image at Rick Yune. I agree with LaMona that the license for the image files need to be verified. GFL Marketing has uploaded multiple files to Commons as "own work". For all we know, the photographer could still have the permissions. There doesn't seem to be any copies on the internet so hopefully it is not a blatant copyvio. I'm not particularly familiar with files so I don't know how to proceed (speedy deletion or nominate for deletion). Would appreciate if someone else can help out. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 01:14, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The photo is from Lotti's web site: here. The Lotti company may own the rights. LaMona (talk) 04:24, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the link! Tagged it for speedy deletion as I cannot find any evidence that Lotti has released it under a compatible licence. I've initiated a conversation here [18]. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The edit at Via Monte Napoleone seems to me to be ok, other than that they added the street number to the photo. I have confirmed the facts and there are sources that can be used. There is also a factual edit to Quadrilatero della moda that should be allowed to stand, although it could use a reference. All of these "upscale shopping district" articles are intentionally promotional, but there are dozens of them so it's easier to just let this stand. LaMona (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Page recreated

    It appears the page was CSD'd and deleted yesterday. User has recreated the page this morning and has suggested on his talk page that it will be unbiased. Still looks a bit like an advert to me. Gricehead (talk) 11:58, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I've tagged the new one for speedy as an advert as well. "The most distinctive detail on every Gianfranco Lotti bag: the iconic key-lock shape, dipped several times in gold, as it is a precious jewel. A symbol of bold identity, taken from one of Florence’s historic city gates." Yeah, that's an advert. All but one of its facts (that a new store opened in a given location) are sourced to the subject itself. (There's another third-party source listed, a Who's Who, but it's for a field in the infobox tag that doesn't actually appear in the display.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Promise I'll get brave enough to do it myself. Soon. Maybe. Gricehead (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I removed promo from Gianfranco Lotti, added sources (mainly from Italian fashion magazines, although more may be needed). That it is one of the luxury stores along Montenapoleone is significant. If the GFL COIs cease direct editing, then at least that article may be salvable. LaMona (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Kikai Labs

    Company page created, editied and reverted by founder of company. Editor name identical to founder name, also acknowledged "Yes, I am the founder!" on his/her talk page. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I am merely posting the history of a company that IS relevant in the 3d printing scene of South America. I know its history well because as stated, I founded it. If this article were posted by a third party would it be acceptable? Also as I pointed out it is an entry similar to all the other entries under List_of_3D_printer_manufacturers, so if mine is not acceptable then all those other entries should be removed as well. If you google "Kikai Labs" you will see many many newspaper articles about the company. These can be listed as the Sources (just give me time) if that will make it more acceptable. The editor removed almost the whole article, in particular the history of Products and also the company's contributions to 3d printing (even if minor). The article is not self-promoting, it is not selling anything, it is just recording history (this could be relevant to anyone doing a news story, for instance). Thank you. Mruizcamauer (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mruizcamauer: Thanks for coming here and talking. It's great that you're doing that. You have correctly pointed out that some articles have content issues and need correction. However before we address that, it is important that you do one thing then we can continue the conversation. Since you have acknowledged your conflict of interest as the company founder, would you agree to abide by the community practices for editors with a conflict? There is a way for you to suggest changes for others to review in our model, but best practice involves you allowing other editors to consider those changes, and to apply them or not, in a dispassionate way. Details here. - Brianhe (talk) 21:29, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


    Would this be what I need to put at the top of the page to disclose the "COI" properly? If so, can I add the missing content again? (sorry, I'm a newbie in this) {{Connected contributor|User1=mruizcamauer |U1-declared=yes| |U1-otherlinks=Founder of Kikai Labs}} Mruizcamauer (talk) 22:40, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes to question one. As for question 2, you should discuss the problems on the talk page with editors, and not directly edit the article. You should not add content without editor consensus, because you should not be editing the article. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 18:35, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I added no wiki to the template to prevent COIN from being added to Category "Connected contributors". --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:40, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Pali Road

    Hello. I'm not sure if this applies, and I don't know exactly how to initiate conversation if it does, so please forgive me if I'm out of my lane. A large number of edits to this article, which is about a film, seem to be made by the film's director, who is registered but whose user page hasn't been created. If this user is the director, is this a conflict of interest (is a creative work a "company?"), and if it is a COI, should I create the user page and seek clarification? Mitchell k dwyer (talk) 03:41, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Mitchell k dwyer: Thank you for posting this. This is surely a COI, assuming of course that the user account belongs to the director. The user in question has also been uploading images whose copyright status will need to be verified. I have tried to initiate a conversation on the talk page. Let's wait for a reply. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    And thanks for your example in how to deal with this situation. I'm filing it away for reference and will keep an eye on the discussion. <3 Mitchell k dwyer (talk) 02:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Cloudnine Hospitals

    Article is target of suspected advocacy editing ("[the founder's] resilience and perseverance saw his brain child grow and expand into a country famous, super-specialty chain of hospitals") with usual dubious awards section, etc. I did some cleanup in January, now it looks like an anonymous editor is back on it. Brianhe (talk) 13:30, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology

    *Promotional and copyvio text removed from article. Page watchlisted --Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:50, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    The editor who created Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) has admitted on the article talk page to be a PR employee of the organization. This person keeps adding promotional and problematic material, including, in some cases, copyrighted material. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:27, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Added the article and the user above. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:40, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Diff admitting that they are from the KRICT PR team. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:45, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've cleaned up the article and tagged for revision deletion. A certain section was blatantly copied from the official website. The user seems to have been warned previously and has not replied on the user talk page. Nevertheless, I have left another message. Let's see if the user replies this time. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:40, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Diannaa has indef'd the user for repeated copyright violations. --Drm310 (talk) 05:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, thank you. I've watchlisted the page and will keep monitoring it. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:16, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Closing this. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:48, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    The Cavendish School, Camden

    article draftified; editor very reasonable, complying with PAID and COI Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    User is creating a page whose name shares their username. Jodamaster (talk) 08:13, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Is that bad? I can change my username if that would help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thecavendishschool (talk • contribs) 08:19, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Thecavendishschool; your username violates our username policy. I will leave a note on your talk page about that, which will have a link to fix that. In addition, you need to follow the WP:PAID policy, and please also follow the WP:COI guideline. I leave you a note on your talk page about that too! (But short story is, especially after you change your account name, you need to disclose your connection to the school (I assume you are an employee?) and now that the article exists, you should offer changes on the Talk page for peer review, instead of making them directly; that way the integrity of Wikipedia is protected from the conflict of interest. Jytdog (talk) 08:37, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Note - they changed their username and consented to draftifying it, so of course they can work on it there. Almost done working through COI management with them... Jytdog (talk) 12:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Brian Watson (entrepreneur)

    This article was just created by a new account and has all signs of a paid job: the new account made a number of inconsequential edits to a bunch of random articles and then created this article in just 5 edits. It has a grand total of 24 (!) references, but a quick check shows that it's the usual: either very minor coverage, unreliable sources, or really absolutely trivial stuff ([http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2014/09/02/denver-business-journal-names-2014-power-book.html?page=all "In September 2014, Watson was included in the list of Denver Business Journal Power Book finalists"). I have currently no time to look into this in more detail, perhaps somebody here can have a look and see whether I am just being paranoid... Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 16:06, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Your paranoia seems justified. Note how they mention Shawn McNulty (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) in their edit summaries of that draft - that was created by Happywriter101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who has a very similar editing pattern. Probably worth an SPI. SmartSE (talk) 17:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree, this one needs an SPI. I get a feeling that there could be paid editing involved. The edit summaries are highly unusual. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I managed to shave off 2100 bytes of puffery using my patented puffTrim™ human algorithm. COI aside, definitely notable.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I spotted this one on Upwork, and yes, it was a paid editing job, by an editor blocked some time ago for running a large paid-editing sock farm. - Bilby (talk) 02:42, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bilby: Are you allowed to say which sockfarm? - Brianhe (talk) 09:41, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I should have said that. It is User:Mamadoutadioukone. I've blocked Iamhuman9925. The Happywriter101 account is also interesting - Shawn McNulty was in all likelihood a paid editing job as well, as it was advertised on Elance before it was taken over by Upwork. So it seems very likely that Happywriter101 is connected. - Bilby (talk) 09:54, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Interesting. Has it been noted before that the master kept a "portfolio" in his sandbox [19]? Also de.wiki [20] and fr.wiki [21] with a different username. Neither appears to be blocked. The sandbox stuff leads me to IronFX and User:Andrew Condie who is blocked but there seems to be a team at work there. I'm sure there's more if we go looking. - Brianhe (talk) 10:20, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    More accounts likely involved in sockfarm, via interwiki connections:
    These all created/expanded IronFX on the es.wiki and interesting stuff on en.wiki. - I can't see deleted articles, but an admin might find more connections at Crossinvest (Asia). - Brianhe (talk) 10:31, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for that - I'll follow it up. IronFX is an interesting case, as it was before he was identified as running a sock farm (but was a paid job through Elance). Since Elance was taken over by Upwork a lot of the old connections are hard to make. But hopefully we can do something. - Bilby (talk) 11:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    More above. See global contribs for continuity. It's apparent we have a long-term sockfarm at play. - Brianhe (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Dan Price

    User has specifically and only edited content for Dan Price and his company Gravity Payments. Most notably commending Dan Price on the company page and removing any negative (and well-cited) information from the person's page. A search of the IP address links it directly to Gravity Payments in Seattle. "GRAVITY PAYMENTS PAET-SEA-GRAVI-1 (NET-40-139-138-240-1) 40.139.138.240 - 40.139.138.247 Windstream Communications Inc WINDSTREAM (NET-40-128-0-0-1) 40.128.0.0 - 40.143.255.255" — Preceding unsigned comment added by InitiatedCall (talk • contribs) 19:12, 28 April 2016‎

    Olejjoerges

    This is really more of a request for comment at this point, than a request for action.

    Olejjoerges has admitted a COI, but doesn't seem to have disclosed anywhere what that COI is. To their credit, they are trying to do right by WP and are getting a bit spammy with edit requests on a shot gun blast of people who have been a part of the Red Bull Music Academy, rather than doing the edits themselves.

