Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:55, 18 February 2007

Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
Shortcuts WP:COI/N WP:COIN WP:COIBOARD Sections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. Click here to purge this page (For help, see Misplaced Pages:Purge) This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution procedural policy.
You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Additional notes: This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period. Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wpwikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice. The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}. Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request: 1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}. 2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed. 3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days. Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest guideline.
Are you in the right place? An editor can be biased without additionally having a COI. Issues involving bias may be more suited to Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Issues involving the biographies of living persons policy (BLP) may be more suited to Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Commercial usernames should be reported to Misplaced Pages:Usernames for administrator attention. Obvious cases of corporate vanity can be tagged with {{db-spam}}. Articles written about a person, group, club or band by such a person, group, club or band with no assertion of notability can be tagged with {{db-bio}} instead. This page is not for reporting simple vandalism, material that can easily be fixed or removed without argument, or non-conflict of interest breaches of the neutral point of view policy. Notes for volunteers To close a report Add Template:Resolved at the head of the complaint, with the reason for closing and your signature. Old issues are taken away by the archive bot. Other ways to help All editors are encouraged to help resolve reports of COI editing. More problematic articles can be found in Category:Misplaced Pages articles with possible conflicts of interest. Category:Misplaced Pages conflict of interest edit requests. Editors who believe they have a conflict of interest may ask someone else to make edits for them. Please visit this category and respond to one of these requests. Whether you perform it or not, you should edit the parameter of the {{edit COI}} when you are done to remove the article from the category. Leave a Talk comment for the requester to explain your decision.
To begin a new discussion, enter the name of the relevant article below:

Panther (computer game) (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Wgungfu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - User repeatedly removed any mention of Battlezone, a video game probably inspired by Panther (although the article does not assert this); he has even removed See also links. Edit summary of removal of See also link: "RV due to speculation comes from the claimed relationship of Bzone being a copy of Panther, which is speculative at best"; no such claim was made in the article. Likewise, has repeatedly removed or muted mention of Panther from the Battlezone page. User page suggests close links to Atari. Has said on Talk:Battlezone that he sides with Atari POV that "Factually, there is no direct link between Panther and Battelzone." (sic) // ProhibitOnions 12:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Has this conflict, posted over 1.5 months ago, been resolved yet? — Athænara ✉ 01:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Delicious Vinyl (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

I'm not sure that this should go here or on the general board. I received an email to my Misplaced Pages account stating

thank you for your help on The Pharcyde's page on Misplaced Pages. We are really looking for some that knows Misplaced Pages editing well to make more overdue Misplaced Pages enteries for our record labels' artists. of course, we are not talking about any illicit 'marketing' messaging, only justifiable quality entries. If you have some feelings or suggestions on this please email me (name and email from Delicious Vinyl)

Delicious Vinyl is behind such classics as Tone Lōc's Wild Thing and Young MC's Bust A Move, if anyone else is a fan of late 80s hiphop. Any thoughts? - BanyanTree 16:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't do anything right now. No article, no conflict of interest problems. As for notability, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. MER-C 01:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Lyndon LaRouche (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Dennis King, who edits Misplaced Pages as Dking (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), has made over 50 edits to this article in the past three days. He was the author of a hostile biography of LaRouche back in the 1980s, and his edits are very problematic from the standpoint of WP:COI#Citing_oneself. --Tsunami Butler 09:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The general case has already been resolved in http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche and http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche_2 Dennis King is a respected and published author on LaRouche. Why is Tsunami Butler publishing on every possible noticeboard then? Because Tsunami Butler is simply another LaRouche follower who is attempting to whitewash negative facts about LaRouche. Please be cautious in reading any claim of Tsunami Butler because many of them are simply incorrect. Mgunn 22:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I think a more appropriate place for this would be the arbcom enforcement board, as this could be in violation of the two arbcom rulings. Please file your request there, complete with diffs and links to the two arbcom decisions. MER-C 12:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I have read those ArbCom decisions, and the issue of self-citing never comes up. I have no basis for bringing this complaint to that forum. Self-citing is a COI policy issue. If you need diffs, a brief glance at this should get you started. --Tsunami Butler 16:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I too have read those two ArbComm decisions, and am completely puzzled by Mgunn's comment that the matter has already been resolved. WP:COI as a policy post-dates the ArbComm decisions (prior to the current policy, it was limited to vanity pages, I believe, and that's not the issue here). And in any case Dennis King was neither a party to nor mentioned in the ArbComm cases; these decisions thus provide no guidance or his edits nor a basis for enforcement.

This is a current WP:COI issue, and deserves further scutiny. -- John Broughton | 23:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last post in this section was almost a month ago: has there been any progress or resolution of the problem as described when it was posted on the first of this year? — Athænara ✉ 01:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

No. --Tsunami Butler 15:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Georgetown University (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch) and related pages

The IP user User:68.98.161.246 has made more than 300 edits, all of which relate to Georgetown University and Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in a positive nature. I think the IP should be checked to see if it comes from the university. For example, there has been a discussion at the School of Foreign Service article about academic boosterism by the user. Here are their contributions: Special:Contributions/68.98.161.246. Another similar IP user has made similar boosteristic edits, Special:Contributions/68.49.15.185. Thanks --AW 07:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

 Likely I did the whois on both IPs. Neither resolved to the university itself, but rather the surrounding urban area, Arlington and Vienna to be precise. It's consistent with a student/employee editing from home. MER-C 07:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Added a {{primarysources}} to that article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but they are still doing that sort of thing to other articles. I've left them messages to see the Conflict of Interest policy but they haven't responded so far. --AW 05:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Is this problem as described early last month still an active issue needing further attention? — Athænara ✉ 01:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Trainer (games) (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Trainer (games) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Dispute over external links. I recently removed all external links from this article as they all failed WP:EL. One link was for a site run by User:Apache-; he has stated that he will continue to put up these external links each time they are removed, dismissing WP:EL and WP:COI as 'vague and ambiguous'. // Marasmusine 16:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

How about WP:SPAM? And you're not alone, too, which is a good thing. Just looking at the history, User:Apache- might have violated 3RR as well. MER-C 03:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

01:19, 5 January 2007 JzG (Talk | contribs) blocked "Apache- (contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Revert warring, spamming) MER-C 09:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Apache-'s block has ended and his first act is to re-add the external links to Trainer (games). Marasmusine 14:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Apache has shown utter disregard for the WP:EL and WP:COI guidelines, has gone right ahead and repeated the action that he was blocked for and has no interest in building the encylopedia or working with others. Not, imo, the kind of editor we need to have around, especially as he appears to be a WP:SPA. Deizio talk 14:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm tempted to place a {{spam4im}} on his talk page right now. If he adds those links again, I will place such template. MER-C 11:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last edit by the user in question was 6 January 2007. Are there any remaining issues related to the problem as it was first described here the day before? — Athænara ✉ 01:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

XanGo (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• XanGo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Mangosteen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - AnonIP trying to remove criticism of XanGo MLM (multi-level marketing scheme). See edits for User:67.128.38.100. He (she?) keeps removing all critical information, or trying to insert material favorable to the XanGo MLM scheme. I suspect, but cannot prove, that this person is a participant in the scheme. I don't know quite how to deal with this. I've reverted twice today and don't know if this would be considered a content dispute or vandalism, so I'm not sure I dare any more reverts. Zora 23:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 Likely Geolocation puts the IP in Lehi, Utah. Guess where our little scheme is based? MER-C 03:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

He/she/it seems to have stopped for the day, but may return. If COI is likely, what next? Have the article semi-protected? Have the user blocked? Zora 08:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It's most likely vandalism anyway, so {{subst:test1a}}, etc, may be appropriate. MER-C 09:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Is this still an active problem needing additional COI/N attention? Have related or similar issues with the article continued? — Athænara ✉ 01:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Parmenides Publishing

Re: Jennneal1313 (talk · contribs): This is not specific to one article, but I'd like a second opinion on this user's contributions; it's a subtle case. In some instances these are reasonable additions, but the user has several times changed an existing source from the edition originally cited (usually out of print) to the Parmenides Publishing edition; see this edit for an example. Individually, I'm not sure these are a problem, but collectively, they would seem to indicate a conflict of interest. Other opinions very welcome; thanks. Chick Bowen 06:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd call it spam, as it doesn't really add to the article. Good catch. Reverted. MER-C 06:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This user e-mailed me about correcting information about books from her press. I told her that the links were what raised a flag, and that ISBN numbers and up-to-date publication info would not be a problem--I certainly see no problem with this. So I think this is resolved. Chick Bowen 18:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've run across these publishers before and have no qualms about deleting or RVing all of their posts. However, I do check the books, and twice with publisher spams found books that were well-connected to the article, so I left them. One I even added a sentence to the article to tie it in with the book better. Generally they are not well-regarded books being added, so it's easy to delet them all. Another time they were books for one of the university publishing houses, so I wound up checking all of them more closely, but none were particularly well tied in to the articles. The annoying thing about spam, conflicts of interest and the like, is it's not always so straight-forward. If they're updating out of date editions to current editions this may conflict with the article citations, so it might be better to parenthetically list the newer addition rather than deleting the old. KP Botany 19:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I told her to include both. This is primarily a scholarly reprint publisher, so it does seem useful to have an up-to-date ISBN for books we're already citing but in out-of-print editions. Chick Bowen 19:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a win-win in spite of the conflict of interest: she gets paid to do the tedious work we don't have to. KP Botany 19:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It was my fault for not checking all of the etiquette & how to's before updating the pages. I didn't realize I was replacing older editions. Now I only add our newer editions, and just with ISBN 13s, not the external links. If its a book of ours that isn't included on a specific author's page, I'm only adding the book with the ISBN 13 as well, no external links. I've changed my user page to reflect that I work for the publisher. I am a philosophy student and have read all of the books that I'm adding, so I try to ensure the books are actually relevant. Thanks to Chick Bowen for his suggestions about reconciling any conflict of interest and his help steering me in the right direction. If I do anything else verboten, please let me know. I want to do this correctly. --Jennneal1313 04:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• This issue seems to have been resolved. Is that a correct assessment? — Athænara ✉ 01:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Gordon Lish (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Lishian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - This user account has existed for less than a month, and in that time he or she has concentrated, almost without exception, on editing either Gordon Lish or articles that mention Gordon Lish. Lishian also deliberately blanked Talk:Gordon Lish on December 24. I suspect a conflict of interest. My guess is that Lishian is either Gordon Lish himself or someone with with a close personal connection to him. Pat Berry 22:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed: edit patterns look very suspicious. UserRandom is also prominent in having created a large number of redirects and links to Gordon Lish). There are also a few other users - Nominickel, Judge&Jury and The Hystorian - who have done little but pop up to add Lish material. The article needs serious attention to make it encyclopedic, including wikifying to remove redirect loops and duplicated hyperlinks. 86.140.183.135 23:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

