Talk:Direct Action Everywhere

Edit warring on this page

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), you have been told by multiple editors that you must make statements from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) and cite reliable sources (WP:Reliable). You've also been warned that your edit warring - reverting more than three times in a 24 hour period (WP:3RR) - can lead to a block. Please respond here. If you continue your disruptive editing your actions will be reported to the appropriate admin noticeboard. Funcrunch (talk) 01:01, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Funcrunch you are using your bias for a group who is denying rape victims. This is a neutral point of view because this is factual information with Direct Action Everywhere on their actions. So your continued use of silencing truth with rape and sexual victims from the cited sources is sickening. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackson5Dr (talk • contribs) 18:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), this is an encyclopedia, not Facebook, a blog, or a tabloid. On here you can't make statements like "Despite what the group stands for their values are different than their beliefs" or refer to someone by name as a "sexual predator" without citing reliable sources that say this specifically. As has been repeatedly explained, personal blogs are not considered reliable sources on Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with my feelings about DxE or sexual harassment, this is about presenting factual information in a neutral manner.

Full disclosure, I have been involved in DxE actions and am friends with some of the organizers. But I am not an organizer myself and have no official capacity within the organization. If a Wikipedia admin decides I have an unresolvable conflict of interest I will recuse myself from editing this article. But that doesn't mean you are free to continue your disruptive editing; someone else will likely revert you. Funcrunch (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Funcrunch I know very well this is it not a tabloid but, is stating blogs about DxE very productive either? The statements were made by DxE they them selves even noted they have predators in their group and still do to this day? This is factual information they even admit to. It seems you don't quite understand rape culture or you're just a sexist person. As noted as well the blogs you seem to paste in the wiki have no credible value to explaining DxE does. You want to take out criticism that have been a major proponent in recent events.

I have met with them as well, I used to do actions but, due to the sexism and racism (which obviously you support racist,sexist, ableist, and classist ideas) I stopped going to them after they attacked many women and even stated those things. It seems you have a major conflict of interest as you're not an outside source like me that has seen the blogs. Your dedication to ensuring the brand is safe is shown here. You cannot deny that.

http://directactioneverywhere.com/theliberationist/2014/12/10/respecting-gender-identity — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackson5Dr (talk • contribs) 20:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I have already disclosed my involvement with DxE here. I also have my full name and link to my web site on my Wikipedia profile as I believe in transparency. I am saddened that you are accusing me of being sexist, racist, etc. when I am a queer black trans person who maintains a blog specifically about those issues, but none of that is relevant to your editing of this Wikipedia article.

If you want to post about DxE on Facebook or on your own blog I am not going to attempt to stop or silence you no matter what you say. But this is Wikipedia and there are rules here that all editors are expected to follow. Funcrunch (talk) 21:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs), since you are continuing to insert the non-neutral edits I have requested dispute resolution. Feel free to participate there. Funcrunch (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I'm a regular volunteer at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard and I closed the request made there because it does not satisfy our requirements to be accepted as a case, but I thought that I'd say a word about one issue which is pretty simple: sourcing. The Wikipedia Verifiability policy says that any material which has been challenged, either by objection on the article talk page or by being reverted for being unsourced cannot be replaced until reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia have been provided. If this is the edit in question, most of the material in it is unsourced and the sources provided for the material which is sourced do not satisfy the definition of reliable sources required by Wikipedia so that material is, in effect, also unsourced. Blogs and other self published sources generally cannot be used for reliable sources. Issues of NPOV are irrelevant until proper sources have been provided. Repeatedly restoring unsourced or inadequately sourced material can cause you to be blocked if a report is filed at ANI. Moreover, inserting controversial material about living persons without high-quality reliable sources violates the Biographies of Living Persons policy and restoring that kind of material without adequate sourcing can get you blocked even faster. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 01:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Per the latest edits which inserted a reference to someone as a "cult leader" (again without citing reliable sources), I have reported Jackson5Dr (talk · contribs) to the BLP noticeboard. Funcrunch (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Jackson5Dr is now indefinitely blocked and I've noted at BLP/N that the issue is probably moot. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Reads a little like an advertisement.

Yo

So I did some minor copy-editing of the article, it could probably use a little more. While I was editing I noticed that in some instances, the article does seem to read as an advertisement for the group. There are a few sections that I don't feel are necessary or are stated twice in the article. I don't want to start an edit war, as I've noticed online that if one disparages the group, a flame war generally ensues. Given that I'm a relatively new/inexperienced editor, I thought it would be best to post on the talk page first before doing anything.

