Talk:Ekos Research Associates

Proposed Deletion

I have proposed this article for deletion.

As noted in the in-article proposal text, the original creator of the page has an explicit conflict of interest, as noted on their user page. The article struggles with WP:RS, WP:SPAM and WP:NOT using business promotional language and its only sources from the company website itself. The business the article is about lacks significance in third-party, reliable sources. The article itself is fruit of a poisoned COI tree.

I assume good faith and am happy to discuss others thoughts. Balancingakt (talk) 04:38, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I created this article in 2005, a full year before I began working for EKOS as a telephone interviewer (you can check by User page history to confirm this, as I added my employment there at 2006) when I was only 19 years old. So, I did not have a conflict of interest at the time. I have made a few edits of the article while employed at EKOS, but nothing much since I've had a senior position with the firm (mostly just reverting vandalism). Anyway EKOS is one of the country's leading pollsters, and is obviously notable - but I will refrain from improving the article due to my conflict of interest.-- Earl Andrew - talk 13:20, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for responding and being forthcoming with that background.

Nothing is "obviously notable" especially if you lack perspective as someone with a relationship to the business and/or its ownership. That's why WP:COI is so crucially important and we rely on external sources and objective facts. The facts are that Ekos lacks significance in third-party sources. The article's content now and from the beginning reads as a brochure for the services Ekos offers and an extension of the business' own website. As it stands, the article is problematically promotional and lacks any reliable sources.

You are a substantial, long-time contributor to the Wikipedia mission and the knowledge, truth, and public good it stands for. I thank you for that and hope you appreciate that Wikipedia aspires to be more than simply a promotional directory for private businesses.

I propose the fairest solution is for the article to be deleted and, if Ekos is indeed notable, someone without conflict of interest will recreate the page. Balancingakt (talk) 19:07, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. As I said, the article was created at a time when I had no conflict of interest. If there's a problem with the article, why not improve it? Sources do exist. I certainly won't stand in your way! -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:31, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Frankly the improvement is to remove all existing content as it is sourced from the business' own website(s) (i.e. not a reliable source) and its informational value is to promote the services of the business. I find no significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (i.e. it does not meet notability as per WP:SIGCOV). Additionally the article should be excluded as Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion (see WP:PROMOTION).

Your openness is appreciated. I am concerned you still do not recognize the issue here. As it stands, you are in conflict now and much of the content you added to the article was written when you were in direct, material conflict as an employee. I still wonder why one would write such a promotional, unsourced article in the first place if they were not looking to gain employment or perhaps had a pre-existing relationship with ownership, other employees, or the business otherwise.

Please abide by WP:COI and let this process play out. And be well. Balancingakt (talk) 20:56, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Since it was so long ago, I can only speculate on the reasons why I created the article, but it was not to gain employment, and I had no relationship with anyone senior at the organization at the time. I was taking political science at Carleton at the time, and I was creating a lot of articles on the subject of Canadian politics. When the article was created, it merely explained what EKOS was, and was a very small stub of an article. It was the wild west of Wikipedia at the time, lots of articles were created without proper sourcing. My first job at EKOS was as a phone interviewer; how was creating this article going to matter for that? Anyway, I do recognize the issue here, which is why I have refrained from fixing up this article at present. Since I became an analyst in 2012 (promoted from the call centre), the only edits I have made to this article have been to add a category, add the logo (is this promotion?), and to revert vandalism. All fairly trivial edits. I do wonder about your own neutrality, as almost all of your recent edits have been related to EKOS and Frank Graves. Do you have anything to disclose yourself? As for WP:SIGCOV, there plenty of EKOS poll results published by the media. -- Earl Andrew - talk 11:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

As my user page notes, I am focused on a project to bring improved rigor and evidence to Wikipedia's representations of the bias of major media outlets in Canada. My intention is to have greater evidence-based discussion to be able to hold all media outlets to public account. As my history shows, I have added content to numerous Canadian media-related pages across the political spectrum. I was taken aback by the baldly promotional nature and unsourced/unreliable sourcing on Frank Graves' and Ekos' pages. Both have strong evidence of conflicts of interest, with contributors adding content that only a close relationship or colleague would be aware of without any attribution whatsoever. I am working to fix that in line with clear, existing Wikipedia policy.

Reposting of Ekos' poll results, a product of the company, are not "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Further they do not provide information on the company itself. Wikipedia is not a directory for private company publications and promotional material. Please acquaint yourself with WP:SIGCOV and the test for notability. Balancingakt (talk) 01:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Noting here, Earl Andrew, that you edited my rationale for proposed deletion to remove reference to your conflict of interest. That is wildly inappropriate and I have reverted the edit. Your repeated disregard for WP:COI, despite repeated good faith warnings, is very concerning.