    Still, the overall effect seems to be more promotional than encyclopedic, pasting Red Bull and links to the RBMA in lot of articles for its own sake. Doesn't quite feel in line with the spirit of COI requests. Moreso, each edit request taken independently seems fine, but taken as a whole seems somewhat less so. TimothyJosephWood 22:35, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I counted seventeen (17!) edit comments on their contribs page that read "Requesting edit: Participation in the Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne 2006". Pure advertising efforts. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 00:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I found this user yesterday when I was going through the requested edits list (on the top right). Although the user has implied a COI and thankfully just requested an edit, the edits still count as promotional. Personally, I would decline all these edit requests unless there are reliable secondary citations discussing the artist's participation in the RMBA. I'm curious to hear what others think about this though. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 01:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I've implemented a couple of these, before realising their somewhat spammy nature. I would be happier implementing them if the details of the COI was declared. That said, I don't think the edits are necessarily bad, as many of the articles they are on are somewhat stubbish in nature, so adding more content wouldn't go amiss. WP:N only applies to articles, not content therein, and I don't consider [22] to be an unreliable source. The question really is if it would be giving undue weight to Red Bull Music Academy, which I personally think it wouldn't. To clarify, my personal opinion is that these REs are mostly harmless, but I will stop implementing them until we have a clear consensus here. —  crh 23  (Talk) 17:01, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd ignore them on the basis that Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion. Also from that page: Those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so. The requested edits are clearly using Wikipedia as a means of promotion for a product.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 17:06, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Based this discussion, there is no consensus to implement the edits requested. I have therefore declined all the remaining open edit requests by Olejjoerges. Altamel (talk) 04:59, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Richard Sokoloski

    User has admitted on my talk page that they are an RA to this professor, representing an obvious COI issue. Jodamaster (talk) 23:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Natalia Toreeva

    I accepted this AfC submission but the article still needs in serious copyediting. I do not have an impression that the edits of the subject of the article improve the text, but of course I am not a native English speaker (neither is she).Ymblanter (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I would appreciate assistance in explaining to the user that she must stop editing the article. --Ymblanter (talk) 19:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll try opening a dialogue on the talk page. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 00:02, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I had a go at trimming this page down. It was a perfect example of why people should not edit their own Wikipedia pages. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    A;lso, Ymblanter, you need to notify her on her talk page that there is a discussion here, with {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~..... HappyValleyEditor (talk) 03:40, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, will notify her now.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks both of you, let us see how the situation will develop.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:18, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    she was back on the page today adding invented references (ref title for exhibtion attached to general web site ref).HappyValleyEditor (talk) 17:03, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello Lemongirl942, I did not add anything, I deleted [ ] around O. Sidlin, and it was missing the Reference from the text, so I included this Ref to the text. But now you deleted it. Someone of you deleted almost all the text/pictures, sections/references and now I got the missing of Notability message, asking to add the References. How I can do it if you are laughing at me, and I'm not permitted to do any editing? I need help to fix the problem. I did not expect too much stress from how the editors handle it. Please help with the article problem. Should some material be restored/rephrased, etc? Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 17:26, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Toreeva: Hi Toreeva. Sorry, I didn't have time to look at this before. I just read your response [23] on your talk page. Thank you for responding. First let me say that I empathise with your desire to tell the world about soviet non-conformist art. I understand that certain aspects of history have been documented less often than they should have and it is necessary to document it before it slips away. I appreciate that you are trying to tell the world about it.
    Now let me talk a bit about a very important concept of Wikipedia - verifiability. Any article in Wikipedia needs to include citations. You can think of Wikipedia like a peer-reviewed journal - anything added needs references. Now these references need to be reliable and independent. News reports, articles in scholarly journals, books etc. are considered reliable references. However personal websites/blogs are not considered reliable (as there may not be an editorial process). It is also preferable that these references are independent. Any information added to Wikipedia needs to be supported by reliable sources.
    I have seen that some of the content you have added has been removed. This is possible because of 3 reasons - 1. There are no references for the text 2. The reference may not exactly talk about the subject. 3. The reference is either not independent or not considered reliable. (References to blogs and personal websites, where anyone can submit content are not considered reliable).
    I would also like to add something. It is not necessary that references have to be in English. If you have references in Russian, it is OK as well. In this case (about Soviet art), I feel there might be more Russian references than English references.
    The last point is, Wikipedia discourages people from directly editing the article about themselves/any related people/organisations. This is something we try to follow. So I would appreciate if you do not edit it directly. However, you can always suggest edits to the article and someone else can edit it. This is done by going to the talk page Talk:Natalia_Toreeva, clicking on the link "request corrections or suggest content" (on the top) and telling us what you want to be added.
    Thank you! I hope I have answered some of your queries. Please post here if you need any more help. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:04, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello Lemongirl942 and thanks for your response. You included Ref only for the exhibitions, but about Museums and Publishing was all deleted. I did not use any blogs, so all ref. were reliable and can be used as you feel more appropriate to use. But delete all? I did not have before question of Notability, only promotional tendency but since all material was deleted now I got notability. Someone from Teahouse told that since I was an artist and emigrated from USSR, it is automatically should be in Notability category. Now, it is problem since, I think, it was all deleted that I emigrated from USSR. I understand the text needed to be edited but delete everything I don't understand the goal. Please check all my references in Museums and Publishing, what you think it is appropriate, I would incl. back. But in the format of 1 line I don;t think it is enough for the article. Please help me with the article to be appropriate to be accepted. Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 18:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Toreeva: Ah, I'll explain that as well. Let me take this discussion to your talk page since I guess the COI thing has been sorted for the moment. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:35, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello again, Lemongirl942, sorry I'm writing from our library since my computer does not work. I just want to add the following: When I started article I looked other's artists articles whom I know from St. Petersburg to follow the structure. I don't want to show the wrong things, I'm happy for them that they are included in wiki, but look at their articles, for example, Alek Rapoport, Anatoly Belkin, Alexander Ney, Vladimir Lisunov, etc. They have their Sections as Early life, Careers, Exhibitions, Museums, and almost no References. If the reference, it is only ref. to Museum itself, but no artist's name there. It is because, the Museums don't list the artists in their collections. So you should not delete the Museums where the artwork in their collection, since no reference is there. They put names of the Museums only. And if they put the books, it does not show their names there. I can included the ISBN in the books I mentioned if you want. I don't understand why someone deleted Museums and Publications sections with the reasonable list of References, but comparing with other artists Articles, these sections should not be deleted. As I see that for the Articles for the artists, probably who understand the art and specifically the Russian/Soviet art 1970s-1980s, would understand that you can't find any record/references of the artists of that time (before falling of Soviet Union), but it does not mean that those artists were not notable. So, it should not be deleted the sections of their activities at that time as the artists. Same with the Education. Only art schools are mentioned, so the Education section also should not be deleted. I asked to correct grammar, sentences structure, but delete all material? And now it is 'notability' problem, how I can prove notability if all participation in Museums, and publishing were deleted? Probably to the artist's article, it should be some specific approach. And why Filmography was deleted? Is it part of the Career in USSR? Does someone checked why the pictures were also deleted? The copyright numbers sent to the wiki review, should not have the problem. Then, why they were deleted? Hope you would look again to the article and correct it in the way it would not have a problem. Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 20:15, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, Lemongirl942, You can check: 1) www.artdialogues.narod.ru/1997 for "Dialogues: Biennial of Contemporary art. Central Exhibition Hall "Manege", 1997, where 3d Dialoques exh was presented. 2) artunion.ru/painters/e2-17-1.htm, where Natalia Toreeva is registered in the Register of Professional Artists of Russia Empire, Russian emigration, etc. 3) best.artunion.ru/be2-20.htm or best.artunion.ru/best_engl.htm, then click on 'T' or http://www.10000best.com/be2-20.htm 4) http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2182510/ The book "Twenty Thousand Faces of Pasternak" is there. 5) http://encspb.ru/object/2855704621?lc=ru "School of Sidlin" and its members of this art group included in St. Petersburg Encyclopedia (in Russian), but you can go to their web and click on "Translate this page". All these references could be valuable from wiki point of view. Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 22:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Toreeva: Thank you. I will verify the links you provided in a while. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 00:48, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks, Lemongirl942. Also, in the Ref #6 the word "smena" is in red. "Smena" is the Russian on-line newspaper. I did not see this article before, very good info. But Red color probably meaning that the word "smena" is in [ ], so please check it, and if indeed it is the problem, just delete [ ] around "smena". Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 01:29, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello Ymblanter, I submitted my Article to you seeking the editor's and grammar help, but instead you put my article to conflict section, and someone deleted almost everything. I don't teach wiki what to do, but it looks someone needs to have more experience in art, since in the artists articles, you don't have the references in museums, since they don't have an official web to list all the artists in their collection. So, museums references, as I see in another artists articles, don't have the references, and should not be deleted. I value your opinion to stop working on improvement my article. Thank you.Toreeva (talk) 15:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello Lemongirl942, I understand that everyone is busy, but what is the next step? Does someone working to improve the article, or can I make the input for the references I mentioned above? Waiting for your response. Thanks.Toreeva (talk) 00:17, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Humanity protecting party

    The user created an article, Humanity Protecting Party Sri Lanka, an article on a Sri Lankan political party, which I tagged for speedy. He went on and created Humanity protecting party, a recreation of the first article, and messaged me on my talk page at User_talk:Optakeover#speedy_deletion_of_humanity_protecting_party saying he is the general secretary of the party, and requesting that the article not be speedily deleted. I am making this report as this is the first time I'm dealing with what I see as a COI issue, with a user directly associated with an organisation creating and editing an article of his/her organisation. Request for comment and/or action, thank you. Optakeover(U)(T)(C) 14:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Editor Dumindu111222 has already been blocked for making legal threats (here [24]). I suggest everyone to keep a look out for page recreation/socking activity. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Boy, that escalated quickly. Optakeover(U)(T)(C) 15:07, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Ogilvy CommonHealth Asia Pacific / Rohit Sahgal

