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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by TheRedPenOfDoom (talk | contribs) at 23:59, 14 February 2014 (→A self-confirmed advocate (lawyer or publicist) has wiped out his client's page- one that was diligently edited and reviewed over a period of a year and a half). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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    Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
    ShortcutsSections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.
    Click here to purge this page
    (For help, see Misplaced Pages:Purge)
    This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Misplaced Pages to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution procedural policy.
    You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
    Additional notes:
    • This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period.
    • Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice.
    • The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}.
    • Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request:
    1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}.
    2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed.
    3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days.
    • Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest guideline.
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    Help answer requested edits
    Category:Misplaced Pages conflict of interest edit requests is where COI editors have placed the {{edit COI}} template: Misplaced Pages conflict of interest edit requests Talk:260 Collins Talk:American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Talk:Pamela Anderson Talk:AvePoint Talk:Moshe Bar (neuroscientist) Talk:BEE Japan Talk:Edi Birsan Talk:Adam Boehler Talk:Edouard Bugnion Talk:Bunq Talk:Captions (app) Talk:Casualty Actuarial Society Talk:Cofra Holding Talk:Cohen Milstein Talk:Commvault Talk:Chris Daniels (musician) Talk:DEGIRO Talk:Dell Technologies Talk:Michael Dell Talk:Etraveli Group Talk:Florida Power & Light Talk:Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) Talk:Steven Grinspoon Talk:Grizzly Creek Fire Talk:Group-IB Talk:Henley & Partners Talk:Insight Meditation Society Talk:Daymond John Talk:Norma Kamali Talk:Khalili Foundation Talk:David Lalloo Talk:Dafna Lemish Talk:Gigi Levy-Weiss Talk:Alexa Meade Talk:Metro AG Talk:Mitre Corporation Talk:Alberto Musalem Talk:NAPA Auto Parts Talk:NextEra Energy Talk:Matthew Parish Talk:Barbara Parker (California politician) Talk:Sharp HealthCare Talk:Sharp Memorial Hospital Talk:Louise Showe Talk:Shuntarō Tanikawa Talk:University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Science Talk:Uppsala Monitoring Centre Talk:Zions Bancorporation

    Alli Sports

    This company may be attempting to promote their various products again. To summarize, MTV/NBC owns a company that promotes a large collection of sporting events/competitions. The company previously added lots of copyrighted and advertorial content to Misplaced Pages under accounts that mirrored the company's name.

    As a reminder, they previously attempted to do this and 18 articles, 2 categories, 2 templates, and at least 5 files were deleted per A7, G11, and G12. You can find the whole investigation here, the WP:COIN report here, and the WP:ANI discussion here (for some reason, it seems to have been deleted instead of archived).

    Articles that were deleted have been recreated with slightly different names (Winter Dew Tour 2008-09 to 2008-2009 Winter Dew Tour.

    The IP editor has been adding Winter Dew Tour links to every article that has anything to do with sports related to the Winter Dew Tour. Essentially everything they've added to Misplaced Pages and edited has to do with the Dew Tours. EGorodetsky created the new articles with slightly different names and added text to the articles he created that's taken verbatim from the standard press release for these events. I thought I'd mention this here because the pattern is similar enough to previous issues to warrant a look and I'm sure they can explain whether or not they have a close connection.

    I'll look more closely at this situation when I have more time. OlYeller21 16:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

    I added another IP address. They added the same copyrighted material to Dew Tour. OlYeller21 01:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    User:JLohrWines/J._Lohr_Vineyards_and_Wines

    We are trying to update and expand our company page on Misplaced Pages. We have created a draft page for 3rd party review to hopefully implement these changes. All sources are cited throughout and all statements are public fact/knowledge. Thanks!

    Draft page: https://en.wikipedia.org/User:JLohrWines/J._Lohr_Vineyards_and_Wines JLohrWines (talk) 17:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

    User:JLohrWines, this page doesn't look half bad, but before attempting to post it I would revise the style of writing to be as neutral as possible. Right now there are some promotional words and phrasings that could prevent the page from settling as is into Misplaced Pages, so I would go through it with a fine-toothed comb to remove anything you can see that is intended to show the company in a promotionally positive light. Such as the word "acclaimed". If you can do that, then I could see this piece as a decent addition to Misplaced Pages. Jeremy112233 (talk) 20:06, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

    Thank you for the feedback! We have gone through and updated. We have been trying to keep this article neutral throughout the process. How would you recommend getting the article (or next round if needed) posted?

    Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by JLohrWines (talk • contribs) 22:33, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

    CBRE Group

    This appears to be a very clear and obvious case of conflict of interest. Larry Koestler is a near-monothematic WP:SPA; the article is grossly promotional in tone. There are probably other COI/SPA editors involved here too. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

    And, it turns out, confirmed by the editor on his talk page: "I am part of CBRE's Corporate Communications group". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    As if that wasn't enough, the company appears to have two pages, CBRE Group and Coldwell Banker Commercial (they are the same company, aren't they?). And the cherry on top is that Coldwell Banker Commercial also has its own dedicated WP:SPA maintainer. I wonder if they know each other? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    That article needs balance. They are a big company, but every source given links to their own site. There's news from reliable sources available for CBRE; search for "CBRE Fraud" "CBRE lawsuit", and "CBRE rigged bidding" for stories. They even had to pay out on a lawsuit for fax spamming, --John Nagle (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    Coldwell Banker Commercial and CBRE Group seem to have parted company in 1989, when the former went private in a leveraged buyout that didn't go well.. So they should be separate articles. John Nagle (talk) 23:33, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    Thanks, John Nagle, I was having doubts after writing that they were the same (which I did after reading on the CBRE page that "In 1989, employees and others acquired the company's commercial operations to form CB Commercial"). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
    Coldwell Banker Commercial is now part of Realogy, so it doesn't need its own article. Realogy seems to have bought up a number of real estate brokers that were in trouble, including Coldwell Banker Commercial. The Realogy article isn't too bad; it's basically a bare history of their creation as a spinoff, going private, going public, and acquiring the losers of the 2008 real estate bubble collapse. Try trimming CBRE down to something similar, preferably with sources other than CBRE's own web site. Then we can work up from there. John Nagle (talk) 08:30, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

    S. Ballesh

    While Misplaced Pages needs more articles on underrepresented topics, these editors are intent on promoting their cause. Potential COI and autobiography issues; good-faith attempts to keep the article neutral and free from errors are being reverted and editing is borderline disruptive. Attempts to reach out to the editors through talk pages has not stopped them from continuing to make COI edits. PaintedCarpet (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

    It seems likely that there's a language problem here, and that perhaps invitations to participate in talk have been ignored for that reason. However, even after making generous allowances for that, for the acknowledged relative difficulty of finding reliable sources on India-related topics, and for general systematic bias, I agree with PaintedCarpet that the edit pattern is bordering on being WP:Disruptive. More eyes would be welcome. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:38, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

    i cant understand you report sir... help me to edit... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krishnaballesh (talk • contribs) 17:14, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

    Several of the edits by the two accounts have been identical, and this appears to be the work of one editor editing under two accounts. Rather than take this to an SPI for blocking, I would advise Mr. Ballesh to have a read of Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry#Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts. Ruby Murray 13:25, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    Monster Monpiece

    User with suspicious username is making edits to Monster Monpiece, an article about a Japanese videogame developed by Compile Heart. Nippon Ichi Software is another Japanese videogame developer, and editing of articles by "competitors" (regardless of whether the user is genuinely an employee or not) qualifies as COI. --benlisquareT•C•E 11:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    Bob Leaf

    I am self-declaring an interest. I have cleaned up this article at the request of a mutual acquaintance of the subject, with whom I have a business relationship. I invite other editors to review my edits. I have also made this declaration on the article's talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    This highly controversial assertion: "Credited as "the father of public relations"..." is backed up only with a dead link. That needs to be rectified or removed. Carrite (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
    I have just replied to your near-identical comment on my talk page: That seems to be a temporary glitch; the link was working fine yesterday, and loaded for me just now, on the second refresh. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Constitution Party of Alabama etc. (Bundled AfD)

    The above named article is a bundled AfD discussion of 32 near clone articles about state branches of the Constitution Party. Based on comments in the discussion, I believe it is possible that these articles may have been created, and are primarily being edited by members of the Constitution Party. - Ad Orientem (talk) 04:33, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

    Pattern Recognition in Physics

    The journal Pattern Recognition in Physics was published from March 2013 until it was terminated this past January by the publisher, Copernicus Publications. It seems the reasons for this include that the editors (both of whom were climate change "skeptics") appointed other editors in a "nepotistic" manner, and that one paper in the journal argued that their results "shed serious doubt on the continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project." The journal's editor-in-chief was Sid-Ali Ouadfeul, who works for the Algerian Petroleum Institute. Now we have an account with the username "Ouadfeul" editing this page in a manner that is clearly biased against Copernicus's managing director, Martin Rasmussen: Jinkinson talk to me 15:37, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

    Update: the article has been fully protected by Mark Arsten. While I'm not sure if this was necessary, it seems to have succeeded in driving Ouadfeul away from the page, or for that matter, its talk page. Jinkinson talk to me 04:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

    A self-confirmed advocate (lawyer or publicist) has wiped out his client's page- one that was diligently edited and reviewed over a period of a year and a half

    Jimmy Henchman is a claimed client (although it is unclear what type) for this person user 67.81.205.59 (talk). This person has partially blanked and completely changed the substance the page that many people worked on for a year and a half. .

