Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:24, 19 March 2013

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the BP article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26Auto-archiving period: 2 months

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the BP article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26Auto-archiving period: 2 months

	BP was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result September 7, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. United Kingdom High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. London Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Companies Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Companies, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of companies on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CompaniesWikipedia:WikiProject CompaniesTemplate:WikiProject Companiescompany Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Companies To-do: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Misplaced Pages:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies Assess : Category:Unassessed company articles Copyedit : Category:Company articles needing attention Infobox : Category:Company articles needing infoboxes Maintain : Portal:Companies Stubs : Help expand stub articles located at Category:Company stubs Other : Tag company articles with the {{portal|Companies}} template Tag company talk pages with the {{WikiProject Companies}} project banner Answer requests for comments Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Energy Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Energy on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Brands This article is within the scope of WikiProject Brands, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of brands on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BrandsWikipedia:WikiProject BrandsTemplate:WikiProject BrandsBrands ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

BP is under review by the Environmental Record Task Force, a collaborative project committed to accurately and consistently representing the environmental impact of policymakers and organizations throughout the encyclopedia. The task force is part of the WikiProject Environment.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Template:Energy portal news

Concerns about a primary source

Hi all,
I'm concerned about this content. It seems to depend on a FERC document - a primary source, couched in awkward bureucratese. Worse, the document is full of words like "alleged" but the content in our article makes a flat statement without such caveats. I tried digging around to see if the investigation went anywhere, but couldn't find anything else (either on FERC's site or on third party sites) which referenced this FERC document - so it seems the investigation didn't go anywhere. Or maybe it's actually an artefact of the investigation immediately above, which is already wrapped up. Either way, I don't think it belongs in the article as-is. If there are secondary sources out there, bring them... bobrayner (talk) 15:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. the document seems to be a complaint, not a judgement. There is no way of telling if it is justified or not. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:30, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It is a separate investigation, ongoing and related 2008 activities. The first paragraph relates to activities that occurred in 2004. I've removed the primary source. petrarchan47tc 01:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Unproven accusations have no place here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Your contention is that investigations should not be entered into Misplaced Pages until they are complete? Hogwash, Mr. Hogbin. petrarchan47tc 00:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I asked Arturo for info about this investigation but he has refused to answer. I wonder why? Gandydancer (talk) 14:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe that after stating COI, one is not obligated to act contrary to that interest. In fact, they've pretty much stated that all their actions will be only to benefit said interest. Even BP as a company was never obligated to tell the truth during the spill, as legally they are bound to stockholders, and can't do or say anything that would hurt stockholders. petrarchan47tc 02:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Enough of the conspiracy theories and ABF. Please stop. bobrayner (talk) 11:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you about your question. I hope you understand that, despite being a BP employee, I do not have intimate knowledge about all aspects of the business. In some cases I have to ask, and it takes time to get a response. I have not yet received a reply to the question you asked me, and I have not yet had the time to follow up. I will do that again this week, but I can't promise that I will have an update on any given schedule. The best thing probably is still to go with what is understood based on the existing sources,and then update it later when more information becomes available. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 19:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "conspiracy theories". My understanding of COI is that the editor is not obliged to do any editing (or talk page contribution) that would not favor his interest. I mention this because I didn't think Arturo, having declared his COI, deserved to be questioned about motives, his motives are clear. Maybe I have misunderstood the role of a BP employee on Misplaced Pages? And, the bit about a corporation's obligation to stockholders over truth-telling came from BP's Tony Hayward talking about US law (I saw this interview on the news). I fail to see how any of this could be called a conspiracy theory, and have no idea what "ABF" means. petrarchan47tc 19:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Please stop. Arturo has done nothing which is not in line with WP:COI and your allegations about his motives, corporate obligations etc is unacceptable and may be even considered as a harassment of a fellow editor. If you think that there is a violation of WP:COI, please go forward and file a complain at the relevant noticeboard; otherwise stop these allegations as non-constructive. Beagel (talk) 20:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand how my statements are being seen as an accusation and turned into another opportunity for piling on. I am not going to explain my simple comments again - but I know that I have done nothing wrong by trying to better understand the dynamics of editing a page with a COI editor. This is the only time I have ever encountered this on Misplaced Pages and am trying to get a grasp on it. That is not a reason to slam me, but an invitation to correct me if I am in error. Lets drop the personal battles, yes? petrarchan47tc 23:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm more concerned about suggesting that Petrarchan is acting in an unacceptable manner because s/he brings up possible concerns re our paid editor than I am about the possibility that Arturo may be harassed. It is not paranoia to look closely at the actions of a paid editor, it is common sense. If any editor can show me of one single instance of a paid editor bringing up an issue that will make their employer look worse rather than better, by all means please point it out to me. Gandydancer (talk) 13:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't begrudge anyone looking closely at my suggestions, whether that's Petrarchan or anyone else. It's true enough to observe that my participation here is not meant to make BP "look worse". However, there are times where I've recommended changes that might count as what you're asking. My first suggestion on this page in fact pointed out that BP is not the biggest producer of oil and gas in the U.S. but the second-largest producer, among other corrections that lowered figures for production and proven reserves. The point I wish to underline is that my goal here is to help this page remain an accurate source of information, and that's what I'll continue to do. Thanks, Arturo at BP (talk) 20:48, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Arturo, I don't believe that anyone would suggest that you want to present information here that is not accurate. The problem lies in the fact that some of us expect this article to reflect Misplaced Pages standards that insist that all articles be written with a neutral POV and you don't. As you well know, Petrarchan has done an excellent job of showing that BPs "green" efforts were blown way out of proportion in both the lead and the body of the article and that it took weeks of argument to even get a mention of the largest marine spill in history into the lead. You certainly did not speak out in favor of that information being included in the lead. Nor did you have any problem when the article contained this information on BPs green efforts, which were far from accurate and thanks to Petrarch are no longer in the article:

Renewable energy

Solar panel made by BP Solar

BP Solar is a leading producer of solar panels since its purchase of Lucas Energy Systems in 1980 and Solarex (as part of its acquisition of Amoco) in 2000. BP Solar had a 20% world market share in photovoltaic panels in 2004 when it had a capacity to produce 90 MW/year of panels. It has over 30 years' experience operating in over 160 countries with manufacturing facilities in the US, Spain, India and Australia, and has more than 2000 employees worldwide. BP has closed its US plants in Frederick, Maryland as part of a transition to manufacturing in China. This is due in part to China's upswing in solar use and the protectionist laws that require 85% of the materials to be produced in China. Through a series of acquisitions in the solar power industry BP Solar became the third largest producer of solar panels in the world. It was recently announced that BP has obtained a contract for a pilot project to provide on-site solar power to Wal-Mart stores.

Between 2005 and 2010, BP invested about $5 billion in its renewable energy business, mainly in biofuel and wind power projects. In 2011, BP plans to invest $1 billion in renewables, roughly the same amount it invested last year.

As of 2011, BP is planning to construct a biofuel refinery in the Southeastern US and has also acquired Verenium’s cellulosic biofuels business for $98 million. In Brazil, BP holds a 50 percent stake in Tropical BioEnergia and plans to operate two ethanol refineries. In the US BP has more than 1,200 megawatts (MW) of wind-powered electricity capacity and in July 2010 it began construction of the 250 MW Cedar Creek II Wind Farm in Colorado.

I have a great deal of admiration for Petrarchan who has put so much time into this article. And although we seem to be on the opposite side of the fence, I have no hard feelings for good editors such as Beagle because I realize that good WP articles are the result of editors coming together to hammer out an article that respects several points of view. That said, for you to suggest that you, a paid editor, is sincerely interested in accuracy here is an insult to my intelligence. When I had a question for you asking for information, it took 3 or 4 months for you to get back to me--so long that I could no longer remember what the question was about in the first place. But now when it is advantageous to you to get article changes that you believe will, from your POV, improve the article, timing becomes so important that you must go to Connelly's page and ask him if he's willing to do your edits. Disturbing. Gandydancer (talk) 15:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I missed this comment until now, but it's important to set the record straight. I believe the information on solar was updated and trimmed by Petrarchan before I introduced myself here and began offering suggestions, and I did later offer an updated version of the BP Alternative Energy section that minimized the mention of BP's past solar investment to a single sentence. As much as I have been able to do so, given that this is a large article and I'm not able to look at every section at once, I have endeavored to correct inaccuracies where I've found them. Here’s another example of when I offered an update to text about AE that clearly did not benefit BP. I've also tried to help when editors have had requests, such as providing a draft for the company's Stock and Stock history (that included arguably negative information about BP) when Petrarchan asked.

Regarding your request, this did take a while for me to look into as the picture was very unclear about the court cases and asking others within the business took some time. I had also received initial feedback that made it clear to me that the current text on that issue would probably only need minor modifications, making it less of a priority. However, I did reply once I had the full information and left you a message on your Talk page to let you know I had done so. To reiterate what I said above, although I can't look at everything at once, my intention is to help this page become a better information resource, and I believe my involvement here reflects that. Arturo at BP (talk) 00:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

New structure for Environmental record and Accidents/safety record

In an earlier discussion on this page, the subject of how the sections for "Environmental record" and "Accidents" should be structured arose, and I think this is a worthwhile topic to return to. Currently, discussion of Deepwater Horizon is included under both sections, leading to confusion over what information on this topic should appear under which heading. Meanwhile, the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion is included under "Accidents" and the 2010 chemical leak at the refinery appears under "Environmental record", although they arguably each fit under both headings.

Separating out the environmental and safety impacts, which often overlapped in these cases, would be a tricky proposition. As I mentioned above, after much thought about the issue, I believe that a new structure would resolve this problem:

• Environmental and safety record
  • Environmental record
    • Environmental initiatives
    • Allegations of greenwashing
  • Safety record
  • Incidents
    • Sea Gem
    • Texas City refinery
    • Prudhoe Bay
    • Deepwater Horizon
    • Other incidents

Within this structure there can be a general overview for the company's environmental record and its safety record, with subsections to discuss topics such as environmental initiatives. All the incidents currently listed separately under "Environmental record" and "Accidents" would then be listed under the "Incidents" subsection and could include details regarding both the environmental and safety impact. For these subsections, I suggest that dedicated headings be reserved for incidents that have their own standalone Misplaced Pages articles, as I have included in the structure above, while others can be detailed under "Other incidents".

