Serama

This article has improbably become the ridiculous target of at least two competing sock farms, in a dispute which has lasted years, with the two 'sides' fighting over content under various guises. Mostly it's been IPs, but a long time ago it became semi'd indefinitely due to this. I've no idea what exactly the sides are/represent and the precise affiliation of either editor listed above (although some deductions are obvious, see below), but they popped up after the last time article protection expired, and there's clearly far too much attachment to the subject. Rsteagall I think must have been a sleeper, so may not be a sock per se, but NCOCEO even did the whole 10 random edit thing to get past semi-protection.

Being the only other editor on this page at the moment, I've been constantly accused by both sides on being whatever the other side is at some point or another, and it's quite tiring. Sadly the semi-protection expires later this year, so it'll be back to IPs again. CMD (talk) 21:42, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

"no evidence of what is "photoshopped" as he puts it"
The image to the right is the one which is apparently not photoshopped. Apparently. CMD (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2014 (UTC)


here is a video example of an extreme bird. It is also not "photoshopped" or "videoshopped" if that is even possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kEYUc4t6xc — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsteagall (talk • contribs) 14:50, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
It's not the bird which has a tree for a head. I've never mentioned problems with the birds and yet this keeps getting thrown up as some sort of defence. I've explained this on the talkpage, so it's somewhat disconcerting to see the same irrelevant point being brought back up. It's further evidence of far too close a connection. Somewhat tangentially, videoshopping is indeed entirely possible. CMD (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello?

Banc De Binary

First and foremost I would like to make it known that I am an employee of Banc De Binary and thus have my own COI. However I feel that user HistorianofRecenttimes also has some sort of personal attachment to the subject of the article Banc De Binary.

As evidence I would like to provide the following:

The contributions of this user show that it is a Single Purpose Account. All of the user's edits are related to Banc De Binary, even those which are not on the article Banc De Binary.

See the following links:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snell_%26_Wilmer&diff=prev&oldid=605631425
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:GeorgeBarnick&diff=prev&oldid=605323940
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:GeorgeBarnick&diff=prev&oldid=605321950
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snell_%26_Wilmer&diff=prev&oldid=600167565
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snell_%26_Wilmer&diff=prev&oldid=600167495
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snell_%26_Wilmer&diff=prev&oldid=600167374
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pinkbeast&diff=prev&oldid=577697372
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Rybec&diff=prev&oldid=577696564
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pinkbeast&diff=prev&oldid=577729842
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WikiDan61&diff=prev&oldid=577590635
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pinkbeast&diff=prev&oldid=577423888
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring&diff=prev&oldid=577425019
The user attemps to delete the AfD tag on the page stating in the talk page:

BTW, I checked the CYSEC list of regulated companies, why is it that Banc de Binary do not give a telephone number like all the others, surely this is pevidence that they're not really in Cyprus other than with a virtual office.

Which is another example of "unsourced allegations and synthesis" (User:Pinkbeast - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:HistorianofRecenttimes - 15:52, 21 October 2013 (UTC) )
There are several warnings by various users about the user's editing habits.

Please take care with your editing on Banc De Binary. I have reverted your edits, which appeared to consist of a fair amount of original research with a decidedly non-neutral tone about the history and nature of the bank.

(sic)
WikiDan61 - 13:03, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

You're right back where you started, with unsourced allegations and synthesis. Please confine yourself to cited facts.

(sic)
Pinkbeast - 15:52, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Please do not remove Articles for deletion notices from articles or remove other people's comments in Articles for deletion pages, as you did with Banc De Binary.

(sic)
GorillaWarfare - 22:05, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
User has made several attempts to enter content about one of the subject's competators into the article

(correction of grammar errors and NADEX detail)

(added cited sourced to for indictment, nadex and origin of company clarified, removed unsourced section saying bdb were in talks with us regulators as that was incorrect and unsourced.)

User is attempting to use unreliable sources ( in this case blacklisted sources ) to try to use the article to insinuate that the subject is hiding information.
User is attempting to use an unreliable source to try to use the article to insinuate that the subject is "Blacklisted".
Adds information relevant to a competator of the article's subject/
Adds information relevant to a competator of the article's subject/

BDBJack (talk) 00:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I have watched the BDB page for some time - IIRC, since when the Morning277 socks were starting to be exposed.

I think the idea that HistorianofRecentTimes is a shill for NADEX does not stand up to any examination. Such a shill would have edits on multiple pages about how wonderful NADEX is, not a lot of edits on one page, one or two of which mention NADEX in passing without being particularly adulatory.

That they have some sort of gripe against BDB is indisputable. However, this causes them to dig up a lot of material, and other editors seem to do a reasonably good job of removing synthesis from it. Of course, one could argue that this gives undue weight to the regulatory difficulties - but given that the page was deleted by AFD before those difficulties, it seems to me that that is what makes the company notable.

Historian is not totally adept at editing and I can well believe the removal of the AFD notice was in good faith, believing it to be no more legitimate than the repeated attempts by socks to whitewash the page. (The AFD was made by and largely contributed to by a mass of SPA socks). Of course, that doesn't make it appropriate.

I would certainly appreciate it if Historian clarified the nature of their gripe, of course, but it seems to me they are probably, in the words of the header, "biased without additionally having a COI".

I have no affiliation whatsoever to any part of the financial services industry. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:19, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree completely with what Pinkbeast has said. Per the evidence above, it looks like HistorianofRecenttimes has something against Banc De Binary, but that only demonstrates a problem following WP:NPOV. It doesn't indicate a COI of any kind, and there is no evidence of a connection to NADEX. It's a logical fallacy to say that if BDB has a competitor, and someone seems biased against BDB, they must work for that competitor. Maybe HistorianofRecenttimes has a personal grudge, maybe they work for a different competitor, maybe they simply have some kind of focus on this particular article. (I know that there are some articles that I've spent more time on than others, and I have no COI with them, but then again I'm no SPA.)
In any case, no, there seems to be no COI unless and until HistorianofRecenttimes alludes to or admits a connection to BDB or a competitor. But that doesn't mean there is no concern. An editor with a COI who follows all of our guidelines and policies at most warrants extra scrutiny. An editor without a COI who violates our NPOV policy, or other policies and guidelines, can be subject to sanctions including blocks and/or bans. Though that would be a discussion for another place (WP:POVN or WP:ANI perhaps). -- Atama頭 15:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
I realize that I am looking at this from a biased point of view, as I do have a COI, however there is a reason that I specifically mentioned the NADEX reference. While I have not found evidence online, and any source that I would publish on the matter would be considered original research, one of the key facts that is missing completely about the SEC / CFTC joint case is that one of the 3 witnesses called in the case is Yossi Beinart, the previous CEO of NADEX. (Just to be clear, Yossi was never a client of Banc De Binary's) While I would LOVE to bring the evidence to the table showing this, I realize that until the case is closed, there will not be any such revelation. However this fact, combined with the face that HistorianofRecentTimes has mentioned NADEX several times in the context of the article, make me think that HistorianofRecentTimes is possibly a shill FOR NADEX.
Given the history of a "personal grudge" against Banc De Binary. Regardless, if this is really a case of someone who has a "grudge" against Banc De Binary, and NOT one of our competitors trying a "dirty" marketing scam, i believe that warrants COI status, since the author obviously has some sort of relation with the subject of the article. The fact that the user seems to be singling out Banc De Binary as the focus of their research and authorship is something that I find to be suspicious at the very least. I realize that I am not a much better example, however I also do not pretend to be unbiased.
Personal Interests aside, I really do not feel that user HistorianofRecentTimes is writing an article in the best interests of the Wikipedia community. While the information may be (loosely) correct (depending on the interpretation of the article, or the interpretation of the article of the author), the goal of the article authored by HistorianofRecentTimes is to harm Banc De Binary's public image.
BDBJack (talk) 12:58, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Memoria Pichilemina

Küñall (formerly known as User:MisterWiki and some other usernames) requested the creation of the article about the website Memoria Pichilemina, providing in the way some sources. Küñall did so most likely because he is the creator, owner and admistrator of Memoria Pichilemina. He has admitted that identity and formerly used his real name as username. Until then everything ok.