    There is probably some kind of COI editing (and sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry) going on with the intention to promote Ogilvy CommonHealth Asia Pacific / Rohit Sahgal. Today I found a redirect (titled "Rohit Sahgal") and tagged it for Speedy Deletion [25] as it seemed an unlikely typo for "Sehgal". This was originally created by Majulah1965. My speedy tag was removed [26] by Hendrick 99 with the edit summary (This is a useful redirect.<ref>[http://www.wpp.com/wpp/press/2011/nov/08/awardwinning-rohit-sahgal-named-apac-regional-director/]</ref>). A couple of minutes later, the IP added this. I noticed that both the user accounts were previously heavily involved in discussions at an AfD about the company. I am reasonably certain that COI editing (along with sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry) is taking place. Can someone else have a look and confirm? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Lemongirl942: FYI. I don't think you were here when Ogilvy came up last time: Archive 89 and before that, Archive 87. – Brianhe (talk) 12:45, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, thanks for the pointer Brianhe. This [27] is weird. Why are there two different groups both trying to edit the Ogilvy article? One from Washington DC and another from Singapore? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, they (Ogilvy) have a Singapore office and a DC office. When this came up before it appeared that someone in Singa was acting kind of on their own, at least that was my conclusion and what an Ogilvy rep stated (see archive 87). Brianhe (talk) 22:00, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Jon Lindquist

    Something fishy going on with the above accounts. The two pages mentioned are connected, as, I believe, are the editors. Looking at the references used in one of the pages, I was able to establish that ahasalone probably has a strong conflict and is behind the engineering/creation of references that support the notability for these page. USer aliciadewi only leaves the edit comment "Improved article and references" or "improved article", regardless of what was done. Strange. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 15:51, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Agreed, a COI is probable in this case. I looked over the edit logs, the "Improved article" is suspicious. User:ahasalone definitely has a COI. User:aliciadewi might work in an advertising company, due to not just making COI edits on one page or related pages. I left a message on User:aliciadewi's page about her edit summaries. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 18:37, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Randykitty and Drmies:: an admin might want to take a close look at user ahasalone and the first reference on the The Honorifics for an apparent very active and deceptive COI.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    All you have to look at is the band members. It's really easy when COI editors use their real names or some approximation of it. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 19:46, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It's worse than that if you look closely! HappyValleyEditor (talk) 21:08, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Drmies: Bearing in mind that the data in TejaswaChaudhary is somewhat old, the two accounts are Red X Unrelated.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    KLAV added to page list.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 22:16, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, company promotion, want to make money, bogus-looking products. I found it, User:HappyValleyEditor. I also don't think the accounts are related, but that article should be deleted as fast as possible. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 00:33, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Buhram

    Given the breadth of the topics and the persistent addition of advertorial content despite multipe AfC declines suggests paid COI that ought to be cleaned up. —SpacemanSpiff 12:55, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Added GraceSophie09 who is clearly trying to promote The Location Group and had tried to create Marc-Christian Riebe at AfC. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:06, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've blocked Buhram for an undisclosed COI, since it looks to be a WP:DUCK situation. I'll look at GraceSophie next. I'm debating endorsing a SPI for socks, given that Jeffreystance1 edited the AfD for Noah Miller and his edits solely revolved around that person. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:02, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I found some off-wiki evidence which confirms that this was a paid COI. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    West Los Angeles VA Medical Center et al

    VA IP's:

    something else

    I noticed the very tidy and professional-sounding page for the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center in the new pages feed. Page created by Katomin, who interestingly has an edit on his/her user page for "PM&R Mnemonics" by 152.132.10.197. In whois, 152.132.10.197 and the similar Ip's above resolve to the "Department of Veterans Affairs" near Pasadena California. 152.132.10.197 has done 28 edits to the UCLA/VA Multicampus PM&R Residency Program since 2007. There are other potentially connected pages in the histories. Given the promotional edits to the pages of certain doctors and the rsidency program, I thought this was the work of bored medical students at first, but the network of edits to VA-related hospitals might be a more professional effort. I asked Katomin about potential conflicts but no answer as of yet. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 18:09, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    these SoCal med schools are really really self-promotional. for pete's sake. Jytdog (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    added 2nd user above. Jytdog (talk) 23:39, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Finasteride

    If you look at Doors22's contribs you will see they are a WP:SPA for articles related to this drug and its side effects; this has been going on a long time and there have been many content disputes, in which I have been involved. I actually brought a long-term POV pushing case at ANI here, exactly a year ago, that drifted off into the archive because the case I brought was tldr and it got derailed.

    On the Talk page of the article, Doors22 recently mentioned litigation against Merck and here mentioned being affected by the side effects and mentioned that they at least read PropeciaHelp (a support forum which has right in the middle of its menu, information on class action lawsuits) (The site is here: propeciahelp.com - I cannot link to it as it is blacklisted)

    Involvement in that litigation would constitute a COI, and when I asked Doors22 if they were involved in the litigation, they said they would not answer in this discussion on my Talk page.

    The COI is pretty clear; the advocacy is very clear. I am looking for the community to advise Doors22 that he has a COI and that he should declare that, and should stop directly editing the article. I am not looking to "win" by eliminating the competition through COI, what I want is that the disruption stops and I will agree to walk away from the article if Doors22 will follow the COI guideline.

    This has become personalized and tangled up in content disputes which is never good, so I will not write here further unless asked to reply to something. Jytdog (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I and many others have been the subject of Jytdog's WP:Harassment and Wikibullying over the years. The very fact that he refers to me as "competition" is strong evidence of such. He also references that this is a personal matter for him. His bad behavior has gone so far that he has been banned from editing GMO articles due to his battleground mentality and he came close to a full site-ban.
    In the past, he opened a NPOV case against me and threatened to take me to arbcom but it was initially closed. He proceeded to re-open it and it was ignored. Now he is trying to bring a conflict of interest case against me in this forum. His "proof" of a COI is that I mentioned litigation and admitted to visiting a website that briefly references the litigation. Ironically, he is now guilty of the same accusation. I did reference that there are 1,400 cases filed for a cosmetic drug causing permanent side effects in order to debunk Jytdog's claim that we are talking about a "sliver of a sliver" of people. I looked this information up in Merck's most recent annual report which you can find here: http://s21.q4cdn.com/755037021/files/doc_financials/annualReports/2015/MRK_2015_Form_10-K_FINAL_r879.pdf
    Jytdog has abandoned his duty to assume good faith about other editors. I believe he has taken this action against me in order to deflect from his own bad behavior - I believe I effectively demonstrated he misrepresented a medical source in order to make a claim that was not what the original article intended.Doors22 (talk) 15:35, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    If you believe Jytdog's behaviour is problematic take it to WP:AIN. It is off-topic here. Now: could you please answer about your involvement in litigation around Finasteride? Alexbrn (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, Alexbrn has been closely affiliated with Jytdog for quite some time and they both have tag teamed my edits. Here is a good example of it from the GMO arbcom case. [28] Doors22 (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Doors22: If you like, my editing does not intersect with jytdog's on medical topics, but it does intersect at COI. Please answer the question. This is the COI Noticeboard and the concerns are about you, not him. - Brianhe (talk) 16:41, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Brianhe:, I do appreciate your willingness to help moderate this dispute. As far as I can tell, Jytdog has not provided any proof of a COI and has no standing to bring this investigation. I disclosed a long time ago that unfortunately I got permanent sexual side effects from taking Propecia, a hair loss drug, and my goal is to keep the Propecia article up-to-date with the latest medical research about the drug's risks. For years, Jytdog has tried to intimidate me by bringing several failed cases against me. If he is able to show proof that I have a COI that is a different story, but I prefer not to legitimize his unsupported accusation with a response.Doors22 (talk) 17:43, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It is of course absurd to demand that "proof" be produced against an anonymous editor, as that is impossible without knowing your identity. You have not answered the question about your involvement with Finasteride litigation. I think at this point it is more than reasonable to assume you have a hidden COI, and are here to promote your interests. You must therefore abide by the requirements set out at WP:COI and if you don't it will be necessary to have you sanctioned. Alexbrn (talk) 19:00, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    What's absurd is that your accusations are entirely unsupported by any evidence other than you "think its true". I have disclosed my medical history in good faith, which is much more personal than anybody should have to do, and disclosed my reason for editing wikipedia. Although I don't believe the same holds for you, I have made it a clear point to uphold NPOV in spite of my very clear personal experience with the drug. This is supported by the failure of Jytdog' relentless efforts to prove otherwise. I do recognize the medical literature can lag the general body of scientific knowledge by several years and Wikipedia is conservative in its approach. But your influence in the article seriously lags the medical literature by several years.Doors22 (talk) 20:58, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Your medical history constitutes a COI. You were harmed by a product and now you are here to tilt content related to that product. If a person had harmed you, it'd be more obvious that you shouldn't be writing about them. The fact that it is a pill that harmed you and not, say, another human being, does not change the nature of your COI towards it. You're still under that policy. Geogene (talk) 21:37, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Geogene:, thanks for your feedback. As a token of good faith, this was disclosed as soon as I started editing Wikipedia in 2011 and while I do agree with you that it could certainly affect someone's editing, I would call attention to WP:COINOTBIAS. Even though I have suffered terribly from the hidden risks of this drug, I still make an effort to maintain the integrity of the encyclopedia and uphold NPOV. I also am not interested in that I am not personally impacted by what is on Wikipedia, unfortunately I have already suffered losses. As a separate note, hypothetical plaintiffs don't really have a reason to influence wikipedia because jurors are expressly forbidden from researching cases outside of court.Doors22 (talk) 22:24, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Doors22: (Disclosure:I do not have any particular interest or specialised knowledge about medical science. I have also not edited any medicine related articles. My evaluation of this is purely based on policies/guidelines.) From what I understand, you seem to have suffered from this drug and you want to mention (in the article) that there are hidden risks of this drug. The problem here is that Wikipedia is not a place to right great wrongs. Unless a study concludes that there are hidden risks of this drug (and this is validated by a majority of the medical community), it would be improper to mention that the drug does cause a particular side effect. I personally think this edit is fine. It doesn't try to hide the fact that there may be side effects, but at the same time states that according to current studies, it is "unclear" if the drug has side effects. This satisfies WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT in my opinion. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:46, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Lemongirl1942:, thanks for your input. I recognize that Wikipedia is not a forum to right great wrongs and that is not what I'm attempting to do. As I have mentioned, I want the most up-to-date secondary sources to be given proper weight on the finasteride article. My concern is that it is dismissive to say it is "unclear" when there are more than 51 separate scientists who have published articles in the medical literature on this topic. I think a more thorough summary of the medical literature is warranted. It is a topic that has received a lot of press over the years, especially because it is a potentially dangerous consumer product and not a medication. Why don't we just present all the current facts and let the consumer draw conclusions for himself, rather than concluding for them that it is "unclear"? Jytdog and his coalition have been intensely obstructionist and tend to help each other out on a wide variety of different articles. On numerous occasions, he's tried to get me banned from Wikipedia unsuccessfully, and this is just his latest unsupported effort. Doors22 (talk) 04:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Doors22, anyone involved in litigation against the manufacturer has a conflict of interest; see WP:COILEGAL. If someone were suing you, you wouldn't want him to edit a Wikipedia article about you in case he were to do so in a direction that furthered his case. Given your close interest in the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation, and that editing in this area is almost the only thing you do on Wikipedia, it's reasonable to assume that you may be involved in one of the lawsuits. Therefore, I think it's important that you tell us you're not.
    Having a COI wouldn't mean you couldn't contribute in any way to that article. You would be expected to avoid direct article editing, but you could still make edit requests on the talk page. SarahSV (talk) 04:10, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    SlimVirgin, thanks for your input. I don't feel comfortable disclosing whether or not I am involved in litigation because it further narrows the population and I want to preserve my anonymity. Even saying I am not party to litigation makes me much more identifiable. If I were the drug manufacturer, I wouldn't want anybody to edit a page on Propecia because the article is somewhat out of their control. However, I have always thought JYTdog was somehow professionally involved in managing PR for products and businesses on Wikipedia based on his aggressive, biased and intense editing history. If you take a look at his most recent edits on the Propecia talk page, I simply can't believe that he honestly believes the arguments he is making. Despite the FDA suggesting not to use of ambiguous words like "rare" and "frequently", he is protesting to protect this misleading but pro-business language in the article. This is just the latest example of his NPOV editing style.
    JYTDog said he would leave the page if I agreed to stop editing directly. Dealing with him has been a huge use of my time and I would prefer to improve this process. If only JYTDog goes away, the problem will not stop because he has several allies that will step up on his behalf. Is there any way we can find a 3rd party moderator who would be willing to objectively steward the page? If somebody who truly cares about the quality of Wikipedia but has not previously edited the page would be willing to step up, this whole problem would be solved. At that point, I'd be willing to agree to stick to editing the talk page only. Thanks. Doors22 (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    As Doors22 is claiming they are a victim of this treatment, that is a clear COI without even getting into what appears to be likely involvement in litigation on the matter. Not being involved in the topic, I don't know much more for details, but even not being directly involved in litigation could likely still be considered a COI if it's a class action lawsuit. As others have mentioned, Doors will have to realize that they should no longer be directly editing articles, and they will need to realize that if an idea of theirs isn't getting traction, they will need to drop the WP:STICK.