In the last discussion Beagel and Petrarchan offered some initial feedback. Petrarchan suggested another subsection within "Deepwater Horizon" focusing on litigation, which may make sense, although I didn't list it above. I'm interested to hear what others think about this concept for restructuring these parts of the article. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

At first glance it's a very good start, but no way can one call something like the Gulf oil spill an 'incident'. Skinning your knee on the way to school is an incident. The largest marine oil spill in history is something more than that. Calling it simply "Deepwater Horizon" is interesting, no one really knows the Gulf oil spill as DH except those in the industry. As a BP employee, there is an inherent bias that is perfectly understandable and acceptable, but biased work can't go into the article as-is. petrarchan47tc 01:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Petrarchan, the names of the sections are just suggestions and others may propose alternative headings. As a section title, "Incidents" is a neutral descriptor and one used by NOAA to describe the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (as well as other events, such as Hurricane Sandy). Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thanks Arturo. I'm not in favor of using NOAA's language, though, as they are neither unbiased nor reliable. They helped cover up damage to wildlife from the spill and 'controlled burns', as well as other blunders. Plus, they are in the business, as with all government agencies, not of truth-telling but of crowd-control, keeping everyone calm. petrarchan47tc 19:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with petrarchant; the term "incidents" is problematic on multiple levels. See my comment below replying to Hogbin's comment.Harel (talk) 05:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The structure looks fine. Looking the major events under the proposed 'Incidents' maybe we could use 'accidents' instead of 'incidents' in the section heading (except the last subsection 'Other incidents'). It would be still correct and neutral. Beagel (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Beagle. Also I would use the term "oil spill" with regard to the "Deepwater Horizon" section for clarity. petrarchan47tc 20:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Both of these suggestions sound fine to me: I agree with Beagel that "Incidents" can change to "Accidents" and am open to changing "Other incidents" too (though I think "incidents" allows for a greater range of events than just accidents). Likewise, changing "Deepwater Horizon" to "Deepwater Horizon oil spill" seems reasonable. Beagel or Petrarchan, would one of you be willing to start the effort of rearranging the existing sections? I'm happy to help how I can. Arturo at BP (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Arturo, we've got a big mess over at the oil spill page that I need to attend to. petrarchan47tc 18:18, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem, hopefully Beagel or another editor here will be able to work on the structure change. Also, it may take me a little time to get caught up on the discussion at Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but I would be happy to help there. Arturo at BP (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It's about a split that is disputed. I'm not sure if Misplaced Pages requires NPOV editors for RfC, but here is the discussion. petrarchan47tc 19:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I am just so angry right now that I'm not sure that I can stand any more "help" with that article right now.  :-) It's going to take me a few days to get back on track with the recent undiscussed decisions over there. I am not a professional WP editor and there are other things going on in my life right now. grrrrr. Gandydancer (talk) 19:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ditto. petrarchan47tc 19:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks p. It should be understood that none of us should be measured in the same way that we are measured in our "paying job" portion of our life. We can not possibly be expected to keep abreast of article changes day-by-day. It also just irritates me to no end to read, "oh, the editor that made those drastic changes with nary a talk page note was OK because it needed to be done and s/he stepped in." I have spent hundreds of hours on that article and it really does piss me off that a fly-by editor "fixes" the article with the split. But that only pisses me off a little, what really pisses me off is that anyone would support that editor. When I have time I hope to make a few more rational edits rather than just ranting as I'm doing here. Again, grrr. Gandydancer (talk) 20:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I am in favour of using 'incidents' because it is neutral, it makes no presuppositions and it is used by a national monitoring authority, probably for the reasons that I have given. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Martin, either "Incidents" or "Accidents" is fine with me, whichever is the most appropriate term by Misplaced Pages's standards. Are you willing to be bold and start putting this new structure into place? Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 22:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I think 'incidents' is a better and broader term which would include deliberate actions and things like sabotage. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The term "incidents" is problematic on multiple levels. First, it's broad, true, but it is so extremely broad that it basically translates into, "events". We don't want something like an "events" section, this is much more specific than "events" (to which "incidents" in this context is virtually synonymous). Second, the term is also a euphemism. I'm sure there are some environmental advocates who would favor "disasters". I see the term "incidents" as much a loaded (in this case as an extremely under-states euphemism) as the term "disasters" or "catastrophes" (of course it's ok to quote people refering to a "catastrophe" as they characterize it or a BP spokesperson calling it an 'incident' in a quotation)

Thirdly, the term should be 'neutral' in one sense but should not be 'neutral' in another sense. It should be neutral in the sense of an unbiased wikipedia article, yes. But an event which is not neutral should not be called by a word which is neutral. The events in question were not neutral. It's like calling an illness a "health event" or "health incident". We would never call an illness a "health incident" - an illness is not a neutral event. This is all independent of blame (meaning, maybe the company was to blame, maybe the company is innocent, maybe Transocean is to blame, etc, etc) that is a separate issue I am not addressing. But the event itself is not neutral. An illness is not a "health incident" and an oil leak, or spill (beyond one so miniscule as to be vanishingly small in its effects, and even those might not be legitimate exceptions) is not an "incident" either, for analogous reasons. Same with explosion, etc, not just leaks and spills. What instead? If a section is about BP's record as it were, I think "accidents" might work as a subsection. If a section is about BP analyzed as a "corporate citizen" where positive sections include charitable giving etc, then a sub-section might be "Damaged caused to the environment" I think both such sub-section names might work - in the respective, different contexts given. Perhaps others can suggest other names. But not 'health incident' analogs, please... Harel (talk) 05:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The text should make clear all the information that is available to us about the incident, including sourced information telling us whether the incident was intentional, accidental, sabotage, or other. To give a more specific description in the heading section (for example 'Accidents') would presuppose that WP had determined that every item under that heading did, in fact, conform the description given (that is to say, was an accident); this could be misleading.

There is no reason that we should not have more descriptive sub-headings for individual incidents when reliable sources tell us the facts ('The xxx accident', 'The YYY release', the 'ZZZ explosion' for example). Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

There are several different dimensions here. I certainly agree that we should be clear whether something is an accident or negligence (though the two do have overlap) or sabotage, etc. So I lean to agree with the suggestion to avoid using the word "Accidents" as the only term in the main header (though we could use "Accidents, negligent behavior, and sabotage" or similar heading)

Independent of this, however, there is the dimension of not sanitizing these things as 'incidents' any more than we would call illnesses 'health incidents' - we use the word illness (hence my earlier caution that the term should be 'neutral' in one sense but should not be 'neutral' in another sense. It should be neutral in the sense of an unbiased wikipedia article, yes. But an event which is not neutral should not be called by a word which is neutral. The events in question were not neutral. It's like calling an illness a "health event")

Whether negligence, sabotage, accident or otherwise, we are talking about events which are not neutral but with negative impact, after all. So we would not use the one-word heading, "Events" to describe them, after all. And "Incidents" in this situation is just synonimous to "events". Here's another medical analogy. As in the wikipedia entries, we mostly use the term "adverse effects (of drugs)" where the sanitizing and inaccurate phrase "side effects" was previously used, to be more accurate. The latter term is still used but only when referring to things whose outcome truly could be positive as much as it could be negative, while the more fitting term, "adverse effects" is used more accurately to refer to examples like, increased risk of heart attack or higher blood pressure, from taking the drug X. Oil spills, explosions, leaks, etc, are not "positive or negative" but negative events, we're not talking about BP donating money to charity etc which could be in another section of course, but rather we're focusin on adverse events, untoward events, mishaps, something along those lines

Perhaps there is a better word or words not quite on the tip of my tongue, but these negative events of spill, leak, explosion, sabotage, are negative, so it seems clear to me that whatever ultimate choice we use, their heading should not be a completely neutral term like "Events" (or its close cousin, "Incidents"). I'm ok with "Adverse Incidents" but maybe something more elegant can be found. Harel (talk) 04:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Harel and Martin, both of your comments make good points and, if it would help, I do think that we need the overall heading to be general enough to cover all of the events in the article, while subheadings for each accident or incident can then be descriptive in order to be clear about what occurred. A thought that has just occurred to me: as a compromise, would "Accidents and other incidents" be suitable? If this doesn't work, I suggest that we open a Request for Comment to find consensus for a heading. Arturo at BP (talk) 05:13, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I think what you are suggesting Arturo is reasonable (that must mean I'm either a 'moderate' or a 'sellout,' ha. Seriously, I do appreciate your being open about your BP connections and your open attitude. My only concern earlier was about a BP employee not creating an almost A to Z draft for the article about themselves). Back to my main point, it is merely this - the events listed will not include positives. I mean there may be a 1 in 1000 event where a cute little baby dolphin is accidentally saved from a mean old shark by the drilling rig coming in between or something, but seriously, this listing as I understand it will not contain "happy/positive" items but more like spills, accidents, explosions, even sabotage, etc. So heading should not look super "neutral" any more than a section on illnesses in 1800 France or today should be called "health events".

It seems that Arturo is suggesting that Accidents (even though there are also rogue emplyees or sabotage etc other possibilities) is the most broad subcategory - not all the items, but many of them will be accidents, so "Accidents and other incidents" makes good sense in that light.. Thanks for your suggestion Arturo. (And even BP is enlightened enough to not want an arms race with its competitors to the point of who can use the weakest terms for negative events - companies look better when they own up to things; along with more recent examples, one remembers also what happened to Intel in the 1990s with the pentium chip flaw? the initial line, "There's not a problem, really, folks" was a PR disaster for them) Harel (talk) 03:28, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I see nothing 'sanitising' about the word 'incident' as a main heading; it is just a more general term. In the sub-headings we can use more specific and descriptive terms, like 'spill', 'explosion', or 'accident'; there we can be guided by sources. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Gosh Martin, I tend to agree--but then I tended to agree with Harel and Petrarchan as well! I so seldom have a completely neutral position that I'm not sure what it is supposed to feel like, and I worry that I actually may just be shallow!! Gandydancer (talk) 14:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I hope that I can persuade others on this. I really cannot see how 'accident' is less sanitising than 'incident', 'accident' implies a lack of culpability. Pretty well all the terms used in the oil industry are understatements by most standards, 'spill' for example could refer to a beaker of oil knocked off a bench. By using 'incident' we cover everything and allow ourselves the freedom to use the term used by sources for individual cases. In fact, I would suggest that we used the terms used by relevant WP article for consistency and because they have, no doubt, been well discussed already. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Good job Martin--I agree. :-) Actually if one were to look through the archived pages one would find an argument on using the word "spill" with some posters stating something like "Spill! that means more like 'I spilled a cup of coffee' than thousands of gallons of oil gushing out from the ocean floor!", etc. It could be said that in one sense this "accident" created a new word common to our ears in the same way that we all became familiar with the term "boom", though that familiarity was short-lived. Anyway, yes I'm in agreement with Martin, "incident" would be the preferable term. Gandydancer (talk) 15:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to see consensus emerging here regarding the heading. There have been good arguments for all terms above, and most of the suggestions put forward sound good. But as Gandydancer and Martin Hogbin have both said, "Incidents" seems to cover all the events best. Once agreed, it would be great if an editor could start implementing this. Arturo at BP (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm looking for similar articles using "incidents" and have yet to find one. ExxonMobile, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, DuPont and Monsanto all have sections labeled "controversies". Exxon and ConocoPhillips have an "environmental record" section. Shell oil company has "legal issues" - a section which covers their controversies and which takes up most of the article, but no mention of it in the Intro. I think we can come up with a better term than 'incidents'. petrarchan47tc 21:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Based on my understanding, and according to WP:CRITS, it's better to avoid simply calling something "Controversies" or "Criticisms", because it can become a "POV fork". For this article, we already have topical section names for similar issues, but we need a catch-all heading for a sub-section collecting notable safety and environmental incidents and accidents. Three suggestions have been given above: "Incidents", "Accidents" and "Accidents and other incidents". Consensus seems to have been moving toward "Incidents" in the last few days, though this one point seems to be holding up the rest, which has consensus. Could you live with "Incidents" for now, and think about proposing an alternative later? Arturo at BP (talk) 22:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Hogbin, regarding " I really cannot see how 'accident' is less sanitising than 'incident', 'accident' implies a lack of culpability" there are two issues not to confuse. Yes, there is the issue of culpability, on which you focus, and that is one place to avoid an inacurate false "neutrality" but it is not the only one, and it was not the one I was bringing up. The other false neutrality to not confuse with the first one, is independent of culpability (independnet of who is at fault or whether there is any person at fault) and that other false neutrality is about the nature of the event (regardless of fault or nonfault) Is the event positive or negative? Happy or sad? Please notice that one can ask this question without any reference to blame (or credit) for the good (or bad) event. I hope this is clearer. So, it is a false neutrality to name a list of negative events as "neutral" I will ask one more time: would you call a list of illnesses something like "Health events" in the title? No one would call a list of illnesses "Health Events" The word "Event" is neutral, so in theory it would include positive and negative. Is our list going to include positive events, things that Got Better? If so, then they are "events". But I have not heard anyone suggesting that. It will be a list of negative events, so why call it "events"? Or "indedents" ("incidents" means exactly the same as "events" in this context) Now I can see an argument that an inaccurate term or misleading term (in the sense of false neutrality) has been the default.