After analyzing the edit patterns further, I am now convinced that Lishian is Gordon Lish's granddaughter. Here's the evidence:

• On 15 November 2006, a person at IP address 69.138.176.86 edited the Gordon Lish article and entered this edit summary: "i'm his grandaughter, nina"
• 69.138.176.86 began editing Misplaced Pages on 28 October 2006 and from the very first edit behaved exactly like Lishian, concentrating almost exclusively on either the Gordon Lish article or articles that mention Gordon Lish.
• Edits from 69.138.176.86 essentially stopped after the Lishian user account was created on 23 December 2006. There have been only two edits from 69.138.176.86 since 18 December (probably because Lishian simply forgot to log in on those two occasions).
• The last edit from 69.138.176.86, on 7 January 2007, was a request for AutoWikiBrowser registration. The username submitted in this request was Lishian.

What this all adds up to: 69.138.176.86 (Lish's granddaughter Nina) and Lishian are the same person. Pat Berry 19:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

See also Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies, where another editor has called attention to Gordon Lish. Pat Berry 17:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last comment here was over one month ago, and the Rfc/B was removed earlier this week. Has the issue as posted here in early January 2007 been resolved? — Athænara ✉ 02:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

iPhone (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• IPhone (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - appears that various Cisco employees have been edit warring on this article regarding the trademark dispute between Apple and Cisco over the iPhone. Numerous attempts to create disambiguation page contrary to consensus and WP:NAME guidelines. For example, confirmed that 64.102.36.140 (talk · contribs) edited the page in such a disruptive fashion from a Cisco IP, and I'm confident that same user was also Whointhe (talk · contribs). Another editor identified 171.71.37.171 (talk · contribs) as another possible Cisco employee, and I'm sure there are others. // --ZimZalaBim (talk) 23:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

•  Confirmed 171.71.37.171 (talk · contribs) is Cisco, however the edit warring seems to have stopped for the time being. MER-C 02:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Friday (talk · contribs)

I don't know if this is the appropriate place to report conflicts of interest in Admin actions. If not, please move this section and include a link here so we can find the new location. Friday is a member of a group I will call "Ref Desks deletionists", who favor unilateral, or at least nonconsensus, deletions of questions, responses, or entire threads, from the Reference Desk, if they don't personally approve of them. Unfortunately, he also engages in blocks against "Ref Desk inclusionists", those who believe a consensus must first be reached on the Ref Desk talk page before taking such actions. This alone is a conflict of interest. However, he follows a much stricter standard and applies the maximum penalty to inclusionists while imposing no penalty at all, and a warning at best, to fellow deletionists who engage in similar, or even far worse, behavior. I have mentioned this on his talk page several times, but he has not responded favorably. His recent block of Ref Desk inclusionist User:light current for calling someone a "Freshman" is a good example. He does not block Ref Desk deletionists for far worse behavior, such as these comments by an anon with a dynamic I/P:

Fuck off - that's an insult.87.102.4.227 14:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC) .

You are a totally time wasting twat - why don't you fuck off and stop wasting everyones time with your pointless words - I had doubts at first - but now am am absolutely certain - you are a total fucking twat - fuck off.87.102.22.58 17:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC) .

The only response from Friday for these severe insults was a rather mild comment on the talk page of the anon in question, without even the threat of a block for repeated future insults: .

The perception, among many Ref Desk inclusionists, is that Friday abuses his Admin status in an attempt to "crush" inclusionists. Does everybody agree that there is a conflict of interest here ? If so, what can be done about it ? StuRat 17:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The correct place to report and discuss concerns about administrators' administrative actions is at WP:AN/I. If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to move this entire thread there. Note that this is a continuation of a previous, ongoing pattern of incivil and disruptive behaviour by Light current, the previous discussion of which is still on AN/I at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Civility_block_for_review.

At the same time, a review of StuRat's ongoing incivility would be welcomed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC

If you're talking about the use of the term "deletionist", that has already been reviewed at the RFC, and the consensus seems to be that it is, indeed, appropriate to refer to "those who support nonconsensus Ref Desk deletions" as "Ref Desk deletionists". Also, I must say that if your response to a complaint is to attack the messenger in an attempt to discourage any further complaints, this is also highly inappropriate behavior for an Admin. StuRat 23:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the thread over. Do be careful when you copy and paste next time, though; you seem to have missed some of the other comments in the thread that would be relevant and of interested to persons reviewing your report. Don't worry; I've filled in the missing details. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As would a review of User:Hipocrite's gross incivility and repeated attacks, which has been encouraged by countless administrators. -THB 22:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last post about the conflict in this section was over a month ago. Has the problem been resolved? — Athænara ✉ 02:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Statik Selektah (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Statik Selektah (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Article created & edited by Statikselekt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Suggestive username, promotional tone, external links to record company/Myspace, and disruptive edits here and here suggest WP:COI issues. UnfriendlyFire 01:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

In fact the text is identical to that online here and here. So if it's not put here by Statik Selektah himself, it's a copyvio; if it is, it's COI. 86.145.94.9 03:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I have placed a warning in user's talk page and removed copyvio from the article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last edit by the user in question and the last comment here were over one month ago. Are there still problems with the article which need to be addressed on this noticeboard? — Athænara ✉ 02:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Serampore College (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Serampore College (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - this article on a perfectly respectible and long established (nearly 200 years) College is being "attacked" by User The Hermes who has it in his had that this is some sort of fake College and diploma mill - neither of which is true. He has ignored several editors telling him where the degree issuing authority comes from and keeps adding derogatory remarks to the page. I am now getting too close and feel someone else needs to monitor this - and if necessary protect it for a while to let matters cool down. Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! 07:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • This is a bit of a mixed case. The article itself describes the source of accreditation, but provides no link. Is one available? (I agree that it is up to The Hermes to disprove the validity of the information mentioned - a legislative act - but a link would be ideal here.)
  • More importantly, on the talk page, User:The Hermes provided links to examples of people citing degrees from "Serampore Univeristy." You have failed to address some of his points - does the college use that name? If not, is there another institution that does - possibly a diploma mill? (If so, the article should so state.) If the college does use that title in any of its diplomas, that should be mentioned. Please do so; these are valid questions.
  • In any case, this is content dispute, not a conflict of interest case (at least, nothing you've mentioned covers conflict of interest, as described at WP:COI.) Please (re)read Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes about how to handle content disputes; it includes a lot of different options if informal discussions fail to solve the matter. -- John Broughton | 00:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• There seem to be no remaining problems with this article which require further exposure/attention on this noticeboard. Yes? No? — Athænara ✉ 03:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Tyson_Foods (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Tyson_Foods (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Most of the curent text in the article comes from corporate press releases. The tone is very boosterish and enthusiastic. Until I pointed it out, there was a first person sentence copied from a press release. All critical material is quickly deleted. There have been two main contributers/editors who seem to part of Tyson foods.

As far as documenting the source of the information this evidence is pretty damning. The phrase " the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork" from paragraph one is found almost 300 times on the corporate website; check google: search for phrase on tyson.com. In paragraph two, the phrase "The company produces a wide variety of protein-based and prepared food products" is also a staple of Tyson press releases and occurs on their website a like number of times: search for phrase on tyson.com. The phrase "value-added chicken, beef and pork" is a tyson corporate coinage that occurs nowhere on the net except for in tyson press releases or a few articles based on them.

The charity section comes pretty much ver batim from a Dec. 4, 2006 press release from the company, availble on the corporate website at (captioned as a "news release" using the current vogue of corporately produced fake news).

The Sustainability section simply links to a tyson produced report rebutting the widespread allogations of enironmental abuses.

And the "controversy" section has been polluted by scare quotes and other interventions of Ederdn, the probable Tyson employee. The final insult is the last paragraph which lauds Tysons treatment of animals; the source of these sentences are the tyson press release of october 5, 2006, available at their website at // BradB 02:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

199.66.3.5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - A check of the IP 199.66.3.5 confirms that it is in fact from inside of tyson foods corp; a traceroute goes through tyson-foods-inc-1105186.cust-rtr.swbell.net.