    The diff is here https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=James_Rosemond&diff=prev&oldid=591975238

    There were some attempts to restore it. Then user 67.81.205.59 (talk) next complained: here and here explaining that Jimmy Henchman was his client without providing citations to support his objections to the extensively litigated version he blanked.

    History: In August through September of 2012 many of the issues were litigated and decided here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jimmy_Henchman with a resulting Keep decision based on WP:HEY and my work. Since then, the article has been diligently worked on by these editors: STATicVapor TheHerald Jfmantis Turgan Rmhermen RonJohn and Yamado Taro and myself.

    I feel that the blanking of the page by 67.81.205.59 who has a stated financial COI, his/her later complaint and the subsequent attempt to censor the page has had a chilling effect on all the diligent editors I've mentioned above. Moreover, none of 67.81.205.59's objections were mentioned on the Jimmy Henchman talk page but his cause apparently taken up a few editors working in concert to blank the page and all its references. I'd greatly appreciate a ruling here and an attempt to restore and protect the article to the pre https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=James_Rosemond&diff=prev&oldid=591975238 state. As Jimmy Henchman is currently serving a life sentence +5 for multiple crimes and is now on trial for murder, the BLP1 issues do not seem ripe to re-examine. Best, Scholarlyarticles (talk) 20:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

    And the forum shopping has started. Please see User_talk:NeilN#Jimmy_Henchman_page and Talk:James_Rosemond#Massive_unexplained_revert_by_Scholarlyarticles. There is no COI issue with the active editors. --NeilN 21:01, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    Actually, you brought the COI to my attention: *The reason why the article is receiving more attention is because it was mentioned here and here. --NeilN 05:42, 14 February 2014 (UTC) Hope this helps. Scholarlyarticles (talk) 22:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    And that's how it's supposed to work. Someone who has a COI posts to a talk page or noticeboard and uninvolved editors take a look at the claim and edit the article according to their judgment. --NeilN 22:15, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    There is no COI issue that I can see here. The initial removal of information from a biographical article from an IP claiming to represent the article subject may be subject to scrutiny due to COI concerns. However, from what I can tell the person who edited the article did so once back in January. There have been about 100 edits done since then to the page by other editors not affiliated by the subject. Since the IP editor you are concerned about has not edited since January 23, and your content dispute is with editors other than that IP, there is nothing else that is appropriate for this noticeboard.
    I will reinforce what NeilN has said. You seem to grossly misconstrue the purpose of a deletion discussion. The AfD that you are referencing as an example of consensus being reached that is being violated is only a consensus for keeping the article in the encyclopedia, not a consensus for the content that is in the article. Even if there was a consensus reached, that AfD was more than a year ago, and even a recent consensus reached on an article doesn't lock the article's content in stone.
    This article is a biography of a living person, and the content of such articles has the potential to harm the article subject. Therefore, negative information is given extra scrutiny and great care is taken to ensure its relevance and verifiability. That doesn't mean that biographies aren't allowed to have negative information, but concerns about that negative information need to be taken seriously.
    Not that it should matter, but I saw that you had questioned whether NeilN is an administrator. Being an administrator doesn't give anyone special authority, nor does it mean that what they say is of more importance than anyone else. But if it's important to you, I'm an administrator. -- Atama頭 22:48, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    I just asked because of a particular template he placed on my page. Not to challenge, just to understand a bit more about the situation. I do know that this is a biography of a living person. But the particular content in questions was discussed previously regarding BLP here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jimmy_Henchman. I'm not questioning NeilN COI but this persons 67.81.205.59 and the diff https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=James_Rosemond&diff=prev&oldid=591975238 since Jimmy Henchman is his client. It wasn't stated on the talk page why the issue was coming up a year later. But since the last discussion the subject has been sentenced to life plus 5 and went on trial for murder so I don't see BLP1 as a particular issue especially given the multiple instances of criminal activity. I can understand someone wanting to raise the issue again. But if so shouldn't the persons lawyer do this on a talk page rather than simply blanking the page?Scholarlyarticles (talk) 23:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    The IP did not blank the page (why do you persist in these types of misrepresentations?). The changes were undone forty minutes later . --NeilN 23:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    In my view that was a good thing. Why not leave it there (with the prompt revert) and start a discussion about the particular points that haven't been discussed from that point? I noticed editors asked the person to talk on the Jimmy Henchman page. S/he did not. Without doing so, it's hard to get a picture of what was going on. Apparently some editors took it on themselves to address the persons issues without discussing it on the Jimmy Henchman talk page. Not to put to fine a point on it but a lot of folks with a lot of expertise spent quite a bit of time on it that it took a week or two to wipe out completely. I would have commented but these changes happened quite quickly. For months before there had been vandalism from unknown ID address that were quickly fixed and I assumed this was the same thing. How could those editors have read all the underlying hundreds of articles required to make those kinds of changes? Scholarlyarticles (talk) 23:25, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    "...without discussing it on the Jimmy Henchman talk page." See this? And scroll down? And down? I don't know about you, but I call that discussion. It's up to you to join in (or not) in the discussion that focused on the reliability of the sources. It also sounds as if you have some ownership issues here. Do you at least understand there's no COI problems? --NeilN 23:50, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    and we "dont leave it there" while we discuss because WP:BLP is very plain: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." (emph in original). -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

