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Ideological bias on Wikipedia

withdrawn, restated below Jytdog (talk) 20:54, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We generally think about COI with respect to external interests -- things outside of WP.

COI considerations get pretty house of mirrors crazy, pretty fast, with respect to this kind of navel-gazing page in WP, where it would seem that people who are here to advocate one ideology or another (or to downplay what they see as overemphasis on some ideology in WP) have an "interest" in how this page depicts "ideological bias" in WP.

The line between considerations of COI per se, and considerations of WP:ADVOCACY, are pretty much obliterated.

It is rather dismally forseeable that claims of "COI" will be tossed about on this page, now that the community has been through a deletion discussion and there was no consensus to keep it or delete it (AfD discussion), and this page will itself be cited in the context of content disputes.

Claims of "COI" have already been thrown around with respect to this page, as for example in this Section at Guy's page by User:Netoholic, repeated at ANI in this diff (thread (permalink as it is now).

(The source under dispute between Netoholic and Guy, was a paper published in a legit journal (doi:10.1177/0894439317715434), in which Australian academic Brian Martin analyzed the editing of Brian Martin (yes, the page about him in WP) and, and for example, described edits to that page by Guy and characterized them as "biased". Brian Martin characterizes criticism of anti-vax pseudoscience as "suppression of dissent" (source, source). The COI there is mindspinning, as is the question of how any editor - especially one who has a dispute with Guy, might want to deploy that paper. Like I said house of mirrors crazy)

I have no idea how to even begin thinking in any kind of valid, rigorous way to consider COI management in Wikipedia with respect to this page. (COI is not a terrible thing, it just should be disclosed and managed).

So - I am posting here for thoughts, in the hopes some principles could be established now at least with regard to:

  • is there any valid discussion to be had about "conflict of interest" on this page, and if so
  • what criteria would we use to say that "X has a COI with respect to this page"?

-- Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Because it is far broader than that, as it says, if you read it. Please see your talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
No, you're narrowing it to a single article. JzG has been making mass removal of Brian Martin references as a personal project since at least May 25th when he discovered this study was part of the article. This was raised at other articles like Talk:Reliability of Wikipedia#Does editor have COI?. Here is a rough set of links showing the mass removal: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. I don't even care if he's right to remove any of that - the point is that he shouldn't exactly because the potential WP:BLPCOI throws doubt in the air and causes drama like this very COIN report. -- Netoholic @ 20:25, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
1: It's not a study. It's a rant about how all these oother people who aren't antivaxers have much nicer articles, and it's not fair boo hoo. 2: I have known about the article since it was written. 3: You "forgot" to mention that you have inserted references to this article despite being in a content dispute with me. COI, much? 4: You also "forgot" to mention that consensus was against including it. 5: BLPCOI refers to editing biographies to further a dispute. This is the exact opposite. Martin decided to take umbrage because I edited his article, not the other way round. None of the other articles are biographies. Guy (Help!) 20:54, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
I had NO dispute with you - content or otherwise - and I wrote that article before you and I ever interacted (at least in recent memory). If you have diffs as proof, post something from BEFORE May 22 when I wrote the article or stop repeating this accusation. -- Netoholic @ 20:55, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • As noted elsewhere recently, if we declared a COI every time a disgruntled individual took a pop at a named Wikipedia editor off-wiki, we would be giving carte blanche to crackpots to unilaterally decide who can edit articles. Sources should be assessed on their merits and per WP:RS and WP:PRIMARY. Bias is universal, the only way Wikipedia maintains WP:NPOV is by using reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject under discussion - inclusion of Martin fails both in each case I found. By mentioning Martin you make the wider topic pretty close to impossible to discuss, as you'll see from Netoholic's response here. With the ongoing dispute, we can't discuss the other type of COI either, where editors create an article apparently in order to try to prove a point they are advancing in another dispute. All we can say at this point is that the result of Netoholic's attempts to write an article about how Wikipedia is ideologically biased, has resulted in a short but reasonably well sourced article essentially proving the opposite. So it goes. Guy (Help!) 20:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RAW artists

The article has been edited by HLuerra - possibly Heidi Luerra the CEO of RAW, Conflict of interest. The article is written in a promotional tone. Lucymarie23 (talk) 04:23, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

California bios and movies

Seeking second opinion on possibility connected editor/s, WP:MEAT and socking likelihood. The group of articles here looks very walled garden-ish. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Devilishdoll and Weathervane13 have enough article overlap and similarities that I think they could be the same editor. This edit by Weathervane13 has a summary that indicates a switch "...to an italic (Worship Your Devil Dolls)..." indicating what they italicized in parenthesis. Compare to this edit summary by Devilishdoll, "added citation and italics (Goth Girl)" where they have done the same exact thing. Here's another one from Devilishdoll, "...changed to italics (From Bach to Broadway)". Both editors are using bare urls for refs and both are attempting to sign with four tildes in their edit summaries. A check shows that they geolocate to the same city and one is using a desktop/laptop while the other is using a phone.  Possible.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Since I opened this report, both editors have !voted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Karen Jessica Evans so MEAT or SOCK is now a question with tangible repercussions ☆ Bri (talk) 01:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Upwork account