Ederdn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has made subsequent changes many of which are suspiciously of the same type and is also probably from inside Tyson. //BradB 02:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

in the "Tyson Renewable Energy and the Environment" section, the linked footnote is from the tyson corporate intranet (not accessible from outside)! that pretty much proves that the poster, Tedfordc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), is a Tyson employee. BradB 19:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• The last post in this section was nearly one month ago. The last edits to the Tyson Foods article by the three editors in question (see contribs links above) were:

- 19 November 2006 (Tedfordc)

- 29 January 2007 (199.66.3.5)

- 31 January 2007 (Ederdn)

• Has the problem been resolved satisfactorily, or does it require further exposure/attention on this noticeboard? — Athænara ✉ 03:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft

Yahoo News reports: Microsoft offers cash for Misplaced Pages edit "Microsoft Corp. landed in the Misplaced Pages doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site." I guess y'all know about it already. - Fairness & Accuracy For All 09:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• • I definitely think this is notable, but the question arises: where would it be placed in an article. It definitely shouldn't be placed in a trivia section (see WP:TRIVIA) because it offers no real encyclopedic value to the article. Maybe this would best be covered in an article for the Misplaced Pages Signpost. It seems notable enough to be included in an article there. → JARED   18:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not surprised with this. Ban away (yes, I do mean WP:BAN) if any paided M$ shills turn up. MER-C 10:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

TechCrunch (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• TechCrunch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - 131.107.0.75 (talk · contribs) (registered to Microsoft, fyi) and 67.168.165.27 (talk · contribs) are adding information regarding TechCrunch's conflict of interest to the TechCrunch article. I suspect WP:POINT and/or conflict of interest violations: partially as TechCrunch reported M$ were paying for Misplaced Pages edits and this page shows 67.168.165.27 was using the Misplaced Pages to prove a point. Your thoughts? Computerjoe's talk 18:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• I've bundled this with the stuff above, as it's the same nonsense. MER-C 11:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Signposted. MER-C 08:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Kathryn Cramer (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Pleasantville (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This user has created articles about herself, about projects that she and her husband have financial interests in, about her employer, etc. She's also made contributions that appear intended to settle scores, such as her disputes with Joseph A. Cafasso and GoDaddy. She's used her own blog and flickr accounts as sources for these articles. She has reacted poorly to suggestions that she shold follow WP:COI and has threatened to organize a boycott of Misplaced Pages unless given a free hand. -Will Beback · † · 02:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Warned the user for violation of WP:BLP, cleaned several BLP articles by removing unsourced or poorly sourced negative material, tagged other articles for cleanup and requesting sources, and advised user to comply with WP:COI and WP:AUTO. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, good work. -Will Beback · † · 12:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

In fact she's already trying to organise the boycott via her blog . 86.139.253.137 09:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think she realizes that it's not in her power to delete articles from Misplaced Pages. It seems like this situation is dealt with, unless she turns up again. (Why are people so astounded by the COI principle? It's not like Misplaced Pages invented the term.) LeaHazel : talk : contribs 13:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This user continues with editing her own article and making long diatribes against WP while doing so. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not within my power to delete articles from Misplaced Pages. But it is within my power to encourage others to request that their articles be deleted once moved elsewhere.

None of you are taking my general point at all. In my professional judgement, you collectively are being overzealous about how you enforce rules involving your connection with who you write about in a way that is not appropriately applied to the science fiction field. ISFDB outsourced this to Misplaced Pages. That's how you got the bare bones of the science fiction author bios here already. I write a lot of author bios and I publish a lot of articles about science fiction.

None of you who have been worrying about what I've been up to seem to have much familiarity with the subject area or the issues involved in objectivity in a situation where we do all know each other. Perhaps you should consult with those primarily engaged with organizing and creating the science fiction related bios.Pleasantville 00:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages has not been built on the expertise of the few, but on the collaborative efforts of the many. If you want to explore other wikis that use a different approach, in which subject experts have specific privileges, you may want to consider contributing to Citizendium rather than to this project. Coming here and as a new editor, and disregarding each all and comments made to you by other editors with sarcasm and incivility, will not earn you any points 'round these frontiers. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

But it is within my power to encourage others to request that their articles be deleted once moved elsewhere.

They can request it, but it won't happen. All posters have accepted by clicking Save page that they accept the GFDL license - so they have given up any control over whatever they've posted. Tearlach 01:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• The acrimony seems to have subsided here—are there remaining problems with the user/articles which need further attention on this noticeboard, or have the issues been resolved satisfactorily for all concerned? — Athænara ✉ 03:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Transcendental Meditation (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

TimidGuy has had a lot of input in Transcendental Meditation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He is a WP:SPA ], a faculty member of a college run by the TM Organization ], who authored the origonal version of the TM article ], which clearly reads like an ad ]. He has challenged nearly every single addition of critical material to the article. Now he is challenging material that is critical of his university. I don't think his affiliation with the TM organization rules him out to work on the TM article per se, however, the fact that he is faculty and seeking to remove well-sourced critical infromation about his own college I believe crosses the line. Sethie 16:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Based on this testimony and what I can see, you have pretty much hit the nail on the head. You're right in that he should be allowed to edit because he obviously has some good things to say, but it seems that he's taken it too far. I hope that others see it this way, too. → JARED   20:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Richard James Burgess (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Myuzo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - This user account seems to concentrate almost entirely on editing the article Richard James Burgess, or adding information related to Richard James Burgess to other articles . I suspect that Myuzo is either Richard James Burgess himself or someone with with a close personal connection to him. Memphisto 12:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I seems to me that, yes, he may have some ties to the article he's editing, but the edits he's made (and correct me if I'm wrong) seem to be neutral edits, with little to no POV in them. I think it may be inappropriate for an editor to write about themselves or another person they know well, but this is really just a guideline and the editor seems not to be editing in a harmful way. I would just suggest watching the page from time to time. → JARED   14:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Though not as obviously disruptive and resistant to policies and guidelines, this is similar to issues on Aaron Klein (Talk:Aaron Klein#Single purpose accounts) and on Aliweb (listed elsewhere on this noticeboard). It may need more than casual attention. — Athænara ✉ 14:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Psychiatric service dog (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

PSDS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) seems determined to make their version of the Psychiatric service dog (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article rule supreme, regardless of quality, and does not seem to even want to think about trying to cooperate with myself or other editors. This morning/yesterday a large edit-war was fought over what goes in the list of tasks "psych" dogs may be trained to do, which already had a history of debate. I tried to fix the problem by rewriting the list in general paragraph form, but they just re-pasted their content back in. I am concerned, because the editor signs their Talk posts as the "founder" of such and such, and seems to take everything as a personal attack against their work. They have been going on about representing federal law and other things "accurately," but I feel there is no difference in accuracy between the various revisions. I am hoping my attempts at contacting them and adding references into the article will help, but if not, I simply don't know what to do next. -- Sarrandúin 02:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

File a 3RR report if the edit warring continues. MER-C 08:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Has the user been advised of WP:COI and WP:OWN? I've been looking for a user-warning template, but the only COI-related one addresses non-notable COI articles only. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 11:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You can easily write your own. You don't have to use a template. MER-C 13:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, but in the interest of uniformity of policy/guideline, I was interested to know of there was enough demand for a user warning template. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 10:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ball python (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

ArtKoen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has consistently reverted edits by myself and others that remove a specific commercial links which violates the WP:EL guidelines, and is the only one that has issue with the link being removed. I have taken other steps, including WP:3O, WP:RFM and finally WP:RFAR. The link in question is full of affiliate links, and the "articles" in question are available at their own sites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.194.95.196 (talk • contribs)

Don't think there's a conflict of interest here, try WP:ANI instead as the arbcom recommended. MER-C 07:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film) (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

MattTyler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has repeatedly reverted edits by myself and User:CyberGhostface on these two articles. His reason for reverting is because he does not like where the main character of the movie ("Leatherface") is positioned in the cast list in the article. He says that Misplaced Pages has a set of rules in which the spot of the character listed in the article, should be exactly the same as in the movie credits. Here is the exact quote from his talk page:

"Sorry, but you shoudl realyl read Wiki rules for movie credits -- they MUST be the same as they are in the end credits of the chaotic movies."

Now that sounds made up to me, but if such rules exist, I would have no problem agreeing with this user. —mikedk9109 17:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't look like COI, just a content dispute. You could get a wider consensus by asking at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Media, art and literature. Tearlach 18:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike Cline

• Mike Cline (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) discussion on his talk page. Referred here from WQA.

All these articles appear to promote his company's services, publications, and president:

• Prometheus Process (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Orchestrator (strategy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Rules of engagement (strategy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Prime Directive (strategy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Strategic campaign (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Center of gravity (military) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'm not sure I've found all the articles with such issues. --Ronz 17:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional edits promoting his company (as above, there are probably more):

• Balanced scorecard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Brand (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Cardinal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Digital dashboard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Environmental scanning (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Exit strategy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Innovation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Key performance indicators (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Orchestration (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff) (Subtle: redirect to article to which he'd added his link.)
• Organizational culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Prometheus (disambiguation) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Rules of engagement (strategy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Strategic enterprise management (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Strategic management (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Strategic planning (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Strategy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• Twelve leverage points (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff) (Subtle: redirect to article to which he'd added his link.)
• Warden's Five Rings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (diff)
• (Uploaded image of company chart)

→(Interjection)  Explanation-Not a Company Chart-First Attempt to Tablized Some Info as Image. Was not satisfied with appearance and replaced with WikiTable--Mike Cline 23:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

→(Reply to interjection)  The table substituted for the image is equally blatant in attempting to use the encyclopedia anyone can edit for advertising masquerading as an article. — Æ. ✉ 23:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

— Athænara ✉ 19:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the company that promotes this product/concept has a VP named "Mike Cline." The company promotion is a problem but also the articles themselves aren't that useful either. "Orchestrator (strategy)" never even defines its term. The Prometheus Process may be worth an article, but these component concepts certainly don't. Even there we need 3rd party sources to establish the notability. -Will Beback · † · 00:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it a coincidence that the link has gone 404? Thank goodness for google cache. MER-C 04:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Guys, I sincerely do not want this to get out of hand and I will accomodate whatever suggestions you all have to correct any and all the above referenced articles. A bit of background. I began to expand the article information in Misplaced Pages, from the article Warden's Five Rings started by someone unknown in 2004 based on a suggestion from someone unassociated with the company I work for. The above topics and links are the result. While doing this I believed I was working within Misplaced Pages Guidelines but apparently I was not. I also very cautiously reviewed the style, content and discussions of other articles in Misplaced Pages to weigh my contributions against others to ensure they were consistent with that which was acceptable in Misplaced Pages. Apparently I did not succeed and this brings me to the confusion I have. The allegation if you will, is that because my company is involved with Strategy, my knowledge of Strategy related issues is inappropriate for Misplaced Pages--whether or not that knowledge is neutraly written, encyclopedic and verifiable with published sources. Thus, I understand the desire to avoid "advertising masquerading as an article" as noted above in Misplaced Pages. Despite the fact that none of the above articles and links "promoted" my company in anyway (they dealt with verifiable knowledge) I am subject to the COI guidelines and will correct matters. Where I am confused however, can be seen from just two of the many articles in Misplaced Pages where this so-called promotion is rather obvious, but apparently not unacceptable.

