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The following Misplaced Pages contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. 192.122.250.250 (talk · contribs) / Bayer.com This user has contributed to the article.

Archives

Archive 1

Divisions

Hi, I came here looking for the division "Material Science", but its not here. Can this and any other divisions please be added? Wizard191 (talk) 19:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

→Yes, Material Science should be listed but not sure what "Bayer Birth Control" is - can someone clarify? I understood Yaz & other contraceptives to be Bayer Healthcare products. Also the Animal Health division is part of Bayer Healthcare too TomorrowsDream (talk) 21:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing I G Farben ownership of Zyklon producing company

I tried to add a citation but failed miserably. Here is the info:

Hayes, Peter (1987), Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 361, ISBN 978-0521786386

Here is the line that needed a citation:

IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.235.41.167 (talk) 00:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed it for you. You were close; all you needed were <ref></ref> tags around the citation template and you'd have been all set. Wizard191 (talk) 13:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Third Largest Pharmaceutical Company

This is a rather inaccurate statement. It doesn't have the third highest pharmaceutical sales it is only when you add in the material science and crop science business does this become anything close to accurate. Can we remove it? Spudbynight (talk) 12:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Done, because it is unreferenced. Wizard191 (talk) 13:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Hazardous Waste in Nepal

This should be entered into the article (source http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=320) Sarcelles (talk) 18:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The Greenpeace source would be better (source http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/toxics/2002jan21.html) as the source for Corporatewatch is an organisation called "Coalition Against Bayer Dangers" which might not be very reliable(the link is also broken). TomorrowsDream (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

History of the company

This section needs work. Acetyl salicylic acid was not the company's first product, it was introduced more then thirty years after the company was founded in 1863. The first products were dyes.Ajrocke (talk) 17:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Political Economy Research Institute

The Political Economy Research Institute ranks Marathon Oil 1st among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. I don't know what made me type what I did. I must have misread something.

Yes, bigger companies produce more product, resulting in (generally) more pollution. It would be interesting to see a comparison of fines levied by government agencies for excessive pollution. I'm not sure what Marathon Oil has to do with this since it's #80 on the list you posted? --CliffC (talk) 20:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Clothianidin

Can someone stick up a section on the leaked EPA report on clothianidin, and how it is toxic to honey bees. The already burgeoning controversies section, needs further expansion.92.3.72.57 (talk) 14:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

link: http://www.fastcompany.com/1708896/wiki-bee-leaks-epa-document-reveals-agency-knowingly-allowed-use-of-bee-toxic-pesticide92.3.72.57 (talk) 14:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

material that I tried to add. What's wrong with it? please advise. Thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/Bayer

Eduard Wirths, as chief doctor, was the Auschwitz sponsor and facilitator of most of these experiments, particularly those in which there was interest from Berlin at a higher level. An example here is the continuous experimental activity of SS Captain Dr. Helmuth Vetter, a key figure in pharmacological “trials” in Auschwitz and elsewhere. He was employed for many years with Bayer Group WII of the I. G. Farben Industry, Inc., Leverkusen, and, at Auschwitz, retained his connections. He ran medical trials for Bayer in Auschwitz and Mauthausen (and possibly in other camps) on several therapeutic agents, including sulfa medications and other preparations whose content is not exactly known.

Carl-Ludwig Lautenschläger was arrested by the U.S. military government in 1946, and one year later he was charged with enslavement and mass murder in the I.G. Farben Trial at Nuremberg, but was acquitted in 1948; though the court was convinced that the pharmaceutical department had conveyed to the SS medications to be tested on prisoners, no individual guilt on Lautenschläger’s part could be proven. After that, he was employed as a research associate at Bayer Elberfeld, where Ulrich Haberland helped many former I.G. Farben colleagues find new jobs. Carl-Ludwig Lautenschläger retired in 1952. He died in Karlsruhe on December 6, 1962. 74.239.209.92 (talk) 09:25, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The material is better added to Wiki articles specificaly about these two individuals assuming they meet Misplaced Pages notability guidelines. Including the many arguably notorius individuals who worked for IG Farben before and during the war, and for Bayer after the war is beyond the scope of the Bayer article. Sandcherry (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Sources for Miles Canada

I would like to utilize information here however, without the sources I can't be sure that this is accurate.