Then it became evient to me that Kuñall appears to work in the tiny local newspaper El Expreso de la Costa, which he suggested as source. When I raised a AfD disucssion about Memoria Pichilemina Kunall went on to defend the notability of his website citing that "The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself". What should we do? (It is my belief this is only to top of an iceberg of Kuñall-created articles relating to his tiny hometown Pichilemu, where he has probably created articles about people he has personal connections to citing newspapers he actually have some connection to. Not to speak of the (to me dubious) notability of many of these articles.) Sietecolores (talk) 21:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

It should also be noted that Küñall/Diego Alberto Grez Cañete has an extensive record of self-promotion on Wikipedia - see for example his repeated self-promotion in relation to the Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu article (on a school he attended), his creation of an article about the entirely non-notable Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu Students' Center (see AfD [1]) His creation of Category:Presidents of the Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu Students' Center(now deleted) so he could include himself and blue-link his entirely non-notable name, and and more recently, his creation of an article on a non-notable fellow school attendee "local surfer" Jacob Soto Araya. That he now resorts to using other contributors to further his endless campaign of self-promotion doesn't particularly surprise me, though it clearly indicates that he isn't going to stop this gross abuse of Wikipedia facilities for the purpose of personal gratification until forced to - by topic-ban and/or block, as necessary. I fully expect Küñall to respond to this with his usual denials, facile self-justification and intimations of hurt pride and persecution: such denials should of course be treated with the contempt they deserve, given their repeated nature, and self-evident insincerity. Since this issue goes beyond mere COI, and constitutes a fundamental abuse of Wikipedia, I shall be collecting the evidence (which may take some time, given its extensiveness) and raising the matter at ANI. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Note: Having looked at the Memoria Pichilemina article, I have removed the biographical details concerning the founder as off-topic and entirely undue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Incidentally, it would be interesting to know who created the article on Memoria Pichilemina on the Russian-language Wikipedia that Küñall referred to. [2] The article cites several sources regarding the founder, but nothing at all regarding the website itself. One might well assume that the person who wrote the article thus had personal knowledge of the topic... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
And of course, it might be interesting to find out who created the (deleted) article on 'Грез Каниете, Диего' (Yup - Grez Cañete, Diego) on the Russian Wikipedia... [3] AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Comment: I don't know what personal problem has Sietecolores with Pichilemu-related content on Wikipedia; if they comply with the guidelines, no matter how "tiny" for him is Pichilemu (NOTE: IT IS A PROVINCIAL CAPITAL), they should all stay. I do write for some newspapers, but I have no decision on what content they post. If they decided to publish an article on my website, it is their decision, not mine. I have not paid for it and never will. As a student I have other priorities for the use of my money. I have not edited the article in question, Memoria Pichilemina, and never will given my relationship with it. I commented on the AFD pointing out that it complies with the notability guidelines for web content, and it does. On the Russian Wikipedia content, I have no idea who could have written it, I don't speak Russian and don't know anyone personally who does, either. And it seems someone reviewed the article before going live, User:Voyagerim, so it has surely complied with the rules of that wiki too. If the community decides to delete the article on Memoria Pichilemina, it will be okay, as everything has always been. I urge Sietecolores to assume good faith on me; I did not create the article in the first place, and would have never done given the tracking some users do on me, which is perfectly fine. Küñall (talk) 01:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
You don't speak Russian - but you discovered that there was an article about your website on the Russian-language Wikipedia? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
It appeared from one day to another in the first places when I searched Memoria Pichilemina on Google. Google wasn't indexing the articles of the website and so I was testing something with metatags when I took knowledge of its existence. Küñall (talk) 04:27, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
That's curious - because the 'Memoria Pichilemina' logo shown in the Russian Wikipedia article (started at 20:16, April 28, 2014) was apparently uploaded by a User:Küñall on April 23, 2014! [4] Are we to suppose that you uploaded the logo for no particular reason, and a random Russian-speaker geolocating to Santiago, Chile saw it, and decided to write an article just to find a home for this stray logo, wandering far from sunny Pichilemu? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Correction - the logo originally used in the Russian-Language article seems to have been uploaded to Commons by Küñall in April 2013. The logo the article currently uses was uploaded by him on 30 April 2014‎ - and added to the article on 8 May 2014 by this mysterious Santiago-based Russian-speaker that Küñall knows nothing about... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I uploaded the logo because I decided to share on Commons some free, public domain images I had found and originally posted on my website. There is a template there named after the website which tags these files as taken from Memoria (files like this, for example. -see Licensing section-). Back to the stuff on here, even an admin pointed out on the deletion nomination that, because I had not put my hands on the article I had no CoI (simply requesting an article for the website, does not mean anything, I did not want to do it myself for obvious reason. i.e. a discussion like this. Don't you think I've forgotten about our discussions, Andy.). I will never get my hands on the article, it is at the editorial discretion of the editors if it remains on the encyclopedia, and what content of it should stay and what content should not. I don't think I have done anything improper here. If you do think I'm doing wrong, I will make the proper apologies in that case.Küñall (talk) 06:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
As Sietecolores has already pointed out, you cited El Expreso de la Costa as an independent source establishing notability for the website - without declaring that you had a personal connection with the newspaper. If this were an isolated incident, it would be reasonable to treat this as a misjudgement, or a simple misunderstanding. It isn't an isolated incident though - as I have demonstrated, you have repeatedly created content for no other purpose than self-promotion. Their is a clear pattern here, for all to see - and your co-opting of another contributor to produce content promoting your website fits the pattern all too well. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:32, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Besides that it is important to nota that Kuñall writes besides his work for El Expreso de la Costa for El Dínamo [5], and Pichilemu News too [6]. Kuñall currently studies in Santiago [7] which is one of the few places in Chile where one can take courses in Russian. To me that is almost proof that Kuñall is the IP writing from Santiago about Memoria Pichilemina. As AndyTheGrump have stated this case goes far beyond the specific case of Memoria Pichilemina. There is a reason on why most of Kuñalls Pichilemu-articles are not allowed in the Spanish Wikipedia (where he is currently blocked). Please note that that user:Küñall/user:Diego Grez/user:MisterWiki has been editing in Wikipedia since about 2009 and has (as I understand) an extensive block and restriction history. Since 2009 a lot of people have spent time in Wikipedia trying to help him in good faith to improve his biased editing or providing evidence for Kuñalls biased editing. Something has to change. Sietecolores (talk) 13:21, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Come on Sietecolores... you are talking about a possible conflict of interest and then you speak about stuff that happened five years ago. I'm not even blocked on the Spanish Wikipedia now (I was for less than two days, because of a -stupid- content dispute). Secondly, let's take it as if I spoke Russian (I don't, but let's suppose I do), and let's take it as if I didn't know a single thing about Wikipedia policies (I do): don't you think I would have -in the first place- written a longer article and even more narcissistic?. But no, at most I know how to pronounce some Russian letters. What is the reason on "why most of Kuñall[']s Pichilemu-articles are not allowed in the Spanish Wikipedia"? So far one of the articles I've created on Pichilemu over there was deleted, I haven't written more because I don't have the time I used to back in 2009-2010. And even if I had it, I would not do it. Please show me, where in hell was I helped for "biased editing"? Or when did I ever make biased edits back in those years? I was blocked several times for sockpuppeeting years ago and I have not done anything like that ever since, why? I do like to write for Wikipedia some times, why could I screw that? Yes, I have commited errors here at times and things don't work like one could like to, but these are the rules of the game. To finish, I believe Sietecolores is acting in bad faith here, as I said before, even an admin told him that (had I not edited the article and only suggested it) I had not done anything wrong. You too have to stop this paranoia. Küñall (talk) 14:07, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Kuñall, just two questions. Will you stop using and providing other users of "sources" you have strong links to? Will you stop creating articles or editing on people from your hometown you know personally? Sietecolores (talk) 16:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Panzerfaust Records