    I'm seeing quite a bit of battleground behavior here with the it's not me it's them attitude while still not acknowledging this pretty straightforward COI. I think it's fair to say that a topic ban will be likely if such battleground behavior continues while also having a COI. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:46, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Having used and been harmed by Propecia is not an inherent COI, however I felt it was the right thing to disclose so I did. I don't personally benefit or get harmed by the state of this article, which is the definition of a COI. You are right there is a lot of battleground behavior here, but its truthfully is JYTdog. JYTdog has been banned for uncivil, battleground behavior and warned many times. He has friends that are helping him here that are contributing. It is not clear how close he actually is to them as they collaborate across many random articles. I think there is good reason to believe that he "actually" is conflicted because he has a very long history of making pro-business edits where he will remove criticisms and blemishes, especially in the pharma space. His arguments are at times seemingly disingenuous and he claims to have a full time job but literally posts 500 edits a day all throughout what would be his work day. It is crazy to think they are one in the same? Anyway, there has been major gridlock here and it is too painful to make any incremental change to this article so hopefully we can find an arrangement that fixes this whole problem.Doors22 (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Doors22, I agree that having had a good or bad experience with a drug does not in itself create a COI, though it may lead to advocacy. But the reality is that the editors on that page see you as a conflicted SPA, so your edits are unlikely to be accepted. See the recent reverts as an example.
    Please consider suggesting edits using {{edit request}}—say which sentence you want to change or add, supply the source, and quote the part of the source that supports your edit. It will be faster to do that to go through all this arguing. If, after doing that, you feel you're not getting a fair shake, you can go to the RSN or NPOVN to request other views. SarahSV (talk) 04:00, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I just want to note here that along with making claims about me, Doors22 is claiming here that User:Doc James and User:Zad68, two admins and longstanding WP:MED editors, are shills for the pharmaceutical industry. I don't know about others but in my view that is a level of personal attack that is not OK here. It is sadly typical of advocates to depict mainstream editors as being part of a conspiracy that is doing the bidding of Big Money. Those claims are repeated also at SV's Talk page here. I encourage admins to put a stop to this. Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that isn't true. I didn't specifically mention editors by name and in fact User:Doc James has been very helpful and objective in the past. I don't have much of an opinion of User:Zad68 at this point, but others including but not limited to AlexBRN and Formerly98 (now banned) have been very closely aligned with you in the past and caused problems. I'd just like to point out you are clearly not behaving in good faith when you put words in my mouth. I didn't attack you and call you a "shill", but I do think your editing behavior indicates you may have professional ties with industry. Otherwise, I am having difficulty explaining your erratic behavior across many different articles. Also, I privately posted that message to SlimVirgin's talk page and while it is obviously available for anybody to see, you wouldn't have come across it until you were stalking my or her edits. It's just an example of your aggressive nature that obstructs productive discussion around here.

    Doors22 (talk) 22:24, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    It is exactly true. No one from WP:MED has agreed with the content you want nor your efforts to bring an interview in as a MEDRS source. My editing is consistent and in good faith, and your accusations are not supported by diffs and and are not supportable with diffs. They are just personal attacks with no basis, and nothing more. The personal attacks are making your situation worse, not better. Jytdog (talk) 22:30, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Doors22, re: the note on my talk, it's better to keep things in one place and to stick to dealing with your own issue. I'm going to make a suggestion on talk that might move the most recent dispute along. SarahSV (talk) 22:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    SarahSV I am going to say this to you directly. While telling Doors "it is better.. stick to dealing with your own issue" is great, that is not really sufficient. We have been through this before, where editors wrote this kind of crap about me on your Talk page and you did not stop it, and allowed it to continue. I am not putting up with it this time. If you are not going to stop Doors from making these attacks, clearly, then you are actually allying yourself with him. So what will it be? Jytdog (talk) 22:33, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Having looked at the page again, what I was going to suggest is already in the article, so cancel the above. SarahSV (talk) 22:34, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes Doors' position on the content is completely unreasonable and he is pushing it to unreasonable lengths this time, for some reason. I did not bring this behavioral issue now for nothing. Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Jytdog, I'm not sure what you expect me to do. I can see that he's accusing you of COI; I can't see where he's accusing James and Zad.
    Doors22, if you want to discuss any other COI allegation, please open a separate report, but make sure you have evidence, not just innuendo. If you don't have evidence, please don't mention it again. As for this report, I think you do need to stick to the talk page and {{edit request}}, and you may find that things move faster if do that. SarahSV (talk) 22:44, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue is larger than just the current state of the article. New information and articles come out frequently but JYTDog meets each and every new piece of information with aggressive resistance. The article is currently in OK, but not great shape. My concern is more about the amount of aggression that JYTDog exerts when trying to get his way. It is very clear WP:Battleground behavior and he has been banned for this elsewhere. I also don't need to say this a second time, but I have found Doc_James to be helpful and have not interacted much with Zad68. He's clearly trying to pull these two admins into the conflict when they haven't been mentioned before. One example of his POV pushing is his magnification of the word "rare" despite other 3rd party editors disagreeing with him and his denial that "rare" is a weasel word. His constant editing throughout all work hours indicates to me that editing Wikipedia is his full time job. Otherwise maybe he is a whiz at his day time job or else he is shirking his responsibilities to edit Wikipedia. If problems continue, I'll solicit your feedback at a future date but thank you SlimVirgin for your input. Doors22 (talk) 22:51, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Creation Infoways Pvt Ltd

    A few of the accounts involved:

    Dormant accounts involved:

    This is only the tip of the iceberg, there are more accounts involved that I haven't touched yet. I filed this SPI -- Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Satya satapathy but the main account doesn't appear to be technically linked to the rest. However, from the draft article and stuff it looks like the main account is the boss of the company. There are also many other articles that I haven't yet come across (I've deleted a few G11) and the account linkage to other accounts needs investigation to get there. —SpacemanSpiff 17:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    • They have locations in multiple continents, so reps in all those locations; individual SPIs have to be filed. Also, the website has links of clients, my eyes hurt now, hopefully someone else can go through the next round of checking for now. —SpacemanSpiff 17:58, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added a few more accounts that haven't been linked by the SPI yet. Per this from Brianhe we are looking at a large sophisticated operation, at least two of the above pages are self claimed to be clients on their website and they do offer Wikipedia promotion and monitoring services, have offices in the US, UK, Europe, South Korea, and India (so multiple locations for SPIs). I'm not entirely sure, but it looks to me like Just Eat might be linked to this and I'm also left wondering if this SPI isn't connected. —SpacemanSpiff 03:11, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I looked at most of the accounts above, and they all seem to have done a large number of speedy delete tagging and AfDs. I didn't see a pattern to it, and it appears that many of the articles they put up for delete deserved that. Any theories on this? It doesn't seem to me to meet the usual COI pattern. LaMona (talk) 04:28, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia page creation/monitoring services and per Draft:Satya Narayan Satapathy the lead account in this appears to be their founder director. I will block the non SPI linked accounts for TOS violation if they don't respond soon. As I noted on the SPI, this is one of the most absurd editing patterns I've tracked and I had asked for some leeway from the CU/clerk on the evidence, I was proved right though. There's groups in multiple geolocations working on this, so SPI linkage will be a bit difficult. It's clear though that they have been going at this undetected for a few years now, and there's likely a boatload of articles and accounts involved. As for the deletions, I think they are tagging articles of possible clients, then they will push their story out with the promise of longstanding Wikipedia articles. —SpacemanSpiff 04:35, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding the freelancer bids, we've seen the names Hilumeoka2000 (renamed to Boskit190; see Archive 89) and arifhasan23 before, too. The latter is part of another sockfarm that I turned up about a year ago. Brianhe (talk) 10:17, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Surprise surprise, the other bidder Human387 created/recreated articles for variants on the name Creation Infoways. - Brianhe (talk) 11:33, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Woah, Hilumeoka2000 is still active and it seems he is still accepting jobs. I suspect he has simply created a new account on Wikipedia. It's funny that I noticed Hilumeoka2000 while searching for Buhram (another paid editor, see case above). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 00:57, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    And I thought Buhram was linked to an earlier farm, these connections seem endless but I guess it's mostly just multiple groups bidding for the same contract and one taking over when the other fails. —SpacemanSpiff 02:24, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @SpacemanSpiff: Is there enough here to block Hilumeoka2000 Boskit190 at least? The evidence is pretty clear cut that he's not "retired" as his userpage states. - Brianhe (talk) 13:20, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Local Politician Shaping Views Using Wikipedia: Conflict Of Interest

