Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:01, 22 February 2010

Fairfield, Iowa and MUM

One proposed finding of fact discussion is getting long (and prompted me to research two evidence sections), so let's brainstorm this. There's a problem with COI edits and a small private ISP which appears to serve the university but is not affiliated with the university, and which serves other residents and businesses in the area. It is not the only ISP in town, yet it would be a good idea to think how to minimize any collateral damage to the ISP or to the surrounding non-COI community. A few things to consider:

• The rate of unlogged editing from that ISP appears to be very low on non-TM local topics.
• Does the ISP randomly reassign IP addresses throughout its customer base, or does MUM get its own range of IP addresses?
• Would a small ISP that serves at most 14,000 people be willing to work with WMF to accommodate a structure that would reduce impact of an arbitrated solution on its other customers?

Some of these questions are probably not answerable onsite. Yet they seem to be worth considering. At this time it's quite possible that the ISP itself is not aware of any problem. Thoughts? Durova 04:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it not true that the ISP is owned by TM interests? I thought I read that in one of these discussions, but now can't find it; am I remembering that incorrectly? I wonder how difficult it would be to ascertain how many of the residents and businesses in Fairfield who subscribe to this ISP are not associated with TM. Woonpton (talk) 05:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If so then it isn't obvious from their website. LISCO describes itself as a 1995 startup that serves 96 rural communities in southeastern Iowa. MUM appears to be one of the largest employers in LISCO's home county. Is there any evidence to link the ownership of one to the other? Best not to assume. Durova 05:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not assuming anything; I'm recalling a statement I thought I read somewhere in these discussions in the last few days that said that LISCO is owned by the TM organization, and asking for verification or refutation of that. Woonpton (talk) 06:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Not a lot to go by, to my knowledge. The LISCO site describes itself as a mom-and-pop and lists the name of its founder. MUM has about 1500 total faculty, staff, and students. LISCO claims 14,000 customers. So in the absence of any other information MUM seems to be a major client. Not necessarily anything more than that, though. Durova 07:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've searched through what would seem to be the relevant discussions and can't find where I read that LISCO is a TM-owned business, so I may have misremembered it, although I don't as a rule misremember data. However in searching, I came across a couple of relevant bits of information. In the SPI for TM editors, TimidGuy stated that there are approximately 2500 people living in Fairfield who practice TM, most of whom are not associated with MUM, and on the same page, David Spector mentioned that "there are many TM businesses in the area." (I would give specific diffs but don't know how to access the history of an archived SPI.) So the TM presence in the area isn't confined to MUM, and, while this is a different topic, I'm not sure I understand the distinction that's being made on the workshop between employees and followers; the advocacy for a pro-TM POV in the Misplaced Pages articles doesn't depend on financial connection here any more than it did in the Scientology case. Also, as a side note, searching on LISCO and MUM yields a number of employees of LISCO who are or have been associated with MUM. Don't know if that's useful or not, but just another bit of data I picked up along the way.Woonpton (talk) 15:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It didn't take much digging to discover that Lance Yedersberger, who founded LISCO in 1995, donated $575 to the Natural Law Party (the political arm of the TM movement) that same year and went on to donate $7124 to the party between 1995 and 2000. This business might not be owned by the TM organization, but its founder and CEO could hardly be characterized as unallied with the movement. Woonpton (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a correct assessment - LISCO is owned by a member of the movement, but not by the movement itself. In addition, its offices are in an office park whose building was constructed according to the movement's specifications. Other tenants in the building include at least one major business owned by the movement, Maharishi Ayurveda Products International aka "MAPI". Also, the person listed as the "Finance Executive" of LISCO, Carl Zimmerman,, is listed as the "Controller at Maharishi University of Management". He is also an officer of another company, Maharishi World Peace Vedic Organics, Inc.,, At least two of the other officers of that company are trustees of MUM, Bevan Morris and Robert Wynne. They are also officials of the Global Country of World Peace. Bob Wynne is also mayor of Maharishi Vedic City. So LISCO is closely connected to MUM and the movement.   Will Beback  talk  20:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe that MUM also has IPs on a different network. In this edit, someone seems to be thinking they're using 209.152.117.83 (talk · contribs) but it suddenly shifts to 69.18.50.2 (talk · contribs), one of the identified MUM IPs. The user says he'll ask "techies" about it, not something someone is likely to do at the Burger King. Here's the RBLS for that IP which is not on LISCO but is also registered to MUM.   Will Beback  talk  20:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Based on filings at the Iowa Utilities Board, I'd estimate that LISCo has fewer than 1000 telephone customers, probably fewer than 500. In 2001, the IUB threatened to terminate the CPCN of the CLEC, LTDS, on the basis that it had only a single customer: its ISP affiliate LISCO. It ultimately didn't do that but warned that unless LTDS started actively signing up telephone subscribers, its CPCN would get yanked. Since then LISCO and LTDS merged. The 2008 IUB Annual Report indicates that LISCO paid an annual assessment of $524.24, which is calculated at $1.95 per $1000 of assessable revenue. That translates to $268K of annual utility revenue, which at ~$30-$50 per month for a residential customer would be at most 400-750 customers roughly. Commercial accounts would imply a much higher monthly revenue per customer, and a much lower customer count. Iowa Telecom appears to be the dominant telephone provider in Fairfield. Fladrif (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Distinctions

Starting a new section for this:

"I'm not sure I understand the distinction that's being made on the workshop between employees and followers; the advocacy for a pro-TM POV in the Misplaced Pages articles doesn't depend on financial connection here any more than it did in the Scientology case."