The sections in question are "Philosophy" and "Tactics", as I don't believe that they state much new information that hasn't already been stated concisely. When new information is brought up, while it is cited correctly, I wonder if it is notable enough for inclusion in a wikipedia article.Rejewskifan (talk) 22:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

My latest edit was in relation to this -- while I don't think "Philosophy" or "Tactics" belong in the article, I removed the two most glaring subsections of "Philosophy" that violated WP:SELFPUB. I may take more of an axe to the article soon, but I would like some input before I do so. Rejewskifan (talk) 04:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Good to see WP:BOLD editing. I think there are issues of WP:PROMO here, but I like that this article has a lot of content and wouldn't want to see the content itself removed when it could just be rewritten without the PROMO. I'd add that notability, in the Wikipedia sense (WP:NOTABILITY), is about whether the article itself should exist. The bar for content within the article is lower, though editors disagree on exactly how low it is. (I'm an inclusionist. I like more content in articles than does the average experienced WP editor.)

For the specific edit with deleting those Philosophy sections, I'm not sure if they violate WP:SELFPUB. Do you think they do because they are "unduly self-serving"? I guess that's true in a way, so I guess I agree with your decision. I do think you should take more of an axe to the article soon. I would suggest that you only delete large chunks of content as a last resort. Try to just change the wording e.g. adding "DxE says" if the sentence is currently stating something as fact when it's really just DxE's opinion. Try to just cut the bad parts, to either shorten the section, or to combine the good parts with other sections. You can also try adding critical content to deal with issues of WP:NPOV, though I don't know how much noteworthy criticism of DxE is out there.

Feel free to send me a message after you make more changes, and I can provide a second opinion. Utsill (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Utsill. While I understand the concern of whether or not the content in question violated WP:SELFPUB, I felt that since there is other content in the article that demonstrates these parts of their philosophy, as well as the particular sub-sections only relying on sources self-published, in context it made sense to me that it would violate WP:SELFPUB since it did come off as self-serving and redundant to me. Regardless, I don't think this part of the article was all that important to begin with. When I make my next edit I'll ping ya on your Talk page. Rejewskifan (talk) 04:29, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

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Open Rescue Phrasing

So some of you might have noticed that I did a bunch of edits. One main discrepancy in the article seems to be in phrasing whether an Open Rescue is livestock theft or a regular old rescue sans airquotes. I put in my edits "Performed an Open Rescue on" in one section. Not sure what the solution here is, but I certainly don't think we should be saying rescue sans airquotes, and I don't think the activists that edit this page and perform these actions think what they're doing is livestock theft. Not sure what the style considerations are here, but hopefully this post can generate a discussion so that we can all edit this article with the same style in mind and stick to it. If you also have a problem with my recent edits or have constructive criticism, let's keep the discussion here in one place! Rejewskifan (talk) 10:35, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest/POV discussion

Wow. Nice fluff piece. — I don't know who's been editing this, but well done. This 'article' belongs in Slate as a sponsored piece. Way to hold up Wikipedia neutrality standards. 216.168.113.99 (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is highly POV. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Are we seeing the same article? It contains a criticism section which has, among other things, fellow vegans characterizing the organization as a "cult". Not something you'd see in a fluff piece.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:21, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

The article seems very tilted in favor of the subject. That is no surprise given that the organization itself seems to have heavily influenced the article through undisclosed COI editing. The fact that there is a bit of criticism way down at the bottom of the article doesn't really change that. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest — Solely based on being a single purpose account that POV pushes the user RasaPetrauskaite should be regarded as having a possible undisclosed conflict of interest. Based on easily obtained off-Wiki information I am nearly certain that the ToU terms on COI editing are being violated. I have tagged the article accordingly and am doing a dive into other users active here to see how deep this behavior goes. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 16:20, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Based on the single purpose nature of this IP and the POV that it pushes, there is probably an undisclosed relationship here as well. Please see 96.224.229.138. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:12, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Looking over the totality of your edits, you also appear to be a WP:SPA, with a strong interest in this organization.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