If people want to go with that, after understanding the false neutrality represented by calling a list of bad events, as merely "events" then that's one thing. But please don't confuse the issue I'm raising with a different false neutrality, which is about blame

As for "accidents" if you don't like it, we can avoid that too. After all, if you think I'm being too easy on the term accidents, that is independent of the criticism of the false neutrality of the word "events" or "incidents" (same thing basically). In my humble opinion, it's not necessarily the case that "Accident" rules out blame. One can say after all, "the accident was due to the negligence of " Or "the accident was due to a leaking valve which, in turn, resulted from the deliberate order to stop all internal audits" etc. But if you feel strongly that it is not good enough, if enough agree, we can avoid that term too. But please let me just feel that I am heard about the very different type of false neutrality I was raising. It was not about blame but a false neutrality about the nature of the events. Will our list include happy improved positive events? Other than freak very rare ones? Is that the nature of the list? It's a list of "untoward" events, isn't it? Again there are examples where tradition/history take over. For example the term "climate change" (which was promoted by Reagan admins types, not IPCC, contrary to common impressions) is misleading since it does not refer to any "change" in common usage it's about something much more specific than, and not to include, things that are slow and natural. Similarly maybe "incidents" has become the default for "untoward incidents" or "untoward events" which is waht it really is, "negative events" in other words. If everyone is sure that the history and precedent is so strong that it can't be avoided, fine. But I'm just asking that this decision be made without misunderstanding or confusing two very different kinds of false neutralities. I'm about to take a break soon from this page, so have at it. Let this paragraph clear the record of which type of false neutrality - not the one about blame or lack of blame - I'd tried to raise. Best wishes. Harel (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Have just read comments by . petrarchan47tc. So clearly it is not the case there there is such a large historical habit of saying "incidents" that we defer to it despite its false neutrality. Now I actually agree with Arturo that saying "Controversies" have some problems. That doesn't mean we have to say "Events" or same thing, "Incidents" though, right? I often ask WWAMT? What Would a Martian Think? Someone visiting the Earth? In the abstarct these are "releases of chemical substances into the (wider) environment" in the most dry factual sense, whether leak or spill or explosion (which causes oil or gas release) etc. But that's too long for a title. How about looking back at the title of this section of the Talk page? "Environmental Record" and "Accidents/Safety Record" are listed. Or some combination of those two or three concepts? Wouldn't that cover the main concerns? raised above? I think "Environmental Record" is pretty reasonable.Harel (talk) 21:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I think other articles have defaulted to 'controversies', and without a company editor on the talk page, no one had a problem with it. But I agree with Hamel, "Environmental record" seems the seems idea so far. petrarchan47tc 23:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Harel and Petrarchan, I think that in the course of the discussion about the "Incidents" heading, we've lost track of the overall suggestion for the structure. My suggestion was to have "Incidents" (or similar) as a subheading of an overall "Environmental and safety record" section. So, the sections on Deepwater Horizon etc. would still be under the overall "Environmental and safety record" heading, but grouped together under a subheading of "Incidents". Here's what I proposed again:

• Environmental and safety record
  • Environmental record
    • Environmental initiatives
    • Allegations of greenwashing
  • Safety record
  • Incidents
    • Sea Gem
    • Texas City refinery
    • Prudhoe Bay
    • Deepwater Horizon
    • Other incidents

As I mentioned above, the aim of this structure was to prevent confusion about whether an incident should appear under "Safety record", "Environmental record" or end up with duplication by including information on one incident under both. Would it perhaps help to call the section "Environmental and safety incidents"? Arturo at BP (talk) 20:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought Harel made a pretty good, and exhaustive, argument against using the word 'incidents' to refer to non-neutral events. petrarchan47tc 01:02, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What word would you prefer? Gandydancer (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I do wish I had a good option. I still cannot find another Misplaced Pages article that uses "incidents", or any word similar in its neutrality, used as this type of section heading. ExxonMobile has "environmental record" and "criticism" sections, Monsanto has "legal actions" and separate sections for "false advertising", etc., DuPont has "controversies", Shell has "legal issues". IMO, at the very least, "incidents" could be changed to "accidents". petrarchan47tc 14:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

As the discussion is stalled over the usage incidents/accidents/something else and the proposed structure is using too many levels (subsections of subsections) I propose to change the structure a little bit for and to remove one level of subsections. The new proposed structure is following:

• Environmental and safety record
  • Environmental initiatives
  • Allegations of greenwashing
  • Safety record
  • Sea Gem accident
  • Texas City refinery explosion
  • Prudhoe Bay oil spill
  • Deepwater Horizon oil spill
  • Other major incidents

As a result, we are avoiding a dispute if the heading should say incident or accident. I also specified titles of the accidents as was proposed above. In the case of other incidents I propose to add the word 'major'. The reason is that as the term 'incident' is very wide and covers also very minor events. Beagel (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Beagel, this sounds like a good idea to me. My only suggested change to your structure is that I think it would be helpful to have an "Environmental record" subheading, similar to that for "Safety record". This would provide a section for a summary of BP's overall record on environmental issues. Arturo at BP (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with "Major incidents" in my mind, is that for native English speakers, 'incident' means not major, or not a big deal. We use the word "incidentally" to denote a less important yet associated subject. Anything that is a big, major deal should not have the word 'incident' to describe it. petrarchan47tc 23:48, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

That's true. I've thought long and hard about this and I've decided that there is no perfect word. For instance, one would never say, "The Three Mile Island Incident". On the other hand, the word "accident" carries the suggestion that is was an "act of God", or nature, or some such happening that was beyond the possibility to prevent. However if one were to look at most industrial "accidents" in almost every case of industry explosions, fires, ship wrecks, and on and on, one finds that they were accidents waiting to happen and entirely due to poor management practices, putting profit before concern of human well-being, etc. I even remember when my kids were little smirking, "it was an accident!!!" when they "accidently" hurt their sib (I never let them get away with that either :)). It would be the same as driving while drunk and killing a child and then saying, "But it was an accident! I checked the thesaurus and could not find any better term than these two. Six of one and a half dozen of the other... Gandydancer (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

While I agree that "accident" is far from perfect, I find it far preferable to describe for the reader what the section contains. The reader can certainly decide whether they feel these events were "whoopsies" - but for us to categorize them as 'no big deal' incidents is POV in my understanding of the word. Looking over other similar Misplaced Pages pages, it looks like no one has really found the perfect word, but the majority have settled with "controversies". When I think of controversies, I imagine two sides battling it out. BP is NOT claiming that any of these events weren't unfortunate, so I don't see how we could call them controversies. There ARE controversies involving BP for sure, but these 'accidents' don't fall into that category. It's true "accident" can be defined as "An Act of God", but it is also defined as "unexpected, undesirable event; often physically injurious" which perfectly describes the events in question. petrarchan47tc 01:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that you did not understand what I proposed. I try to explain in more detailed way:

• According to my proposal there will be no separate heading for incidents/accidents/something else, but things like Deepwater Horizon, Prudhoe Bay, etc will be separate subsection under the section heading "Environmental and safety record". This is exactly to avoid discussion we had about the perfect word which is not needed in this case.
• In Arturo's proposal was after all these major events listed also subsection named "Other incidents". This is not a heading for Deepwater Horizon, Texas City refinery etc, but last subsection after these above mentioned subsections. By my understanding it should include events which are worthy to be mentioned but not notable enough to have their own separate subsections. There was no discussion about this heading before.
• I added a word 'major' to this subsection's title as otherwise there my be impression that this subsection covers all incidents which is impossible taking account the broad definition of the word incident.
• At the same time, we need a broader scope for this subsection to ensure that different things fit into it. E.g. hypothetical example: There is a serious violation of safety procedures but fortunately nothing happened. It is significant to be added in this article but not significant enough to have its own subsection. It can't be called accident as nothing happened as a result of this violation but this is definitely qualifies as incident. That kind of incident should be added into the subsection called "Other major incidents" but this is not for the Deepwater Horizon and other similar things.

I propose to prepare the draft for the "Environmental and safety record" and when we have draft maybe it would be easier to find a consensus. As the section will be quite a long, I propose to create a temporary subpage (Talk:BP/Draft) for this. Beagel (talk) 09:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Beagel's proposal to work on a draft in a sub page seems like a good one to me, so I have started the draft version of the "Environmental and safety record" section here. I have placed all of the current text from "Environmental record" and "Accidents" into the draft and organized them into the structure suggested by Beagel above, but with one difference. I found that it helped organize the information if "Environmental initiatives" and "Accusations of greenwashing" are made subsections of "Environmental record". Additionally, within "Other major incidents" I've included subsections for each of the incidents, using their current headings in the BP article. Although this means that there is another level of section heading, the headings help to break up the text and organize the information, so I think they are needed here. If others feel this does not work as well, they can feel free to adjust.

In the draft page, the two sections on Deepwater Horizon are under one heading titled "2010 Deepwater Horizon well explosion and oil spill" and I have made an attempt at removing duplicated information, although I have kept all the citations. For now, I've simply left "Safety record" as an empty subsection.

Now this draft is started, other editors can review and make adjustments before moving it into the article. Arturo at BP (talk) 15:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Mention of refinery explosion and record OSHA fine added to lead

I have included the 2005 Texas City Refinery explosion which caused the death of 15 workers and resulted in a record-setting OSHA fine in the lead. Gandydancer (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Of course a highly notable incident such as this should be in the lead section. Binksternet (talk) 17:18, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

This Telegraph article from today regarding the hostages taken from the BP refinery in Algeria mentions: BP's safety procedures have been under intense scrutiny after a series of accidents including the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005, which killed 15 people, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which killed 11 workers. BP was criticised for safety failings by investigations into both accidents.

It makes sense that the Texas City 'incident' would be mentioned in the 4th para of the Lede. petrarchan47tc 17:23, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable to me - but I'll say something in fairness to BP (although I realize coordinating this will possibly be a challenge) which is the same standards should be on wikipedia articles of their competitors. We don't want one company to pressure such things out of the lede, a second company to have a short mention in the lede, and a third to have an extended mention (here "short" and "extended" are to be understood not in absolute terms, but, naturally, are terms in proportion to how many actual incidents, how many casualties etc; obviously I'm not suggesting the records of all companies are the same) Alas I can't volunteer to coordinate, but throwing out this suggestion. Will take some work but (especially if discussion is preserved) will save time and energy later saving "both" or all sides some of the potential debates about equal-handedness.. Thanks for brining this up. Harel (talk) 03:44, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed all Misplaced Pages articles should be NPOV and follow the same guidelines for Ledes. I don't necessarily see articles in terms of groups. But regarding oil companies, ExxonMobile, for example, does not appear to be interested in making their Misplaced Pages article look good. So relatively little activity takes place over there. When criticisms are fairly added to the article, it doesn't cause the kind of shakeup that happens here. This article attracted a lot of attention due to how the third paragraph of the Lede read in June 2012, and to the repercussions that followed attempts at a remedy. petrarchan47tc 05:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

What exactly are you saying about the editors here? Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be far better if you concentrated on content rather that your perception of other editors. We should aim to have consistency between similar companies on WP. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Certainly I can't speak for Petrarchan, but it does not appear to me that he is doing anything more than attempting to keep this article factual and unbiased. In view of my experiences with both this and the BP spill article, and the other corporate articles that I have worked on, I share his concerns. Gandydancer (talk) 16:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I was giving a factual account of my experience at this page since June 2012, and all that I have said can be corroborated by looking through talk history here and the edit history of BP and ExxonMobile pages. petrarchan47tc 21:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Also I was referring to the fact that ExxonMobile does not have an employee helping to write their page. It's just a fact. Nothing to freak out over. petrarchan47tc 22:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The lead

The lead is not intended to be a noticeboard on which we post anything we think should be brought to the attention of the public, it is intended to be a summary of the article as a whole.