I'm seeking sources for the information pertaining to Canada.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.227.207 (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Once a day Selenium Lawsuit

The lawsuit mentioned in the text for claiming selenium prevents prostate cancer was dropped. A similar lawsuit filed by State Attorneys General was settled for $3M, which probably amounted to little more than the payment of the plaintiff's legal fees. The actual infraction was not a prolonged false advertising campaign, but failure to recall bottles with an older, broader claim when the FDA narrowed the permitted claims for selenium and cancer prevention. I've removed this as non-notable, and to give a little more balance to the article, which is already heavily weighted toward discussion of litigation over other aspects of the conpany.Formerly 98 (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Auschwitz quote

So I don't really understand what you are trying to accomplish by adding this to the article. Clearly this was a horrific episode and the participation of the company in war crimes is noteworthy. But the invention of the world's first antibiotic is noteworthy too, and we have not included dramatic, emotional passages in the article about how many children were saved by Protosil during the years in which it was the only antibiotic available.

These are historical facts. The company is not run by the same people that experimented on humans during WW2, nor is it run by the people who invented the first antibiotic. They are important and noteworthy, but including content intended mainly for emotional content is not encyclopedic. Formerly 98 (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

What I was trying to do by adding this section to the article was provide readers with information about the role Beyer played in perpetrating the holocaust, something that was completely lacking. Until my edit there was little more than a brief mention of IG Farben and Zyklon B. There was no factual information about what Beyer actually did during World War II, which is what that section is meant to be about. I provided accurate and properly sourced information that related exactly to the topic. What I don’t really understand is why you feel it necessary to minimize the role Beyer played in this horrific episode. There are several examples of edits that have been made to this article relating to World War II and other controversies that you have removed, which is somewhat suspect.

You give the impression that because these events took place over 70 years ago that they are more or less irrelevant, which is bizarre. My post may have been dramatic but it was completely factual and properly sourced. Oftentimes facts, particularly ones that deal with sensitive and horrific events, will be emotional. Why you feel that that makes them irrelevant is something else I do not understand. Perhaps some information should be included about the benefits that Prontosil has brought to the world.

This might be a little off topic but, related to the information in the article about Prontosil, which I believe you added, I believe the section you added it in is inappropriate. The section with the information about Prontosil is about the company’s history in World War I and World War II. The discovery of Prontosil is important, but it has nothing to do with the company’s history during either war. That information belongs in the discovery section. By including it in this section the only thing you are doing is distracting the reader from the fact that Beyer was apart of IG Farben and was responsible for committing horrific crimes. I find it very odd that you would include the information about Prontosil in this section but remove something that actually belongs. While I appreciate that this information demonstrates that not everyone associated with Beyer was “evil”, I am sure you must be fully aware that including this information, in the way you that you have, only further supports the impression that you are aiming to gloss over the role Beyer had in the murder of thousands of people by attempting to shine a positive light on a absolutely horrible period in the companies history.

I do not believe that the Bayer of today is the same company that existed in the 1940’s. I simply feel that readers of this article deserve the right to have a proper understanding of what happened at Beyer during WWII. I appreciate your attempt to include the information I provided along with the information that was already there, but in all honesty your “reference to the episode” is rather insulting. I, and I’m sure many others, feel that what happened during this time is more than noteworthy and a proper encyclopedia would include this information. Shauck12 (talk) 07:01, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me try to clarify my position with an analogy. Slavery was legal in the United States up until the 1860s, and until 1820, Africans were still being kidnapped and brought to the U.S. under horrific conditions to be sold into slavery. This is clearly a very, very important part of American history and no description of that history would be complete without a discussion of slavery. It was horrific by any standards. But our general article about the United States is a summary, and does not include horrific vignettes about the conditions in the slave ships, the statistics on slave life expectancy and the like. These are covered in detail on the Misplaced Pages article on Slavery in the United States.