Consider the Brand article. There are eleven "Big Name Brand Consultancies", but no references provided. A quick click on Interbrand brings you to an article promoting Interbrand and its big name clients. The only reference are Interbrand produced, to include the Interbrand corporate website. A review of the history gives little insight as to who produced the article. I suspect many of the other consultancies linked articles are supported only by their corporate websites links.

Consider the Balanced Scorecard article. Its sources are the very gentlemen at Harvard that have a continuing vested interest in the subject at Harvard and through their publicists. Additionally there are numerous direct links to consultancies that teach the subject and sell their services. Since there is really no way to tell who contributed the information in this article, but if had been one of Kaplan's graduate students, would that be a COI?

These are just two examples that guided my contributions, although none of my contributions included any commercial links. I do not challenge any of the content in these articles. As far as I know they are accurate, neutrally presented and encyclopedic. But I trust you see my confusion. I contributed verifiable knowlegde on subjects used by many other companies and organizations other than the one I am associated with, but because of that association, the contributions are considered unacceptable in Misplaced Pages. And as yet, no one has seen fit to correct any of my informational mistakes I may have made. It appears it is all about the Editor not the Article. I can accept that and as I said above, will do whatever I need to do to accomodate the desires of the Misplaced Pages community. Lead me in the right direction and I will work it out over the next week.--Mike Cline 00:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

First time I experienced an Edit Conflict, that was fun learn something new every day in Misplaced Pages.--Mike Cline 01:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Will Beback, you use the phase "we need 3rd party sources to establish the notability" in a previous comment. I want to understand that Misplaced Pages concept more fully. I have searched for a guideline, but been unable to find one. However, I have seen the concept mentioned several times. To pose my question more succintly, where is "notability" established for the following article: Twelve leverage points? In this article, redirected from Leverage points (which also might apply to many topics in physics, geology, mechanics, etc.) the only references are papers written by the person the article cites. There is no 3rd Party reference. Additionally, an examination of the references reveals extraordinary bias and agendas by the author and those agendas are not even filtered out by the contributor. One of the references is nothing more than a blog article by the same author that repeats the previous reference almost verbatim, except this time on a website with explicit advertising. This is an article that has been on Misplaced Pages since 2003 so it must have passed the "3rd Party Notability" test. What is it about this article that makes it "Notable"?--Mike Cline 03:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

With regard to this kind of "So-and-so got away with it, so why are you coming after me?" reasoning, see this September 2006 observation of the problem of "corporate vanity/vandalism" and the importance of remaining true to the encyclopedic mission. — Athænara ✉ 04:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Athaenara. I read Brads post! I regret you feel that way and because I would not claim that "so-and-so got away with it" for any article I've cited. I believe most of what I've cited is encyclopedic, at least in terms of Misplaced Pages. I am merely attempting to learn how to interpret and follow Misplaced Pages guidelines. The best way I now how to do that is compare what has been accepted to what I am being told about guidelines--trying to to achieve some logic so that any contribution I make, regardless of subject matter, meets Misplaced Pages guidelines.--Mike Cline 04:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an open question on "Notability" related to my question above. Below are a few 3rd Party references to John Warden, his concepts and the Prometheus Process in particular. Do these provide "Notability" for any of the questionable articles cited in this COI discussion? If they do not, why?

• ]
• ]
• ] (Entire Prometheus Process and many other strategic planning constructs are cited)
• ]* http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2003/Winter/art4-w03.htm (note 3rd paragraph)
• ] (note bibliography)
• ] (note item 7 of notes)

--Mike Cline 04:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking of deletion too. Our missing /news.htm page proves that this is corporate vanity beyond doubt. Not speedy (as with the case of most corporate vanity), but rather a mass AFD. MER-C 05:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Sent one to afd to determine community reaction, deletion discussion here. MER-C 11:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I will too move my comments over too the AFD board, but will alert you that I have already begun the process of revert any contributions I've made on any subject related to Strategy. My deletions are clearly identified in the edit summary and I've given my rationale for each WP:COI on the discussion page.--Mike Cline 13:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The article was deleted. Should the other new articles he created be listed in a mass AFD? --Ronz 03:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

That's five articles (first post in this section), right? Or are there more now? — Athænara ✉ 05:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Definitely the first four, but the COI stuff can be reverted on the last one. Unfortunately our evidence has disappeared as the google cache link does not work. As for the rest, they're aren't pure spam. MER-C 08:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussion here. MER-C 11:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Ermac (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• MarphyBlack (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - User removed <<fact>> flag even after dispute did not turn in his favor. The line "This is the only instance in the history of Mortal Kombat where a rumor led to the creation of an actual character" is not factual as there is another character in the series that was created solely on rumour. The character called Blaze. He is based off a background image in the background of the 2nd Mortal Kombat game whom some thought was a playable character, but it never was, nor was it meant to be originally. It developed into a playable character much later.--Iamstillhiro1112 01:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lattice Semiconductor (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Tomstdenis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - User tagged Lattice Semiconductor AfD, but works for a competitor, Elliptic Semiconductor . See user's talk page history for proof that the person is Tom St Denis. Aboutmovies 18:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Four articles so far nominated for deletion by the user in question:

• Vendors of semiconductor IP cores (16:09, 2 February 2007 UTC)
• Lattice Semiconductor (14:22, 2 February 2007 UTC)
• 4i2i Communications (14:16, 2 February 2007 UTC)
• IP Cores Inc. (16:19, 24 January 2007 UTC)   (Deleted (log) twice.)

(User's first edit after registration was an AfD nom.) — Athænara ✉ 21:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Can I add that it does seem to be a bit of a conflict of interest when somebody working in the semiconductor industry takes the trouble to delete the pages of competing companies. I am one of the contributors to the 4i2i article, and spent a good while debating with Tomstdenis (see the deletion debate) as to whether the article should be kept. The eventual debate consensus was Speedy Keep. But, I'm disappointed that instead of taking the trouble to do a bit of research to see whether the article was notable, Tom instead opted to immediately nominate the article for deletion. It took me no time at all to do some research to add more notability to the 4i2i article. Dfmcp 14:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

James Anderson (computer scientist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - From time to time, I have made edits to the James Anderson (computer scientist) article. Editing the article has been very contentious at times because of the outstanding claims that Dr. Anderson has made.

The article recently came to the attention of Ben Moore, one of the authors of an article about Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moore is understandably sensitive about the whole issue because he has been roundly criticized for his reporting on Dr. Anderson's work. However, for this reason, I don't think he should be editing the article. He has repeatedly inserted weasel words to soften the description of this criticism. He has edited from the IPs 132.185.240.120, 132.185.144.120, 132.185.240.121, and 132.185.144.122. He has also edited as User:Benthebiscuit‎.

For the record, I didn't write the statement that so offends Mr. Moore (" criticized for irresponsible journalism"), but I think it's a fair summary of the criticism. I'm not quite sure how to move forward here. I'm also tiring of editing the article and thinking I might just drop the whole thing. Any assistance would be appreciated (or any hints on an appropriate Misplaced Pages forum where I should direct my pleas). Lunch Ditch Witch (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Ditch Witch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - This article has been created by an employee of the company, Ajcross2455 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), as evidenced in the following diff. The user is new, and probably unaware of the policy. I have left a message on the user's talk page refering to this notice. Donald Albury 17:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The article as it stands is mostly copyvio from the About Us page on their website, so I'm going to stub it and leave a message on the creator's talk page, as well as recommend that they find some good sources based on WP:CORP and take them to the article talk page, then see if I can help work out the article from there. Tony Fox (arf!) 06:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Sean D Martin (talk) (contribs) has repeatedly vandalized Stephanie Adams using Sneaky vandalism (bad edits, reverting legitimate edits, etc.) and Modifying users' comments (Editing other users' comments to substantially change their meaning). This user also has a bizarre vendetta offline against Stephanie Adams, as seen when you google his name with hers. Being that she is suing his friend, he obviously has personal intentions in vandalizing the article and should no longer be allowed to edit it. -Sacha 69.203.12.73

I would also have to agree that

Misplaced Pages This editor is a WikiGnome. 3,000+ This user has made more than 3,000 contributions to Misplaced Pages. on over 2,000 unique articles. This user despises vandalism and reverts it with extreme pride. vn-4 This user page has been vandalized 4 times.   en-5 This user can contribute with a professional level of English. ANAL 5 This user is incredibly stringent with professional grammar. Cases in point: their there they're This user thinks that there are too many people who don’t know that they're worse than their own children at spelling! your you're This user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you're in need of help.

Interests Éireannach This user is Irish.   This user enjoys comics. This user enjoys the works of Isaac Asimov.   This user is a private pilot.   This user enjoys geocaching. (Well, used to. Thanks, Marky. Thanks so fracking much.)

Looking for me?

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about how many other "Sean Martin"s there are out there. Google "sean martin" and you find a bunch of other Seans who aren't me. Including three with entries here on Misplaced Pages and an athletic director at Fairfield University where, ironically, my father used to be a dean (Yeah, he was Dean Martin.).

However, if anyone thinks to google for "sean d martin", then the first hits find me. My profile, comments I've posted various places online and even this page! So to make things easier should anyone come looking specifically for me (I like to think SOMEone out there from "the old days" might.) I'm the one you might know from:

• Bronxville
  
• Bucknell University
  
• Deloitte, Borland, Intuit, Zoho, ETrade, Coinstar and a few others.