Although I do not challenge the addition of the Texas City incident to the lead, the basis on which we add anything to the lead should be that it forms an important part of the article, not that an individual thinks it should be there. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Martin. Gandydancer (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The guideline at WP:LEAD recommends exactly that. Binksternet (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

We are definitely missing a coherent summary of controversies in the lede. I think the two examples we have in the lede are fair examples of the more prominent controversies. For reference: from WP:LEDEThe lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. (The news-journalism jargon term lede is sometimes used, but Misplaced Pages leads are not written in news style, and journalistic ledes serve different purposes from encyclopedic leads)....The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources petrarchan47tc 22:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying that what is there needs to be more coherent or are you suggesting that we should add more? At present we have 1 paragraph out of 4 on controversies, the same as Exxon. Chevron, Shell, Total, and Conoco all have no mention at all of controversies in the lead although they all have sections on the subject in the body of the article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I am sure there are many, many articles in Misplaced Pages which aren't adhering to WP:LEDE. If editors here feel like remedying the articles Martin mentioned, great - but it doesn't need to be a subject of this talk page - we have enough on our plates as it is. petrarchan47tc 21:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Petrarchan, you have not answered my question, Are you saying that what is currently in the lead needs to be more coherent or are you suggesting that we should add more? Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:21, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

We are definitely missing a coherent summary of controversies in the lede (one needs to be added). I think the two examples we have in the lede are fair examples of the more prominent controversies (so they should stay). petrarchan47tc 23:21, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You are not making clear what you mean. We have a paragraph which summarises the subject. A summary is not a repetition of everything in the article but a reduced version of it, which is exactly what we have. I cannot see any way it can be made more coherent. Using other similar articles as a yardstick the current volume of text is slightly excessive. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If you're going to continue using other articles as a guide-stick, you should have zero problem with calling the controversies section "Controversies", because practically all of them do. The fact that they say nothing about controversies in their Intro's is of no concern to us, only the Wiki guidelines matter (I wish this was obvious). Here is an example of a sentence (from the Intro in May 2012) which could go before the mention of Texas and the Gulf, BP has been involved in a number of major environmental and safety and received criticism for its political influence. Others might want to expand that. I would feel comfortable with this and the two sentences we have presently in the 'controversy' paragraph of the lede. petrarchan47tc 23:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Updates following Texas City refinery sale

BP announced today that the sale of its Texas City refinery to Marathon is complete. I have looked through the article and there are a few places where updates are needed to reflect the sale.

1. In the "History" section it states that the Texas City Refinery was sold to Marathon in October: the agreement to sell was reached in October but only completed today. I suggest the following wording (editors can copy the markup from this message):

An agreement to sell the company's Texas City refinery to Marathon Petroleum was reached in October 2012 and the sale was completed on February 1, 2013.

References

1. Hays, Kristen (8 October 2012). "Marathon to buy BP Texas City refinery for up to $2.5 billion". Reuters. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
2. Thomson Reuters ONE. "Purchase of BP's Texas City Refinery and Related Assets Closes". Investor's Business Daily. Retrieved 1 February 2013. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)

2. In the "United States" section of "Operations", mention of the Texas City refinery had already been removed, except in the following sentence in the paragraph on petrochemical plants:

Its plant in Texas City, located on the same site as the Texas City Refinery, produces chemicals including propylene and styrene, which are used in the manufacture of products including windows, carpet and paint.

Since the section does not otherwise discuss the refinery, it may be confusing to mention it here. The Texas City petrochemical plant is still owned by BP.

3. The "2005 Texas City Refinery explosion" includes several mentions of the refinery as being currently owned by BP. The following language needs updating (or removing) to reflect that BP no longer owns the refinery:

...one of its largest refineries...

...the Texas plant, which is up for sale.

The other mentions of the refinery in the article appear to be fine in terms of representing the company's historical ownership of the plant. If other editors agree to the changes I propose above, could someone update the three sections of the article I have highlighted? Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Updated per above suggestions. Beagel (talk) 20:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Beagel. Later this week I may have more updates once the company's Quarter 4 financial results are announced. I'll post another request here then. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Updates based on BP full year results

On Tuesday, BP announced its Quarter 4 and full year 2012 results, which provide new figures for a few of the details in the article's infobox. Not all of the financial information in the infobox is included in these results, however I intend to provide updates for the remaining figures when the company's 2012 Annual Report is released.

For the infobox a couple of financial figures can be updated with information from the 4th Quarter and full year results announced. I have provided new figures and citations below:

• Revenue: US$ 383.57 billion (2012)

• Total equity: US$ 119.62 billion (2012)

References

1. Harry R. Weber (5 February 2013). "Oil spill still a drag on BP's earnings". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
2. "BP p.l.c. Group results Fourth quarter and full year 2012" (PDF). bp.com. BP. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2013.

Would someone be able to make these updates?

I've also noticed that the Financial data section in the article has not been kept up to date, if others think that this should be retained and updated, I can look at filling in the information for the missing years. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 16:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've made these updates and if you have some more updated financial data, please do post it here. --Drm310 (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for making these changes, Drm310. It would also be helpful to get your feedback on a suggested restructure of the "Environmental record" and "Accidents" sections, if you have time to take a look. You can read the discussion so far, here and see the proposed structure in draft form here. The discussion has come to a stop right now, so I would really appreciate your thoughts and see if we can come to a resolution. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Caspian Sea

I removed the paragraph about the Caspian incident added recently without any discussion. Reasons for this are:

• We already have a separate subsection about the incident under the heading '2008 Caspian Sea gas leak and blowout'. It is immediatly under the above mentioned paragraph.
• The issue why saying that BP covered up is incorrect has been discussed here at the talk page several times. Relevant discussion are and .

Beagel (talk) 06:59, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected article at A. (edit · history · last · links · protection log) This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y". The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

To follow up what Beagel says above, after the incorrect details were removed some changes were made to the existing Caspian Sea section that have introduced some new wording. I would like to ask for other editors to review this wording and adjust it, as they feel necessary, since I believe it introduces POV into the section.

The section originally stated:

According to US Embassy cables, BP had been "exceptionally circumspect in disseminating information" and revealed that BP thought the cause for the blowout was a bad cement job.

It now reads:

According to US Embassy cables, BP had been "exceptionally circumspect in disseminating information" In January 2009, BP blamed a bad cement job as the cause for the incident. The Guardian noted a striking resemblance with the later oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Guardian note is completely new and essentially anachronistic, since there could be no comparison with Deepwater Horizon at the time. This wording also makes the comparison between the events without explaining why the two were thought by the Guardian to be similar events, and seems to imply that the Caspian Sea event had a greater impact than it actually did.

Secondly, the wording about the potential reason for the leak now does not seem neutral. To say "BP blamed" sounds as though an excuse was being made, rather than that BP had been looking into the cause and stated they believed it to be the cement. Please can other editors here look at these two changes in wording and adjust or remove them? Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

In this case "blamed" is not a weasel word and I see no problem with its use. Re your other issue, it seems plain enough to me. The comparison is being made at the time that the information becomes available. If you feel that it needs further explanation, I suppose a few more words could be added.Gandydancer (talk) 19:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I saw that you've made a few changes in the section, and I'd like to expand on my points from above. "Blamed" is a value-laden word and describes an action where one seeks to deflect criticism elsewhere, which implies a motivation on the part of BP that the source does not indicate. Meanwhile, I still feel that it's confusing or even misleading to say that a "striking resemblance" was noted between the two events when they were so different and had such different outcomes. As the section explains, the Caspian Sea incident was a leak at a gas well, the platform was evacuated and there was no loss of life or environmental damage, whereas Deepwater Horizon was an oil well, there was an explosion and a large oil spill that resulted. To include a line in the Caspian Sea section that implies the two are similar is very misleading. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the section has been changed and blamed is no longer used, nor is the Guardian note still in there, unless i'm missing something. Has this concern been fixed? Silverseren 05:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Silverseren, thank you for replying here. Yes, the problematic wording has been removed. I do think there is too much detail taken from the WikiLeaks-leaked U.S. cable, which I don't believe to be accurate, especially since it is contradicted by the news articles from the time showing that BP reported the event, but I'll have to look into this further to see if there are sources that refute the accuracy of the cable specifically. In the meantime, if you are able to, I have proposed an accurate version of the Prudhoe Bay section of this article that has had limited feedback so far. I have explained further the problems with the current section in the request below. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Subsections

I saw a request about BP at COIN. This article and the proposed draft has way too many subsections. The trouble with creating a significant number of subsections is that is severs the information from context so as to give more importance to the subsection information than the collective of reliable source information would suggest. It also diminishes the importance to other issues given by the collective of reliable source information. It further creates a situation where Misplaced Pages editors do not have to make the hard choices of what to include in the article to present a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature such that the article grows in size almost without bounds. To me, the accidents are part of BPs history and should be intertwined at least with its history. There is no actual 2013 "record" specifying BPs environmental record so it does not make sense to have a main subsection dedicated to environmental record in the same way you might create a corporate affairs main subsection to describe BPs present corporate affairs. BPs environmental record is part of its history just like other information that takes place over time. BPs present environmental policies intertwined with criticisms of those policies could be its own subsection. In general, criticism should be intertwined with what actually is being criticized to provide context, which this articles seems to do. To move this article forward, I think you need to first come to an agreement on the subsections. Once you have a good article structure, you then can determine what of the existing text and other text should be included in those subsections and what should be put in a spinout article/summary style so that the article stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. Rather than relying on the above opinion, a good way to figure out what subsection to create is to look over all the articles in Category:FA-Class company articles and Category:GA-Class company articles and try to create a heading structure for the BP article that follows a survey those articles subsections as tailored to the BP topic itself. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Looking in Category:FA-Class company articles and Category:GA-Class company articles, it seems that there is no unified structure of sections. There is no FA-Class articles about oil companies and there is only one GA-Class oil company article (Gulf Oil). There is only on FA_Class articles about big multinational company (Microsoft). All these articles have different structure but the common issue is that there are only second and third level headings (sections and subsections) but no fourth level headings (subsections of subsections). My conclusion, supported by the opinion of Uzma Gamal above, is that it would be better do not fragment the body text too much and we should avoid going behind the third level headings. There is no 'Controversies' or 'Critics' sections for Gulf Oil. In the case of Microsoft there is a summary section called 'Criticism', which summarizes Criticism of Microsoft article (the latest seems to be in quite a bad shape). It has also a separate section called 'Corporate affairs' which has subsections such as 'Financial', 'Environment', 'Marketing', and 'Logo'. Maybe this could serve as an example but in this case it still needs some modifications. Beagel (talk) 11:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that we really have agree the structure of sections/subsections. Otherwise it would be very hard to achieve balanced article. Any suggestions based on the structure of Category:FA-Class company articles and Category:GA-Class company articles. I believe this article has potential to achieve GA and FA status and I hope this would be our common target. Probably we should ask a peer review ot invite editors mainly dealing with preparation of GA/FA articles. Beagel (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Prudhoe Bay

The Prudhoe Bay 2006–2007 section of the article as it's currently written does not accurately cover the main oil spill that occurred at Prudhoe Bay. Right now, it confuses minor leaks with the major oil spill in March 2006 and does not properly summarize the all of the details of the spill. I have written a new draft for this section, which now better explains that the main oil spill was the one in March 2006 and summarizes the events around this, including criticism of BP, the company's response to the spill and the legal ramifications. I have aimed for this to be a summary of the Prudhoe Bay oil spill article, with the focus on the major spill.