I understand your position on the importance of including these events in the article, but I struggle a little bit with the level of detail. Would it be possible to include more of this in the article on Nazi human experimentation? I was quite surprised to see that Bayer is not even mentioned in that article.Formerly 98 (talk) 14:26, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I get the point you are trying to make with your analogy but I just don't think it is a fair comparison. Besides, at the very least at least slavery is mentioned over 70 times in the article about the United States and Gaza is mentioned over 40 times. In the Bayer article, the world Nazi is never mentioned, the world Holocaust is never mentioned, murder, crime, torture are all not mentioned. Until my edit nobody reading this page would have any idea what Bayer did during WWII. Simply referring to IG Farben isn't adequate as it makes it appear that as though IG Farben was responsible for the horrible crimes committed during this period when in fact they were committed by the people who ran the Bayer company. It is simply a distraction that makes it appear as though Bayer is not responsible for what they did. If anything, the information in this article about Zyklon B should probably be removed, since, as far as I can tell, Bayer itself actually didn't have a significant role in the invention and distribution of Zyklon B. The patent for Zyklon B belonged to another company (Degesch).

The information I wrote doesn't need to be in the article exactly as I wrote it. I understand your reluctance to have overly specific details in the article. I don't completely agree with that, I believe that an article about a specific company should contain specific information, not broad or general comments that don't properly address the history of the company. When a claim as severe as mass murder is made, I believe it is important to provide specific examples to support such a claim. You are probably correct that this information should be in the page on human experimentation, I appreciate that suggestion. However, I still feel that 1 sentence in this article isn't enough to adequately address this issue of Bayer's role in the murder of innocent people during WWII. The section of the article that I wrote in is meant to contain information on what happened at Bayer during WWI and WWII. All I did was add specific and accurate information about what happened at Bayer during WWII.

I would appreciate it if you moved your info on Prontosil to the proper section. I do not believe this information is in the correct section and maintain my earlier comment that having it in the WWI and WWII section, while at the same time not including any information about what actually happened during the war, only serves to gloss over this horrific period in Bayer's history. I won't move it myself at this time, as I believe that removing interesting, accurate and relevant information that other people have added to an article just because I disagree with something about it isn't an overly constructive way of doing things. Shauck12 (talk) 16:02, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I appreciate your thoughts and concerns. Let me offer my own.

First - I don't think its a matter so much of glossing over past atrocities so much as as recognizing and acknowledging complexity. The same company that engaged in the worst sort of human experimentation during WW2 also introduced the era of antibiotics. Its hard to wrap one's head around this. But the company has done both great things and incredibly atrocious things. In that regard it is very simlar to

• The United States, which slaughtered the native Americans, maintained 25% of its population as slave labor for nearly half of its history, served as the prototype for modern democracy, and played a major role in defeating the fascists in WWII.
• The British Empire, which enslaved the Indian subcontinent, imported opium into China to pay its bills, and maintained a squadron off the coast of Africa to suppress the slave trade.
• Just about every other organization/nation in existence if you look far enough back in their history.

Personally, rather than separate out Prontosil, I'd rather blend the drug discovery section completely into the history. Companies exist to invent, manufacture, and sell products, so it seems to me that the history of the company is deeply tied to the products it discovered.

If you were to add some of the more detailed info to the Nazi Human Experimentation article, I would certainly have no objection to include a hyperlink in this article to that one. Just a suggestion.

My thought: Take a look at the Misplaced Pages articles on Germany, BMW, Mercedes, Merck KG, the History of the United States, and the History of the British Empire and see how other historical atrocities have been covered in Misplaced Pages. Write something that fits with the precedents established in other articles. Put in in the article and we can discuss it some more here and hopefully reach agreement. I will commit not to revert in a knee jerk manner and will hope that you will write something that reflects my concerns. Formerly 98 (talk) 19:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I did look a several other Germany companies who profited from the war and I think it is shameful that in many cases there is very little reference to their specific roles in the war. But, the fact the companies are so reluctant to share information about this horrible period is exactly why it needs to be shared. The WWII section on BMW is quite large, and contains many specific details, but there is nothing in there about the use of slave labour that the Quandt family, BMW's majority stakeholders, used during the war. The actual IBM Misplaced Pages page contains absolutely no information about how the company not only participated in but actually aided the Nazis in carrying out the final solution. There are separate Misplaced Pages pages win this information, but nothing in the main IBM page. These are not precedents that I believe we should be following.

I agree that the discovery section should be enlarged. It is already a sub heading under the history section, but I think we would both agree that the information there doesn't adequately address the significance of Bayer's work. I don't dispute for a moment that Bayer is reasonable for some great discoveries that have made a massive difference in the world. But, if you are going to allow specific details on all the good that Bayer did in it's history, particularly during the first 50 years of the 20th century, then it is essential that you include a significant amount of information on the horrible things Bayer did as well. To do so would be glossing over the negative aspects of the companies history and creates and an uneven and biased article. It is very complex, which is one reason it is so interesting. In order for people to understand how complex it is they need to be given the appropriate information.