If you knew me from any of those places, post a note here or drop me an email at "SeanMartin dot online at gmail dot com" (correctly typed in the normal email format, of course). It'd be good to hear from you.

Me on Wiki

My Contributions

Wiki on me

links to SDM:User
links to SDM:Talk

poses a conflict of interest by being a Lawsuit Antagonist and has repeatedly vandalized the Stephanie Adams page, using Sneaky Vandalism and Modifying User Comments. This user is directly involved in a court case started by Adams, making it very hard to demonstrate that his edits are objective. I suggesst his name and IP address be banned from editing the article. ~Lynx~

This looks like a content dispute. Take it to

To reply before heading off to dispute resolution, I have not been vandalizing anything. Every edit I have made has been specific, minor and accompanied by a clear reason for the change. Every edit I have made has been signed; I have not been "sneaky" about anything. When edits were repeatedly reverted back to something less accurate and more self-serving for Ms Adams I asked what is appropriate. ]

Not sure what "Lynx" means by calling me a "Lawsuit Antagonist". I am not a party to any lawsuit with Ms Adams and, certainly have no involvement whatsoever with her suit against the NYC police. It would be clear to anyone who objectively looks at the few edits I have made that they are indeed objective and more accurately report the information in the sources cited in the article. None of them have insulted Ms Adams or damaged her reputation in any way. Yet I have been personally attacked.

A final comment: A tracert of many of the anonymous IP addresses used to edit the page in question shows many originate from a particular IP block in Manhattan, and Misplaced Pages contribs history show most have edited only the Stephanie Adams page. Might some resident of Manhattan be using multiple IPs to anonymously do edits and make insults be the actual practitioner of "Sneaky Vandalism"? Sean Martin 00:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sean D Martin (talk) (contribs) is in fact involved in a lawsuit Stephanie Adams filed against his friend who posts derogatory, defamatory blogs about her, filled with lies and false, libelous comments.

I too googled his name along with hers and found the actual proof. Therefore, he should be banned from editing the article or blocked from editing entirely.

First he questioned valid information that was clearly valid, then he removed valuable information and lied by stating that it was not a fact when it actually was according to hundreds of article all over the news media (with at least three of them referenced).

Even in his reply here, his comment that previous edits were more "self-serving" for Ms Adams" suggests she is editing this, which is false. This article is a project and product of Misplaced Pages by which several people edit.

Due to his personal vendetta against Adams (and his name listed as a witness to the defendant in the case she filed against an amateur blogger) his false accusation is personal and begrudgingly biased.

This has to stop, which is why several are suggesting he no longer edits this article. At best, it's conflict of interest and at worst, it's vandalism.

- bbl 162.83.205.36 02:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

At least Sean Martin edits under his own name. I did not notice you providing any evidence that Sean Martin is involved as a witness, or in any other way, in a lawsuit involving Stephanie Adams. Failing that, no conflict of interest can be shown and your submission doesn't belong here. Since you don't give your name or say why you are interested in the Adams case it's impossible to tell if you have a conflict of interest yourself. EdJohnston 02:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams has filed no lawsuits against any of my friends. James Poling, against who she has filed a lawsuit Metadish, is not a friend of mine. We've never met, never spoken.

Please do google my name with hers. It should provide an interesting perspective on Ms. Adams.

I haven't questioned any "valid" information. I asked that a piece of info be supported by something other than a link to Ms Adams own web site (Note: I didn't change the info presented.) and someone anonymous (let's call them "SA" for short) provided links to actual news articles. The article stated that the cab driver was fired, but all of the supporting references only say that his license was revoked, so I changed "fired" to "license revoked" and SA keeps changing it back. The only other edit is of the statement that the police are being investigated, which is not mentioned in any of the references provided yet SA keeps reverting any edits of that phrase. No objective person could look at any edit I've made and claim it has been inappropriate.

I have no personal vendetta against Ms. Adams. Vice versa, in fact.

"Several" have not suggested that I no longer be allowed to edit this article. Any such suggestions have come from SA. And if they have come from more than one SA, it is interesting to note that the IP addresses all trace to the same place... Sean Martin 17:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I welcome this clarification from Sean Martin, but I'd suggest that the rightness and wrongness of edits should be discussed either at Talk:Stephanie Adams or in a forum for handling editing disputes. The only further information that would be useful here, for completeness, is what relationship does the anonymous poster of this COI issue have to Stephanie Adams? EdJohnston 20:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to confine any discussion to the edits actually made and the merits (or not) of them. I regret things started down this path when SA started with the personal acusations to which I feel I must be able to respond. In any event, I have asked on at least two occasions for opinions on the edits ]]and look forward to any objective comments editors have to make about the edits.Sean Martin 21:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have an ongoing "issue" with Stephanie (which is why I choose to refrain to edit her page and have only once piped in on her Talk page). Sean D Martin is MY friend; he is NOT a friend of the defendant in the lawsuit in which Stephanie is the plaintiff -- which might have lead to some of the confusion as to his COI status. Factually, there is absolutely no lawsuit between Stephanie and I, despite her having repeatedly threatened one due to her objection of the contents of my own blog. Despite my therefore understandable interest in her lawsuit with fellow blogger James Poling, I have not seen Sean's name "listed as a witness to the defendant in the case she filed against an amateur blogger". I would think that only someone a bit too close to the matter would have that information. I also find it compelling that the IP address of the anonymous "bbl" above is from a Verizon access pool in NYC Manhattan, a coincidence seen far too often in the edits and discussion for these pages, a point also raised by others and easily proven and quantified...

I believe the real issue is whether or not Stephanie should be editing her own page. If there were a page about me here, I would not edit it (except to revert vandalism or for minor edits, and signed with my real name) because it is both against the rules and against the whole point of responsible objectivity. I like the suggestion that I'd seen discussed somewhere that anonymous editors be banned from editing this page, and additionally that all future edits be examined for continued use of sock puppets.

Without intending to offend anyone, might I be bold enough to suggest that a list should be created of people that perhaps should not edit the main Stephanie Adams page (access limited to the Talk page only), regardless of intentions. I would certainly include myself on that list, as well as James Poling (if he were ever to become a Misplaced Pages contributor), Sean D Martin, Stephanie, attorneys Neal Johnston and Martin Siegel (if they show up), Goddessy or any Goddessy representative, sock puppet SEKHMET7, sock puppet Cle0patr4, sock puppet Ladysekhmet, and any more sock puppets that may surface. I don't think many people are fooled by the "several" editors.

As biased as I may be, I think this is the most level-headed approach to the on-going problem. Don't let any of us edit it. Richard D. LeCour 21:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Juice Plus (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Julia Havey (talk) (contribs) has vandalized the Juice Plus page twice already tonight by unilaterally blanking the entire critical content section without prior discussion. This user is a distributor and spokesperson for Juice Plus, and is in clear violation of several aspects of the Wiki policy on conflict of interest WP:COI. These issues are outlined on the Juice Plus discussion page.

A review of this user’s contribution history reveals an alarming pattern of vandalism, spamming, self-promotion, and hectoring of other Wiki editors. The user has repeatedly been warned for such behavior and all attempts to engage her in meaningful dialog have failed. Her comments on the Juice Plus discussion page have been consistently incendiary and hostile, and repressive of criticism of the product she sells. She has contributed virtually no worthwhile content to the topic page itself and has made it brutally difficult for those who are engaged in legitimate work on the page.

The latest act of vandalism by this user involved blanking the entire critical commentary section of the Juice Plus page, which had been in place for several months without comment. This action is a clear violation of the conflict of interest policy, and on that basis, this user should probably refrain from editing the Juice Plus page and contributing on the discussion page. A block may be necessary and seems called for at this point. Shell Kinney, a Wiki admin, had participated in editing the Juice Plus page and has been alerted to the activities of the user in question.

Can someone here please help with this situation? Rhode Island Red 06:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

A brief comment: this article appears to have excessive, promotional, detail about the precise contents of some unremarkable vitamin-fortified fruit juice derivative. It needs hard-nosed assessment of notability. Tearlach 00:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

A brief reply: I am one of the editor’s trying to keep the Juice Plus article from becoming a promotional piece, and it has been no easy task. Those who sell the product have been keen on vandalizing the page and altering it to be more promotional. However, the subject matter is notable and surrounded by controversy, and the entry that is up now has been the result of considerable effort on the part of many different editors. The details of the product contents are actually not flattering and are probably counter-promotional. It might be appropriate for now to block users who are affiliated with the product and yet repeatedly vandalize the page and attempt to suppress unflattering content. Such actions are a clear violation of WP:COI.Rhode Island Red 05:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, whether promotional or not, I still think the detail is getting into the territory of WP:NOT#IINFO; is listing every single ingredient of a product encyclopedic or necessary? Tearlach 15:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Rhode Island Red was the submitter of this COI complaint. In the above discussion, he or she suggested that User:JuliaHavey's edits might be vandalism. I've been trying to figure out if this might qualify for intervention by WP's ordinary anti-vandalism policies. So I was paying attention when User:MER-C, in a previous comment on this noticeboard, described a case where removal of criticism by a company-based editor should be recorded as vandalism. I'm paraphrasing what I think was his rule:

1. The editor is in the COI situation of editing his own company's article, and
2. The editor removes a properly-sourced critical comment that makes his own company look bad.
3. The editor does not give an edit summary or proper Talk page explanation

Under those conditions MER-C argued that you should revert the change and leave the {{test1a}} vandalism warning on the editor's Talk page.