A freelancer job requests someone to remove Panzerfaust Records. This note is paraphrased from a comment left by 123.203.118.107 at WT:Talk page guidelines. Johnuniq (talk) 10:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Brand.com

First time here, thought it would be good to bring my item to your attention though. I noticed that Brand.com has had a lot of suspicious editing, and really, an imbalanced article for a company that has a history of white-washing. So I tried to balance it, include information from the less flattering side, but also constructive information, including their logo. For some reason that whole contribution was removed, including the logo I added for the page. I tried to leave a COI warning on the page of the white-washer example. User:Smartse concurred with my initial addition of information, and I don't want anyone to get into trouble for edit-warring, so I thought I'd just raise it here to see if others agreed. Especially as I've been threatened with a) a COI charge in response to mine from an established editor without cause (User:Solarra being the individual) with absolutely no evidence as to why I would have a COI and b) was threatened by ArbCom almost immediately, which I have seen in the past is a tactic used by those trying to intimidate other editors off the page. I will admit to any COI proven against me, but I really have no idea what they are talking about. I'm just concerned that Wiki-PR has warnings against its ethical stance and that Brand.com did not. GenuineDiva (talk) 22:37, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Update — I received this message accusing me that something happened off Wikipedia that cause me edits. Very weird, considering I have had no contact with Brand.com and the SPU appears to believe they know I could have been involved with them somehow? What is happening here; am I being threatened by Wikipedia to stop speaking? GenuineDiva (talk) 22:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

ArbComm isn't a threat. No legal threat of any kind has been made. A report is going to ArbComm so they can understand how Diva is using off Wiki conduct to try to make a company look bad. It's a right, not a threat. Except you have no idea who I am, and it's not Wiki PR or Brand.com. edits are not suspicious, they are plain as day. Diva is using Wiki as a place to air his grievances about things that are taking place off Wiki. Check the edit history of Mr. Diva. I am sending additional info to ArbComm so we can end this silliness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeloyiseBurron (talk • contribs) 23:02, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I first entered this seeing that there was a conflict of interest involved, and at first I thought it was GenuineDiva with the COI. Having looked at her edit history I see the COI is in fact with BeloyiseBurron as you can see with his edit history he is clearly editing to promote an entity. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 22:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Holy wow! So many threats in so little time just because I start editing on paid-editing company pages. Cripes. No wonder they run roughshod over the whole thing. Well, if the arbitration committee is used solely for pushing new users out when they raise an issue, fine by me. By wow, I cannot even believe that any balanced information about a paid-editing company is just removed with the snap of the fingers. Shocking there is so much support here for commercializing the site. GenuineDiva (talk) 22:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
BeloyiseBurron has been posting ArbCom threats, I have warned the user. @GenuineDiva: Don't let one errant user dissuade you from the community, you are most welcome here :-) I originally thought Diva had a COI based on the edit summaries of BeloyiseBurron, after further investigation I removed the notice from Diva's talk page. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 22:58, 31 May 2014

(UTC)

Okay, lets make this simple. Things were rolled back to last week, before Diva began to heavily weight the references. We can discuss on the talk page. Make your case, Diva. --BeloyiseBurron (talk) 23:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Yup, somehow the Brand.com page was reverted to its prior form with no negatives whatsoever, and all new sources removed. As I said before, however it is happening, the page has been white-washed of anything but carefully crafted PR writing. I'll do what I can to keep this off, but if there is no support here, ANI is next I guess. GenuineDiva (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
@GenuineDiva: I already posted to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:BeloyiseBurron reported by User:Solarra (Result: ) feel free to comment :-) ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 23:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Okay; I've left a brief comment pointing to my prior discussions, but of course want others to make any decision. Lord knows anything else I really have to say may not be in line enough with Wikipedia rules to truly contribute well enough. GenuineDiva (talk) 23:41, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, your contributions have been more than adequate as far as I'm concerned. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 23:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
This can be closed now, BeloyiseBurron was blocked for edit warring. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 11:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor

User likely affiliated with subject, possible impersonation. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Charles Denham

Hello! I work in the health sector and have a personal interest in health news. Earlier this year I learned about a court case mentioning Charles Denham and edited the article about the person, as the case was interesting to me. In my mind this did not relate to my employment directly, even though iit is in my professional field. The subject of the article, Denham himself, came to Wikipedia some time ago and has been interacting on the article page and an AfD. I have developed both his biography and the AfD discussion more than anyone else. Today he tells me that he sells a product which competes with one provided by my employer, and that I have a conflict of interest. That might be the case, and I proposed to leave all discussion entirely. I deny knowing that my employer and he were marketplace competitors as he suggests. Beyond my abandoning interaction with any Wikipedia articles related to Denham or anything close to him, I commit to be more conscious of avoiding COI in the future. I am posting here because as a new user, Denham should have access to someone who can give him relief for his concerns about COI, whatever that may mean, and I thought it would be best that since he made a COI claim against me that I come here and commit to stay out of this from here on and ask that someone else please help him address his needs. I am very sorry for the negative experience he is having. One problem which he raised was that he wished to know that I am employed by an entity which he says has competing business interests, and while I try to be open about this, the way that I put this information on my userpage was not sufficient to meet his needs and I regret this. I believed that I was acting independently of my employer, but regardless, I would am excusing myself from involvement there now. I am around otherwise if anyone asks for me. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:41, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Having witnessed the presentation Consumer Reports did at Wikimania a couple years ago, I could see how Blue's work there could give him a strong opinion on the subject, though not actually a COI. This string represents an over-reaction to the kinds of COI accusations that get thrown around routinely, often against editors that may have some bias for another reason. CorporateM (Talk) 00:21, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