As well as clarifying the information currently in the article and adding the details on the March 2006 spill, I have removed one detail: the May 2007 leak in a separation plant. The source in the article for this does not actually mention the leak, but this USA Today article explains it was actually a leak from a water pipeline and did not have any environmental or safety impact.

The draft is in my user pages here: User:Arturo at BP/Prudhoe Bay

Please review and make any changes to the draft in my user pages, however, it would be best to keep discussion of the draft here so that it is easier to follow. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi there Arturo and thanks for the notice to review your rewrite. Could you please help me understand the situation a little better. Is the trans-Alaska pipeline owned jointly by several oil companies, or how does that work? Did the spill happen on a 'smaller"(?) BP-owned pipeline that delivers oil from BP wells to the main line? Also, I see that BP had the spill in 2006 and said they'd be replacing all of their pipeline, then I see that in 2008 they had 16 miles replaced. What is the total amount of miles that needs to be replaced and have they made any more progress? Thanks! Gandydancer (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Gandydancer, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is owned by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, a consortium of oil companies including BP. The March 2006 spill in Prudhoe Bay was from a BP-owned pipeline that carries oil from BP's oilfield at Prudhoe Bay to the consortium-owned Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Does that help? Regarding the pipeline replacement, I am checking with others at BP to be certain, but I believe that the company planned to replace 26km of pipeline (as explained in this Calgary Herald article I used in the draft) and completed the replacement of this 26km by the end of 2008. I will let you know once I've heard back and if this point is confusing in the draft as it stands, I can update it. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 01:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I think I worked on this section at one time--I remember learning about "pigs"--but I had since forgotten. It is coming back to me now.

I think your new summary looks great! One thing, I see that our copy re the leaking antifreeze solution from some of the wells is not correct, however you did not even mention the leaking wells. Do you think it should be included? Gandydancer (talk) 15:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I have heard back from my colleague on our Alaska team, who confirms that the Calgary Herald article is correct: the company planned to replace 26km or 16mi of pipeline and completed it in 2008. I've updated the draft to reflect this. Regarding the well leaks, per the Guardian source in the article now, and this Associated Press article I found, the wells were leaking an insulating agent and were shut down to investigate. Similar to the water pipeline leak I mentioned above, there was not any safety or environmental impact, so I decided not to include it here. Arturo at BP (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've done quite a bit of reading and am now much more knowledgeable. I think you're right about not including the well leaks here. I note that the main article could perhaps use a little work--do you think you should include it there? Gandydancer (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

For now, i've implemented Arturo's draft since there doesn't seem to be any issues with it. Discussion on moving the well leaks info should continue though. Silverseren 04:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Silverseren for adding the draft. Also, thanks for your review of the section, Gandydancer. To answer your question about the well leaks, I am honestly not sure if they should be included in the Prudhoe Bay oil spill article. While they were reported in the media alongside discussion of the March 2006 oil spill, they are not really directly related to it except for being in the same oilfield. I'm open to hearing other views, though. So far, I have limited my involvement on Misplaced Pages to this article, in part because Misplaced Pages is just one of many things I focus on in my role at BP, so working on one article is more manageable. However, I do intend to start looking at some other BP-related articles in due course, possibly including the Prudhoe Bay article. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Environmental record overview

The Environmental record section currently begins with a handful of facts, from various dates, that do not give a full overview of the company's environmental record over its recent history. In particular, there is no comparison of BP's performance against that of other oil companies, which may be helpful to readers. I have written a new draft for this section, which I would like to propose here and ask for other editors to review. The draft aims to provide more information on BP's overall environmental record over the last few decades, including mention of major incidents, in order to provide an introduction to the Environmental record section as a whole.

While my draft adds much detail, there are two pieces of information I have removed: the 1991 EPA mention and the Multinational Monitor listing among the worst companies in 2001 and 2005. The exclusion of these is due to my reliance on third-party sources to identify what information is important to include about BP's record. I did not find secondary sources discussing either. It is possible such a source exists, but I was unable to find one for either.

The draft is in my user pages here: User:Arturo at BP/Environmental record

Please can editors review the draft and make any changes to it in my user pages. As I have suggested before, keeping all discussion of the draft here would be best so that it is easy for everyone to follow. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 23:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Is this draft just meant to replace the beginning part of the Environmental record section, as a sort of intro? Silverseren 20:33, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, here is a source for the 1991 EPA thing and here and here are sources for the Multinational Monitor thing. Silverseren 20:43, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Silver seren, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't insert this. I've noticed editors simply slotting in what Arturo writes, including large sections, which means that BP is writing the article about itself, without this being signalled to the reader in any way. The environmental record section could certainly use some improvement, but having BP write it is not a good way to proceed. SlimVirgin 20:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure that's fair. There is quite a lot of scrutiny and discussion and the editors who put the text in satisfy themselves it is an improvement. --BozMo talk 20:59, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I haven't seen any evidence of that BozMo. Checking large sections like this (making sure the text reflects the tone and content of the sources, and that no key sources have been omitted) is a lot of work. SlimVirgin 21:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't care whatsoever about who is writing the information. I only care that the information is neutral and shows all relevant sides. Caring about the person and not the information actually makes you biased. Silverseren 21:19, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

You're within your rights not to care, but you're not the only reader we have. I think at least some readers would care that BP had written its own article, so in their interests it ought not to be happening. No other encyclopaedia or news organization would allow this; if a newspaper did offer BP a slot to respond to something, they would never hide from their readers that BP had written it by adding a journalist's name to BP's text. If you wouldn't support other publications doing this, please don't support Misplaced Pages doing it. SlimVirgin 21:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The moment we start caring about who is writing the information is the moment we stop becoming the encyclopedia anyone can edit, as we would then care about who actually is editing. The whole point of Misplaced Pages is that we care about the neutrality and reliability of the information and that is all. That is how we remain neutral. If there is something wrong with the information that is being presented, then feel free to point it out. Otherwise, there shouldn't be an issue with implementing it. Silverseren 21:40, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Is this is new WP method of dealing with corporate articles--have a paid editor write it up and ask a paid editor advocate to post it? Silverseren says, " If there is something wrong with the information that is being presented, then feel free to point it out...Otherwise, there shouldn't be an issue with implementing it". Isn't it supposed to be the other way around where we write the articles and the corporate interests and their advocates point the issues out to us, the non-paid Misplaced Pages workers? Aren't we the ones that are thought to be more likely to be unbiased than the paid editors? I am quite serious when I say that if this is where the 'pedia is at I'll just turn in my badge. Gandydancer (talk) 22:46, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

A similar case gave rise to a legal decision in Germany that edits like this amount to covert advertising, because readers cannot be expected to search through talk pages to find the company's connection to the text. There was also an Advertising Standards Authority ruling in the UK involving Twitter, where tweets by footballers had been agreed with a sponsor without alerting readers to the relationship; the ASA said those tweets violated its code. I don't know to what extent, if at all, those decisions would apply here. But it certainly seems unethical for BP to be writing its own article on an independent website, without alerting the reader to its involvement, and unethical of Misplaced Pages to be allowing it. So the editors facilitating this are arguably doing neither BP nor Misplaced Pages any favours. SlimVirgin 23:05, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT Slim Virgin, the reason the environmental section may look a little ragged is that working on this article has been one of the most hellish experiences imaginable. It took many months to even get a mention of the Gulf oil spill into the lead. I think the efforts to attempt to make the article less than a glowing report of how environmentally concerned BP was started on about page #3 and just dragged on and on. If you've ever worked on an article where you just almost get afraid to touch it because you know that almost endless uproar will begin, that is what this article has been like.

You mentioned editors just approving of Arturo's work and you may have been speaking of me in a critical fashion. I actually was pretty familiar with that section as I worked on it a long time ago and it was not hard to once again familiarize myself. I thought his summary was fair and if I didn't think that I would have said so.

As for the new section that he has written, Silverseren, who has done no work on this article as far as I know, should not be here giving a sermon about how the new section will replace what we've got unless we can find something wrong with it. Gandydancer (talk) 23:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I definitely wasn't referring to you. I've seen two editors insert material word-for-word for BP, not you. I haven't looked through all the archives; I should probably do that before commenting again. SlimVirgin 23:43, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Look through the old stuff at your own risk! Editor Petrarchan did a lot of the work but, poor thing, I think s/he finally just had a nervous breakdown or something. I haven't seen her around for quite a while. Gandydancer (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Silverseren wrote on Arturo's talk page: I would suggest you just focus on answering my questions and ignore them. I'll also make sure to get some outside editors to review the sections before implementation so there isn't a problem. SilverserenC 07:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC). So you see, this is what we have come to. When I think how many hours I have put into this article it is heartbreaking to think that editors that have not put anything at all into it can come and push through anything they want. In just a few years we shall have the very best Misplaced Pages that money can buy. Gandydancer (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I think you misunderstand the purpose of WP. This article is not intended to be a forum on everything bad that we can dig up on the company, neither is it meant to be a promotional vehicle for the company, it is intended to be an encyclopedia article on the company as a whole.

There is no fundamental reason why someone with a declared COI should not contribute to the article. If any material added is overly promotional of BP, I can assure you that you will have my support, and no doubt that of many others, in removing it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, could you please provide concrete examples where the text suggested by Arturo here at the talk page and after review inserted by other editors violates NPOV? If there are that kind of things, lets discuss and fix them. All these proposals have been notified here at the talk page and been open for all editors to propose/make their changes before making changes in the article. Unfortunately the interest to contribute is not very high, so definitely all constructive contributions are more than welcome. Concerning Arturo's contributions, they are in line with our COI policy. This is not only my opinion but was also said by another editor at the COI notice board . Of course, policies could be changed if there is a consensus for this but that needs more centralized venue for discussion than just this talk page. Beagel (talk) 14:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Beagel, going through the draft, and making sure that the sources chosen are the sources uninvolved editors would have chosen, would be a great deal of work. Alarm bells go off when I see that it starts with: "In the 1990s and 2000s, BP has had a mixed environmental record ..." A quick scan of the NYT archives shows (this is just a small sample):

• Matthew L. Wald, "BP Says It Will Address Safety and Legal Problems", The New York Times, July 27, 2006.
• Julia Werdigier, "Chief's Bonus Is Cut at BP; Safety Issues Cited as Factor", The New York Times, March 7, 2007.
• Jad Mouawad, "For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses", The New York Times, May 8, 2010.
• Joe Nocera, "BP Ignored the Omens of Disaster", The New York Times, June 18, 2010.
• Sarah Lyall, "In BP’s Record, a History of Boldness and Costly Blunders", The New York Times, July 12, 2010.
• Ginia Bellafante, "Above It All: Tracing BP’s Imperious History", The New York Times, October 25, 2010.

Bellafante's article says: "As 'The Spill,' a documentary that is a joint presentation of “Frontline” and ProPublica, so compellingly details, the company’s history of flagrantly violating safety standards made lethal personal injuries and horrific accidents practically inevitable. ... 'The Spill' travels back, looking at BP’s bleak environmental and safety record ..."