With regard to the Juice Plus page, I see that the company spokesperson is willing to engage in very extended discussions and parry facts with facts. The spokesperson is arguing that Rhode Island Red is violating WP:OWN. I haven't looked into this carefully, but I urge anyone who has a bit of spare time to consider joining in the conversation at Talk:Juice Plus page. Even one or two experienced editors could make a big difference. I have to say that I did not notice any 'vandalism in the sense of MER-C' in a brief glance, but more thorough study would be instructive. EdJohnston 18:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Parry with facts? With all due respect, I think upon closer inspection one would see that this is not the case at all. Please look at the user’s contributions in more detail. I have been fighting hard to be fair and NPOV while at the same time not letting the article turn into a promotional pamphlet for the manufacturer, which it is at risk of becoming. This user’s contributions on Juice Plus have consisted mostly of personal attacks, accusing me of article ownership, and attempts to eliminate content that is unfavorable to the product. Please look closely at my edits and discussions and you will see that this is not an issue of ownership but merely a fair and reasonable attempt to prevent the article from degenerating into an advertisement for Juice Plus.

JuliaHavey is blatantly flouting WP:COI guidelines, and their comments and actions have been hostile and disruptive. It seems this user is also becoming emboldened, since no action has yet been taken, and today removed legitimate warning tags from their user page claiming that they are “idle threats” with “no validity”. . I don't know if there are any rules prohibiting a user from removing warning tags from their user page, but it is concerning that the user refers to legitimate warning tags as idle threats with no validity. In the last few two days there have been more incendiary comments from this user on the discussion page and a nonsensical, uncited, promotionally-friendly contribution on the article page. The user has insinuated (falsely) that I am Stephen Barrett and is again arguing for removal of legitimate critical commentary . Can somebody please look into this. Rhode Island Red 06:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I was told that Rhode Island Red has no authority to place his threatening stop signs on my talk page. I should have some right to remove them if he has no right to place them there. GROW UP Red. You are seriously becoming a stalker and I am going look into my rights. You are obsessed with me and with Juice Plus. Get a lifeJulia 15:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to respond directly to the comment Julia just posted but I think it amply demonstrates the abusive tone to which I have been objecting. I have no interest in this user beyond preventing further violation of WP:COI, vandalism, personal attacks, and attempts at suppressing properly sourced but unflattering information about the product she represents. The user may be within their rights to remove the warning tags, but the tags were legitimately placed on their user page in accordance with the policies of Misplaced Pages; the user blanked critical content twice ] and was given the appropriate warning as outlined by EdJohnston above. JuliaHavey launched yet another personal attack on me today: and again blanked properly sourced critical commentary . Can someone please take appropriate action to prevent further violation of WP:COI by this user. Rhode Island Red 02:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

the so called "properly sourced critical commentary" was agreed upon that it should be removed by every other active editor commenting on the page. Again, Red's insistance that it isn't fair only happens when it isn't what HE wants. In subjects on this page, I read editors using the "F" word, that is harsh, I am not doing that. Red has it wrong. I want truthful, NON=bias slanted information on EVERY page on Misplaced Pages. I don't mind if there is something actually thruthful that happens to be negative about Juice Plus or any other article and that is told, but to take technicial sentences out of contect and use them to further a negative agenda? Yes, I will fight for that, one Juice Plus, on Pro-Choice, on my politicians, on my other interestes.

He makes it sound like I am some big honcho there. I am a low level distributor, I just happen to passionately believe in the product and it doesn't sit well with me that ONE rooster on a single subject mission has the power to attempt stant public opinion by spinning every i and t to his agenda. I don't think that is what Wiki stands for, or at least not what he foundation set it up to stand for.Julia 05:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Editing based on passionate belief in the product, rather than on facts, is consistent with the claim that this user has violated WP:COI. Rhode Island Red 16:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, my favorite barnyard friend, you are twisting the words to suit your purpose, having a passion and belief in something does not proclude the use of factual information when editing, commenting or discussing any subject.Julia 15:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This editor is clearly STALKING me! He is calls me out for "attacking him" and he is trying to have a ligitmate article on me/my career deleted because he disagrees with my edits? to quote Red:

Elonka, although I am reluctant to enter a disupte over the content you recently contributed, based on the fact that we are having editorial disputes on another article; however, your recent edits on this bio are inappropriate. This article, originally submitted by Havey herself, had previously been nominated for speedy deletion in part becuase the article read like a self-promotional advertisement. After considerable input from roughly a dozen different editors, a pared down version ] was voted on as acceptable, the article was deemed to be suitable, and the deletion and ad tags were removed. You have now unilaterally reverted the article back to a version that is almost identical to Havey's original. This clearly usurps the consensus of the editors who expended considerable effort in making this article worthy of inclusion. I am going to revert back to the last version prior to your edits. I highly suggest that you go back and review the edit hitory of this article. Rhode Island Red 15:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Julia 20:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Though it seems obvious that Julia Havey should avoid editing the Juice Plus article due to her business relationship with the product, Rhode Island Red's own contribution history (Rhode Island Red (talk · contribs)) seems to indicate a COI on his part as well. His contribs show a near single-minded attention to the Juice Plus article, including repeatedly reverting other users' good faith edits, and accusing other editors of vandalism. His behavior has now escalated to the Julia Griggs Havey article, where he did a wholescale revert of an article expansion. I would appreciate assistance and comments from outside editors on this issue. --Elonka 21:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Elonka (talk · contribs) and I are in agreement that JuliaHavey (talk · contribs) should not be contributing to the Juice Plus article in keeping with WP:COI, and I hope that appropriate action to enforce this policy is soon taken. However, the actions that Elonka has accused me of do not constitute a COI (nor do I have a COI) and, therefore, this does not seem to be the appropriate forum in which to raise such concerns. If Elonka wishes to pursue this matter as an issue of ownership, and does so in the appropriate forum, I will address any concerns. I have no doubt that I can successfully defend my actions. Rhode Island Red 02:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Discovery Channel (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Discovery Channel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I am filling a request in regards to an Advocacy Request her is the original statment "Discovery Communications appears to be favorably editing the Misplaced Pages entry on The Discovery Channel, which is owned by them. Specifically, a Discovery Communications IP address has "re-worked" the Discovery Channel entry to be significantly more favorable to Discovery Communications, most notably (and most ironically) by removing the reference to Discovery's reputation for guerrilla marketing. Here's the side-by-side comparison of the Discovery edits: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Discovery_Channel&diff=next&oldid=97844967 . You'll notice the IP address that made that alteration is: 198.147.10.56 , which belongs to Discovery Communications: http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=198.147.10.56 . This edit was likely due to a negative article that was published about Discovery, which exposed their guerrilla marketing tactics. The article is available here: http://spankmymarketer.com/the-learning-channel.html . The pro-Discovery changes to the Misplaced Pages entry were made shortly after the publication of that article.

I have put information on this in the article's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Discovery_Channel . However, I haven't edited the article itself.

Discovery Communications is clearly involved in guerrilla marketing. There are numerous credible articles on the web about this. All that's necessary to verify this is to go to Google and enter "Discovery Communications" and "guerrilla marketing". I have spoken on the phone with Anthony Lupo, who is representing Discovery through the law firm of Arent Fox, LLP. He insists that it's not at all against Misplaced Pages rules, and that their actions are perfectly legitimate. Seems ludicrous to me. Any help at all in reconciling this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. --71.212.187.150 21:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)"

// Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 21:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cobra Group (Marketing) (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Cobra Group (Marketing) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) A recent Afd discussion has left us with the article above. I have tried to make this into an accurate, verfiable stub but I should declare that I worked for this company in Summer 2000. As there exists a lot of negative information about this company online it would benefit from an outside view. Catchpole 10:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Tom Butler at Electronic voice phenomenon (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

User:Tom Butler has been making POV edits at Electronic voice phenomenon even though he is the head of an organization discussed in the article and is mentioned himself by name in the article. I have asked him not to, but he has continued editing, specifically making POV changes favorable to his organization. --Milo H Minderbinder 20:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I second this, and would like to add that he has been doing this for a long time, is disruptve, and should be officially barred from editing the article.-MsHyde 20:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Butler is the director of the AA-EVP an organization devoted to promoting a credible view of paranormal beliefs for the subject of the article. His activity at the article has been long-term (over a period of 3 months) and has included threats against Misplaced Pages, POV-pushing, and allegations that Wikipedians are not qualified to edit an article on the subject. Please remove him as this is clearly a case of COI. --- LuckyLouie 20:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Afshar experiment (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Danko Georgiev MD (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) apparently has a long-running grudge against Afshar. I have requested Danko not edit the article, but he is not cooperating. We are attempting to mediate a discussion on the talk page but it has been difficult. //Ideogram 09:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Root of all evil (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Root of all evil (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been subject to spamming from Sharonmijares (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has been continually attempting to promote her book by this title, including creating a link to her userspace version of a deleted article after a spam4 warning to quit adding the link. Another editor (and likely sock) Sarafinn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) recently added another spam link to the same book . I've got the article on watch but would appreciate an eye being kept for spamming of links to this book, and an eye for more socks. Seraphimblade 23:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Suhayl Saadi (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Suhayl Saadi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I found this page while looking through WP:DEAD. The page history reveals a red-flag conflict of interest, i.e. the most active writer of the article is also the subject of the article. Normally I nominate such things on Afd, but I think he's notable enough to survive Afd. One possibility is to revert to the situation before he got involved, but that's really not as good: . I would appreciate notification on my talk page to any comment made here. // YechielMan 04:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ultima Thule Ambient Music (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Ultima Thule Ambient Music (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Blatant violation of WP:COI: its creator, Gene_Poole, explains his affiliation and current involvment with such Australian Radio. With regard to this subject, he's also a long term spammer of the article Ambient Music--Dr. Who 22:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Gene_Poole (talk · contribs) - Blatant violation of WP:COI. The page also contains hidden advertisements and self-promotion:

"As co-founder and chief executive of Atlantium I'm the public face of a socially and politically progressve globalist organisation with around 1000 members in over 90 countries"..

Self-advertisement, hidden agenda. He's an active contributor of that article, Atlantium. Blatant WP:COI

"I've been a volunteer broadcaster on Australia's oldest and largest public (community) FM radio station, 2MBS for nearly 2 decades. Since October 2005 I've also been a director of the station, and as Chair of the IT Committe am responsible for driving the organisation towards online multi-channel content delivery.