    Acupuncture

    I am an acupuncturist. Does this fact mean that I have a COI with acupuncture and related articles? Some arguments I've seen and/or thought of:

    • No, because Misplaced Pages has never made one's profession (as opposed to one's employer) a basis for WP:COI, and should not, because it (in theory anyway) encourages professionals to edit in their areas of expertise.
    • Yes, because acupuncture has pseudoscientific aspects and debatable evidence for its effectiveness. Therefore, practitioners may profit from the article portraying it in a too-positive light.
    • No, because those are differences of degree and not of kind with other professions, so we really would be creating a bad precedent and slippery slope. Many professions compete with one another and suffer from overpromotion. For acupuncture there is a range of opinion on its effectiveness, some fairly positive, and a real degree of mainstream acceptance.


    I'm also going to paste the last couple comments from an active thread on my user talk page:

    • (from Alexbrn) Somebody heavily invested in a single procedure probably shouldn't be writing about it; and if that procedure became the subject of controversy, where the outcome of the controversy might bear on their interests, they almost certainly shouldn't. Personally, I now keep clear of editing around anything I'm closely involved in (even if I'm not paid for it): one of the reasons I edit altmed topics is precisely because it has no "real life" crossover with me. Alexbrn
    • (my reply) We're writing an encyclopedia, and our standards should reflect that, and be pragmatic, and not try to fix what isn't broken. People heavily invested in single procedures are also known as "specialists" and should be writing about it, assuming topic expertise matters. (Who else will be able to evaluate certain sources? Etc.) It would be disastrous if Misplaced Pages followed that standard. .... In cases where that procedure becomes controversial, where the outcome of the controversy might bear on their interests, you may be right about COI, or at least potential for it (if that's not redundant). But this may still cast too broad a net, and has to be weighed against the benefits of subject expertise. Discouraging editing from specialist expert editors is a big deal, and may damage the project severely. We should do something to draw out the best in such editors, and it shouldn't be all stick. Of course, declaring a COI doesn't necessarily mean a person shouldn't write about a topic, only that certain checks and balances be involved, e.g. perhaps 0RR, or just using talk pages. And that could be done in cases where controversies might bear on an editor's interest. What we've done so far, for all professionals irrespective of specialty or controversies, is to caution against tendentiousness, and otherwise hold them to the same standards as everyone else; where is the evidence of this not working? Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me)

    Thanks in advance for your feedback. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 22:01, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

    • Alexbrn is correct. The situation here is that "specialist status" when it comes to contested knowledge is essentially someone who is inherently conflicted about the contested topic. The same argument could be made by a professional ufologist or a professional psychic or a professional faith healer. The Conflict of Interest policy is set up to explicitly avoid the situation where people who are necessarily in need of promoting their "specialty" be it a profession of dubious consideration, a business, an organization, or themselves are not caught up in even the appearance of impropriety. Every time you save an edit in article space, you are breaching this barrier that is put in place to protect Misplaced Pages's reputation. It is an embarrassment no matter your intent. jps (talk) 23:07, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
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