Is a "mixed environmental record" the best way to describe this coverage? I think because of the work involved in making sure such a section reflects the content and tone of mainstream coverage, it shouldn't be written by the company itself. SlimVirgin 22:36, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there any complimentary coverage of the company anywhere? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

have ther been any similarly critical articles on other oil companies? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about other companies. I haven't found any complimentary coverage of their safety record so far. The PBS documentary can be watched here, and apparently recounts views of the company's environmental record and the reasons for it, so it might be a good source to use as a reflection of mainstream opinion. SlimVirgin 00:15, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Oil companies are involved in the polluting extraction and consumption of a depleting resource. They are all heavily criticized whatever they do. --BozMo talk 11:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I have read through all the comments above and would like to answer the questions raised about the draft.

1. This is intended as an introduction to the Environmental record section and would replace the collection of facts at the beginning of this section. As I mentioned above, right now the whole Environmental record section begins with a few facts that appear randomly selected and do not give an overview of the company's record over time.
2. I notice that the sources SlimVirgin mentions above mainly focus on BP's safety record, so I would like to clarify that the draft is only for the Environmental record and does not include BP's safety record, which seems to be covered elsewhere and has been part of a larger discussion on reorganizing the article.
3. To respond to whether sources mention that BP's record is mixed, the following sources support that statement:

• Bloomberg, 2008
• Time, 2006
• BBC, 2009
• The New York Times, 2002

Each of these sources mention BP's positive environmental efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including being the first oil company to leave the Global Climate Coalition and its investment in renewable energy, which they contrast with criticism of the company. Also, the draft is intended to provide a chronological overview of the company's record over the last two decades, so the "mixed record" refers to the 1990s and 2000s, prior to the heavy criticism in the press following the Prudhoe Bay and Texas City incidents, and later the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As you'll see in the draft, it does include a detailed account of this criticism.

What I have tried to do here is to give an account of the overall record for the company, something that is missing in the article right now, since the Environmental record section is just a collection of individual incidents and criticisms. As ever, I am open to changes in wording and addition of sources, and invite other editors to review and make such changes they feel are necessary. Arturo at BP (talk) 21:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Old RfC closure

I have closed an old RfC; see Talk:BP/Archive_8#Request_for_comment. Or not--neither my close nor the discussion are very deep or exciting. Drmies (talk) 17:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Prudhoe Bay information deleted--please justify

New information which I have added to this Prudhoe Bay section was deleted:

The underground pipe leaked for five days before it was discovered. The government's investigation into the spill disclosed that cost cutting measures had resulted in a lapse in monitoring and maintenance of the pipeline. In particular, BP did not use pipeline inspection gauges (smart pigs), devices that clean and monitor oil pipelines for corrosion. According to a Justice Department sentencing memorandum, even though standard industry practice is to run "pigs" through a pipeline as often as monthly, due to cost-cutting BP had not run the devices through the oil transit lines since 1998.

I'd appreciate an explanation that is more informative than "coatrack" or "not a forum". Thanks! Gandydancer (talk) 17:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

FWIW this seems an extraordinary level of detail for an article which is about BP; Prudoe bay has its own article. It is already way too detailed in this article, so inclusion looks wrong to me. --BozMo talk 18:06, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, you could start by reading what I wrote above just before you added your section.

How is this relevant to BP as a whole? All you seem to do is add more detail on negative aspects of the company. I am sure that you would be the first to complain if an equivalent amount of promotional detail were added. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It is relevant to BP as a whole because it was part of the cost-cutting measures introduced by CEO Browne, the ones that cause safety violations in many areas. Binksternet (talk) 18:12, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If you want to make a point of that nature then you need a source that specifically makes it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

You might want to read the references that Gandydancer added, the ones from Reuters UK and the Guardian UK. I added another one from Fortune, published by CNN Money. It's hard for me to understand your objection to this text and these cites if you have not read them. Binksternet (talk) 18:56, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

So this Oct 2006 cite from CNN money archives is just about sufficient to support the idea that as a topical current issue in 2006 this might have been sufficiently notable detail to be relevant to BP as a whole. But today does this merit including? I think you would have to have a very distorted idea of due weight to argue it does. --BozMo talk 19:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It is not "distorted" to look at BP's corporate practices at the time—the cost-cutting measures instituted by Browne. These practices were (and are) seen as having caused many accidents. Many industry observers have commented on the situation, which brings it up on our radar. The question of due weight is handily answered by how widely BP's cost-cutting measures have been analyzed in books, magazines and news pieces. Whether BP is now moving away from that sort of corporate culture does not change the historic fact and the historic fallout. Binksternet (talk) 19:51, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Critics about the cost-cutting measures should be included, no doubt about this. However, that does not mean creating a numerous over-detailed subsections (which are already described in the more specific articles). There is a clear problem with WP:OVERDUE. User: Uzma Gamal said just some sections above: "This article and the proposed draft has way too many subsections. The trouble with creating a significant number of subsections is that is severs the information from context so as to give more importance to the subsection information than the collective of reliable source information would suggest. It also diminishes the importance to other issues given by the collective of reliable source information. It further creates a situation where Misplaced Pages editors do not have to make the hard choices of what to include in the article to present a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature such that the article grows in size almost without bounds." He also recommended "to look over all the articles in Category:FA-Class company articles and Category:GA-Class company articles and try to create a heading structure for the BP article that follows a survey those articles subsections as tailored to the BP topic itself. Unfortunately, his recommendation remained largely unnoticed. Beagel (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that s/he responded to Arturo's request as did another editor that apparently supports paid editors. I also note that you asked her for an assist in restructuring this article and Arturo asked the other editor to assist with getting his rewrite entered in this article. Add to that Silverseren's assurance to Arturo that he can furnish the editors needed to post Arturo's latest rewrite... Gandydancer (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Beagel, you say "critics about the cost-cutting measures should be included", but your inaction last September does not support that position. Back then I added text about Browne's cost-cutting but this text was quickly removed by Belchfire (his only contribution to this article, ever), re-added by me then removed by The Devil's Advocate, then re-added by Xenophrenic and removed by Rangoon11. During this time, The Devil's Advocate started a talk page discussion about "BLP concerns regarding Browne material", but you did not take part. You were active at other threads on the talk page, but silent on this issue. The point is that you did not lift a finger to argue for "critics about the cost-cutting measures". If your current proposition were enacted, at least a paragraph would be included about Browne's cost-cutting measures, with mention of how these measures have been analyzed as causing multiple accidents, with a list of the main ones, including Prudhoe Bay—the same material you are objecting to here. There is no policy loophole to render this material not relevant. Binksternet (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Binksternet, I just looked at the text that you added. The first section appears to be completely devoid of references, or have I missed something? In the second section, the statement, 'These safety and maintenance problems lead to toxic spills', has no reference and the third section has nothing about Browne. If what you say is true, that Browne's cost cutting lead to increased toxic spills there should be a good quality independent reliable source which says so. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Martin, again and again you have insisted that other editors do your work for you rather than read what has already been offered. Please read the information that Binksternet supplied rather than ask him to do it all over again. The information is all there if you would only read it, especially considering that this is all old information that should be easy to recall. Gandydancer (talk) 22:24, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I followed the link to the diff that Binksternet provided above and commented on what I found. What have I missed? WP:Unsourced says, 'Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's concentrate on the recent text rather than on the September 2012 text (which is worth its own discussion thread.) If you read the sources it will come clear that cost-cutting measures were blamed for the Prudhoe spill. Here's what I see:

• "July was the first time a smart pig had been run through since 1992"
• "cost cuts were to blame for the 200,000 gallon spill in March 2006"... "'There were extreme budget pressures at Prudhoe Bay,' said BP America CEO Bob Malone. 'We recognize that those budget pressures put our employees in a very difficult place.'" ..."The company's critics have blamed cost cuts imposed after BP bought two of its rivals and poor management oversight for the problems."..."Corrosion-monitoring efforts like smart-pigging were reduced or put on hold even as BP reaped more than $106 billion (54 billion pounds) in after-tax profits between 1999 and 2006, Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the subcommittee said."
• "A US congressional committee has uncovered evidence of "draconian" cost cuts at BP in the run-up to the discovery of severe corrosion which shut down a key Alaskan pipeline last summer." Dingell said, "important actions related to health, safety and the environment were being delayed or cut altogether and this was related to tight budgets".
• "a PR disaster that, in a single blow, undid the green reputation CEO John Browne had meticulously crafted for BP over the past decade." ..."Browne boasted that 'the drive to manage costs and to raise unit margins has now become a way of life.'" ..."On the west side of Prudhoe Bay, they were last cleaned and checked in 1998, while on the eastern side of the field, the last pig was run in 1991. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, by contrast, is pigged every 14 days." ..."In the wake of Texas City and Alaska, BP does seem to have finally gotten religion. Browne says personal safety, process safety, and environmental safety efforts at BP facilities around the world have been redoubled, and a huge effort has gone into adding additional engineers to address these areas."

These (and other) sources indicate a notable problem that has been identified by multiple expert observers. Binksternet (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any sources which are less than five years old? --BozMo talk 11:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Why would it be important to offer sources less than five years old for an incident that happened more than six years ago? Gandydancer (talk) 12:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Why are we giving so much detail about an incident that happened more than six years ago? I would not object to a short sentence saying that cost cutting measures in force at the time were to blame but the level of detail is wp:undue. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Martin, once again, please read the sources that have been offered by Binksternet. Surely you can't be suggesting that our coverage of the largest spill to date in that area should not mention how many days it lasted and that the pipe had not been cleaned since 1998 when something like monthly cleaning is done on other transit pipes? All of the sources that I looked at mentioned this fact. It is central to the reason for the spill. The spill did not happen from some work of God such as an earthquake--it happened because BP was not doing proper maintenance and the reason mentioned for that was cost cutting. Gandydancer (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Martin, it is a nonsensical notion that this article should not have details of events older than six years. There are whole sections on previous eras of BP. There are a bunch of 1990s sources in the article about the acquisition of Amoco—do you want to remove those? What about the acquisition of ARCO and Burmah Castrol in 2000? How about the 2001 renaming from British Petroleum to BP? There are sources from 2002 having Browne making statements to the press. If we acted on your notion we would greatly reduce the detail about the 2005 initiative in alternate energy, and the greatly reduce the information about acknowledging climate change. I know you don't want that. The many high-quality sources provide us with plenty of reason to treat the Prudhoe Bay spill as having due weight. Binksternet (talk) 15:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

How about this then?

I have summarised the added text in a more encyclopedic style, omitting the irrelevant detail about the bacteria. The poor maintenance and cost cutting are still there and the five day leak duration has been added to the start of the section. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a compromise I can live with. Thank you. Binksternet (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I added one sentence. BTW, I was not the one that introduced what Martin calls unencyclopedic style (talk of pigs and bacteria), it was Arturo who introduced that information. Gandydancer (talk) 19:17, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The change in wording seems reasonable to me, if others feel that the information originally suggested was too detailed. Arturo at BP (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Er, I believe that they think that I wrote it since there have been no complaints till now. Gandydancer (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, if you were not the one who wrote that, it appeared that way from the diffs, but it does not really matter who added it. I removed it because it seemed to be unnecessary detail not because it was unencyclopedic language.

It is language like, 'The government's investigation into the spill disclosed that the pipeline had not been inspected for corrosion since 1998, a standard industry practice which is normally done as often as monthly', that is unencyclopedic. We already say there was a lapse in monitoring and maintenance. We do not need to say the same thing again in the style of an investigative journalist. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

We do need to say that a monthly maintenance procedure had not been done in eight years. Gandydancer (talk) 00:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

That is exactly what we do not need to say. This is not the kind of language used in an encyclopedia, 'there was a lapse in monitoring and maintenance', is what we say in an encyclopdia. We are not investigative journalists trying to point the finger at someone we are here to give the facts (good or bad) in a neutral way about a large oil company.