I found the Upwork profile of a freelancer who landed more than 330 Wikipedia-related jobs (not sure I can display the link publicly). The names of his clients appear on only a handful of jobs but when such is the case, the date of the job is coherent with the creation/editing of those pages:

This editor always follow the same process: 1) A handful of small edits, sometimes none; 2) A sandbox; 3) Article in main, without displaying the paid editing.

Also suspected through indirect evidence (accounts this Upwork freelancer used on the French Wikipedia, accounts used to follow up on pages he had created):

I had created Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gatongakinsella yesterday. Un historien (talk) 15:27, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation was unconclusive, so there is only the Upwork profile linking those pages and accounts. Un historien (talk) 20:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
@Un historien: Can you send me the link please? Special:EmailUser/Smartse. If it is as you say, and combined with the inconclusive CU, then they've almost certainly been blocked before and I'll G5 the articles. SmartSE (talk) 12:20, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
@Smartse: I never even mentioned the word "inconclusive" in my findings. Quite the opposite: I said the accounts were Red X Unrelated.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Done. Since I wrote the message he set his profile to private and I was not careful enough to take screenshots. Lesson learned for next time. Un historien (talk) 12:58, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. That's obviously Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mamadoutadioukone so G5ing. SmartSE (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Uhm thanks I feel stupid for not having found that page. I don't master EN.WIKIPEDIA very well yet.
Should I try to merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gatongakinsella into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mamadoutadioukone ? I asked a checkuser about it. Un historien (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

@Un historien: Could you help me understand the background on French Wikipedia better? Let's take one editor, Acumenmeister for example. I don't see editing on other wikis under this name. In fact fr.wiki says "Le compte utilisateur « R Acumenmeister » n'est pas enregistré". Maybe I misunderstood your intent. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Bri,
Checking again it seems that my sentence about French Wikipedia doesn't make sense (I must have deleted what I had found): the suspicions for those 4 pages where through follow-ups and duck test:
FYI, here are the 4 pages I was able to track to that Upwork user on FR.WP:
Un historien (talk) 13:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Highstakes00 is back

Or someone else who works the same. SPI pending. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

That is second time in as many months that I have seen that Kaufman article. scope_creep (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Bbarmadillo

Bbarmadillo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been contributing since November 2014. On 25 September 2017, Bri caught him making undisclosed paid edit through his Upwork account; Bbarmadillo claimed his good faith, and started listing his paid edits on his user page on 26 September—Rentier, DGG and Nagle said it was OK. Bbarmadillo then acted as a model paid editor. On 11-12 March 2018, he was involved in a tensed debate after accusing a user of harrassing him; he was criticized by some users, defended by others. After that event, Bbarmadillo only disclosed one other COI, on 14 April 2018. On 4 June 2018, he has thus disclosed a total of 14 paid edits.

Meanwhile, his Upwork page lists 60 jobs. In April, he got around 10 jobs with "Wikipedia" in their description, or names like "post text", "update article", "create Company Page", "polish an article", etc. Since May though, the jobs he landed seem different; all are private, and Wikipedia is now nowhere to be seen: "Consultation" (×3), "Expert Writer", "Experienced Editor & Copy Writer", "Content expert", "Write PR content", etc. So, has Bbarmadillo completely stopped Wikipedia paid editing? Well, his catchphrase on Upwork remains "Wikipedia editor and consultant".

One of those new jobs is particularly interesting: "Write PR content". Bbarmadillo got it along with an "article spell check" job in May 2018. As can be seen here, both those jobs were the only jobs created after February 2018 by Georg Kraus, a German entrepreneur with a history in paid cross-wiki spamming as show his first 5 Upwork assignements:

  1. "Wikipedia Spanish" in February 2016 > Spanish page created 2/29/2016
  2. "Wikipedia Professional" in February 2016 > Ukrainian page created on 3/1/2016
  3. "Wikipedia Professional" in March 2016 > Russian page created on 3/2/2016]
  4. "Wikipedia French" on 1 March 2016 > French page created on 3/6/2016.
  5. "Wikipedia Professional" in April 2016 > Japanese page created on 4/19/2016

On 11 May 2018, the page Georg Kraus appeared on the English Wikipedia, created by Blwninja (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). As Kraus paid the Upwork accound linked to Bbarmadillo to create his page, I strongly suspect Blwninja and Bbarmadillo to be the same person.