TV Tropes

Please see the previous discussion that occurred on this same noticeboard just ten days ago. User @Speededdie: is the cofounder of TV Tropes and continues to make inappropriate COI edits to the article, such as this one. This particular diff used an extremely misleading edit summary in order to remove maintenance tags; something user attempted several times before [8] [9] and which resulted in the original report. He obviously did not take the previous discussion seriously and seemed to simply think he could wait for a few days and make the offending edits again without notice. What should the course of action for this issue be now? Artichoker[talk] 03:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Further note: Judging by his contributions, User:Speededdie appears to be a SPA, having for all intents and purposes only edited the TV Tropes article, an article he obviously has a vested and conflicted interested in. Artichoker[talk] 03:37, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: I'm the chief administrator of the All The Tropes wiki (the "competition" to TV Tropes, though I prefer to think of it as an alternative), so my word may be considered biased, but since my attempt to privately contact the Wikipedia administration via email seems not to have gone through concerning evidence regarding this matter (I wanted to avoid conflicts with this editor nor start a disruption here), I am posting this information here in the interest of preventing further COI incidents. User:Speededdie has sockpuppeted numerous times under IP addresses as well under his own handle, repeatedly trying to remove information he did not like from the TV Tropes article, specifically as this IP and this IP. I have also seen evidence of his actions in doing similar editing offsite such as on WikiIndex and his IP has been used by Speededdie AKA Fast Eddie as seen here(68.190.131.24) and here(96.2.93.35). Again, as I run a site which this editor has expressed open contempt of (as well as myself), I am not the most neutral source in the world concerning this information, so I ask it be verified independently and appropriate action be taken by the appropriate parties if warranted. GethN7 (talk) 03:22, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Regardless of your potential bias, sockpuppets are not allowed. I'll file the SPI when I get home. Tutelary (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Just a small update; I didn't file one as some of the accounts have one edit, and some have their last edits as 2-4 months ago. I don't see any current sockpuppets, nor disruptive activities. Tutelary (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
I categorically deny making any edit to the article involving a fact which has not been backed up by a linked reference or of in any way concealing my affiliation with the subject wiki. Or of using a sockpuppet here or anywhere else. Please do not accept a link to GethN7's wiki (which copies TV Trope's data and adds ads to it) as evidence of anything. It is a highly suspect source. In any case, GethN7 is a person who clearly has a real conflict of interest.Speededdie (talk) 15:17, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I categorically deny that All The Tropes has advertisement. This is a matter of wiki policy there; your statement only exists to spread misinformation. GethN7 and my biases are obvious and self-declared, but then we're not editing the main pages on tropes wikis -- we're only providing information to the community on talk pages. BrentLaabs (talk) 18:41, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Articles from a Wikipedian in Residence

We have an editor who is a Wikipedian in Residence (see WP:WikiProject Consumer Reports) who has drafted a userspace version of articles here which he wishes to use for his own internal use. Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bluerasberry/cr as I'm not sure of what to do. I suggest that the contents be merged into the current article but it seems like the user does not want to for additional months or years due to the current COI policies. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I have commented there. I see no harm whatsoever in keeping material by a trustworthy editor such as Blue that may be of some use, but I am quitepuzzled aboutwhy he might whant not to use it. If the WIR program acts to discourage high quality work from appearing in WP, it's being used perversely. DGG ( talk ) 17:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC) .

IEX and Brad Katsuyama

Related articles and user

Summary

Detailed description

KristinaChi appears to have a significant conflict of interest with the editing of the IEX article:

1. Immediately after the account KristinaChi was created, its first action was to undo all of the contributions made by me to the Brad Katsuyama and IEX articles. Moreover, the user's contribution history shows that he/she is solely dedicated to changing the articles on Brad Katsuyama and IEX to improve the image of Katsuyama and IEX. Furthermore, the user mounts extremely lengthy defenses of IEX on the IEX Talk page, which border on wikilawyering. This type of activity is unusual for new accounts and suggests that KristinaChi has a substantial conflict of interest: either a personal agenda against me, or personal connection with Brad Katsuyama and IEX.

2. *** is the real name of my colleague from MIT. If you look-up my IP address from the revision history of Brad Katsuyama, anyone from the public can find the name of our group and *** is the only person whose name can be connected with our group from a Google search. It is clear that the account name KristinaChi was picked deliberately to resemble, harass and personally attack a person associated with me. This choice of username directly violates several of Wikipedia's editor policies on impersonation, harassment and personal attacks. I feel that a user with this level of maturity should not be trusted to maintain an encyclopedic and objective view of the articles at hand.

2. KristinaChi's persecutory tone in the IEX Talk page further reveals that he/she is not editing the articles from a neutral or objective perspective:

Sophie.grothendieck, is your firm doing HFT?

IEX Talk page. KristinaChi (talk) 07:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I would like to rephrase the question I just asked before. Does this defintion apply to your firm?

IEX Talk page. KristinaChi (talk) 07:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

It appears to me you may be dodging my question. I'll rephrase again: how much does your firm spend on infrastructure, i.e. colocation, direct exchange connectivity, data feeds etc. per month approximately?

IEX Talk page. KristinaChi (talk) 07:45, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Another editor, MrBill3, has come forward to point out the possibility that there exists a conflict of interest in the editing process of the article:

If one believes an editor may have a conflict of interest the appropriate step is to post a message to their talk page asking them to disclose any conflict of interest. If the response is unsatisfactory the next appropriate step is to take it to the Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. This is not appropriate content for this talk page.

IEX Talk page. MrBill3 (talk) 08:00, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

While I have fully disclosed my position, KristinaChi appears to be evading the topic of his/her conflict of interest:

My firm engages in a mix of quantitative trading in global asset classes in various time horizons (including long-term macro trades) and we do not engage in U.S. equities trading... We do focus on developing bleeding-edge technology to protect ourselves against predatory practices from certain high-speed traders. As such, I am writing these views with an independent assessment of the facts.

IEX Talk page. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I learned about IEX and Brad Katsuyama originally through a CNBC interview between BATS Global Markets's CEO and Katsuyama.[1] As such, a citation referencing this interview was my first contribution to the article on Brad Katsuyama. As a member of the financial industry that is unassociated to Katsuyama, BATS and the "HFT" topic at hand, I found the topic interesting and carried out my own research to weigh the pros and cons. Seeing that the articles on IEX and Brad Katsuyama were lacking in neutrality because most of the content had come from either IEXCommunications (IEX themselves) or a single book, Flash Boys, that promotes IEX, I hoped to add a few references to balance the views in both articles.

My contributions seem to be rational, as MrBill3 has pointed out:

I tend to agree with an editor who pointed out this article relies heavily on primary or biased sources which seem to present the subject as "heroic". I think this should be toned down and balanced with content based on secondary sources' discussion of IEX. I also think the article could be made more clear and explanatory.

IEX Talk page. MrBill3 (talk) 03:24, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind attention to this issue! Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 08:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "The Wall Street Journal Market Watch". marketwatch.com. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
Comment: someone used a ref tag above for some reason. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:36, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
I was not notifed by Sophie.grothendieck about this discussion. I would like to clarify that I have nothing to do with either IEX or Brad Katsuyama, who happen to be prominent and public critics of HFT. For this very reason it is Sophie.grothendieck who has substantial conflict of interest, since he is involved in his own HFT firm and has lied about his HFT involvement in the very same dialoge he pointed out above. Also MrBill3 was taking about Sophie.grothendieck in the comment of 08:00, 1 June 2014 (UTC) and raised the issue on Sophie.grothendieck's talk page (diff), not on mine. KristinaChi (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
I think the fact that I was willing to lift the veil of anonymity to declare no conflict of interest is a very strong testament of my integrity. In contrast, the fact that you're using "HFT" in the negative connotation in the above sentence shows that you're not approaching this topic with a neutral point of view. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
My username is an alias and does not resemble a living person. I have never claimed otherwise. My initials are completely different to the initials of the person it was claimed I would impersonate and the last names share just one character, the "i" at the end. As a sign of good faith however I am willing to have my username changed if community consensus arises to do so. KristinaChi (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
KristinaChi and *** are evidently homophones. The fact that you showed no hesitation to namedrop non-fictitious entities (e.g. my group) further strengthens the premise that you were deliberately namedropping a non-fictitious person (e.g. ***), and shows your intent to harass us. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:50, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
(Redacted)
Your accusation is defamatory. The tag "high-frequency trading" was added to the page because of our research interest in high-frequency trading, not because we practice high-frequency trading. I know a whole variety of domain experts at high-frequency trading (e.g. the SEC, the CFTC, Andrei Kirilenko) who nevertheless do not practice it - we don't consider them "high-frequency traders" simply because they stated high-frequency trading as a research interest. I replaced the name of our group with asterisks for security reasons, I think your blatant disregard for our confidentiality is disrespectful and uncivil, and in breach of Wikipedia policies. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Before today, essentially all his edits were directed at prominent critics of high-frequency trading, such as Bradley Katsuyama and Katsuyama's firm IEX. KristinaChi (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
On the contrary, all of your edits are directed at censoring criticisms of Brad Katsuyama and IEX and it seems you have spent an inordinate amount of effort (word count of your talk page arguments) arguing just to remove the criticisms rather than adding any new content. I've also added factual content to MIT's page during those edits.
As you say it yourself, Katsuyama and IEX have been making criticisms. Why is it that their points get preferential treatment in your editing efforts while you:
1. call Scott Locklin's views a "smear",
2. denounce the views of CEO of BATS Global Markets, a multi-billion dollar company by private market valuation, as "contentious"?
The CEO of BATS and Scott Locklin has been held in great regard by buy-side investors like me even before Katsuyama's name became public. The huge contrast in creditworthiness is quantifiable: A Google search of "William O'Brien BATS" yields nearly 100x the number of results, and "Scott Locklin" yields nearly 10x the number of results, as compared to a Google search on Brad Katsuyama. I don't see a fair reason why references to their statements have to be silenced. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Sophie.grothendieck operated the following user names and IP addresses to advance the very same points/ make the same edits with the same oddities like forgetting to sign comments, among other oddities:

198.0.163.1 starting 00:20, 12 May 2014
Sophie.grothendieck starting 00:27, 12 May 2014
Twosigmainvestments starting 04:41, 2 June 2014
207.181.197.4 starting 04:57, 2 June 2014
64.150.44.98 starting 18:50, 5 June 2014
KristinaChi (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
This accusation is patently false.
- 198.0.163.1 appears to be my current IP, which makes sense because I registered my account Sophie.grothendieck right afterwards.
- 207.181.197.4 appears to have begun contributing on 23 January 2014 on List of Baby Daddy episodes, long before I started editing the IEX article. This is a static IP registered by RCN originating near Kansas City.
- 64.150.44.98 appears to be a static IP registered by Illinois Century Network originating from Chicago.
- Twosigmainvestments I have no CheckUser privileges but I think checking his/her IP will immediately clear me of your accusation.
It is not plausible that I registered 3 other static IPs on different networks, under different organization names, based in different cities, and seemingly edited the article across every hour of the day. Static IPs cost substantial time and money to own and register, more so than it costs to run IEX's website. The more likely explanation is that these editors showed up because I emailed a buy-side mailing list about the IEX article to invite editors with a more objective view to take part in the editing of the article. This would be consistent with the fact that their origin cities appear to be financial hubs. Given that IEX was designed to help [buy-side]] investors like me and probably those 3 other editors, our personal views should actually be biased in favor of IEX - and the fact that all of us seem to have converged on the editing efforts on the criticisms of IEX goes to show that we were able to practice full neutrality. Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Two other, experienced editors objected content Sophie.grothendieck added to IEX. Among other grave breaches of policies, at least a handful of times Sophie.grothendieck re-inserted a wordpress blog link into this article, it is currently in the IEX article as reference
9. ^ "Michael Lewis: shilling for the buyside". April 4, 2014. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
that was identified to read and look like a smear and was also objected by another editor. KristinaChi (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree to remove Scott Locklin's wordpress reference and I was about to do so. But I was unable to carry on my editing efforts on the article because you have been repeatedly and nondiscretionarily undoing changes from 5-7 different editors in bulk, including improvements to parts of the article unassociated to the section that I wrote - which is why I had to bring your destructive efforts and conflict of interest to the attention of this noticeboard.
I was not notified by you that you think I have been in grave [breach] of policies. Also as a sign of good faith, I am willing to resolve your concerns if community consensus arises to do so.
Sophie.grothendieck (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Banc De Binary

I know a discussion on this article has already been archived, but I would like to renew it here. I find it suspicious that a marginally notable company article (which was previously deleted for not passing WP:CORP) has a large number of intensely interested editors that are persistent about using low-quality sources like press releases, court records, Investopedia, etc.

Some circumstantial events suggest that the article has become a battle-ground for competing financial interests, whereas some are paid a small fee to use their accounts to add negative content, and the other has used a paid editing firm probably (if the accusations of socks, etc. are true), offered a bounty to anyone who can control the article and so on.

Since a COI can never be proven anywhere and we have no way to obtain evidence one way or another, I'm just left with my paranoia and suspicious circumstances regarding online ads for paid edits. So I'm not sure anything can be done about it, except to focus on content and high-quality sources. However, knowing that there is most likely so much COI going on, with competing interests, it's probably impossible to develop a consensus that is not astroturfed. CorporateM (Talk) 01:07, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

metamodernism

The metamodernism page is being held to ransom by Festal82, who is making threats and using bullying tactics to force an entirely subjective list of 'Notable metamodernists' onto the page, which other editors agree is divisive and inappropriate. There appears to be a clear conflict of interest at play here, and a possible attempt at self-positioning. This user has repeatedly ignored my requests to stop this behaviour, and has instead harassed me on the talk page, making wild and outlandish accusations, and making threats to delete the whole content of the page if they don't get their own way. The user also repeatedly accuses me of being somebody that I am not, every time I make an edit they have not sanctioned, despite there being consensus among other editors, and has sought to undermine my attempts to maintain the factual integrity of the article. (The user also seems to accuse me of penning the entirety of the article, which the edit history shows is clearly not the case.) Rather than respond to my requests in a reasonable manner, the user has instead offered a bizarre ultimatum, that effectively says they will not vandalize the rest of the page if they can keep adding to their list, and seems intent on instigating an edit war. Esmeme (talk) 19:39, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to have anyone who wants take look at the Talk page for metamodernism and see what has really happened there. My last posted message on that page summarizes exactly the sort of behavior Esmeme has exhibited there for weeks now, including (as anyone who reads the History can see) accusing me repeatedly of being "Seth Abramson" and editing with an aim of "self-positioning" and then coming here to complain that I've made such accusations against him/her. Most appalling (besides outlandish representations, like a supposed "threat to delete the whole content of the page") is that this user has been flagged for violating WP:NOT and WP:RS for weeks now, leading to a "warning" tag being put atop the metamodernism page, and is now, incredibly, making accusations that in fact s/he has only been "attempting to maintain the factual integrity of the article." I do hope an editor will step in hold Esmeme to the WP:NOT and WP:RS and WP:OR standards s/he has been violating with impunity for over a month. I previously attempted to secure an administrator's intervention, but was told this was a content dispute; I then offered Esmeme two separate dispute resolutions to try to tamp down the conflict--both of which were ignored. All of this can be confirmed by looking at the Talk and History pages for metamodernism. Festal82 (talk) 19:58, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
The talk page and edit history will show the above claims to be grossly misleading and untrue. Esmeme (talk) 20:10, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
@Festal82: @Esmeme: - Both of you are making claims about each other's off-wiki interests and activities. Keeping in mind WP:OUTING, are either of you basing this on an admission of the other or are they just accusations? --— Rhododendrites talk |  19:27, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Apologies, Rhododendrites (talk)--you are right that both the OP and I have skirted this line more than once. My base claim has nothing to do with any of that, though; it's that Esmeme has shown persistent bias in favor of a non-WP:NOT, non-WP:RS website, while deleting all links relating to WP:NOT, WP:RS media outlets like The Guardian, Indiewire, et cetera. Esmeme has justified these deletions by assumptions of bad faith (thereby violating WP:AGF) and accusations that are either violations of WP:OUTING or WP:NOR. In responding to this bias and these allegations, I did the same thing Esmeme had been doing--make accusations regarding the likely identity of another editor, based upon what I perceived to be consistent biases. I know, for my part, that those allegations are in no way important to my concerns, finally--as again, the issue is the OP's persistent selection of non-WP:NOT, non-WP:RS websites over WP:NOT, WP:RS media outlets, based upon allegations which, as you note, violate WP:OUTING (in addition to being baseless). In fact, Esmeme has never provided any grounds whatsoever for deleting WP:NOT, WP:RS media outlet links other than claims based entirely on WP:OUTING and WP:NOR violations. A review of the article history and talk page reveals these are the _only_ grounds ever provided by the OP for his/her edits, while my grounds have consistently been as stated above. Festal82 (talk) 19:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I've looked through the edit history of the page and made some comments on the talk page here: Talk:Metamodernism#Outsider's point of view. --— Rhododendrites talk |  22:00, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Deepak Chopra: RfC: Move criticism up lede?