Since he has created 2MBS and Ultima Thule Ambient Music articles, he's in blatant violation of WP:COI. Possible hidden agenda and possible non neutrality in some music related articles.

"I enjoy international travel and photography, and try to spend at least 4 weeks every year outside Australia indulging these passions. My architectural photography has featured in exhibitions at such institutions as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Melbourne City Museum. If you'd like the URL of my commercial photography site, send me an email.

Self-promotion, hidden sale advertisement.--Dr. Who 23:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep: comparison of photos shows User:Gene Poole to be George Cruikshank, founder and broadcaster for Ultima Thule. Discussion ongoing at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ultima Thule Ambient Music, where he appears not terribly receptive to the WP:COI advice not to edit. Tearlach 13:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The point is not the article itself, but his whole behaviour: insults, harrassmnt, cyberstalking, general advertisement and self promotion, even regarding the article Atlantium (can someone check it?). I am wondering if this is the proper page for such a serious (former borderline) case.--Dr. Who 17:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The user has just vandalized my talk page with personal attacks and threats, and he oftn reverts other editors' as vandalism", assuming bad faith behaviour.--Dr. Who 09:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please provide diffs for the "as he's done with several users" claim; otherwise, you're potentially just playing the pot to his kettle... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies, I do not currently live in an English speaking country, and I can't say that English is my native language. I am busy with work now, maybe I'll be back in 5 or 6 hours, but I have to understand/translate your last sentence before, I don't know what is/are "diffs". Could you please remove, or put a middle line along that sentence that you are quoting? or even delete, if it is allowed? I am not able to do that by myself. Please assume my good faith, anyway, for everything I say or do. Thank you for trying to keep things cool, bye. Dr. Who 05:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

A diff is a page that shows the exact edit (short for "difference", as it shows both the before and after). You can find diffs in an article's history, or by viewing their contribution log (for example, Special:Contributions/EVula). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• An example of a diff. — Athænara ✉ 01:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

According to this diff, Doktor Who has again edited his own previous comments without providing the evidence requested above, i.e. "Please provide diffs for the … claim." — Athænara ✉ 07:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There's something fairly messy going on here. One the one hand, this looks like the latest in a long history of bad-faith attack edits, from various accounts, on articles relating to George Cruikshank and/or edited by User:Gene Poole - (see ).

On the other, I still agree with the thrust of the original complaint: that User:Gene Poole is in COI for editing articles - notably Ultima Thule Ambient Music and Atlantium - where he has a personal involvement. Tearlach 13:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

To best of my knowledge, I'm not related to any of those editors (unless some alien spaceship has kidnapped me and made experiments with my brain), and a checkuser should easily prove that. I will provide those diffs that are needed after some works (I'm a professional h/w "techie") that I have to do in my location. I have not done before becouse I see blatant violations of WP:COI at Ultima Thule Ambient Music, Ambient music, Space music and Atlantium. Thanks for patience. Dr. Who 13:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:HAR-WP:CIV-User:Gene_Poole-User:Gardener_of_Geda

Attacking my person and not my editions is not something that I would expect from someone with higher education.- ,--- --Dr. Who 21:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The campaign of personal attacks currently being waged across a number of articles and talk pages by Dr. Who is a deliberate disruption of Misplaced Pages, and needs to be brought to a swift and immediate halt. The bottom line is that Dr. Who has an aggressive, proprietory attitude toward a number of articles - among them Ambient music and Space music. Over a period of time he has managed to insinuate his own highly eccentric personal opinions into these articles at great length. The material added by him was and is unsupported by any reference source. It was and is completely unverifiable. In some cases it verged on total incomprehensibility. A number of other editors have recently rewritten or removed the offending content. Dr. Who refuses to accept this, and has since responded with a barrage of attacks on those editors via numerous specious Admin noticeboard postings (like the bizarre example above, in which my 4 year-old user page is characterised as font of insidious hidden commercial agendas), accusing multiple editors who disagree with him of being sockpuppets, the posting of talk page comments that make little or no rational sense, and even attempting to slap a speedy delete notice on an article (written by me) while an AFD on it was still in progress - because he would not or could not accept the overwhelming AFD consensus to keep the article. These are not, in my opinion, the actions of an editor who works co-operatively with others. --Gene_poole 22:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

University of Phoenix (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• University of Phoenix (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Fairly straightforward: at least one admitted employee of UOP is getting into an extended fracas with non-UOP-related members over controversy sections and other unflattering information (most of which appeared in a front page NYT article the other day) --UOP is different than most universities as it's for-profit and, more relevantly, publicly traded (thus public bad info isn't good). // Bobak 01:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

RateItAll (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Could I get a third, or fourth, or etc pair of eyes on this. I've been keeping an eye best I can on this article RateItAll which is going through some serious clean up as there are some PoV issues, and reliable source issues that need cleaned up. In my process of checking sources, I found this mentioned in the official blog of the site Blog Entry where the person who's been heavily working on the article says "Go for it. Sign up with Misplaced Pages and sing the praises of the RIA!" and yet claimed on the articles talk page he was the most neutral person around. Anyway, some additional feedback would be appreciated as I'm keeping an eye on a lot of articles right now.--Crossmr 05:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Ken Hawk (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Radiohawk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - This editor may be the same person listed in the above captioned article. I brought this issue up on WP:RFC and the suggestion was made to bring it here. The article appears relatively neutral, but is unsourced. I've read WP:AUTO and I'm not sure about the next steps in the process. Please review and advise. --Silverhand 22:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The article was essentially created by just one person, apparently the subject, in November 2006. He removed the 'unreferenced' tag which seems abundantly justified, and without adding any references. The article does not appear to claim notability, and it includes no press comments or third-party reviews of his work. It seems to fall under the Speedy criterion "Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content" (see WP:CSD). I suggest you consider nominating it for speedy deletion using 'db-bio'. If you prefer the full-length process, nominate it at WP:AFD. 00:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion debate here. MER-C 09:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Bloodless bullfighting (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

• Bloodless bullfighting (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Originally brought to AIAV, User:Athaenara directed me to COI/N. The shortest, simplest way of describing the current situation is such: the article was created on 6 June 2006 by User:Pebs96, also known as Webmistress Diva. Throughout the course of editing the article, Pebs96 has added links to businesses in which she is involved and photographs which she may or may not have permission to upload. Nearly every time someone has removed self-promotional links or incorrectly tagged photos (or in my case modified and retouched photos that were uploaded as GFDL), she has gone on a tirade against them in their talk page. Pebs96 has been combative regarding this article from the beginning, and said article is completely unreferenced despite being tagged as needed references. When I attempted to merge what was usable to the parent Bullfighting article, I was reverted and accused of vandalism. Can we get some help? Many thanks. // fethers 14:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

CORRECTION>> Fethers feels the need to go attack an article he knows nothing of. Simply put, I had added photos that I have full copyrights to, which I even got my photographer to make a statement as well. When Fethers had my photos deleted, Fethers did not give the proper notification. Had this person done so, I then would have remedied the situation. Then, after all was said and done, I decided that I did NOT want to reinstate my photos because they were forcing me to give up my copyrights. Even after I kept saying that I did not want my photos up anymore, they kept insisting on what "they think" I should do, which makes no sense at all since I was not putting them back up again. It really puzzled me as to why these folks were so overly concerned about my photos.

Things had died down for a while up until a few days ago with Fethers who thought that "cleaning up" meant to remove my article completely, which if you look at the history of the article, another user (Coudelariaagualva / 68.228.75.244) decided to do the same thing, and removed my external link and replaced it with hers...see edit here>> http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Bloodless_bullfighting&diff=prev&oldid=93334102 and then she decided to just completely blank the page >>>http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Bloodless_bullfighting&diff=next&oldid=93334419 -- and here we are again with Fethers doing the same thing >>>http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Bloodless_bullfighting&diff=prev&oldid=107900298

As far as I'm concerned, I have been told that there is no timeframe or deadline to clean this article up. So why is Fethers so worked up about my article to begin with? And again, why would bloodless bullfighting be mixed up with the classic style of bullfighting? The classic style involves killing of the bulls, where "bloodless bullfighting" does not kill the bulls at all.

So once and for all, can someone PLEASE PLEASE get this Fethers person off my back and article once and for all. He is doing more damage and harm to a completely innocent article.

Sincerely, --Webmistress Diva 20:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

From skimming the history, it does look like a misunderstanding that's got out of hand: regular editors being over-zealous with a new editor who doesn't know the precise criteria here of (say) the photo licence system here versus new editor mistakenly thinking that deletions/warnings on the basis of those criteria are malicious.

However - looking at the article cold, as it stands now, I agree that there are problems:

1) As others have said, it's completely unsourced. It appears excellent material, but written on the basis of personal knowledge. It's one of the central policies here that articles be based on third-party published sources (see Misplaced Pages:Reliable Sources). The other editing tags about style and tone also look justified.

2) It is an issue that you have a relationship (web designer and site maintainer?) with one of the firms you cite as an external link (and from which you drew the source material for the piece). This leads to:

3) There's a potential copyright conflict. Anything you post to Misplaced Pages must be on the terms of the GFDL - that is, anyone can copy and/or alter it. A lot of the article comes verbatim from the ranchcardoso.biz site (e.g. here) where it has a stiff copyright warning on it. You can either release it under GFDL or keep control of the copyright: not both. Tearlach 23:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Tearlach, thank you for looking into this.

Just to shed a few lights, I originally had some different content on the Ranch Cardoso website. Since I wrote the article on Misplaced Pages, I then took what I wrote and placed it on the Ranch Cardoso site, and I also revised and added a few bits here and there. Here's the link and go to the bottom where I wrote a note about the Misplaced Pages article.... article

Just an FYI, the business of "bloodless bullfighting" is not mine, it is headed by Portuguese committees, and all I'm doing is letting people know about the art of bloodless bullfights. As much as I would love to, this is not a money making event, rather it is more a hobby for all that are involved.