Also, Blwninja was a dormant account. The only time it had been used, on 3 May 2015, was to create another suspicious page: Aric Rindfleisch. That page has since then been periodically updated by mono-accounts, among them Nohemimimi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Franciscopinheir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Kimnmai2803 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and, on 24 March 2018, Almarifah1982 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

Un historien (talk) 13:47, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

interesting.Looking:)~ Winged BladesGodric 14:51, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
I attended a presentation of Mr Aric Rindfleisch at University of Minho in Portugal.[7] That's when i found is Wikipedia page and contributed adding is picture. Best regards ~ Franciscopinheir 15:00, 4 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.83.71.243 (talk)
Looking back at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_120#Patrick_Sweeney_(entrepreneur), I looked at four of his articles, and suggested proposed deletion on one, AfD on one, and heavy cleanup on one. One of the four, Carl Fredrick Becker, about a deceased violin repair expert. looked OK.John Nagle (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

GraceComms

GraceComms has exclusively edited the Ellansé draft. Ellansé is a biomedical product produced by Sinclair Pharma.[1] There is a company in London named Grace Communications which claims to represent Sinclair Pharma.[2] If there's any doubt that this article is being created specifically as a paid contribution, the present version includes the statement "[client to confirm]" regarding the "External links" section. I have tried on several occasions to get this user to add the required paid contributions disclosure, to no avail. I believe administrative action should now be taken. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:03, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Ellansé". Sinclair Pharma. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
  2. ^ "Grace Communications".

Simona Weinglass

Just a note for all of the folks who spent time working on Binary options and associated articles. Times of Israel’s Weinglass wins reporting honor for binary options exposé reports that Simona was awarded honorable mention in 2018 international Trace Prize for Investigative Reporting presented at the Newseum in DC. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This article is being edited extensively by a communications staffer of the organization. I left messages informing this user of our COI policies and guidelines in both March and May, but the user never responded. The user is back today with more organization-promoting content. What's the next step in a situation like this, when a COI editor has been warned but has chosen not to respond? Marquardtika (talk) 22:08, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Scour the article and remove any promotional/poorly-sourced material. I have left a {{uw-paid1}} warning, as he is required to disclose paid edits per WP:PAID. If that is ignored, then escalated sanctions can be imposed. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
He has now made a disclosure on his userpage. Still going over the finer points of what constitutes a paid editor with him. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 13:59, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

NY Medical Marketing and Yempl

SEO/medical marketing outfits

several of these sites say, ([https://web.archive.org/web/20180426105953/http://www.brooklyngynplace.com/ example]) "Copyright Brooklyn GYN Place, Website & SEO by NYMM, Yempl Team"

users
spammed sites
affected pages
other spammed sites found along the way

I checked all the links above and didn't find any more.

I went and checked who the clients of nymedicalmarketing and yempl are, using a backlink finder. Other clients:

I found one instance and removed it. Seems like just those accounts. Will bring them to SPI so we have that thread started there. Am wondering if we should blacklist the spammed sites and their other clients' sites. Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

There was this old native advertising sockfarm (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Boskit190) that also dabbled in these links. Blacklisted everything. MER-C 19:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! Jytdog (talk) 19:26, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Recordyear

I became aware of Recordyear when they posted a request to my talk page for assistance with their subpages. By subpages, they appear to mean draft pages in user space, which are subpages of their user page. I tried asking what their questions were and got a vague answer. I expressed concerns about the promotional tone of Mom&Tot Box, and about the tone and grammatical person of RPA Engineering. I asked about conflict of interest, and got an answer that they are not being paid. However, the continuing presence of the first person plural, even after being questioned, even with the admission that all of the subpages are far from complete, makes me doubt that reassurance. I know that Kris Degioia has an “interesting” history with Wikipedia, but I note that that draft also has a promotional tone. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:04, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Important background at Krisdegioia SPI and Waffen77 SPI ☆ Bri (talk) 22:38, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Stuff here from blacklist ☆ Bri (talk) 23:01, 4 June 2018 (UTC)