It is entirely possible to have a COI without being paid. Just read the policy in question and look at the COI Noticeboard and you will see that this is the case on paper and in practice.112.119.86.128 (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest disclosure — I donate money to several non-profit organizations, including Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). I believe in helping people and animals. So this creates in me motivation to keep the pages related to DxE fair and to remove misleading information that perhaps is being inserted by people who have financial ties to the animal agriculture industry. I have in the past replaced inaccurate and perhaps deliberately misleading information with language directly from citations that the same people have found or I found myself in reputable online newspapers, including The New York Times. In addition, I volunteer with Direct Action Everywhere. I will going forward refrain from making direct edits to DxE pages, including this one, except if there's blatant slander present that does not actually appear in any newspapers. It appears that this slander is sometimes fabricated by people who either get paid to promote the meat, dairy or egg industries or perhaps is made by people who are stake-holders in these animal ag operations. These people routinely try to undermine our organization through both ethical and non-ethical ways. Also, worth mentioning, I work in an unrelated industry, at an investment company. I have never been paid by Direct Action Everywhere or any other non-profit organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RasaPetrauskaite (talk • contribs) 05:00, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:COI editing is strongly discouraged. I would recommend taking concerns of inaccuracies and possible slander to the talk pages of the articles in question and allow other editors without a COI to examine the edits and make the appropriate adjustments, per the Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:35, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, yes. I will refrain from making direct edits, unless it's blatant slander and I cannot remove it otherwise or have someone else remove it. In any case, I will try to refrain from making direct edits to this page or others that are connected with DxE. I will follow your recommendation. RasaPetrauskaite (talk) 05:53, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes slander appears on this page — I volunteer with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) and donate money to them periodically because I believe in helping animals. That said, sometimes I noticed that slanderous and false information had in the past been inserted into this article. I also know that the animal agriculture industry tried to undermine the work that DxE does to promote Animal Rights. So something to watch out for is people who try to undermine DxE because they may have ties to the animal agriculture industry. To give more color on this persistent problem, the animal agriculture industry had the US government pass the Enterprise Terrorism Act to put into prison Animal Rights activists who did "an open rescue" of animals bound for slaughter. This is something that several animal rights groups were battling over the past years. The animal agriculture industry also had influence over the FBI, which sent agents to raid two animal sanctuaries that may have adopted two piglets who were "rescued" from an agricultural facility. In addition, the animal agriculture industry petitioned the IRS to remove 501(c)3 non-profit tax-advantaged status from Direct Action Everywhere and PETA. They were trying to discourage donors from giving money to these Animal Rights organizations. So the animal agriculture industry uses ethical and unethical means to harm the Animal Rights movement. This appears to extend to Wikipedia where some people insert inaccurate information that is not found in any sources and that appears to be motivated to paint DxE in a bad light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RasaPetrauskaite (talk • contribs) 05:46, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

RasaPetrauskaite and C.J. Griffin: since that one IP editor keeps adding back the {{UDP}} template, I thought I'd pop in to say that the issue here is closer to WP:ADVOCACY than WP:COI. It sounds like RasaPetrauskaite has a POV in support of DXE. But having a POV does not, by itself, forbid her participation in editing DXE-related pages.

If RasaPetrauskaite were forbidden from editing this page just because she volunteered and donated to DXE, then any person who has ever donated to Wikipedia or freely "volunteered" for Wikipedia (which would include almost any productive editing on any topic) would be forbidden from editing any Wikipedia-related article. The same logic could extend to support for any other nonprofit org, religious organization, or even commercial fandom. Can a Catholic really be trusted to edit Catholic Church, or a Rihanna fan to edit Rihanna? Um, absolutely—indeed, it's often the case that those supportive, involved users will be quite well-informed about the topic they support/are involved with (funny how that works!). The important thing is to avoid pushing personal POV into article content, which an advocate can do by exercising restraint, self-awareness, and transparency when appropriate. That seems to have taken place here, too; I just wanted to point out that "restraint and transparency are a good idea" is not the same thing as "support for a topic results in prohibition of editing on the topic").