Talk:Deepak_Chopra#RfC: Move criticism up lede?

Should we move criticism of Dr Chopra up the lede? Right now it's in the second half of the final para.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 11:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Philip Nevill Green

This user has a declared COI as an assistant of Mr Green who has instructed him to write a page. I have advised him, since he is not Mr Green, to request a change of username.

The article is accordingly plastered with maintenance templates, and the user has asked for help. As chairman and chief executive of major companies, Mr Green is clearly notable, and the article as it stands is not unduly promotional. Uninvolved editors are requested to have a look at it, and clean and check it to the point where the maintenance templates can be cleared. There is a related autobiographical user page at User:Philip Nevill Green, which I have nominated at MfD. JohnCD (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Genpact

Genpact (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Would someone who has time please take a look at this PR mess? Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Andy himself admits, "I represent UW-Stevens Point as its online content coordinator" and thinks this means he's the best guy to edit this article! I have not yet actually blocked him, but he's skating on thin ice with some of his recent whitewashing edits. Orange Mike | Talk 23:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Mike, if this truly is your policy, please delete my account immediately. I have no interest in editing any other Wikipedia pages. You may repost the information about Bunnell if you feel that it's vital. It is factual information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.241.159.193 (talk) 01:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Canback & Company

This user has been solely preoccupied with inserting links to Canback & Company, a proprietary pay-to-access data site, for data that is otherwise available publicly from the IMF. They have refused discussion on their talk page, initiated by Anna Frodesiak. They have inserted identical material in both named and IP accounts. The IP address had formerly been concerned with adding material about Boston bus stops in the area around the corporate headquarters of Canback & Company. This is a mass and repeated addition of link spam. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

That's pretty egregious spamming. The user needs to be blocked, and I'm not sure this is the best place to request such action. AN/I may be better. Coretheapple (talk) 15:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
No need, done. Dougweller (talk) 16:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

LinkedIn

I work for an agency that supports LinkedIn's communications team, so I am not NPOV on the topic, but we are hoping to see a short subsection added to the article. I've shared a fully sourced draft of the proposed addition on the article's talk page, and subsequently marked it with the request-edit template, but have yet to receive a response. If anyone would be willing to look over the draft, work with me on any changes to make it best suited to improving the page's value, and then make the update on my behalf, I'd be extremely grateful. MaryGaulke (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Krysten Ritter

I've recently noticed that ManagerTGE forces professionally taken photos (in a promotional manner) into Krysten Ritter, Dee Roscioli and Monica Raymund articles. This is user claims that the subjects are "his/her clients" ([10], [11], [12]) and has edited only on this purpose. Considering the edits, I think this is obviously a COI case. Myxomatosis57 (talk) 18:34, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Sony Entertainment Network

Wrong venue. Please move to Talk:Sony_Entertainment_Network
 – Retartist (talk) 00:56, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Sony Entertainment Network
 – Relocated as suggested - thank you! --ChrisThilk (talk) 16:00, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Anand Veeravagu

So, after being tipped off on an IP edit for the White House Fellows page, I found that the User:Policy5690expert is actually Anand himself. These two edits are proof where he says the deleted image is himself and he changed his username from his actual name to the policyexpert one above. Nearly all the edits on that article are from this user. Nasa-verve (talk) 19:18, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Jeff Davidson (speaker)

All of the above editors are single-use accounts that keep adding promotional language to this article which requires cleanup. I seems to me that the editors probably have a close link to the article subject, the way they are being used looked somewhat like sockpuppetry. The quality of some of the publications mentioned looks a bit think, and I think the whole article could do with a review by someone with more expertise than me. Shritwod (talk) 08:31, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Most of the edits that have been made by moderators has not been to correct neutral tone issues, but rather the mass cutting of information. I understand perfectly fine if there are issues with neutrality, however I have sought to substantiate all of the claims on the article with some sort of citation or another. Many hours have been put into researching the necessary citations, and I would appreciate if the concerned moderators would not remove the properly cited information. It will not ultimately serve Wikipedia or the common user if the proper information is removed. C3po2398 (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

C3po2398, can I ask what you relationship with the subject is? And also, are those other editor accounts also under your control? Shritwod (talk) 08:28, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Shritwod, Jeff has given a presentation at the University I attend, and I took interest in some of his work. I don't believe that should constitute conflict of interest, and regardless to that issue anyway, I have sought professionalism and neutral tone in the information I have added to the page, citing as much as I have been able. So my request is that the information that I have dug up be there, and you can correct whatever neutral tone issues you believe there are. And to answer your other question, I have no relation to the other editor accounts. C3po2398 (talk) 8:46, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
C3po2398, is it just then a coincidence that there is also an editor R2D29826398? Shritwod (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
In the past, a number of editors have been hired to create biographies for speakers who are part of the National Speakers Association. The client has been hiring more than one editor per article. My guess is that this is the case here, although I'd expect that to only account for two or three of the editors. I'd propose that there were a couple of editors hired, one of whom has been creating multiple accounts. - Bilby (talk) 16:28, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seankellywiki checkuser results should probably be here for reference. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Given that the sockpuppet investigation indicates that these editors ARE sockpuppets, then I am afraid that I have to conclude that all the other claims by the socks of Seankellywiki / C3po2398 are suspect too. However, the article is not beyond salvation, I think it needs some pruning though. Shritwod (talk) 19:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Murphy Betancourt

Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. MurphyBetancourt (talk) 18:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

James Willerson, Doris Taylor, Texas Heart Institute

The creator of the James Willerson article, Rwendler has stated that " I am employed at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston as a website writer/editor in the Visual Communications Department". James Willerson is president of the Texas Heart Institute (THI). Additionally, the Willerson article is a mess - citations are all strange and much of the content is nonencylopedic/promotional, and badly sourced. This is the second article that the user has pumped up in a similar way. The first was Doris Taylor, a prominent researcher who was recently recruited to come to THI, in this series of difs. I spent about an hour cleaning up the Taylor article in these difs. I am not willing to spend time to do that again.