Your suggested comment is meaningless journalism. There may be cases where pipelines are inspected 'as often as monthly', I really do not know, and neither do you. None of us has any idea what inspection schedule might have been applied to this pipeline by another oil company or what inspection schedule would have been necessary to have avoided the leak. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

That's right Martin, what the hell would the United States Department of Justice know anyway? If Misplaced Pages starts taking the finger pointing and meaningless journalism of the United States Department of Justice statements rather than that of Misplaced Pages editor Martin Hogbin our credibility will certainly be damaged and that's something we all need to be aware of. Martin, I'm really sick of you deleting everything that I add to the article with summaries such as too detailed, unencyclopedic, soap boxing, too journalistic, etc. You had no problem with this info:

BP's investigation of the leak suggested it may have been caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight these bacteria. During the government's investigation into the spill, BP was criticized for cost cutting regarding monitoring and maintenance of the pipeline. In particular, BP did not use pipeline inspection gauges (smart pigs), devices that clean and monitor oil pipelines for corrosion

since March first when it was added for Arturo, but the minute that you thought that I wrote it, it suddenly became too detailed, unencyclopedic, soap boxing, too journalistic, etc., and you have removed it. Gandydancer (talk) 12:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I explained why I deleted the above; because it was too detailed. I do not care who wrote it.

Your latest addition was totally unencyclopedic in tone. I am not sure where the US DoJ comes into this discussion. If you can provide a reference from them that specifically says that BP inspected their pipeline less than once per year but should have inspected it once a month then there would be a case for adding your text (with a more encyclopedic tone) to the article. If not, you cannot say this. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If you are too lazy to read the references that is your problem, not mine. Gandydancer (talk) 13:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

BP's drafts as unpublished primary sources

I know very little about BP and have no particular interest in it. My concern here is that it's a controversial company (fairly or unfairly) that is being allowed to rewrite the article about itself by proxy, without this being signalled to the reader.

In using BP's drafts, editors are using unpublished primary source material, and letting it set the tone entirely by slotting it into the article without quotation marks and without attributing it to BP. These drafts give us BP's views of itself, or BP's summary of the secondary sources BP has chosen to highlight. We wouldn't use these texts word for word (in fact, we hopefully wouldn't use them at all) if they were on BP's website. Yet for some reason some of you see them differently because BP has posted them here:

• User:Arturo at BP/Overview of operations (3 July 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/BP UK (25 July 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/US operations (24 August 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Stock history (18 September 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Alternative Energy (23 October 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Worldwide operations (5 November 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Canadian oil sands (19 November 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Allegations of greenwashing (7 December 2012)
• User:Arturo at BP/Prudhoe Bay (25 February 2013)
• User:Arturo at BP/Environmental record (7 March 2013)

The BP drafts can be mined for ideas, facts or sources. But they can't be used as sources themselves – inserted, in effect, as blockquotes, but without the markup and without attribution – because we can't allow an unpublished primary source, especially one that might reflect a minority view of BP, to determine the tone of the article. There might not be a single error in them, but there may be omission, and it's obvious that there's a careful choice of sources and words.

Misplaced Pages articles are meant to be a summary of the body of published literature – mostly high-quality secondary sources – that exists on a subject. We reflect the tone and content of that source material, and present issues in rough proportion to their appearance in that literature. We can use primary sources with caution (e.g. a company's own literature), but we don't let primary sources set the tone. So if the good secondary literature dwells on X, we dwell on X. If it is mostly negative about X, we are mostly negative about X. If it barely mentions X, we barely mention X. That's what "neutrality" means on Misplaced Pages. See WP:V, WP:NOR/WP:PSTS, and WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE. SlimVirgin 18:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that there is a misinterpretation of WP:PRIMARY. Although prepared by an editor who has publicly declared his COI, these drafts are based on the secondary sources and all information is attributed with RS. Also, although prepared by COI editor, they reviewed and, if necessary, changed by other editors before moved to the article's page. They have been accessible for commenting/editing for all editors through this talk page and in the case of the posted drafts there has been no opposition although editors with different POVs had been active at this article at the same time. So this is not WP:PRIMARY. Also, it seems that there is repeatedly misinterpretation of NPOV in the context of tone. According to WP:IMPARTIAL, the only acceptable tone is impartial tone which should be used consistently. Yes, if the source reports positive things, we list them as positive things and if the source reports negative things, we reports them as negative things, taking account WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE, but its not up to editors to set the positive or negative tone. As the first comment in this section concerns interpretation of certain policies (WP:COI, WP:PSTS) I will notify relevant policy pages about this discussion to get input from editors dealing more closely with these policies. Beagel (talk) 19:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Notifications are here and here. Beagel (talk) 19:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Village Pump notification was added here. Beagel (talk) 20:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't matter that the drafts use secondary sources. These are unpublished texts that BP has written about itself. It has chosen what to highlight, chosen the sources, and chosen the words. (I saw very few, if any, changes to drafts after input from others.) We can certainly include BP's views in this article, but we have to signal that with in-text attribution, and with quotation marks if we're using BP's exact words. And we have to take the material from a published primary source, such as BP's website, so that we can link to it and the reader can read it in situ for herself.

As for tone, yes, we use disinterested words, but we follow the direction of the secondary literature. SlimVirgin 19:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree with SlimVirgin. I saw the notifications at COIN and RSN.

Regardless of if the material uses WP:RS for citations or not, I feel like the WP:COI and obvious, substantial risk of WP:CHERRY can certainly make them effectively WP:PRIMARY. If WP:CHERRY can turn WP:RS into WP:FRINGE (as happens frequently with e.g conspiracy theories) then it can turn WP:RS into WP:PRIMARY just as easily, and particularly when there is a financial incentive to do so. I think Beagel's clear pronouncement that they are not WP:PRIMARY is too hasty. I would be hesitant to use any of this material. -- #_ 19:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

In the interests of transparency, from the readers' point of view, I suggest that Arturo at BP post these drafts on the BP website. We can then cite them as published primary sources, link to them, and quote them. We would then express this as something like: "BP regards its environmental record as mixed," or "BP writes that reports of its environmental record have been mixed," or "BP has highlighted the report from X." Doing it this way means BP's input will be retained, but it will be visible to the reader that it originates with BP.

Asking article subjects to post their perspective on a company or personal website (or via some other external source) so that we can cite them is quite normal, and means we're able to include their point of view, while making sure the reader can see where it comes from. SlimVirgin 19:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Feel that posting entire drafts on wikipedia is at least partly in conflict with WP:NOTWEBHOST WP:NOTADVOCATE. Successful WP:MfD nominations have been made for less. -- #_ 19:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I also notice that there is no disclaimer at the top of Arturo at BP's pages stating that they are user pages. This means that WP:MIRRORs and search engines will present these pages as though they were part of wikipedia. I find this objectionable. -- #_ 19:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Tagged what I think is all of them with the 'user page' template. I still think the drafts should be moved to a BP website, and not on wikipedia at all. -- #_ 20:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

First, WP:NOTWEBHOST is misinterpretation. It was suggested here at the talk page to use for drafting a separate subpage (just like sandbox) as it became a little bit complicated to work with this drafts here at the talk page due to a large amount of edits. Second, also they were largely prepared by Arturo, all editors were invited to review, comment and edit and make changes. At the time of drafting there have been a number of active editors on this page with different POVs and there has been objections concerning the drafted text. Therefore, Arturo is not a sole author of these drafts and they are not actually user pages. I think that we may ask Arturo to delete these drafts which are already integrated to the article and would ask all editors to review and improve drafts which are still in work. Third, editor you integrates the text into the article takes also responsibility that it is in line with all policies (just as any other edit in Misplaced Pages). I can't talk on behalf of any other editor but concerning these drafts which I integrated (not all of them) I went them through word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence; changed and amended, if necessary, and no text is integrated which I can't support. Therefore I consider myself as a author ot these drafts integrated by me. Forth, paradoxically the main concern seems to be who made the first draft of the text, not what was written. This seems to be a fundamental controversy with the main principle of Misplaced Pages, which says that Misplaced Pages can be edited by anyone. Beagel (talk) 20:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Beagel, with respect, you're not looking at this from the readers' perspective, and from the perspective of WP policy. BP is rewriting the article about itself, using text that it posts here and not on its website, so that its involvement is hidden from the readers. This makes both Misplaced Pages and BP look bad. It looks sneaky. (I accept that this has happened inadvertently because people haven't thought it through.)

Misplaced Pages and BP need to be honest about BP's involvement. The best way, and the policy-compliant way, is to ask BP to post its articles on a website it controls, then we can link to them, quote them, and attribute the material to the company, as we do for any other source. Of all the sources the article uses, BP can't be singled out as one that is given the special privilege of direct access to the article, without quotation marks and without attribution. SlimVirgin 21:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the "large amount of edits" thing comes from. Nearly all of the pages in question were created with a single addition, and no subsequent edits. Without substantial subsequent additions or additional outside vetting, this is akin to stovepiping of PR.

Your assertions that Misplaced Pages "can be edited by anyone" seem at best naive. We have policies to explicitly delineate who can edit what in certain cases.

I remain in agreement with SlimVirgin's suggestions. -- #_ 21:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that we should use a common sense. First, these are not articles but proposals for sections/paragraphs. Second, it was notified by Arturo that he has COI but that does not mean that he edits on behalf of BP. By my understanding these proposals are made by Arturo as a private person (although being COI editor) but not on behalf of BP. Suggestion to put proposals about possible changes of this article to the BP's corporate website is weird. I would see some (although not strong) logic in the case of hired PR representative but this seems not be the case. Third, as I said, the all these proposals are reviewed and changed by active editors before using them for the article. All these proposals where notified at the talk page and a number of editors with different POVs have edited the page and talk page at the time, so they are aware of these proposals. If not commented or changed (and you should look the text in the article, not just the drafts), that means they did not see problem. Hopefully there will be more experienced editors to go additionally through this article to ensure NPOV and other policies. Proposals implemented by myself are my edits and I bear responsibility for them. So they are definitely not BP's edits. Fourth, as I said above the main argument seems to be who made the proposal and not what was added to the article. This seems to be a fundamental controversy with the main principle of Misplaced Pages, which says that Misplaced Pages can be edited by anyone. This is a fundamental right of Misplaced Pages which could be limited only exceptional cases based on the approved policy. Could you please provide a link to the policy which states that kind of restriction as proposed. Proposal that COI editor can't propose a text at the article's talk page seems contradict the recent COI policy. So, please provide exact link which says that COI editor can't make proposal at the talk page and that other editors can't use/implement that proposal. Beagel (talk) 21:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

On what basis are you making these assertionsthat this user is not being paid to propose language here? I think that the default assumption should be that they are, even if they say they are not. The language is quite carefully constructed. It is not unreasonable to think that even if this user is not being paid directly to make suggestions, that they are being vetted somehow.