So while it's good that RasaPetrauskaite has disclosed her involvement with DXE, volunteering/donation is not a conflict of interest. In short: conflict of interest policy is about a person or organization paying the editor, not the other way around. The term "affiliation" in the COI policy's term "employer, client, and affiliation" seems open-ended, and it is to some extent, but it's just a catch-all for any other relationship that involves paying an editor. That could include e.g. a contractor, who is not technically in an employer-employee or client-agent relationship but is still being paid for their contributions. The term is purposely open-ended, but not so open-ended that it includes any affiliation at all—only an "affiliation with respect to any paid contribution to Wikipedia". —BLZ · talk 07:11, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that clarification.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@Brandt Luke Zorn: Good points. I created this article, and as you can see if you scroll up to the top of this talk page, I was involved with DxE at the time. But I have never been paid by them and never had any official role in the organization, and this article as I created it was neutrally worded and sourced entirely from mainstream publications. It's changed quite a bit since then... Regardless, I left DxE years ago, but still have the page on my watchlist as with (nearly) all articles I've created. Funcrunch (talk) 15:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that the issue with RasaPetrauskaite is that she appears to be a WP:SPU, considering virtually all of her edits (including rejected draft articles) concern DxE or DxE organizers. Funcrunch (talk) 16:44, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Truthfully, I don't think I see a major problem with RasaPetrauskaite's recent edits. For instance, most of the changes in this string of 8 edits from February/March seem like generally productive, noncontroversial additions supported by reliable sources. Now I haven't reviewed all of her edits, nor am I saying her contributions are perfect and impossible to improve upon—but on the whole they're reasonable and good-faith attempts to improve the page, especially for a new user. More good than bad. Sure, it would take a lot of work to get this article up to something like good article status, and that process would include a fine-tooth comb review for NPOV and writing quality/tone. But I'm not seeing the level of bias in her edits that would tip into problematic territory.

I'm not even quite sure that it tips into WP:SPU territory, since interest in a topic alone does not make a user a SPU. Interest in only one topic plus unproductive edits or POV, sure, that's a SPU—but again, where is the POV? This is not a rhetorical question; I'm open to the idea that there have been POV edits, but none of the IP's statements have been specific enough to identify what content they find objectionable. Also worth noting that she backed down immediately and came forward with her connection to DxE when she was told she may have been doing something contrary to policy, which demonstrates the kind of earnest good-faith effort to play by the rules that is characteristic of new users but not exactly characteristic of COI, SPUs or POV warriors.

Which gets to the issue that we don't actually know what the basis of the IP's accusation is, because they haven't bothered to articulate it. I understand what the IP has accused RasaPetrauskaite of doing—introducing POV statements, having a conflict of interest—but I don't understand why. When C.J. Griffin pushed back on their accusation that it was a fluff piece, they said it "seems very tilted in favor of the subject"—too vague to be actionable—and the alleged tilting "is no surprise given that the organization itself seems to have heavily influenced the article through undisclosed COI editing." This is purely circular: it's POV because I say there's a COI, and there's a COI because I detect a POV. The only thing close to a substantive critique was saying that a separate "Criticism" section alone cannot make up for pervasive POV throughout. In theory that could be true, but separate "Criticism" sections are bog-standard across Wikipedia—and again, what pervasive POV throughout? What specific language in the article is the IP objecting to? And if they see problems, then why aren't they making productive improvements to the page instead of prosecuting another user's motives? —BLZ · talk 20:33, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Off-wiki evidence suggests that RasaPetrauskaite does substantial communications work for Direct Action Everywhere and is intimately involved with this rather small organization.112.119.86.128 (talk) 14:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I've just consolidated the discussion so far under a single section heading so it's more linear and easier to follow. The editors who are already following this discussion are probably are, but the same IP is also litigating this issue at the talk page for the article on Wayne Hsiung, who is a cofounder of DxE. —BLZ · talk 21:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I have definitively determined that User:Brandt Luke Zorn has some kind of connection, probably a substantial one to Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere. The proof is here if you look closely. Evidence that this connection is ongoing and related to both Direct Action Everywhere and Wayne Hsiung comes to us via his attempts to whitewash the fact that there is obvious misconduct going on here and his attempts to improperly remove tags that I have placed to warn readers and editors about the problems with these articles. It is very clear that we don't know how many editors are involved yet, in the case of BLZ we don't know the exact nature of his relationship yet, and no one has vetted the text of the article against its sources and check to see if other sources have been omitted in order to whitewash this article. A lot has to be done before these tags can come off.112.119.86.128 (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

BLZ is a long established editor whose wiki account predates the establishment of DxE by several years. Your edits, on the other hand, started just recently with a primary focus on this organization and in particular calling out wiki editors/contributors you believe have connections to it and persistently tagging the article with what I believe are frivolous tags. I'm starting to wonder about your motivations and possible connections given your behavior here.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:40, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