    Closing this. This went sideways from the beginning with a false OUTING scare, overreaction from the subject which is now the subject of an ANI case here, and then a failed, overly dramatic posting of unconvincing evidence by the OP, who in turn has overreacted to the negative reception they received, which is now subject to a separate thread at AN here. More experienced editors who work on COI matters can look into the issue and bring a new case if they find one. Closing to stop the cycle of escalating drama. As this is a non-admin close, I am open to self-reverting it. Alansohn is advised to disclose their relevant external interest on their Userpage and avoid directly editing content where their COI is relevant, and instead offer proposals on the Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 19:07, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Seconded--v/r - TP 20:09, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Sorry to be so bold as to delete another person's post, but this is very serious. This edit needs to be blocked out. Whatever your feelings towards Alansohn, NO ONE should have their real identity "outed" on Wikipedia. This can be dealt with via email. Can an admin please remove this? This is serious. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:20, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Some - any - evidence of problematic COI postings from the user would be handy, without which, there's really nothing to see here, Wasickta. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:52, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Hey User:Tagishsimon, it took me about two minutes to confirm this is true. "Outing" someone's identity is about as nasty as it gets. This can be dealt with by admin via email. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:20, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    You'll permit me, Magnolia677, to think the less of you - indeed, very very little of you - for suggesting that I have outed anyone. At best your post, above, is clumsy and thoughtless. Given your concerns about nastyness, I'm sure you'll now want to take the opportunity to set the record straight. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:22, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing we can really do now, since the OP was oversighted. -- The Voidwalker Discuss 00:08, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I emailed Admins my concerns. The rest is in their hands. My hope is that there will atleast be a topic ban on Alansohn for state of New Jersey. This could easily make local papers, but I am gonna let the admins deal with it. Wasickta (talk) 00:11, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Um, Magnolia677 were you aware of this (which is still very visible on the page) when you called OUTING? People call him by his full name here all the time. Jytdog (talk) 00:33, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's not just some old note that can only be found by lots of digging in page histories; it's still present at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey/Introductions. The WP:OUTING policy is clear: If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia, although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information is not considered outing. This self-disclosed information has not been redacted: it's still existing. Nyttend (talk) 00:47, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • [Redacted persistent personal attacks by Alansohn. Nyttend (talk) 04:56, 4 May 2016 (UTC)][reply]
    Alansohn seeing how none of us here - including you know what was written originally, please don't attribute motives yet and please don't react. I don't know if this is content dispute gone sideways, or if W has a legit point, or both. It is in the community now and we'll see. Jytdog (talk) 04:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Wasickta you are pretty new in Wikipedia. You have been asked to show examples of edits that concerned you with regard to a potential conflict of interest. Do you know how to show a diff? If you don't, then just say so. if you know how to show diffs, then please show some. Really. You don't have to give commentary; just provide diffs. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:36, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    What you bring tomorrow better be much, much stronger than that. First that is a very weak source - a letter to the editor; secondly, it actually says that alansohn made only one edit and didn't do anything like what the Mayor said he did. Not helpful. Like I said be sure what you bring tomorrow is better than that - diffs that reflect COI. This is not a rumor-mongering board. Jytdog (talk) 05:40, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    As an example of what Jytdog is looking for, see the investigation at the top of the page regarding edits made by users linked to FP1. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:47, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Just chiming in to point out that Patch.com is not a newspaper. It's a site that invites residents in an area to post news about their area. I don't know if there is an editor, but this looks to have been posted by the person writing it, not by an editor who received this letter. We already know it's not a great source, though, so I don't know how much that matters. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:27, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Opening Statement

    Shouldn’t being involved in politics of city and state automatically make Alan Sohn declare conflict of interest? I will include a couple of diffs, but I don’t have time to go through every single case of bias that Alan Sohn has shown.

    Definition

    Conflict of interest is defined a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization.

    "Real Estate" Taxes

    1) Examples of abuse of power by Alan Sohn including editing Wikipedia town page to use diction targeting real estate taxes(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teaneck,_New_Jersey&diff=prev&oldid=586714468). Mr Sohn ran on an agenda to cut real estate taxes( http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/town-government/council-adopts-2016-municipal-budget-1.1554081) and editing his towns Wikipedia page to use diction to produce bias in perception of town taxes.

    Targeting His Political Opponents

    2) He has edited his political opponents Wikipedia page right before the election of his own seat(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohammed_Hameeduddin&diff=450101787&oldid=450095790). This includes changing where is political opponent is from(from Teaneck to Bronx NY).
    A change that appeared to be verified by reliable sources, until you prove otherwise. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if the author is using verfiable sources, can there be a conflict of interest? If a political/corporate opponent is using verifiable sources to covertly edit the biography of rivals, that is okay based on this logic? Wasickta (talk) 17:45, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    3) Another political opponent Adam Gussen had his Wikipedia disappear right before Mr Alan Sohn took his seat. Must be a coincidence? We are unable access to record.
    I don't know who "we" is, but I do have access to it, and there's no there there. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't have the admin tools and can't do the research. I found this odd to say the least. Wasickta (talk) 17:45, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I have the tools. Alansohn never edited the Adam Gussen article, ever. A tag for a proposed deletion was posted by Onel5969 on the grounds of "Non-notable local politician as per Wikipedia:Notability guidelines" on March 11, 2014. The article was later deleted by Atama on March 19, 2014. I don't suppose you are Peegee11 are you? He/she was the editor who created the article and it was their only contribution to the project.
    For what it's worth, hundreds of articles on Wikipedia get deleted every day. I have deleted 8,862 pages and I didn't have a conflict of interest with any of them. Liz Read! Talk! 18:00, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I trust you Liz. The article deletion was probably a coincidence. I just found it weird. Wasickta (talk) 18:32, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Selective Highlighting

    4) Mr Alan Sohn is adamantly against Rezoning of a building on Teanack road(http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/town-government/rezoning-could-net-3-5m-1.1526866). He uses his influence on Wikipedia to highlight that the road is part of the county(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teaneck,_New_Jersey&diff=prev&oldid=706500304).

    Drawing Contrast

    5) Another example of abuse is when Mr Alan Sohn drew a contrast between the number of paid police department vs fire department members when it was an issue in the election he ran in. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teaneck,_New_Jersey&diff=prev&oldid=586714468. The controversy over switching to volunteer fire department being debated can be read here: (http://jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3351:teaneck-candidates-gather-at-forum&catid=150:news&Itemid=562).

    Closing Statement

    These are only three examples of abuse of Wikipedia by Alan Sohn. The fact that he is active politics in Teanack, NJ should have been enough of a conflict of interest for it to be addressed earlier. The truth is that the real shady & covert stuff he is doing probably cannot be caught by anyone here because we are experts in the affairs Teanack, NJ. I am new to Wikipedia and not an expert- but I know conflict of interest when I see it. Wasickta (talk) 14:10, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well. I don't have the time to investigate all the charges or the inclination to respond to what appear to be overblown charges. I think I'm on the record as critical of Alansohn from time to time but that's irrelevant here. I can confirm that my special admin eyes found nothing wrong whatsoever with the history of Adam Gussen (PRODded by Onel5969), and Alansohn had nothing to do with it. The edit to Mohammed Hameeduddin looks fine to me and unless I'm missing something it seems to improve the article. I also looked at their 2013 Teaneck, New Jersey edit, and see nothing wrong there. So that's items 2, 3, and 5. I'm not new to Wikipedia, and I think I can smell a smear campaign when I see one. Drmies (talk) 15:09, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    So Wikipedia official is stating that there is no conflict of interest if a politician is covertly editing articles that affect his opponents and public perception? Got it. Wasickta (talk) 15:14, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Wasickta, the evidence I looked at did not support your claims. For instance, that Alansohn was not involved in the Adam Gussen article should give you some pause to reflect on that particular charge. Simple. Drmies (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    What about the rest of the evidence? You are ignoring the overwhelming evidence presented above. Instead, you choose to pick a topic that I would not have information to because I don't have admin tools to do the research. I am assuming good faith but I am really questioning how you got your tenure for doing detective work like this. Wasickta (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, nixing three out of five isn't bad, I think--and only one of them require my special admin glasses, for which I had to bribe over 200 people, it's true. So please don't tell me you're assuming good faith, cause you're not. Drmies (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I am assuming good faith. What I am having a hard time believing is that you are an academic. Wasickta (talk) 17:28, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    You're in good company then. Drmies (talk) 17:36, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    This COI notice seems like an attempt to attack User:Alansohn, not for the actual coi, but for other behavior. It's pretty much the way Alansohn operates, attacking other editors with unfounded WP:ASPERSIONS, so maybe turnabout's fair play, to some extent. But, is the encyclopedia really harmed by an officeholder making constructive edits to his jurisdiction? I'm more concerned by his other behavior, such as being uncivil, asserting ownership, bullying, use of ethnic pejoratives etc. The community has tolerated all this, so what's a little conflict of interest between "friends"? And as far as user:Onel5969 is concerned, at the risk of further outing, there seems to be a special relationship between Onel and Alansohn, a bit of collusion going on between these related editors. Jacona (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    No JaconFrere - Drmies can clearly see that Onel5969 is also from Teaneck and grew up there(as stated on his profile page). I am sure there is no collusion at all between Onel5969 and Alansohn at all - since Drmies thinks this is all a smear campaign. How dare you insult the honor of these great men? It is clearly just a smear campaign. Maybe a local newspaper would think this was a Wikipedia scandal, but to Drmies this makes perfect sense as a smear campaign. Wasickta (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you have any actual evidence for collusion? If Onel5969 is from Teaneck, it's hardly surprising they're going to be interested in local candidates, and as a wikipedian, it's hardly surprising if they're going to PROD articles they feel aren't suitable for wikipedia. Even in the unlikely event Onel5969 was colluding with someone, why don't you think it was some other rival? Nil Einne (talk) 16:21, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    First of all, the WP:AGF of certain editors in this thread is outstanding. A real sterling example that every Wikipedia editor should aspire to. Second, don't know Alansohn. We run across one another from time to time since we both have an interest in certain NJ articles, particularly Teaneck, where I grew up. Just about as much as I've run into JaconFrere. Don't know them either. I think I've been back to Teaneck twice in the past 20 years - both times to go to Bischoff's (whose mint chip ice cream I highly recommend). Regarding the COI, I actually happen to agree that office holders have an inherent COI and so should be barred from editing articles with which they might have some political/financial stake in. But in order for that to be done, the current COI policy would have to be changed, which doesn't preclude COI editors from editing, simply strongly suggesting that they do not. Did not know that alansohn was a public official, in that case, I believe as per WP:COI, they should declare a COI on their userpage, as well as on the talk pages of any articles they edit. Onel5969 TT me 16:21, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    This is just a general comment but Alansohn uses his real name and his contribution history is open for all the world to see. I think what Wikipedia has to worry about are conflict-of-interests where the editor is not so readily identifiable. How, for instance do we know that you, Wasickta, aren't involved in the same local political area, or me or any other editor? The general guideline is that what Wikipedians should be concerned about are undisclosed conflict-of-interests which are not so apparent when the editor does not use their real life identity. Liz Read! Talk! 17:38, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Full Disclosure: I have never lived in Teaneck, NJ or have any affiliation with the town or its politics. I do vacation on the shore in the summers occasionally, which is far from Teaneck. No I am not a Benny. Wasickta (talk) 18:03, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    I agree with the conclusion of this closure. I hope he follows it. Wasickta (talk) 19:33, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Mitsubishi Electric & class action lawsuit