Understand that you are in direct, material conflict as an employee of Ekos and you need to refrain from directly involving yourself in edits to the article, including the proposed deletion. The media has several times drawn attention to companies that engage in COI editing on Wikipedia (see Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia), which has led to embarrassment for the organizations concerned. Balancingakt (talk) 16:34, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

COI tag (October 2023)

Original creator of the page has an explicit conflict of interest as an employee of the company, as noted on their user page. ~Kvng (talk) 19:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for weighing in. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:37, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Kvng

I see you removed the proposal for deletion of the Ekos Research Associates article. Are you able to elaborate on why you removed that proposal?

You noted in your edit summary that: "numerous incoming links indicate potential importance". What does that mean?

In addition to the declared employee conflict of interest involved, the article has no reliable third-party sources outside of the business' own website. Its informational value is to promote the services and sites of the business (conflicting with WP:PROMOTION). Also I find no significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (i.e. it does not meet notability as per WP:SIGCOV). As I understand it, that is a sufficient basis for this article to be deleted.

Unless you undo your removal, this goes to the AfD process as PROD is a one-time possibility. Clarity on why you removed the proposal would be appreciated as it will come up in the AfD process. Balancingakt (talk) 19:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

PRODs can be removed if there is an objection. It says so right in the template.-- Earl Andrew - talk 19:58, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy to participate at AfD if someone nominates it. "numerous incoming links indicate potential importance" just means other Wikipedia articles are referring to this one making it of some importance to other Wikipedia editors which just means it is more likely there reliable sources that could be used to establish notability and so it should not be deleted without the research and discussion that happens at AfD. ~Kvng (talk) 14:37, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

@Kvng@Earl AndrewI have nominated the page for AfD. Please see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ekos_Research_Associates. Balancingakt (talk) 01:10, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Earl Andrew Edit Disagreements

On 13 November 2023 I edited the page to clean out content that violates WP:Verifiability as well as WP:Promotional, WP:Logos, and WP:COI.

Noting here for the record that Earl Andrew has reverted my edit three times in the 24 hours from 14:24, 13 November 2023 to 13:32, 14 November 2023.

Earl's direct edits are in violation of WP:COI, as they have self-identified as an employee of Ekos Research Associates and they have been warned multiple times here and on their talk page. Earl continued to revert, claiming my removal was vandalism, without providing any evidence or explanation. Earl has an increasingly lengthy record of disruptive and uncivil behaviour on this page.

Given the persistent display of bad faith, a level 2 warning for disruptive editing has been noted on Earl Andrew's talk page.

@Earl Andrew please abide by WP:COI and WP:DISRUPTIVE. Propose changes on the talk page instead of making them directly. Balancingakt (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@Balancingakt, I don't understand your edits. In what way is the business address promotional or unverifiable? If you think including the logo is promotional (I don't see it but am willing to be convinced), please start a discussion here on whether it should be included and try to form a consensus. Neither the logo nor the address are issues worth edit-warring over. Schazjmd (talk) 00:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I also don't see anything promotional about including the company's logo in the infobox. Most articles on companies include an infobox logo; just picking some examples off the top of my head, their articles all have logos: Google, Nestle, Toyota, Alesis, Fidelity Investments, Blick Art Materials, Orchard Supply Hardware, Kroger. CodeTalker (talk) 01:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:Logos states: "Avoid using a logo in any way that creates an impression that the purpose of its inclusion is to promote something. Generally, logos should be used only when the logo is reasonably familiar or when the logo itself is of interest for design or artistic reasons." Ekos Research Associates' logo is not reasonably familiar to the general public, unlike the major companies you listed. An employee of the company being the one to select and add the logo, as Earl Andrew is, adds further worry that the purpose of its inclusion is for advertisement/promotional reason. The infobox images show up on blurbs when the company's name is run through google, for instance. Balancingakt (talk) 06:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I just did a Google search for Ekos Research Associates, and saw both the logo and headquarters photograph. Removing them from this article will not remove them from Google, so I don't why you brought that up. LinkedIn has both the logo and headquarters photo, and Crunchbase had the logo, along with a bunch of other non-notable websites, so Google doesn't give a rats ass if this article has them or not, when they can easily be found elsewhere. And I also noticed that both LinkedIn and Crunchbase have logos in their infoboxes, along with thousands and thousands of other companies with WP articles. Inclusion of the logo and headquarters photo is non-controversial and should be included, and in regards to the specific issue of the logo and photo, your concerns with COI are overstated, in my view. Isaidnoway (talk) 🍁 09:13, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