In two cases so far, my suspicions have been confirmed. One editor has now disclosed. I have presented proof that BLZ has or at least had some type of connection to Wayne Hsiung. There is nothing frivolous about those tags. There has been serious COI editing going on here for a long time and we are going to get to the bottom of it, even if you don't like it. FYI until this article is vetted, rewritten to be NPOV, and no undisclosed connected contributors are active those tags are going to stay up unless an administrator removes them. 112.119.86.128 (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Not exactly. You accused editors of being paid to edit the article, and this turned out not to be the case. User RasaPetrauskaite disclosed she donated to and volunteered for the organization, but was not paid to make edits and did them of her own volition. BLZ was correct to point out this was more a case of "advocacy" than "COI" editing.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:07, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The IP left this kind message on my talk page:

"I know for sure that you have a connection to the subject of Wayne Hsiung. See here. Your actions at Wayne Hsiung are highly inappropriate. Do not remove any warning tags from that article again. This issue is far from being resolved and is still under active investigation."

Great job, super-sleuth. Clearly I tried very hard to conceal that by uh, uploading the photo under the same name I attach to all of my Wikimedia accounts, but somehow you found it. In all seriousness, I have nothing to hide. If you feel you "know for sure" that I have a connection to Hsiung just because I took a picture of him, you should go back to Detective School and retake Inferences 101.

For the record, that photo coincided with the one and only time I have met Mr. Hsiung. He was a guest speaker (in his capacity as a lawyer/legal scholar) in a class I was taking; I had never heard of him or DxE prior. The presentation was engaging and I was impressed by his depth of knowledge and compassion—sorry to say, but those are not elements of a conflict of interest. After the class I asked him if he'd like to have his picture taken for Wikipedia, since there was an article about him but no free-license photo. He obliged, and even though it was an impromptu photo taken with a cell phone in a campus hallway—notice (if you'd like to "look closely") that he didn't even set his laptop down, so this was not exactly a glamor shoot—it still turned out reasonably well. What else... I dunno, we chatted briefly about the films Okja and Snowpiercer (both great, especially the latter imo). At this point I am truly scraping the bottom of the barrel of my "connection" to Hsiung. Not that it particularly matters, but I am neither a member of DxE nor a contributor.

The IP's behavior is genuinely odd, aggressive but also tedious. They still have only described the "bias" they see in these pages in the vaguest terms. Rather than identifying specific POV language and removing or reworking it, they work backwards, launching an "investigation" (their own word!) into any editor who contradicts them, looking for any hint of a "connection" to the subject no matter how tenuous and then trying to use it as leverage to bully people away from contributing. In an edit summary for a revert to the Wayne Hsiung page, they said "Keep this up and I will take this to COIN and they will probably reduce this article to stub". I assume they believed this threat (I guess?) would have me quaking in my boots, but to the contrary: go right ahead! I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say about all of this. —BLZ · talk 18:28, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd say the edits from this IP constitute WP:HIT&RUNTAG: "Adding tags for non-obvious or perceived problems—without identifying the problem well enough for it to be easily fixed—is frequently referred to as 'drive-by tagging,' particularly when done by editors who are not involved in the article's development." It is indeed frivolous tagging as I stated above, and therefore such tags should be removed.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:53, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I had to smirk at the IP's "definitive determination" that you probably have a "substantial" connection to Wayne Hsiung based on you uploading a photo you took of him two years ago. Agreed, go back to detective school, or at least contribute more constructively to improving these articles. Thanks for mentioning the films you discussed; I now have two additions to my Netflix queue. :) Funcrunch (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

If ad homs are all that you have then you don't have much. A series of other editors, including the editor who created this article have expressed serious concerns about biased editing right here on this talk page. I did not invent this issue out of thin air and it is wrong to imply that these concerns are frivolous or that this is drive-by tagging. There are a minimum of two connected contributors. And yes, getting in a room with someone and taking a picture of them, placing it on Wikipedia, and then battling fiercely to stop articles related to that person from being identified as biased and having a history of being edited by connected parties pretty definitively establishes a connection between the subject. There is A LOT OF QUACKING here and unless I hear a good explanation otherwise, I am going to treat everything that quacks like a duck.112.119.86.128 (talk) 10:00, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

You don't have to tell them that even "the editor who created this article" has "expressed serious concerns"; they are that same editor. I'm not calling your reading comprehension into question (at least, not any more than I already have) but, c'mon, "Funcrunch" is a slightly more memorable name than "112.119.86.128".