The issue at hand is Fethers constantly feels like he rules the world of Misplaced Pages. While there are plenty of good and innocent people minding their own business (such as myself), Fethers should be policing those that are wreaking havoc and spamming the heck out of Misplaced Pages. Instead, Fethers is intruding and editing an article he/she has no knowledge on. With that, Fethers will use past incidents against me to gain favor from everyone. In the meantime, Fethers will hide negative comments and feedbacks from others he/she has brutally attacked as well.

My article on Bloodless bullfighting only requires some clean-up and referencing, which Fethers seems to be impatient of. If Fethers did not look at the article, then he/she would not be bothered by it. And why would he/she be so bothered by it? It's not in his/her face 24/7. Nobody is telling Fethers to look at it... are they? Fethers looks at it on his own accord and does not need to because it is not a subject that he/she knows about.

There are plenty out there who are experts at this subject, and I'm going to assume out of "RESPECT", they are not getting involved because they are giving me the opportunity to fix the article.

The copyright issue was on the photos that I had uploaded. When I originally uploaded my photos,I was obviously confused with the following statement...

The copyright holder and the license of the file, including:

   * A copyright/license tag, either selected from the drop-down list below or included in the upload summary,
   * An explanation of why you believe the file is so licenced, and
   * A fair use rationale, if uploading a fair use image.

But rather than giving me the opportunity to remedy the situation, Fethers decided on his own that he/she will mark my images for Speedy deletion, without ever giving me notification of such action. Usually, there is proper notification and a timeline of when a specific image or article is deleted, but that was not true with my images. They were tagged and deleted instantly. My reactions and comments were justifiable considering how it all transpired. And I am sure this stands true with others besides myself.

Somehow, Fethers found Wiki people to side with him/her and they all had a field day removing my links, images, and other articles I had created.

What I am confused about is these people who went around and deleted my links because they claim my links to be "business" links, and yet at the same time, left other external links that were obviously more of a business link than mine. Here's an example

Regarding Fether's accusations about my "self-promotion", what exactly am I promoting anyway? Me bullfighting? I think not. Once again, "bloodless bullfighting" occurs only in California, and the Ranch Cardoso website is really the only accurate "English" speaking website on the net. It's like the article on Football, why is there an external link (*Wilfried Gerhardt, "The colourful history of a fascinating game" (from the FIFA website)) like that, which leads to the "Fifa.com" website, which has marketing all over their site? And same goes for the Baseball article. It has several external links that are very "business" like.... more than the Ranch Cardoso website.

This seems more of a "pick & choose" what we want on Misplaced Pages, and as we see it fit kind of thing. And I can probably quickly sift through Misplaced Pages and find several articles that has "business sites" that are listed as external links. For starters, let's review Shrek. It has a multitude of external "business" links that are pure advertisements.

I hope you can see my view in all this.--Webmistress Diva 01:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I think some people haven't terribly well explained. It's not that there's a downer on business links as such, just on editors working on topics (and adding links) where they personally have some business involvement. However sincere the intent, it's a situation that does create a tension, as you've seen, and potential problems about neutrality - which is why the guidelines at WP:COI exist. Tearlach 01:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The article is currently adorned with several cleanup banners, all of which seem justified. The furor about photographs suggests that the creator of the article was not patient enough with Misplaced Pages's copyright procedures for photos, and rejected some of the help that was offered. The article remains completely unreferenced. It would not be out of order to propose it for AfD. That would solve the COI problems. If it is really true that no sources are available, then there is no justification for keeping it in the encyclopedia. EdJohnston 02:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

If anyone has access to the NY Times archive, there's plenty of newspaper source material on the topic: see . Tearlach 03:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Responding to EdJohnston

• ummm.... I don't know who you are and don't know what you have been reading, but you must have been misdirected or misguided somehow.
• I'm trying to understand how you can make a comment about patience with wikipedia's copyrights. First of all, the images were deleted long before any help was given. So tell me now who was patient? User: Fethers, had my images deleted and DID NOT give ANY proper notification or help with copyright. The only time people made any comments is when I had brought up the issue. And help was far from being the proper word that can be used. It was more like "let me tell you what you are suppose to do, and in the meantime here are the guidelines". And mind you, I have full copyrights to those photos in question, which they overlooked each time I mentioned in the postings. And each time I insisted that the whole thing to stop and that I was not going to reinstate my photos, those people were insistent and continued to harrass me about my own photos.
• The photos are mine and were taken by my photographer. And even though I posted the copyrights on each image, they refused to listen to me.
• Who says that there are no sources available? I just haven't found the time to properly source them because it's not on my priority list of things to do.
• Rather than giving a "negative" suggestion such as "deleting" an innocent article, block user: Fethers from the article and it will resolve all problems.
• Thank you in advance.--Webmistress Diva 03:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Tearlach for researching. And true, there are plenty of sources where California Bloodless Bullfighting can be cited from.--Webmistress Diva 03:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

...the Ranch Cardoso website is really the only accurate "English" speaking website on the net and ...there are plenty of sources where California Bloodless Bullfighting can be cited from seem mutually exclusive statements, and Google has so far only supported the former. It tends to point more towards a conflict of interest than not. fethers 00:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The NYT archive link given above has one 2001 letter to the editor and five articles from 1997 (3) and 2001 (2). Two of the articles are readable by non-subscribers to NYT premium content. — Athænara ✉ 03:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yankee Candle Company (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Yankee Candle Company (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - This article is being edited by multiple employees of the company. Wackalectic (talk · contribs) is an Internet Strategist and Annmariehall (talk · contribs) is in Public Relations. They both have added copyrighted information to the article from and . They have both been warned and informed of Misplaced Pages's COI, SPAM and COPYVIO policies.↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 17:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Who better to have knowledge of the company than people who work there! I'd love to see some diffs of the copyright stuff you say has been added to the page. For now, though, it seems that they are harmlessly trying to defend their workplace. There seems to be a fine line between COI and asserting the truth, and you haven't clearly pointed out where or how they have cause problems with the page. Again, diffs on the page would be nice. _└┘talk  00:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I provided in my initial post the sources of the copyright violations; my apologies for not providing the diffs to the article changes. Here they are: and .↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 01:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you; and sorry if my comment earlier seemed a tad rude, I just read it over! Haha. Now, it seems that they copied that right off of the YCC page. Has this been going on long, or was it just a one-time ordeal? I think that, in this case, warnings on the pages of the "vandals" would be the best bet. Unless they've been doing this for a while; then, I'm not the one to ask! It just seems that they are new to WP and don't know about policy, etc, and that we have a system. I think that's really just the problem here. _└┘talk  01:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Lera Auerbach

A very persistent editor (User:DeStella and User:68.161.47.171) has been aggressively promoting this semi-notable composer (while decently represented by Google, she does not have an entry in the current comprehensive New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians). After a long discussion on my talk page (User_talk:Antandrus#Unwarranted_deletions) I made the discovery that Lera Auerbach's husband is named DeStella near the bottom of the page. To me this is clearly a single-purpose account to promote this composer, most likely the husband or another member of the family. I could use an extra pair of eyes or two, or backup of any type: he is accusing me of "having issues with successful composers" so perhaps a non-musician could help. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

CIIS

CIIS is a New Age-oriented graduate school in California. It is regionally accredited, but does not appear to be widely respected (as measured for example by rankings, publications, or having its graduates teach in other schools). An editor, Psykhosis, has made the page into more of an ad for the school (for example, claiming that it is known for "rigorous academics," which I can assure you is not the case). Dawud

Baha'i (100+ boards)

The Baha'i religion is small Middle Eastern sect which is one of the topics of my research. The wikipedia articles on it (and the related topic of Babism) are in my opinion unsalvageable due to the preponderance of Baha'i editors (and corresponding dearth of outsiders), who delete items that make their religion look bad, and otherwise change things to reflect their view of history. (A telltale sign is that all proper names are spelled using their "house" style of accent marks.) I have since learned that the Baha'i leadership has made its presentation in wikipedia a major PR priority.

Not sure if anything can be done about this, short of expelling most of the Baha'is. One issue that has come up is that of "reliable sources." Baha'i critics tend to be found on internet sites, while the Baha'is themselves publish things on paper as well. They claim that wikipedia has a policy against the former medium and in favor of the latter. Another issue that has come up is the "noteability" policy--so if their leadership censors some dissidents, Baha'i supporters will say that the number of dissidents is small and therefore not notable.

Another, related issue is that Baha'is have been trying to promote their religion on unrelated boards, for example by arranging the religion to be name-dropped in places where it is not noteworthy.

I personally decline to get involved anymore, but put this out there for you guys to deal with as best you can. Dawud

Where is your proof that "the Baha'i leadership has made its presentation in Misplaced Pages a major PR priority"? Can you provide copies of internal Baha'i documents which state this? —Psychonaut 16:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Government control of the media in the People's Republic of China (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

Ideogram (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Registered yesterday and seems to be making a series of political POV edits concerning China, including renaming Media of PRC to Government control of.... - Fayenatic london (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well the user didn't register yesterday, but seems to have an agenda. I would revert the page back to the title it originally had. For now, though, it seems that the user just needs to be watched. _└┘talk  00:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Potter's House Christian Fellowship

(history|Watchlist this article|unwatch) The issue seems to be two users back and forth. The thing is one User:Potters house keeps saying how links are directly about him dealing with the church in question. And the other user User:Darrenss seems to be a former memeber and they have it out for each other with these links and the article. Now they are dragging me in since i reverted vandalism on User:Darrenss page. And they are debating on my talk page - ] So if they both especially one is directly involved is this not COI? On a side not can I delete all this debate between the 2 of them off my discussion page? another user put it this way above "I personally decline to get involved anymore, but put this out there for you guys to deal with as best you can" Thanks --Xiahou 04:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

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