The Misplaced Pages page for a company like Dow Chemical is a good comparison of what I'd like to see. Dow Chemical was responsible some impressive discoveries, but was also responsible for a horrific disaster in India. Instead of briefly mentioning it in vague and general terms in the history section, about 1/4 of the history section is dedicated to this extremely significant event along with specific information on what happened and hyperlinks to a more detailed page.

I'll have a look at a few more articles and try and come up with something else. I've actually quite enjoyed this debate and hope that I haven't come across as too rude.

"Weighing" in here... we have to think about WP:WEIGHT for content. Shauck12 you introduced a very specific incident and described it in some detail. It is hard for me to understand why that specific incident deserves to be mentioned at all, much less given the space it was given (in other words WP:WEIGHT). Shauck, you brought a source we can use to verify that it happened, sure... but not a source that says that this specific incident has great importance compared to everything else that happened. I think that Formerly 98's edit (dif is here) is appropriately general and encyclopedic (and covers a lot more ground than Shauck's did) I think Formerly's edit should stick, and should satisfy Shauck. Jytdog (talk) 19:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Clever pun! You won't be surprised that I disagree with you on this though. I don't believe I've given excess weight to this "incident". I made a 83 world edit to a fairly large article, so it's hard to argue I went into excess detail. That specific incident deserves to be mentioned because it is an example of the work Bayer did during WWII, which is exactly what that section of the article is meant to be about. Why have a section on the history of Bayer during WWII if you won't allow any information about Bayer during WWII to be mentioned? Why is the fact that IG Farben produced Zyklon B (which Bayer itself wasn't involved in) more relevant to this article than actual information about what Bayer did? I'm not sure how you can argue that Bayers role in the murder of innocent people is so insignificant that it should not be discussed, at least not in any detail. I merely provided information that is the viewpoint of the majority and that information is easily substantiated 'with reference to commonly accepted reference texts.' This is an Important aspect of Bayers history and deserves to be mentioned, and I believe 83 words is an appropriate amount of detail given the signifance of the subject matter. I'm not trying to imply that 'this specific incident' has greater, or lesser, importance than everything else that happened during the war. I am merely providing the information for anyone who is interested. Also, when you visit the Misplaced Pages page that lists the companies that profited from the Holocaust, Bayer is listed. When you click on the Bayer link, which I'm sure many people would as it is a fairly well known company, there should be information on how Bayer participated in the Holocaust.

Getting back to the issue of weight, there are more words dedicated to Bayer's acquisition of the 'Auckland-based animal health company Bomac Group,' than there are to the crimes Bayer committed during WWII. Since my information was removed but something like this is permitted, am I safe to assume that you feel that acquiring an animal health company is more of a significant issue than what happened during WWII? I hope you would agree that buying women and then torturing and murdering them is a more significant issue than Bayer paying a $14 million penalty or a contaminated rice crop. These are of course important issues that deserve their spot in this page, but I think just about any decent person would agree that they aren't on the same level as genocide.

Where do you draw the line on when specific information is okay and when it is not, and what right do you have to arbitrarily make those decisions? Should the entire controversy section be removed because it deals with specific information? Why is Prontosol allowed such a significant amount of detail when the other Bayer discoveries hardly get mentioned? 62 words to discuss the Bayer logo, yet next to nothing is allowed to be written about Bayer being compliciant in the murder of so many people? Perhaps you would prefer if this article simply read "Bayer, a company that does stuff." I would like to add information on the use of slave labour in Bayer factories during the war (which comes directly from the Bayer website!) or that the former head of Bayer, Helge Wehmeier, publicly apologized for Bayers involvement in the Holocaust, though I'm sure I'd find that you would quickly remove any such information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shauck12 (talk • contribs) 18 August 2014 23:09 (UTC)

I'd maybe throw out 2 points. While murders during WW2 obviously have far greater moral significance from a historical viewpoint than the acquisition of an animal health business, from a practical point of view, the latter is actionable and the former is not. You can't really characterize Bayer as "evil", nor does it make any sense to boycott it based on events of 65 years ago because it is not now run by those who did those things. There are few or no perpetrators alive to punish, and few surviving victims to compensate. It was horrible, but it is now inactionable.t

In contrast the acqisition of an animal health business is morally trivial, but the information is actionable. You use it to decide whether to look for a job there, to decide whether the stock is a good buy, or even to keep an eye out and make sure you don't accidently buy these products because you are boycotting the company over its pesticde production.