You've said that because I took a photo for Wikipedia and once had a brief, admittedly pleasant chat with Wayne, that "definitively establishes a connection between the subject [and]" myself. OK, sure, but the goal posts have moved: a connection is not a conflict of interest—otherwise Kevin Bacon would be forbidden from editing Wikipedia. You're welcome to table a debate about the epistemological impossibility of true objectivity if you'd like, but that's a table for one because I'm not playing along.

You insist that I'm trying to "stop" the article "from being identified as biased". On the contrary, I have invited you repeatedly to quote any specific language in the article that constitutes biased content so that we may all assess it, rework it as needed, and move forward, having improved the article rather than slapping a label on it. You seek to identify the article as biased, but I challenge you to identify the bias. If it's biased, show us where! Justify your claim! It's clear you think it's biased, but we don't even know why you think it's biased. Put aside your ex post facto allegations of "connection" for a moment: what was it about reading the article that made you feel wary of a possible "bias" in the first place?

Since the rest of us don't know what factors make it biased in your judgment, and you won't deign to remove the bias yourself, will it ever be possible to make it un-biased? How would we know? Would you tell us? Let's say the article gets changed ten years from now and becomes totally un-biased, conforming perfectly to the terms of your secret criteria, but by that time you've long stopped paying attention and have forgotten all about it—should the template stay? Or would removing it be biased?

The question is, what is our goal here? Is it to successfully label the article as flawed, or is it to improve the article so that it no longer has that flaw? Check out this minor edit I just made on the page. I saw a technical punctuation error, so I fixed it. I make the same exact tiny edit to random articles all the time. You know what else I could have done? I could have turned up my nose and placed a {{Copy edit}} template in that section (or even better: the top of the page, so that the errors could be everywhere and anywhere). That way, everyone would be adequately warned about the horrible problems I saw. Hic svnt Dracones. Or, you know, I could just fix it, explaining what I fixed and why.

The thing is, maybe the specific things you would identify as biased will be plain as day to all of us if you would only show us. Maybe there's a sentence in there I missed that begins like "Whole Foods, which has a known record of cruelty toward animals and even humans,"—and in that case, we would all agree with you and change it! But on the other hand, what if you come back and say "fine, I'll tell you why the article is biased—it's because it describes DxE as 'activists' when it should describe them as what they really are: radical terrorist fundamentalists." I'd bet your objections are not actually that ridiculous-sounding, but I chose a purposely ridiculous example because, for all we know, maybe your reason is that ridiculous. And for all we know, maybe that's exactly why you don't want to tell us.

If what I've written still sounds to you like nothing more than the unmistakable quack of that infamous bird, the wretched mallard, then I have a different invitation for you. You said that, if the three different editors reverting you "keep this up", you would gladly escalate and take things to WP:COIN. Fine; I'll call your bluff. You've made the accusation of a COI again and again, but an accusation and a prosecution are two different things. I'll make it easy: the link to WP:COIN is here, the link to create a new COI discussion is there, and here's the text you are supposed to post to my talk page as a notification: {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~. The tools are there at your disposal. You could also observe the WP:COIN page's admonishment that "COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection [editor's note: emphasis my own] to a subject from editing articles on that subject." —BLZ · talk 07:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@BLZ: The IP posted at COI a few days ago, though they did not serve you the required notification. No comments there as of yet, FWIW. Funcrunch (talk) 16:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

NPOV violations by POV-pushing IP

Recently an agenda-pushing IP has engaged in edit-warring in order to insert editorial bias into this article by swapping the word "activists" with "extremists" in the first sentence of the lede, which now reads as follows: "Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is an international grassroots network of animal rights extremists[neutrality is disputed] [1] founded in 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Area.[2]". Branding them as "extremists" in the very first sentence, with the cited source being a blog post about a Vice video, clearly violates one of Wikipedia's core policies. The consensus version of the lede should be restored.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Lingering tags

This article has several tags based on previous discussions and criticisms:

It seems there have been numerous edits since those discussions. Is everyone okay with me removing the tags? If not, could you please specify what exact issues have yet to be resolved? Jmill1806 (talk) 12:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I am removing the tags now. If anyone had a lingering issue with the page, I'm happy to address it. Jmill1806 (talk) 01:21, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi 172.58.30.169. Can you please share what specific issues you see with the article that justify the placement of these tags? Jmill1806 (talk) 14:38, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like a case of WP:DRIVEBY to me. I’d suggest removing the tags until the ip who reinserted them can justify their placement.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:55, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I did that for now. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems some IP users are trying to add the tags back in. If you could clarify the current issues with the page, I would be happy to work on them. Jmill1806 (talk) 00:16, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