There's a difference between the neutral point of view policy and the conflict of interest guideline. If an editor acts non-neutrally, that's one type of problem. If an editor has a conflict of interest, that's a different set of concerns. The two concepts overlap to a degree but they aren't interchangeable.

To use a positive example: the Comedy Central Network had an employee who edited Misplaced Pages completely within policy. He disclosed his conflict of interest on his user page and never edited articles. What he did was interact with other editors on talk pages and he found out what those editors wanted to be able to cite in articles, then he made sure that information was available on the Comedy Central website. He could have put information into Misplaced Pages directly, but he never did.

With the NPOV policy there's no clear line between fandom and employment, but with COI there is--mainly because Comedy Central or Maharishi University of Management can't be held responsible for what unaffiliated people do. If an IP address starts replacing articles with Comedy Central Rules! Cartoon Network Sucks!, that isn't Comedy Central's responsibility if some random person is doing it. But it is their problem if their director of public affairs is the vandal.

The slippery slope to avoid is where we start making implicit double standards between normative and non-normative organizations. That fear was one of the most valid points expressed by the Scientologist editors a year ago. Replace "Natural Law Party" with "Republican": would you parse the information any differently? Durova 18:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The conflict of interest guideline also covers people who have a strong relationship to a spiritual leader. WP:COI#Close relationships. It was watered down by user:Jossi, but it is still there. Anytime one has a relationship, either financial or other, that interferes with neutral editing there is a conflict of interest. That's diffeent from havin a mere belief, which one can set aside or edit around. The issue here is that these editors apparently have strong relationships to the movement which lead them to using WP as a platform for advocacy. In some cases that relationship may be financial, though I gather that the pay at MUM is so low that it's virtually volunteer work.   Will Beback  talk  19:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You're right; real world understanding of conflict of interest does include other things such as close family relationship to someone who has a financial conflict of interst, etc. Mainly what I had in mind when writing the financial conflict of interest principle were the individuals who admitted to being MUM faculty, then stated they were editing Misplaced Pages from off-campus locations as if that made a difference. It's an argument I've seen before in other contexts--something Virgil Griffith called the Starbucks Excuse. There was a time when Virgil kicked around the idea of writing a tool to detect COI edits from organizational IPs followed by exact cut and pastes of the same text from nearby coffee shop IPs. The problem with attempts to subvert the COI guideline is that once light shines upon the matter it looks worse because it gives the impression of deliberate deception. Durova 20:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There definitely should be the same standards for all organizations. It should not matter if we're considering a for-profit corporation or a non-profit charitable, religious or educational instutution; an organization universally acclaimed as noble and benevolent, or one found in a RICO case to be a corrupt criminal enterprise; a "mainstream" organization or a "fringe" one espousing unpopular or unusual ideas. There have already been some arguments made in the Workshop that some of the principles and findings from the Scientology ArbCom shouldn't apply here because of alleged distinctions between the two organizations. These are distinctions without a difference. The same standards should be applied impartially and universally. Fladrif (talk) 20:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

When this case was opening someone asked at my user talk whether the same standards would apply to the Vatican. That rang a bell and afterward I found the reference. The Vatican doesn't seem to have blanked information from the biography of any Sinn Fein leaders more recently, but the BBC sure noticed in 2007. Conflict of interest is a real world concept; the best we can do is reflect it as accurately as possible in our guidelines and practices. Durova 20:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand the distinction between COI and NPOV. You seem to be suggesting that this arbitration is limited to COI, in a very narrow sense of financial connection only. I'm not aware that that is the case; if it is I'll stand corrected, though it makes little sense to me to ignore the NPOV problem, if that's truly the intent here. I thought it was about a group of editors who are, and have been for years, editing from Fairfield and continually slanting the POV of the Maharishi articles in a pro-TM and non-neutral direction, an activity I have watched with dismay for two years. I'm not so much concerned about the COI problem as the NPOV problem (I don't really care which editors are employees of the organization and which are members or followers; what I care is that their efforts en masse have made it quite impossible for neutral editors to write neutral articles on these topics).

As to the question about whether I'd be as concerned about the CEO of an ISP who happened to contribute to the Republican party, that's a red herring I think. First of all, I didn't introduce that information to raise an issue about the ISP or the relationship of the ISP to TM; I introduced it simply because I thought it might shed some light on your original question about how many non-TM-related customers might be affected by a sanction. The information about Yedersberger's TM affiliation could possibly increase the prior probability, in a Bayesian sense, that many if not most of LISCO's Fairfield customers may be TM-affiliated, was my point, and my only point. But even if I meant it the way you chose to read it, the comparison you pose doesn't work. At any rate, I agree with Fladrif and the others who have weighed in while I was pondering my response. Woonpton (talk) 20:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Requirement of fixed IP

A new item, proposed by TimidGuy, is under Cirt's proposals and should be moved. I don't know if it's kosher for me to do it.   Will Beback  talk  19:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I've moved it. Dougweller (talk) 19:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! ;) Cirt (talk) 20:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

TimidGuy

TimidGuy (talk · contribs) is a party to this case. Therefore, the "proposed" should be moved from Comment by others to Comment by parties. Cirt (talk) 20:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)