You appear to be conflating the idea that "anyone can edit anything" with "anyone is allowed to edit some part of WP", and furthermore seem to disregard the possibility that edits may not stick around very long, or be nonconstructive or harmful. Asking for a specific example in the way you have, without asking for clarification, seems a bit confrontational. -- #_ 21:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Beagal, Arturo is a BP employee who is writing this as part of his employment. He has made that clear. So this material is BP's view of itself, or BP's interpretation of source material it has chosen to highlight. As such it is a text that needs to be posted on BP's website, so we can use it as we do any other source (if there's a consensus to use it at all). What you can't do is choose one involved source (BP), out of all the sources that are in the article, and decide to give that one source privileged access by turning its words and its view into Misplaced Pages's words and Misplaced Pages's view. SlimVirgin 22:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

My bad then. However, even in case of "paid advocacy" the current COI guidelines says: "Misplaced Pages co-founder Jimmy Wales has argued that editors with a financial conflict of interest should never directly edit articles, but instead propose edits on article talk pages." You propose something else which contradicts with the recent COI guidelines. Could you please give a link to the policy or even better a quotation about forbidding posting by COI editors at the talk page and using these proposals by other editors after reviewing them? Beagel (talk) 22:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Why? I never said anything of the sort. If you'd care to point out what exactly I said that gave you this impression I would be happy to clarify. -- #_ 22:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

You are basically out of touch with the entire rest of the community. Arturo is a Misplaced Pages editor. His edits are just as valuable as anyone else's and he is allowed to edit anything he wants. He is encouraged to use the talk page for subjects where he has a COI, but he is not required to and he does so in order for his edits to be properly looked over because he thinks that is the best option. He has been entirely transparent and open about everything. Furthermore, the fact that he has a COI is irrelevant, all that matters is the edits or the information to be added. Is it neutral? If yes, then it's fine. If not, then correct it so it is. That's how Misplaced Pages works. Silverseren 00:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment from Arturo

Hello everyone, I have been following this conversation and would like to respond briefly. As far as I have been aware, I have been following the guidelines regarding conflict of interest and I have purposefully refrained from making any edits to articles, instead presenting information here for editors to review. I have always invited editors to review my drafts, making it clear that they can edit them in any way necessary to ensure they meet with Misplaced Pages's standards. Beagel, BozMo and others have asked questions about BP proposed edits/changes and made changes to what we have proposed. I see that UseTheCommandLine has added "user page" templates to the drafts in my user pages. This is perfectly fine, and I can do so with any material in my user pages from now on.

I disagree strongly with SlimVirgin's view that BP is rewriting the article itself, or that there is anything "sneaky" about it. In fact, I'm using my real name and joining an open conversation with anyone who wishes to be involved. Volunteer editors are under no obligation to place my drafts wholesale into the article and often they have asked for me to make changes or made edits to the drafts themselves. In some cases, the drafts have simply not been added to the article, such as with the "Allegations of greenwashing" draft I proposed in December. In the case of "Stock history", editors here asked me for help with preparing this material to add to the article. My drafts have provided additional material and new (mainly secondary) sources that were not in the article already, particularly regarding the company's operations, about which there was little to no detail until last year.

When I first started talking with editors on this page, the BP article lacked the most basic information about the company’s operations and some sections were plain inaccurate. It has always been my intention to help this article become a better resource for accurate information about BP, whether "positive" or "negative", and we would like to be part of that discussion. I respect SlimVirgin's concerns, but I also would ask her to consider reading the article and pointing to specific concerns if there are any, rather than trying to argue that my participation in this discussion is not legitimate. Best, Arturo at BP (talk) 22:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Arturo. Misplaced Pages's readers need to know that they are reading BP's words and looking at sources BP has chosen. The way we signal that is by using BP as a primary source with in-text attribution (BP writes, BP alleges, BP has highlighted), especially when we're copying BP's words, and we link to the place of publication.

If editors have given you the impression that it's okay for you to write extensive drafts and they will insert them word-for-word (or close to that), in my view you've been badly advised. You would not be allowed to do this for any other organization: write an article about BP and have it added to (say) the New York Times or the Encyclopedia Britannica under a staffer's byline so that the reader had no idea she was reading material authored by BP. Misplaced Pages is open for editing, yes, but we don't allow sources that kind of direct access (not even by proxy) for obvious ethical reasons. If we invite BP to do this, we would have to invite BP's critics too.

I'm therefore asking that you make your authorship completely open by posting your articles on the BP website, then directing us to which parts you feel would be helpful to improve this article. We can then use your text as a source, attributing it to BP (with or without your name as you choose). That way, the material can be added to the article, but the readers can see where it has come from. This is what article subjects are normally asked to do when they seek input or want to post a clarification of something. SlimVirgin 22:40, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, I am not aware of any plan or understanding that editors will insert Arturo's drafts word-for-word into the article. I did not even know that they existed. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:04, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

If the drafts are neutral, then I would have added them word for word. That is the point of them being neutral after all. However, I thought some changes needed to be made, so I proposed that. In turn, he would have made those changes and asked for another look and I (and hopefully others) would have looked over it again. Instead, he is now being attacked and Misplaced Pages policy is being warped by established users in order to suit their desires of attacking BP.

Arturo absolutely does not have to have his drafts posted to the BP website or something ridiculous like that. He is a Misplaced Pages editor, this is his userspace draft. He is proposing for it to be included into the article after other users look it over. It seems to me that SlimVirgin has completely and absolutely lost what Misplaced Pages policy is about and seems determined to consider Arturo as a second class editor. Silverseren 00:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I understand SlimVirgin's concerns but to replace the current text with Arturo's drafts would require a very strong and clear consensus here and I think that is very unlikely to happen. It is very unusual in WP for the collaborative work of many editors over a period of time to be completely replaced by the work of one person.

So long as Arturo's drafts remain in his userspace I see no real problem. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Except his drafts are clearly expanding on the already existing material in the article, fleshing it out or adding proper references where there are none or were bad references before. It is not replacing the work of other editors, but using that as a base to then make the article more complete. Silverseren 13:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Stop the misinterpretation of policy and the attacks

This is a complete and utter misinterpretation of policy that is fundamentally destroying what WP:PRIMARY means. A userspace draft written by an editor is just that, a draft. They are submitted whole to articles all the time. There are plenty of userspace drafts that are moved to mainspace as a full article when there was no article before. They are not primary sources, they are Misplaced Pages articles. Arturo is the writer of these drafts and he is the editor that made the content. Inserting his drafts into the article is no different than intserting drafts any other Misplaced Pages editor has made. Silverseren 00:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

On his user page, he has verified that "subject matter experts" within the company do in fact have some control over the material he posts here. In my view that makes it substantially different from a typical userspace draft. I'm sure we will disagree on which specific policies this violates (WP:CHERRY is directly implied by the statement there), but I think the best way to handle it is to place this material, as SlimVirgin suggested, on a BP website, so that it is abundantly clear where the material originates. -- #_ 00:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, subject matter experts. Just like plenty of featured article writers have subject matter experts go over their article material in order to see if changes should be made. All users that actually want to make a good article do this. Arturo is the same as any other Misplaced Pages editor and what you are suggesting is to treat him as if he isn't and that is absolutely offensive. Silverseren 00:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, but it does not change what I have already said. If you wish to take issue with my views on paid editing, perhaps do so in another forum. Your views are clear, and I will not be changing mine simply because you call them offensive. -- #_ 01:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I am calling them offensive because you're denigrating another Misplaced Pages editor. Maybe you should actually focus on the content, rather than the editor. I have yet to see any of you actually review the content, other than SlimVirgin bringing up safety references that has to do with an entirely different section in the article. Silverseren 01:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Where, exactly, am I doing that? As noted above, perhaps it would be better to take this off of this particular talk page and into another forum. -- #_ 01:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Because you're treating him as a lesser editor. And his drafts as if they aren't even real article work, but instead some sort of product of his company. Which is both perplexing and ridiculous and you're acting as if no one makes userspace drafts, when everyone does. Silverseren 02:21, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Specific statements, please. How about you do this on my talk page, rather than here? -- #_ 02:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Would an editor talk page, be it that of UseTheCommandLine, SlimVirgin, Silverseren, or any other person's talk page, really be the proper place for this discussion? Gandydancer (talk) 14:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

For discussions about specific things I have said that are being interpreted as attacks, yes. I am attempting to corral discussion that is not directly and substantially related to the subject of the article into other fora. -- #_ 18:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see

Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#BP_and_large_company_editing_in_general

Note that this should be about the issues raised here - not the behavior of any individual editor. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

BP's drafts

The problem: informing editors, but not readers

• Arturo at BP introduced himself on his user page at 16:05, 11 May 2012: "In the interest of full transparency, I chose 'Arturo at BP' as my username so that my affiliation with BP is abundantly clear to all parties I may interact with on Misplaced Pages." (His user page had 8 watchers as of 19 March 2013.)
• He introduced himself on the BP talk page at 16:16, 11 May 2012, saying he would "start with small, focused suggestions ..." (BP's talk page had 238 watchers as of 19 March 2013.)
• He posted on Rangoon11's talk page, 16:23, 11 May 2012, asking Rangoon to help make changes that Arturo would suggest.
• The article had 722,248 hits from July 2012 to February 2013 inclusive, the period during which BP's text was added to the article. The small number of editors with the BP talk page on their watchlists knew (assuming they looked) that BP was supplying text for the article. But the readers were not informed that they were reading BP's words, as they would have been if BP had been used as a source like any other. Instead, BP transformed itself from a source into an editor. This is arguably similar to a publisher creating an Amazon account to write draft reviews of one of the publisher's own books; the publisher tells Amazon it has created the account, but neither Amazon nor the publisher tell the readers of the reviews that the publisher has written them.

Adding BP's drafts to the article

• User:Arturo at BP/Overview of operations

• 563 words, posted by Arturo 3 July 2012; added to the article on 5 July by Rangoon11; talk-page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/BP UK

• 385 words, posted by Arturo 25 July 2012; added to the article on 15 August by Rangoon11; talk-page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/US operations

• 984 words, posted by Arturo 24 August 2012; added to the article on 30 August by Rangoon11; talk-page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Stock history

• 509 words, posted by Arturo 18 September 2012; added to the article on 20 September by Rangoon11; talk-page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Alternative Energy

• 202 words, posted by Arturo 23 October 2012; added to the article on 3 November by Beagel; talk page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Worldwide operations

• 690 words, posted by Arturo 5 November 2012; added to the article on 17 November by Beagel; talk page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Canadian oil sands

• 301 words, posted by Arturo 19 November 2012; added to the article on 28 November by Beagel; talk page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Allegations of greenwashing

• 179 words, posted by Arturo 7 December 2012; added to the article ?; talk page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Prudhoe Bay

• 421 words, posted by Arturo 25 February 2013; added to the article on 1 March by Silver seren; talk-page discussion

• User:Arturo at BP/Environmental record

• 462 words, posted by Arturo 7 March 2013; not added to the article because of objections; talk-page discussion. Silver seren advised Arturo on 17 March to "ignore them," referring to the editors objecting, and to focus only on Silver seren's questions.

Overall, at least 4,055 words written by BP were added to the article between 5 July 2012 and 1 March 2013. The article is 9,215 words long as of 19 March, so assuming BP's text is still in it, around 44 percent of the article has been written by BP.

SlimVirgin 19:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Cite error: The named reference time181210 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. The Guardian (Report) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/187280. Retrieved 2012-07-01. {{cite report}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
3. Tim Webb (16 December 2010). "WikiLeaks cables: BP suffered blowout on Azerbaijan gas platform". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on 16 December 2010. Retrieved 16 December 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

• Former good article nominees
• All unassessed articles
• B-Class United Kingdom articles
• High-importance United Kingdom articles
• WikiProject United Kingdom articles
• B-Class London-related articles
• Low-importance London-related articles
• B-Class company articles
• Top-importance company articles
• WikiProject Companies articles
• B-Class energy articles
• Top-importance energy articles
• Unassessed Brands articles
• Unknown-importance Brands articles
• WikiProject Brands articles
• Misplaced Pages articles that use British English
• Misplaced Pages semi-protected edit requests