    this edit was made a few hours ago.

      • Mitsubishi settled a class-action lawsuit in 2016 brought by consumers who purchased the LaserVue line of HDTVs for models L65-A90, L75-A91, L75-A94, or L75-A96 purchased between between Jan. 1, 2008 and July 13, 2015. According to the class action lawsuit, the “Optical Engine” component in Mitsubishi LaserVue televisions contains a defect that causes video and color anomalies. Verde alleges that Mitsubishi is liable for breach of express and implied warranties as well as violations of California consumer protection laws and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Although Mitsubishi denied any wrongdoings of allegations, they agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit in order to avoid the further cost of litigation. [1]
      • Mitsubishi settled a consumer class action in 2011 alleging that defects in the company's televisions caused them to break down far earlier than expected. Under the agreement, Mitsubishi agreed to pay to fix certain WD series DLP televisions, reimburse the televisions' owners for repairs or parts, or allow the owner to buy a new Mitsubishi television. The televisions' resistors, diodes and DLP lamp assemblies failed prematurely, and the sets' cooling fans, filters and heat sinks were also defective, according to the complaint. As a result, the televisions lasted only 25 to 33 percent as long as they should have.[2]

    References

    1. ^ "Mitsubishi LaserVue TV Class Action Lawsuit". Hustler Money Blog. 2016-01-15. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
    2. ^ "Mitsubishi Unit Settles Class Action Over Faulty TVs - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved 2016-05-03.

    Thoughts on whether we have a conflicted editor here? Jytdog (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, we can do better on sources than "Hustler Money Blog", and both of those items seem to reference the same problem. The LaserVue settlement info is here.[29] Press coverage: [30]. Apparently their DLP TVs broke down early. In 2012, Mitsubishi stopped making DLP units, rear-projection TVs being obsolete by then. Probably worth a short mention. John Nagle (talk) 23:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I just thought this was so blatant class-action marketing, even down to the username. :) The "hustler money" site is marketing for the lawsuit. Jytdog (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    This user has denied any connection with the litigation and are arguing for their content on the article Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 16:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Cheryl Fernandez-Versini

    Copied from Wikipedia talk:COI

    Celeb articles

    These are obviously full of COI.

    One of the most glaringly prominent is Cheryl Cole's.

    It reads like a fan page presented by her agents. Nothing negative is allowed; the section on her conviction for drunken assault is called "legal issues". 78.149.214.235 (talk) 10:57, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Of course you're right that there are lots of fan-cruft or PR-cruft celeb articles and we should do something about it. At 104,698 bytes this article seems to be about 5 times too long IMHO. After skimming the article I don't see anything obviously wrong other than the length and to some degree the tone. Please post this type of complaint at WP:COIN where people go to try to deal with these problems. I'll copy this one over there. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:19, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It would be helpful if the username (and any relevant diffs) are specified --Lemongirl942 (talk) 11:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to add, maybe I'm missing the point but to me this looks like a very mature article with plenty of diverse editors and solid sourcing. Is there really a COI problem here? - Brianhe (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    If there is a COI I'm completely missing it. The article is perfectly referenced etc.--5 albert square (talk) 12:05, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    From what I observed, it seems there were attempts to insert information about a speculated divorce. This was repeatedly reverted by multiple editors. In my opinion, the reverts were valid per BLP and I don't really see a COI case here. Nevertheless, I have left a message on the IP's talk page asking for the username and relevant diffs indicating COI. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 12:51, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The Cole article is one of many "celebs" who have their articles puffed; but Cole's article significantly stands out as overwhelmingly a fan page. The Cole article, in its present form and huge size, has no business being in an encyclopaedia. It is unguently fawning, grovelling and sycophantic. 78.149.214.235 (talk) 16:13, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry but you need to substantiate whatever you are saying with diffs. In addition, this is a conflict of interest noticeboard. You need to tell where exactly is the conflict of interest and point out the users having a COI --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:22, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    OK. But there's still COI there. Big time and by commercial interests. Which is unconscionable. 78.149.214.235 (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Incidentally, here's what user Ef80 had to say on the Cole talk page: "This article has always suffered from NPOV and COI problems. It isn't just the PR promotion, it's the editing by deluded fans. All reality TV BLPs tend to be like this and I don't have a solution." 78.149.214.235 (talk) 16:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    What strikes me about the article is the size. At 104,698 bytes it's a bit bigger than the article on Jeb Bush, about the same as the article on Grover Cleveland, and a bit smaller than the article on Marco Rubio (please forgive the political comparisons, I've just been listening to the news). I'd never heard of her before and doubt that there is anything to say about her that compares to a president or these presidential candidates. PR-cruft, fan-cruft, or just weight - it is something we ought to do something about. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:31, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, the Cheryl Cole article is huge. Too big by far; so big it defeats the object of those trying to promote her on there (it's so full of trivia even a hardcore fan would be bored to read it).

    The talk page on there is locked at the moment. This because a protest was made that the article was too sycophantic and unencyclopaedic. This protest was deleted as vandalism by Davey2010 (among many others, & I would venture to say they are working together, if not sockpuppets). The accusation of vandalism was downgraded to disruptive editing; it patently was not vandalism. Something will have to be done about this article's size and blatant NPOV and COI issues. 78.149.214.235 (talk) 13:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    As far as I can tell, you've still shown zero evidence of COI editing. Random talk about "Big time and by commercial interests" achieves nothing. There could be COI editing but we need evidence. And I think far more likely, if there is a problem with the article it's because of what you hinted at near the end of your earlier post. Fans. Fans can cause problems and even be blocked for it, but they don't find the normal definition of having a COI on wikipedia. (Well not counting things like the owner of a fansite promoting their fansite for example.) As for the talk page, I don't personally think the comment about this generation being fucked beyond all hope was helpful, but regardless it's clearly not helpful to say that about a specific LP per BLP [31]. It's not that severe a BLP violation, but there's no justifable reason to edit war to keep it in so it's no wonder the talk page was protected. It's interesting that an IP belonging to the same ISP and also geolocating to Manchester the same as you is one of the ones which kept adding back that BLP vio [32]. Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    BTW I don't see you've provided any evidence of the named editors working together let alone of sockpuppetry so I suggest you withdraw that accusation. In fact looking at the names of some of the people you've accused, your accusation just seems dumb. If you want your concerns over the article to be taken seriously, you need to be far more careful how you present them. In other words, don't claim COI when you don't appear to have any evidence. Let alone accuse people of inappropriately working together when they are established edits who've edited many different unrelated parts of the encyclopaedia for years and part of what they were doing was reverting a BLP vio which an IP very similar to yours kept adding back. Nil Einne (talk) 13:31, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking even more closely, it's worse then that. The editors you said are working together and are possibly sockpuppets include editors who in the article proper are disagreeing over which content to include, and at least some of them have expressed concerns about fancruft in the article themselves. Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    OK. Thank you for your input and investigation. I agree with you about my accusations of sockpuppetry; I have deleted my reference to the user concerned and I apologise to him. 78.149.214.235 (talk) 14:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    London College of Contemporary Arts (LCCA)

    Hi all – I have recently posted on the talk page of the London College of Contemporary Arts article. I would like to declare my COI as I am a communications professional representing the school here on Wikipedia. There are a number of issues with the article in its current form and I am hoping to work with the community to ensure the article is accurate and neutral. Anyone is welcome to contact me directly on my talk page. Many thanks! - BrandDude (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @BrandDude: Thank you for declaring your COI. I will make a note here shortly. According to our COI guidelines, editors who have a COI should request edits on the talk page instead of editing the page directly. The request edit template can be used for this purpose. You can post here if you need any further clarifications. Thank you for your cooperation. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 16:32, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lemongirl942: Thank you. I'll make sure I'll follow the COI editing guidelines. Thank you for your help. - BrandDude (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    GoDigital Media Group