Rwendler is new. I gave this user a heads up about our COI policies and WP:PROMO in this dif back on June 4. Ian Furst warned as well in these difs (much more kindly than I did). Willerson article was created on June 12. Rwendler does not disclose the COI on the User page nor on the article Talk page as per our guidelines. Please take action to prevent more badly written, promotional articles being created by this user and to teach them to comply with our COI policies/guidelines. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Hotel Polonia Palace

As the username indicates, John Polonia speaks on behalf of Hotel Polonia. Normally, I would not bother filing a complaint if it wasn't for his reverts of reasonable edits along the lines of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not policy/guideline. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 15:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Addendum. Yet again, user John Polonia reinserted +3753 of text with false summary in foreign language claiming: "minor edit" thus ignoring my "coin-notice" on his talk page. Please look into it. I'm not interested in edit warring. Poeticbent talk 16:30, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Hammerstone2012

Hi there! I've come to this noticeboard because I'm unsure of what to do - user Hammerstone2012 continually makes edits that do not convey the tone of an encyclopedia, and are backed by substandard references (usually SPS - blogs and most recently a website used to garner support for an ongoing class action law suit) in the subject entry. Upon further review, this is the only article they edit, and their handle is itself a nod to the project they've been writing about. I'd like to assume good faith, but this has been ongoing for several years, and there's been no attempt by this user to engage on the Talk page. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Bienmanchot (talk) 16:43, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Cody Alain et al.

EditorialExpert (talk · contribs) seems to be closely connected with a PR firm in Torontto called: P1M. It denominates itself as an "Artist Management company". One of EditorialExpert's first acts was to create an article for the firm. That article has since been deleted. Subsequently, EditorialExpert has created a number of articles for clients of the firm, identified as "represented by P1M". Many of these have already been speedily deleted. Cody Alain is currently at Afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cody Alain (2nd nomination), as are Vanessa Jarman and Diana Carrerio. The six others currently extant are marked for speedy delete: Tony Masciangelo, Anna Nenoiu, David Allan Jones, Susana Hong, Beau Nelson and Simone Otis. EditorialExpert has recreated some of these articles after they have been deleted. I gave notice today to EditorialExpert about Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest provisions. --Bejnar (talk) 06:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

At 10:12, 18 June 2014‎ (UTC), EditorialExpert was blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia by admin JamesBWatson. --Bejnar (talk) 11:34, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Cdrkit

One more time, @Schily: is making controversial edits to articles where he holds a conflict of interest (which are Cdrtools, its fork Cdrkit, and his biography). I have warned him that I'd file a COI report if he did it again, so here it is.

I've been asking him for months to request his desired edits at the talk page of these articles, and this is his answer. I'm unable to convince him of the expected way to behave for editors with a conflict of interest. Diego (talk) 13:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that User:Diego Moya who has been identified as a person with a conflict of interest in this area behaves this way. I just removed a completely unrelated and false claim while Diego removed a proven fact which is something he should not do without first asking, given his conflict of interest (he is a Debian member and Debian initiated attacks against the cdrtools project in 2004). Schily (talk) 14:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Where did you get the idea that I'm a Debian member? This is false. Diego (talk) 15:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Aprox. 20% of your edits related to the global cdrtools topic appear to be unbalanced in favor of Debian. Also note that I previously mentioned that I am convinced that you are in a conflict of interest, using the same arguments and you did not send any protest at that time. Schily (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
What do you consider a "Debian member"? I may have installed it a couple of times, maybe even contacted with the developers in their mailing list a couple of times (I can't remember doing that, though I don't rule it out as there was a time a decade ago when I was somewhat active in open source circles), but being a very occasional user doesn't make me a member of the project. And "guilty until complaining about innocence"? Seriously you may want to increase your level of proof because accusing people of nefarious purposes. Diego (talk) 16:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Please do not try to interpret things into my words that I did not say. The problem is that a non negligible amout of your edits is biased and that you seem assume that every of my edits is unbalanced. This is against the WP rules that recommend to expect every edit from another user (unless otherwise proven) to be a good faith edit. With respect to the unbalanced edits you made in the past, please stop to assume that it is your task to control me. I already made the proposal that I am willing to discuss all edits related to cdrtools before actually editing the articles if all concerned people follow the same rules, note that this of course includes you. Schily (talk) 16:31, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
You don't follow the same rules as everybody else at those three articles, because you have a declared conflict of interest with those topics. This is what you've failed to understand for years. Diego (talk) 16:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Guys this is COIN. Diego Moya you have not provided any evidence here that the Wikipedia editor, Schily, has a COI. Please provide it. Please be very aware of the text in bolded orange that appears directly over the editing box, when you state your evidence. The policy against outing is very very strict on WP and this could boomerang on you if you are not well grounded. Diego you also need to provide difs of edits where the COI (if it exists) caused a problem. Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Schily - if you have a COI, I urge you to disclose that on your User page and on the Talk page of the subject article, as per WP:COI. Also, your comments above come extremely close to an attempt at WP:OUTING and may go over the line. I urge you strike what you wrote above, although if you have violated that policy, even striking it may not save you now. Finally, when someone brings up a potential COI about you, the absolute worst thing you can do is to turn around and point fingers at others. The discussion here is about you. If you wish to open a COIN thread (or a thread at WP:NPOVN if you think the issue is WP:Advocacy) on Diego Moya then do so - although again that stinks to high heaven, to do that while there is a thread about you. Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