And I also wanted to point out the criticism in the second paragraph about Maclean's analysis of polling, apparently Macleans noted in their article - (However, to be fair: EKOS has only published three federal polls since January 2017), but it seems like we don't want to be fair and include that disclaimer about Ekos. Isaidnoway (talk) 🍁 09:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Post-protection discussion

The article has been full-protected until 17 November. Balancingakt has been partially blocked from AN/I as a result of a section that they started there about Earl Andrew. I believe the general view at the noticeboard is that they have been editing on an assumption of bad faith. But that does not mean the entirety of their criticisms of the article were wrong. As they said, this version, which I believe was the last before they began editing it, was referenced only to the company's About page (for the president). Balancingakt has both stripped material out of the article—including the logo, an image of company HQ, and the president's name. I disagree with these removals, and others have expressed disagreement both in the section above and at AN/I with the basis on which they were done. But Balancingakt has also begun to expand the article, using this source: Philippe J. Fournier (May 20, 2019). "How accurate are Canadian polls?". Macleans.. Their use of that source may not be NPOV, if only in the emphasis that paragraph now has in the shortened article. But in my opinion the article should indeed be expanded. Kvng reinstated the president using one of four sources provided by Earl Andrew at the AfD (started by Balancingakt, closed as keep in large part because of the weight of sources that were shown there to exist): Michael Valpy (June 17, 2011). "A pollster's painful reckoning: 'How could I have screwed up so badly?'". The Globe and Mail.. (The source needs to be fully identified in the article.) The other 3 sources listed by Earl Andrew are in a "Refideas" template above, but for anyone looking only at this section, they are: Globe and Mail, Callegaro et al, and HillTimes. Earl Andrew has restated that because of his COI, he prefers not to edit the article directly. I advocate the restoration of all material removed by Balancingakt and the use of these 3 sources and any others that can be found to re-expand it. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:52, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I've blocked Balancingakt so I'd rather err on the side of WP:INVOLVED and not edit the article directly, but agree with your suggestions and the above thread that says the current version of the article (as I write) is not neutral. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:01, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I also saw that revision of the article you linked to, and I didn't find it overly promotional or puffery/peacocky, yes, it had sourcing issues, but that can be rectified, this source from Bloomberg, verifies when the company was founded, and what they do, and honestly, it is not controversial (or promotional) to say they conduct "public opinion research", since that is what they are primarily known for doing. As far as the logo goes, I don't agree with Balancingakt's argument for excluding it. They state up above that: "Ekos Research Associates' logo is not reasonably familiar to the general public". I looked through some old newspapers at Newspapers.com, and I found the earliest use of that same logo in 1985, so considering they have been using that same exact logo for the past 38 years, I would argue it is reasonably familiar to the general public. And the headquarters photo is in the public domain, so it can be freely used if there is consensus to do so. Isaidnoway (talk) 🍁 14:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Isaidnoway, I entirely agree. However, as I noted at AN/I, WP:LOGOS appears to be in conflict with itself. The introduction states: The encyclopedic rationale for including a logo is similar to the rationale for including portraits of a famous actor: most users feel that portraits provide valuable information about the person that is difficult to describe solely with text. Logos should be regarded as portraits for a given entity. (and that I believe reflects our practice; as more than one person noted in that AN/I discussion, we habitually include logos, usually in the infobox, and as I noted, they constitute a substantial class of fair use uploads). However, the Advertising section of the page, which Balancingakt has been quoting, reads in its entirety: Avoid using a logo in any way that creates an impression that the purpose of its inclusion is to promote something. Generally, logos should be used only when the logo is reasonably familiar or when the logo itself is of interest for design or artistic reasons. Both of these were added to the page at the same time, in 2004. But I don't believe the Advertising section reflects practice or is desirable as policy. Once we establish that a topic is notable, our task is to write an informative page about it. While everything in that page (such as a person's birth or death dates, or a company's president/CEO or logo) should be verifiable, not everything in the page has to be provably notable. IMO someone with nerves of steel should rewrite that section to be about fancrufty piling up of special forms or old forms of logos or something. Dpbsmith, what did you have in mind with the Advertising section? Yngvadottir (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I have no COI with Ekos, so I'm going to add both the logo and photo back, and be responsible for that edit. Looking at the comments here and at ANI, there is a general consensus they are permitted per P&G. Will also add info from Bloomberg, and we can discuss other content issues to get a better understanding of how to move forward. Isaidnoway (talk) 🍁 10:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I also think the major contributor tag can be removed since it has been cleaned up to comply with Wikipedia's content policies. Isaidnoway (talk) 🍁 11:23, 18 November 2023 (UTC)