    The 2 articles above have been edited by 009o9 who has made proper COI disclosures in accordance with policy. I personally found the article GoDigital Media Group a tad too promotional, (with a lot of stuff sourced to press releases and WP:SPS) and certain parts having undue weight. I then trimmed off a part of the article (and multiple infoboxes in the article) to which 009o9 disagreed. I would like someone else to have a look at the articles and judge it for themselves. For reference, here is the version before trimming and the version after I trimmed --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:24, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    To be honest, I have never seen 4 infoboxes being used in the same article. But if it is OK, I have no objection if someone from COIN restores the deleted content. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:37, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lemongirl942: Hmm, I just now installed Twinkle, never used it before, wasn't intentional, I was reviewing your contributions just afterword, must have done an errant click somehow -- I'm sure you reverted.009o9Disclosure(Talk) 05:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    So somehow, we wind up here just 20 minutes after discussion was opened on the talk page? Template Advert was added to the article, without opening a discussion on the active talk page and without reading the guidance, which states: Don't add this tag simply because the material in the article shows a company or a product in an overall positive light or because it provides an encyclopedic summary of a product's features. So am I to be sanctioned for a partial revert made by a tendentious editor? Good grief. 009o9Disclosure(Talk) 05:11, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Relax, you are not being sanctioned. I posted this here so that others can also look at this situation, judge whether the content is worth including, and all of us can then proceed with consensus. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 05:42, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    personalization/mixing of content disputes and behavioral issues
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    • @009o9: Please cease your disruptive tactics. This and this are not productive. Neither are your responses at this AfD. You accused me of stalking your edits, when in fact you waded in this AfD first. Just because I shaved off a bunch of promotional coatrack from the page you get paid to edit, you got angry. You know per our policy you should actually not be editing those articles where you have a COI. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @DGG and Jytdog: Could you have a look at this. This editor is taking it personally. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:44, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    More personal attacks here. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 05:12, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I found the AfD lacking and voluntarily opposed your nomination after I tried to read it through a brand new installation of TW. As I explained above, I must have clicked something I should not have and I'm sure the diff will show it was my first TW edit ever. This is quite different from your stalking of my volunteer efforts (edit summary) and your absolute disdain for WP:STEWARDSHIP (Policy) barging in to articles where there are interested and better informed editors, with your subjective edits. What you did (discussed here) was obviously retaliatory disruptive editing and stalking in the article space. In the Postmodern Jukebox article I am a complete volunteer, have no COI, and I'm not allowed to have a separate account to avoid these unfortunate stalking incidents. 009o9Disclosure(Talk) 05:25, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    What you are trying to do here is a potential invitation to WP:TAGTEAM. So your wading into the AfD, !voting Keep and casting aspersions on me during the discussion was not stalking, but me removing a bunch of undue stuff from an article is stalking. You seriously have double standards. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 05:30, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record: No aspersions were cast upon you in the AfD discussion, you placed the COI tag,diff on the article you nominated and you also mentioned the AfC (where the article had languished in for six months) on the article's talk page.perm I merely mentioned those contributing facts in the AfD, and somehow that is casting aspersions? Upon the evaluation of the article, I voted Keep with an explanation and then you engaged me, citing your interpretation of he guidelines. Already having experience with your misuse of the Advert template,[33] and now understanding that you are a WP:NOOB,[34] I responded to your logic. The public facing areas of the Wikipedia are quite different from AfD and other internal areas, article space edits require immediate inspection and sometimes immediate action. While you go around playing un-elected administrator, your actions have real-life and immediate consequences. You would do very well to maintain decorum and not edit in the article space when the subjects come from edit summaries where you have already opened administrative actions -- it reeks of retaliatory disruptive, bad faith editing and stalking -- no matter how benign your edit is. Enlisting other contributing editors (specific to the subject) to combat the tactic is perfectly reasonable IMHO. 009o9Disclosure(Talk) 05:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • added some things to the listing above. Jytdog (talk) 07:10, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can we please remove (or at least strike) the PostModern Jukebox article from this thread?Diff I am a disclosed paid editor, where I have a COI I disclose. Thank you! 009o9Disclosure(Talk) 23:35, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I second this claim for Postmodern Jukebox's removal from this thread. There is no paid editor for the page, just interested volunteers. Rcul4u998 (talk) 17:23, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Requested edit

    • It would be helpful if someone else can evaluate the article and the requested edit. Personally I found it a tad promotional. Since this is subjective, I would urge others to look at it and evaluate. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:57, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll have a look after I get to know 009o9 a bit more. Jytdog (talk) 07:07, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Xandyxyz (undisclosed paid editing)

    User accounts

    There is some undisclosed paid editing going on here with a possible abuse of WP:CLEANSTART. I have offline evidence of this, but I am not going to present it here for risk of WP:OUTING. I have listed some user accounts who seem to be working in close cooperation. Could others have a look at it? Pinging Brianhe, SpacemanSpiff, HappyValleyEditor --Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:17, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Is there a connection to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Satya satapathy? I notice editing by the sock Wizardlis54 at Jamie Waller (entrepreneur). – Brianhe (talk) 10:22, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That is one connection, but I also think someone from the Med area ought to look at this, there are a lotta medical (dental) articles. —SpacemanSpiff 10:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I see I crossed paths with this editor/group already at ER24 Emergency Medical Services‎. - Brianhe (talk) 10:28, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Brian, there may be a connection to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KartRocket via Vedas (Indian Restaurant) to Katherine Keating. —SpacemanSpiff 10:30, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    One more oddity ... Brian F. Martin and Childhood Domestic Violence Association were favorites of Kickingback77 indeffed per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seeknikkihi. So many coincidental intersections, hmmm. - Brianhe (talk) 10:32, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Pharaoh of the Wizards: can you help piece this together? You mentioned you had some offline evidence at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kickingback77. - Brianhe (talk) 10:37, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Joseph2302: Could you have a look at the situation below. I feel this is a sock. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:17, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    A previous version of the De Molliere family [35] article was an Orangemoody job. Geogene (talk) 02:48, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not terribly surprised. Kickingback77 (mentioned above as possible connection) displayed OM-like behavior like posing as admin to gullible clients. - Brianhe (talk) 04:02, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Reply by Xandyxyz

    • Thanks to you all dear editors. Well, I'm a dental medical researcher with particular interest in dentistry. Majority of my edits are based on that. They have been very useful to the dental community out there and the general medical world. I also research on digital technology once is a while as can be seen in the "Help desk Software" article.

    Yes, there are other edits I made. Majority of them are more of clean-up and maintenance. I've never engaged in vandalism, tag removal or any unruly behaviour. In fact, one of my recent articles was tagged for speedy deletion and was eventually deleted. I never contested it. I respect the opinion of every editor here.

    But, I must admit that some of the clean-up edits are helps I rendered to friends who don't really know how to go about the wiki-editing process. You know how difficult wiki editing can be especially that of "Orphan Tag". I never get paid for them. Most of the edits are geared towards making the pages better. If this is considered conflict of interest, then I promise I won't engage in it any more. I'll continue to use my account for medical research and other digital-related research topics. Thanks.Xandyxyz (talk) 11:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    @Xandyxyz: If you don't mind, could you let us know if you had any previous accounts on Wikipedia? And also, have you edited any article on behalf of your employer? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 12:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • No dear. I've not edited on behalf of any employer. thanksXandyxyz (talk) 12:09, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you. That should be my very first article. Well, I have interest in Green Building Council So far, there are 19 established councils across the globe and "Pakistan Green Building Council" is one of them. Some of the councils already have wiki pages. They are all non-profit organisations meant to better our world. A friend of mine who is also part of the council in Pakistan tried to create the "Pakistan Green Building Council" page either by himself or through another wiki editor. According to him, the attempt was rejected. He asked me to help. If I remember, he showed me an already existing draft that was deleted or rejected. I cleaned up the text and created the page but it was later deleted. I didn't contest.Xandyxyz (talk) 13:56, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see. Would you mind letting us know who is this friend of yours and which Wikipedia account is this friend using? And I also noticed that you edited ER24 Emergency Medical Services 10 months ago. Were you paid to edit this? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:06, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry for late reply Lemongirl942. I've been busy with series of events lately. Quick reply - I don't really know the wiki account the friend is using. It's been a long time now. I don't think it's right to mention his name on this platform either because editors here go by acronyms not real names. Coming to ER24 Emergency Medical Services, I only cleaned up the page to look better. I didn't get paid for. I think wiki edits can be reversed if need be. You can reverse the edits if they are not okay.

    Pls Lemongirl942, I'm seriously engaged in some events right now. I may be off and on the internet network. I'll still respond to further questions when I'm back. But, I think I've cleared myself here. I edit Wikipedia once in a while when I have the time. Thank you Xandyxyz (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Alright, no problem. I apologise if I have offended you. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 07:54, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Sockpuppet investigations results

    Following users were confirmed

    See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Boskit190. A bunch of socks have been found --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:49, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Nice work you all! Now for the mopping up. Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    This is odd... when Donp123 uploaded a photo of Craig Pisaris-Henderson, he piped the author "Craig Pisaris-Henderson" to himself: [36]. Is this an attempt to conceal the uploader, self-outing or impersonation, or something else? - Brianhe (talk) 01:43, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Daisybest (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) also looks suspicious based on Cleojason !voting to keep an article Daisybest created. Most of their articles have already been deleted but these remain: SmartSE (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Peter Devonald

    New contributor writing about their career. Film maker's resume featuring unsourced trivia (number of theaters in which a movie ran) as well as listings of awards. If notability is met, this needs be restarted in prose format, and properly sourced. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 21:31, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikijan2016, Bellevue Education

    User:Wikijan2016 has three times removed an allegation made in the Sarawak Report (referenced to http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/04/how-1mdbs-stolen-money-funded-top-uk-private-schools/ and based in turn on the Panama Papers}, that money from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal was used to fund Bellevue Education.

    Wikijan2016 has also added the comment that "Bellevue Education has no financial stake in the Bellevue Education Trust" which is not obvious in the reference, http://www.bpet.co.uk. This specific comment would not be directly relevant to the allegation made. It appears to be an attempt to confuse any reader who may have heard of the allegation (as if the ownership structure wasn't complicated enough already).

    Wikijan2016's other substantive contributions so far are all on the articles of other Bellevue schools etc. These edits may generally be described as puffery, relying on the websites of the organizations themselves.

    Wikijan2016 has been warned not to make statements that could appear to be legal threats: "the applicable processes will be taken with wikipedia to ensure wikipedia is not misused to promote incorrect information" and "The last sentences refers to a discredited and illegal blog, and is as such not a trusted source that can be used. This will be reported to wikipedia.".

    I note that to date Wikijan2016 has not posted on the talk page despite being invited to do so. Instead, they have for the third time removed the allegations and their reference, though this time without the legal threats. (I also notice some minor changes in this diff that may in fact be marginal improvements to the article.)