The second point is that as it stands, the article is about 70% neutral descriptive facts, about 20% criticism/ negative, and about 5% positive material. Given that it is already seriously NNPOV, there is a higher threshold for adding more negative material.

I know you don't agree, but that is how I see the situation.Formerly 98 (talk) 23:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree, but I appreciate your perspective. I do feel that the fact that horrible events of WWII are not actionable is completely irrelevant. Just because there are few, if any, perpetrators left and few victims has nothing to do with the significance of an issue. If anything, this makes the information more relevant than ever. As time passes and these events fade from memory it is essential that what happened 75 years ago isn't forgotten. Perhaps people would be interested in the fact that Bayer perpetrated these crimes and then seek more information on what they have done to acknowledge what happened and how they have compensated the victims of their crimes. The IG Farben company was only delisted on German stock exchanges in 2011 as it sought to provide funds to victims. Just last year the German Government agreed to pay 800 million Euros for the care of elderly holocaust survivors. There is still relevance to this information, beyond the fact that it is historically significant and an important part if the companies history. I don't think you can say it is I inactionable simply because so much time has passed. Also, if you were a family member of a holocaust victim or had some connection to what happened I think it would be understandable to boycott companies that were complacent in the murder of so many people. There is a reason so few companies actually acknowledge their role in the final solution, but there really is no acceptable reason for allowing them to get away with that. I agree that somebody looking for a job or looking for information that will determine their shopping habits will find some of the information in this article very relevant and have no use for what I added. But, at the same time, somebody looking into the history of Bayer will have absolutely no use of 90% of the information in this article. That persons has just as much of a right to find what they are looking for as the person who is trying to decide whether the stock is a good buy.

I agree there should be a higher threshold for adding negative material, and I believe that Bayer's role in the Holocaust meets that threshold. It's not like I'm writing a piece on how I don't like the design of aspirin bottles or something ridiculous like that.

I've enjoyed this back and forth. You've given me some good suggestions and I appreciate that. Shauck12 (talk) 00:56, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

respectfully, Shauck12 please actually read WP:WEIGHT. What you write above, doesn't take it into account. This is not about what I want or what you want - it is about trying to create an encyclopedia article that describes Bayer, as demonstrated in reliable sources. Misplaced Pages's policies came into being as the community tried to solve common disputes, just like this one. Without some guiding concept of how much detail to go into, and which detail to give, articles would have descended into random collections of details. That is not what we are about here. Please don't personalize this. Please provide a reliable source that says that the particular incident you want to describe in the article, deserves to be there, more than a general statement (like Formerly provided), and more than the many other details we could include. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 23:38, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's my perspective as a non-expert reader: the reference to the "IG Farben Military Tribunal at Nuremburg" raises a red flag in my mind. Bayer was part of IG Farben! Was the Bayer division involved in the war crimes trial? Were Bayer employees walled off from the parts of the company that engaged criminal activity? From reading these talk pages, the answer is no, they were not walled off, Bayer people participated war crimes! How could it be a violation of NPV to address this? Articles about other companies certainly do discuss alleged criminal activities, why not here? I am left wondering whether modern Bayer employees are involved in editing the article to whitewash any role they had. As a non-expert reader, that's my impression.

BTW, in the IG Farben article, which has some detail on that company's war-crimes activities, the inventors of Prontosil are listed as employees of IG Farben. No mention of Bayer. Here, they are listed as Bayer employees. As a reader, I see that war crimes of employees of defunct companies can be discussed in wikipedia articles, but not those of existing companies. This further tempts me to draw the conclusion that the Bayer article is being "sanitized". Is that what is required by NPV? I'm confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Israelgale (talk • contribs) 20:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Israelgale you are an inexperienced user. Some info on how WP works:

1) your general opinion doesn't matter any more than mine or anyone else's. See the policies WP:NOR, WP:SOAPBOX, and WP:NPOV.  :::::2) it is a typical (and ugly) mistake for inexperienced editors to make personal attacks on other editors when they don't agree about content. Do not continue making personal attacks on other editors - comment on content, not contributors. See the policy WP:NPA.