My interest is to have non-biased articles. Sometimes it is needed to mention people that write biased text in order to prevent similar things in the future. In this specific case, I am disappointed to see that an edit that was definitely not biased is called unbalanced by User: Diego Moya. If there is no way to defend against wrong acusations on WP, then WP seems to be in a conflict. Schily (talk) 17:11, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
again: 1) If you have a COI as defined in Wikipedia, you should declare it. 2) if you have concerns about another editor's COI or advocacy, please address that separately. This thread is about you. 3) And really - your effort to identify Diego outside of Wikipedia is (to me) a blatant violation of WP:OUTING and I expect there to be trouble for you if/when an administrator reviews this thread. You are not at all backing off what you tried to do, which I expect will make it worse (if I am right). Do you understand WP:OUTING here at Wikipedia - have you read it? Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Again, this is COIN - this is not a place to discuss content disputes. The "defense" against an accusation of COI is simple. If you do not have one, say "I have no COI." (read WP:COI before you make such a statment) If you do have a COI: a) declare it; and b) abide by the guidelines for behavior when you have a COI. If you have acted wrongly, apologize and change your behavior. It is pretty simple. Jytdog (talk) 17:24, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
If I acted wrongly, I am willing to apologize. My understanding in this case is that Diego made a mistake when claiming a removal of unrelated and unsourced text was done in a conflict of interest. Schily (talk) 17:46, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
OK, so you are unwilling to say whether you have a COI with regard to Cdrkit or not. If you are unwilling to shed light on that question, you don't have to. It is helpful if you would, but you do not have to. We will just deal with whatever evidence is available. Jytdog (talk) 18:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The evidence is in the linked conversation to the previous COI report, where I provided diffs to some of the numerous comments where Schily self-identifies as the author of the software Cdrtools (see this -"Debian created renamed the fork on my request", here and here where he confirms that he has been consulting lawyers (including Moglen) about the validity of the software's license as reported in the references, this, and also the software author's blog which uses the same user name). Does this definitely prove that Schily is the same person that created the software? No, as it doesn't rule out the possibility that this user is a very elaborate troll that has been supplanting the author's identity through the years at WP; but that seems unlikely, and then whomever was editing under this account would have worse problems than a Conflict of Interest.
This article is atypical in that the creator has been editing it throughout the years with very controversial and highly contested edits, and neither the author has refrained from making such edits nor other editors have sought remedy - until now, in the hope that Schily would provide valuable knowledge about the history of the software. However, those hopes are vanishing more and more quickly. Diego (talk) 17:50, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
By writing the false claim "Debian created the fork on my request" you again verified that you have a conflict of interest and that should should not do any edit on articles that are related to cdrtools. Correct is that Debian created their fork in May 2004 and later renamed that fork on my request because they illegally used the original name before. What you wrote is trying to bend the truth and is apropriate to harm my reputation for people that do not verify your claims for correctness. Schily (talk) 09:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I apology for my error in summarizing the diff, and I've over-stroke it for the benefit of new readers. I didn't intend for it to "bend the truth", and sincerely can't see how it harms your reputation to say that you requested a fork vs you requesting a renaming of the fork - in both cases, my intention for bringing in the diff was noting that you had self-identified as the person making a request to Debian as the author of the software. Diego (talk) 10:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
The claim in question cannot be a cut/paste error and the difference is important when taking the various discussions about that topic into account. BTW: By not reverting my edit in the Cdrkit article, you confirm that you do not believe that this edit was biased. So why do you claim here that this was a biased/inapropriate edit? Schily (talk) 10:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
The error was made because I tried to quote from memory, which I recognized is something I should have not made. Can you please assume good faith?
As explained at the talk page, I had problems with your edit, that's why I corrected it immediately after. That the remedy was not a revert doesn't mean that I agreed with what you did. One more time, your binary logic is faulty, in this case a fallacy of the excluded middle - there was a third possible cause for my actions that you didn't consider. You do that a lot, and arrive to all the wrong conclusions because of it. Please, please try not to guess my motives, because you're failing each time. If you want to know why I have made something, your best bet is simply to ask me. Diego (talk) 11:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I didn't get past the first line above where you wrote "the previous COI report". There was a previous posting here at COIN? If so can you please provide the link to it? It would be useful to review it, and how it was closed. Jytdog (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Schily, if you have a conflict of interest, *all* your edits are subject to special scrutiny, no matter how innocent and good mannered they may be. I've never doubted your good intentions, but there's an inherent bias in being too close to the topic, that's why I've asked that you refrain from any edit to these articles's contents, no matter how uncontroversial you may think they are. Diego (talk) 17:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Diego, this is not a mainstream view of how COI works at Wikipedia. More importantly, this is rushing ahead. As far as I can see right now, a COI is not established yet. You have made it clear that you believe there is a COI but it is not clear to me that the community will agree (or has agreed) with you. So please slow down. You brought this to COIN to get the community involved, so you have to give the community time. Jytdog (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, this is how I interpret the words "If another editor objects for any reason, then it's a controversial edit" as, given his background, I've objected to all edits by Schily that don't have previous "clear consensus on the talk page", except for his recent updating of broken links, which I didn't object to. (I linked to the previous discussion in the very first words at this thread, "One more time". ) Diego (talk) 19:38, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Ah - I see! On my screen there is (sadly) little difference between blue and black and I didn't see the link under "one more time". What I objected to in what you wrote, is the following: " *all* your edits are subject to special scrutiny". COI is content specific. Schily may have no conflict about, say potatoes, so if he edited an article on potatoes his edits would deserve no more scrutiny than yours or mine. I objected to the "all". I agree very much, that schilly should edit articles about himself or any of the software he authored only as per the Advice section you link to.Jytdog (talk) 19:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Ok, I meant it to say "all his edits to the articles where he has a conflict of interest"; as the "all edits" was qualified by "if you have a conflict of interest". Obviously, edits to other articles where there is no conflict of interest are not subject to that scrutiny, but it seems that this is not what I said. :-) Diego (talk) 20:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

With respect to the COI - is there real doubt that Schily is the lead author of cdrtools? Let's do that first. Hipocrite (talk) 18:14, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) OK, I just found the prior COIN discussion - it was Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_73#Cdrtools. In that discussion Atama found that schilly does have a COI on cdrtools in this dif: "A conflict of interest on Wikipedia is present when an editor has a real-life relationship to whatever they are writing about that can "undermine their role" as an unbiased, independent editor. You definitely have a conflict of interest with the cdrtools article." Atama wrote at other places in that thread that Schilly is indeed the author. I don't see where schilly is following our COI guidelines by declaring his COI and avoiding making anything other than trivial edits to articles where he has a COI. I look to Admins and the community for next steps... Jytdog (talk) 18:24, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

There are also COI incidents at Make (software) [13] (he publishes a make implementation "smake"), Source Code Control System [14] and List_of_revision_control_software [15] (he publishes an enhanced SCCS), Bourne shell [16] Comparison_of_command_shells [17] (The "Schily" Tool Box includes a bourne shell), David_Korn_(computer_scientist) [18] (he probably also has a Korn shell), Terminfo [19] (he publishes SchilliX, or this relates to the shells, too). Either way, lots of COI, and lots of fights, with plenty of people (including me, and User:Tedickey, who seems to try hard to moderate changes). --Chire (talk) 09:26, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I "try hard", focusing on verifiable sources. However, Schily is not cooperative in that endeavor, preferring to make personal attacks (including attacking my non-Wikipedia reputation) TEDickey (talk) 11:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
In my judgement, schily is violating WP:COI - he has been found to have a conflict in the last COIN, and he should declare his conflicts clearly and he should not be making anything other than noncontroversial edits. I recommend he receive a weeklong block to teach him that these things matter. I am not an admin, so we need to wait. Jytdog (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Mr. Dickey frequently runs personal attacks against me and recently made a self promoting edit that he apparently is unwilling to fix. In addition, there are plenty of cases where he adds own unsourced claims that frequently look like own research, while at the same time he asks other people for sources on well known facts. He does not look like a cooperative person and should have a look at the WP rules. Schily (talk) 14:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
as i mentioned above, this thread is about you. Literally the worst thing you can do is try to re-direct instead of addressing the concerns that have been raised about your behavior. You can probably avoid a block by changing your behavior right now and promising to change it going forward, but you are heading directly for an WP:IDHT block. Maybe that is what it will take to make you understand that your behavior is not acceptable.Jytdog (talk) 14:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
If you can show me things I did that I should not do, I am willing to change. Looking at the current case, it seems that Diego already confirmed that I did nothing wrong as I just removed text that is definitely unrelated and in addition was subject of "own research". Schily (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Follow the behavioral guidelines in WP:COI which you are not doing. I also suggest you read and follow these two very helpful essays:

Most importantly: 1) Declare your COI on your User page and at articles where you are active and have a COI. 2) In general, avoid directly editing articles and content where you have a COI, but instead make suggestions on Talk. 3) Only directly edit articles and content where you have a COI in order to make simple, uncontroversial, factual changes that matter. If you use your best judgement and make a direct edit thinking it will be uncontroversial, and it is reverted, it obviously was not uncontroversial - never edit war on articles and content where you have a conflict. Back off and discuss when that happens. There is a template you can use (explained in the blue box near the top of this page) to ask other editors to come edit the article in cases where your hands are tied - use that if needed. And use the dispute resolution mechanisms that we have. But be transparent and be aware of your COI and our guidelines for it. Will you agree to do all that, now and going forward? You should also be aware that WP's terms of use just changed, and undisclosed paid editing is now a violation of the terms of use. I do not know if that applies to you at all, but wanted to make sure you are aware of it. This dif shows the change to the Terms of Use. Jytdog (talk) 15:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I also want to say, that once your own nose is clean, you are in a much better position to register a notice here about other editors' COI. I caught hints about other potential problems from Atama's comments in the last COIN that Diego initiated but I haven't stopped to look at them, as this is about you. If you think you have a valid complaint about another editor's COI, please bring it separately, when this is done. We want to be fair and we also want to be focused. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
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