    I suggest that this is the pattern of an editor with a serious conflict of interest. I'd be grateful for any advice on how to handle this. Hunc (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I reverted Wikijan2016's edits, which were mainly deletions, to Hunc's "last best version" earlier today, following unsuccessful attempts to establish communication with Wikijan2016 by way both of their talk page, and the talk page for the article. While I have to say that I am not experienced in these matters, and must also declare that I was the editor that Wikijan2016 made a formal complaint of edit warring against as referred to above, I share Hunc's suspicion. I suppose that in practical terms we must wait and see whther or not Wikijan2016 returns to remove material again. If that were to happen, I would have thought there is a dispute. It would be very helpful if some other editors were to have a look at the history and talk page, and say what they think.Daithidebarra (talk) 22:13, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    So far Wikijan's only communication with the community has been filing this ANEW report. It looks like a textbook case of WP:NOTHERE. Brianhe (talk) 22:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Battle of Mantinea (362 BC)

    New editor adding external links to academic papers he's written. Perhaps his notability as a scholar ought to be established first. Further opinions welcome. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 00:05, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Unfortunately the COI policy on self-citing isn't very precise, instead of a prohibition it's more about being reasonable and deferring to community judgement. But in my experience some self-citers don't have a good idea of what's "reasonable" here. That policy might be fixed one of these days, especially now that some sites have begun tracking citations in wikipedia as a kind of score keeping for whose papers are most important. But these links go to academia.edu, and since they aren't explicitly sourced to a journal, it's WP:SELFPUB as far as I'm concerned and should be removed as unreliable. I don't have an account there and I'm not inclined to go over there and inspect it further behind the login wall. Geogene (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It's probably wise that Wikipedia hasn't enunciated a firm policy against such edits, and allows for community discussion. And it's fair to say that not some, but most, self-citers lack objectivity; that's human nature. I think you got at the relevant issue, and that's self-publication, which I wasn't sure about. If that's the case, then the external links needn't stay. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:31, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually we came close to stating in the COI guideline that people really should not SELFCITE. As it stands, if the SELFCITE is challenged, it goes to the talk page and the self-citer needs to recognize that others might not see their work like they do, and let it go. This is very clear. And it makes sense. Jytdog (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    In this case the editor made three edits, adding a paper to each of those articles to the EL/further reading section. That is pure refspam. I removed them. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion per WP:PROMO. Jytdog (talk) 02:52, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for further clarifying this, Jytdog. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 12:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Just as an FYI Geogene, I normally consider self-cites to reach COI status if they are just dropping them in the external links like this, or including a large number of primary studies in text. If it's a single source, but of good quality that actually adds to the article, then a self-cite is ok if it's not part of a pattern of them just citing themselves. Regardless, I normally just direct such editors to not cite themselves at all though, and if their research is really noteworthy, someone else will cite it here. If they're really a WP:EXPERT on the subject, they should have no problem finding other literature that says something to the same effect. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That's probably the optimal practice. The only self-citers I recognize as such are the ones that act like spammers, and that may be skewing my perception of things. How many benign self-citers there are that are creating balanced content it's hard to say because they're unrecognizable for privacy reasons. Unrecognizability might be a criterion that experts who self-cite should strive for, or be held to. Just some thoughts. Geogene (talk) 20:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Without disagreeing with any of the above, at least one of Spyros's papers contained points and usable references that were useful to me in improving articles on archery. I haven't looked at his other work but I propose to do so. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Michael Ehrmant

    All this editor does is add fake content to have reference spam on. Am not providing diffs as this is what all their contribs are. These are the sites they have used as references:

    • colgate.com
    • modernimplants.com
    • coimplante.odo.br
    • utahtrustattorneys.com (we have seen them before, here)
    • social5dg.com
    • staydrywaterproofing.com
    • rainshadowlabs.com
    • jacanawarranty.com
    • willa.com
    • They were warned when they were here back in Oct 2015 not do this. They went away for a while and recently came back.
    • User:Doc James reverted some of their edits and warned them here and again here
    • I reverted others and gave them notice of PAID and COI here
    • Today they went back and restored all their spam refs, with no reply on their Talk page.

    This person is WP:NOTHERE; please indefinitely block them. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 06:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I beg to differ. I've also made valuable contributions to Wiki. I'm a new editor. All my edit issues were pointed out and then I was indefinitely banned. This editor responded to my edits after I had added citations to a page that was important to them. This is against wiki's "good faith" policy. All of us who are here to edit this encyclopedia and learn while doing it. "Indefinitely suspending" an editor when they are new is kind of against Wiki's good faith policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Ehrmant (talk • contribs) 07:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Show us one contribution that you have made that is valuable as opposed to being spam. Also, when an editor says that they have been blocked or banned, and there is no evidence that they have actually been blocked or banned, there are three likely explanations. First, they were blocked or banned, and are evading the block or ban, which is sockpuppetry. Second, they are deliberately taking advantage of the policy to assume good faith, and are in bad faith playing a "pity card". Third, they are a completely clueless editor who isn't even trying to understand, and don't belong here. Which is it? Also, since nearly all (if not all) of your "valuable" contributions have been spam, who is paying you? You have not been indefinitely banned, or blocked, but you are about to be banned or blocked. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:26, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for talking finally! None of the references you have added to any article have any scholarly value. They are all advertising. You were warned 3 times on your Talk about doing this, and didn't respond. I gave you notice of the COI guideline and asked you to reply. You didn't. You restored all the bad referencing. You have used up the good faith that was extended to you already, and demonstrated that you are here to add spam links to Wikipedia. I wish you had started talking to with the community earlier. Jytdog (talk) 07:28, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    You threw up all these warnings at once. Not all of us who contribute to Wiki monitor it every day. You took down my page for American Board of Criminal Lawyers which was actually a legitimate page. I have put this through the Wiki dispute process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Ehrmant (talk • contribs) 08:10, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Michael Ehrmant The page you are talking about American Board of Criminal Lawyers was not deleted by Jytdog, but rather by Jimfbleak. Would you like to ask him for a copy? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Michael Ehrmant: AGF doesn't apply here, as I find it hard to believe that only adding spam and advertising links in is good faith, considering the many warnings you got. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 11:42, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That this user restored spam links I find concerning. Would support a ban at this point in time as they do not appear to understand the concerns in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:22, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Chevelle (band)

    Editor who in this diff performs a section blanking and noted in the comment 'Edit by Band / tony@getmorechevelle.com / manager)' COI warning given on the Talk page of the editor and since then two different editors have performed similar edits. Karst (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Note both Samuelhasproblems and SaltandPepper have been banned after a Sockpuppet investigation. Karst (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Not banned, but blocked indefinitely. —C.Fred (talk) 21:21, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Abof through Zizoo

    articles

    One editor hasTwo editorsThree editors have created the articles above, or uploaded their logos. There may be a connection to the creator of TaxiForSure. I'd like someone else to tell me if this looks like COI editing. - Brianhe (talk) 12:52, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    It certainly looks suspicious to me. I've added another user who previously created Inspirock and has a similar contribution history. SmartSE (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Added articles created by Azntaiji to the list above. - Brianhe (talk) 09:43, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Zach Taji is some kind of PR person for this company. His name is included in one Commons file upload, and displayed on the Inventus Capital website as its creator. - Brianhe (talk) 10:09, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Article expanded 2x by Azntaiji has a matching personal website designed by Zach Taiji. - Brianhe (talk) 10:35, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Look who showed up at Medecision 5 minutes after it was created by Conor Lee: our old friend BiH [39]. Brianhe (talk) 14:15, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Did you notice he patrolled it as well? SmartSE (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Conor Lee removed a section from CMD Group about a lawsuit - here, that looks suspicious to me. LaMona (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Conor Lee also sanitized the article on Angie's List removing criticism here, and here, and the information that most revenue comes from advertising here. Conor Lee seems to be inactive, but IP 74.203.211.243 began editing the Angie's List article the day after Conor Lee stopped, and continued to remove all negative content. Much was reverted, but IP 74.203.211.243 was removing material from Angie's List as recently as January 2016. LaMona (talk) 16:27, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Robin Sharma

    User Sharmaleadership, and as of last night the 5.104 IP, continue to reintroduce wholly non-neutral, aggressively promotional content to this article. Users had previously actually complained on the article talk page that the article seemed "like an advertisement."

    Sharmaleadership's first revision of the article, before I started looking at it: [40]

    I reverted to loremberagema's version, and Sharmaleadership promptly reverted to Sharmaleadership's version. So, I tried excising the promotional content, with help from another user: [41]

    And then the 5.104 IP reverted to the promotional content: [42]

    I have left messages on the article talk page and Sharmaleadership's talk page and received no response. I have just left a message on the IP's talk page but wouldn't expect that enough time has elapsed to get a response. Thanks for any guidance. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 16:34, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    And now the latest change by Sharmaleadership: [43] - Julietdeltalima (talk) 17:47, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Sharmaleadership has tacitly admitted COI with this edit which is commented: "(Corrected information based on facts from Robin Sharma himself)". LaMona (talk) 18:14, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a username violation; i left them a note about that and another one asking them to talk to us. Am watching the article. Jytdog (talk) 18:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbaaz Khan (actor)

    Seems to be someone who has created an autobiographical article. It is sourced, but the user has not responded to posts inquiring about their COI. 331dot (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Has also created a page about a film he appeared in, I Miss You (2014 film). 331dot (talk) 10:09, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    More than just this -- Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nouman khan sherani. —SpacemanSpiff 18:16, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Malta Medical Students' Association‎

    Article is entirely unsourced. I have tried to reduce the amount of promotional material within the article, but WP:SPA continues to reintroduce promotional material without explanation. The following diff gives further insight into the situation. Drchriswilliams (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    This user has violated the page and is harassing me (an editor) personally as well. The WP:HA continues to do changes with no explanation and saying that there is promotional material which is not the case. The organisation is entirely voluntary and has no gains from it's projects. This user needs to be blocked. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmsaito (talk • contribs) 21:28, 7 May 2016‎ (UTC)
    • That note on Chris' page says it all. Mmsait is WP:SPA working on this article for the past 4 years. It had already existed 6 years before then. I'll see if Mmsaito will talk to me on their talk page. Jytdog (talk) 21:40, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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