3) This article is about Bayer - all of it, through its whole history. The question here (as discussed above your comment) is whether the expansion of this section is WP:UNDUE (part of the NPOV policy) based on what reliable sources (see WP:RS) say about the company overall. That is how we work through questions like this - not based on how people feel nor based on personal attacks. Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and added back the slave labor / human experimentation material that was present in my last edit of the article and which was deleted earlier this month. I think the point about mentioning Prontosil but not the slave labor, both of which occurred under IB Farben, was a good one. I think the attacks on editor motives was a poor choice and such things are rarely productive. Formerly 98 (talk) 21:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Since Bayer did not exist from 1925 to until after WWII as per the citation, I changed Bayer to IG Farben in the WWI and WWII section. The IG Farben material in this section is probably better located in the IG Farben article. Move? Sandcherry (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

complicated issue. We presumably know that "Bayer" was involved in the discovery of sulfonamides, as they were the only real pharmaceuutical group merged in. I believe the Bayer website acknowledges the slave labor ties and I don't think we should say less than they do. Formerly 98 (talk) 02:23, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

This issue does not seem complicated. The Bayer website mentions IG Farben's use of forced labor. Former Bayer researchers discovered sulfonamides while working for IG Farben. Therefore, saying Bayer used forced labor or discovered sulfonamides is technically incorrect as Bayer did not exist at the time as per the listed citation and Bayer's website.Sandcherry (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think that the fact that the Bayer website mentions IG Farben's use of slave labor has to be interpreted in light of the fact that they don't mention the use of slave labor by Henkel, Messchersmidt, or Volkswagen. They are clearly acknowledging these actions as part of the company's history and not randomly mentioning war crimes perpetrated by random, unrelated parties, no?

In general I am not a big fan of this sort of thing. Again and again on Misplaced Pages I note that there are an endless stream of parties who come here outraged that the article on this company or that does not provide sufficient coverage or a sufficient condemnation of actual or alleged corporate crimes, but no one gets into a lather about the fact that the company's major products are insufficiently described or that there is no mention of a major merger. But our job is just as much to describe one of these as the other. We are not here as a moral tribunal or as investigative journalists.

That being said, I would not support excluding this material from the article. The company's own website acknowledges this as part of Bayer history, and there are no doubt many other WP:RS that do so as well. EAch of these things are far less than the whole of the company history, but are a part of it nonetheless. Formerly 98 (talk) 15:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

All good points. This is a judgement call regarding inclusion or exclusion, and I see merits in both. As long as this section references IG Farben instead of Bayer in this time period, arguments favoring inclusion are more persuasive. I propose inclusion with the current wording. Agree?Sandcherry (talk) 02:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Sponsorship section

Hi, yesterday I added a section for 'Sponsorship' and noted with citation that Bayer Australia is a major supporter of Australian Geographic, the magazine of the Australian Geographic Society. The citation was to the Australian Geographic Society's official list of sponsors and supporters. My edit was reverted within hours, and the reason given was that the content was not sufficiently noteworthy. I read WP:NOTABLE as suggested, which told me that 'Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article'. Could any of the other editors working on this page share their perspectives on this please? I don't see why this section should not be created and expanded upon in the future, as it establishes Bayer's network of relationships with other notable entities and should be a matter of public interest. Danimations (talk) 01:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

thank you for coming and talking! You are correct that I mentioned WP:NOTABLE and I also mentioned WP:TRIVIA which is closer to the issue. What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information is also relevant here. Probably the most relevant is WP:UNDUE. What I am getting it, is the "who cares" question. In general, we answer questions about WP:WEIGHT (which is what UNDUE is about) - how much space to give a certain topic in an article (if any) - by looking at how important that topic is, in independent, secondary, reliable sources. In other words, does somebody think the idea is important enough (outside of the parties involved - in this case, Bayer and AG - to write something about it, in the larger content of Bayer (Bayer in this case, since this article is about Bayer) There are literally millions of factoids we could include in this article about Bayer. What makes this one important? The answer to that, is to be found in some independent, secondary source. Are there any that discuss this? thxJytdog (talk)

you are under no obligation to tell me, but I am curious as to why this is important to you. Jytdog (talk) 02:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

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