This is very much not a case of drive-by tagging. Conflicted editors have admitted to working on this article and it contains large amounts of tendentious editing. Either clean it up or the tags stay up. Please see the numerous posts above documenting the many ways this article is POV.49.130.130.142 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello 49.130.130.142. If you are also 45.64.243.106, you may consider the WP:BENEFITS of creating an account, such as clarifying which edits you have made and which points you have raised on Talk pages. Could you be more specific about the tendentious edits? As I mentioned above, I'm happy to work on this article and remove any issues. So many edits have been done since various points were raised that there are no longer any obvious issues to me. But I could be missing them as I was not present for the previous discussions. Thank you. Jmill1806 (talk) 13:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Gonna quickly add my 2 cents here after a long wiki-break and a brief skim-through of the article. This article definitely needs to be edited for tone, and pov, because there are certain parts that read like an advertisement, however since I haven't tagged pages before and am unclear on the policy on them at the moment, I don't know if it's to the point that it warrants a tag. Oftentimes you will see actions DxE has taken or claims about dxe with questionable sourcing on some of the specifics.

2 Brief examples that are towards the top of the article itself: "By December 2014, DxE's network had grown to at least 90 cities in 20 countries." (the cite for this? DxE's own youtube video), and "DxE hosts an annual Animal Liberation Conference (ALC) for grassroots, peaceful animal rights activists. The ALC is a full week of talks, trainings, and socials all aimed at empowering activists.20 (That cite is from this piece, which I think is WP:QS by the fact that their about page pitches plant-based news as something more akin to a lifestyle blog, and the piece itself in any case comes from a member of DxE promoting the conference. Does that by itself make the conference notable? I don't think so. There are a few other examples of this kind of sourcing that you can find if you look into it, but when I went through this article the first time, I really was focused more on the low-hanging fruit, and it's only grown since then.

I also think there is a small debate to be had on whether we 1) need to know about every chicken, pig, or aardvark that they have exculpated, (are each notable? I haven't gone through every single one of them, but given some of the article's reliance on primary sources and WP:QS, I bet a deeper look might say otherwise) 2) need to know each of their names and why they are named that way, and 3) if we should begin to organize this article a different way, since you can on a skim reading see that many sections start to just go into the same type of summary of recent actions DxE has taken. It almost reads as though different members or sympathizers of the organization will just take a different part of the article and just start writing into the latest thing that happened, but I don't want to accuse anybody of anything. I added a couple minor and uncontroversial edits that should be pretty straightforward to emphasize my points with other examples in the article of the issues I'm describing. After that, I'm holding off for a little bit since it seems since I was gone there was another edit war here, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes in the article itself until I get a better picture as to why the vandal IP edits and tags didn't also prompt a major clean-up of the article, since as the saying goes "A blind squirrel still can still find my nuts every once in a great while." Otherwise I'll just keep editing away from least potentially controversial changes to most potentially controversial ones. Rejewskifan (talk) 01:15, 11 November 2020 (UTC) .

Thanks for contributing, particularly for specific examples. I think the "network" sentence is fine; an organization is a reliable source for claims about its own activities. If there is reason to doubt them, such as other reliable sources that contest those claims, then we should present both sides. Regarding the "conference," I don't think it needs to be WP:Notable in order to have this sort of coverage in the article. It would only need notability if the conference had its own article. So we should just be thinking about the WP:Weight we give to different parts of the article. If there were 9 paragraphs about the conference, and 1 paragraph about their protests, that wouldn't look right to me.

1-2): I have the same view on notability. If a rescue is an important part of DxE's activities, then it seems appropriate to include it. Otherwise not. On 3), I think the current set-up of the article in terms of section headings matches the norm for WP:ORGZ. A lot of content on WP looks like "take a different part of the article and just start writing into the latest thing that happened." I don't personally think that's a problem as long as the sections are readable and informative.

I think you should feel free to WP:Be Bold. It seems like you're coming into this with a reasonable point of view, and I can try to help check your edits. My biggest worry here is just that if too much information is cut from the article, but as long as you're just rewording and reorganizing, I don't foresee much disagreement between us. Thanks! Jmill1806 (talk) 19:28, 22 November 2020 (UTC)