How is not haraasment to me? I’m finishing up my masters degree at UCLA. I DONT KNOW THESE PEOPLE. I’ll just do a simple copy and paste from my original response, as this is Ludacris as Ludicrous name itself. what am am I supposed to do about this? I don’t know the protocol. I’m being accused of a conflict of interest and being paid for articles by a person I asked for help about sub pages with? If I was being paid for writing an article wouldn’t it be well written articles? Not questionable ones? It’s pretty much common sense here. While researching for my thesis I found more technology companies that deserve to be on here, that are not, then I can count. I started by looking at the biggest companies with robotics. Did some digging and found out there was a lot more interesting things about these firms. I thought if I could learn the platform and EVENTUALLY over time put all the pieces together for an article then it was a win, win for me. I do believe that the fact the the person that does their marketing is on Wikipedia’s hall of shame is tha very fact as to why I’m having to waste time on even writing out this accusation. I didn’t hire Degioia for my marketing. I Had never heard of her until I looked into these robotics companies. She was linked to 12 out of 15 companies, so yes I also made base articles, never once did I state I was going to publish any of them. Leave me out of this which hunt and let me finish what I came here for, or don’t. I will not be apart of ridiculous accusations, I’m simply doing my finial thesis for my masters degree. I don’t know what this person has against me but again it’s clear the only mistake I made was asking the wrong person for help. Stop harassing me and accusing me and MOVE ON. Recordyear 23:08, 4 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Recordyear (talk • contribs)

It is not clear to me who is said to be harassing whom, or why. I became aware of Recordyear when they asked me for help with "subpages". I had assumed that they were a native user of English. If so, I would have expected that they would know that the RPA Engineering draft is written in the first person plural, which either means that Recordyear does know these people and is one of them, or that Recordyear has been given a draft by RPA that was written by RPA, or, if Recordyear really doesn't know RPA, that Recordyear simply copied language from RPA's brochure or website. I don't know anything about Mom&Tot Box, except that their draft reads promotionally. I don't know much about Kris Degioia and haven't studied the history. I do know the first person plural in English when I see it. Just saying that the RPA draft is incomplete and not ready for article space doesn't explain why it is in the first person plural. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:10, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Personal attack from Recordyear directed at opening party

It is more then apparent what you are attempting to do, or you are just blind and do not know how to read responses. You are lying. I did respond to you in depth. I will copy and past again a different response to you. “I’m not a writer, I am a programmer. Writing is not my strong suit. I’m using Wikipedia as my theisis. While conducting research for my thesis, I was using Wikipedia for it. I learned that Wikipedia is made by everyone, and Wikipedia also helps new people. It has been stated in many articles that you do not need to be an experienced Wikipedian to create an article. I’m trying to learn this platform, learn from the people that have been around on here, just like it states all over the World Wide Web. I’m sorry my writing doesn’t meet your standards or makes you assume something totally off base. This wasn’t about how I wrote articles it was finding more about the platform. I did not assume that by asking what would seem a basic question would cause such criticism and ridiculous accusations. Thanks for your time, and thanks for the non help at the very topic I asked you on. I now have more then what I need and I don’t require your help. My only mistake here is picking the wrong person for help. Recordyear 5:43 pm, Yesterday (UTC−5)” so stop lying and leave me alone. I have more important things to do with my time to have to deal with someone on an ego trip. Get a life dude and leave me out of your lame, stupid DRAMA. Recordyear 00:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Recordyear (talk • contribs)

  • well RecordYear has been blocked for 5 days for PAs which was... generous. Noting that...
the website for RPA was designed by.. Kris Degioia.
the CEO of Mom&Tot Box is... Kris Kegioia.
Kris Degioia LLC is.. well i don't need to say that.
Havent't found a connection yet with Accuray, but those three, hm. The protests ring hollow to me. Jytdog (talk) 01:42, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
User:Jytdog - Well, it was 60 hours, which is half of five days. Newbie paid editors often make hollow unconvincing protests about who they are and how they are only editing what interests them and so on. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
yes you are right, 2.5 days. brainfart for me sorry.Jytdog (talk) 17:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Need a couple of examples of UPE operations, preferably shameless

I've been asked by a reporter for a couple of good examples of UPE operations we've rooted out, ideally ones where the parent organization was advertising off-Wiki for their services. Suggestions? Orange Mike | Talk 00:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Orangemike: It's very rare that we make any conclusive links between real-world identities and UPE sockfarms. There's a long list of users identified through SPIs here. Earflaps was one of the more shameless editors IMO and unlike the majority of UPE was almost certainly US-based. SmartSE (talk) 10:02, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Oh and there's WP:PAIDLIST. Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Morning277 was, presumably still is, a bad one. SmartSE (talk) 21:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SirEdimon

Another native advertising sockfarm, see User talk:SirEdimon/Archives/ 1#April 2018.

The football bios and films should be OK. What's really concerning here is the promotion of initial coin offerings, but fortunately I can use WP:GS/Crypto to summarily delete these. MER-C 09:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Ken Layne

Recently I posted a request at Talk:Ken Layne seeking an uninvolved editor to review a new draft of the article I've prepared on a paid COI basis for Mr. Layne. I've pinged a few editors who had previously made content-based edits to the article (including the individual who had approved the original version at AfC, which is very similar to the live one) and also at WT:BIO, but I have been unsuccessful finding anyone to comment. Per the advice of WP:COIEDIT, I thought to try here next. There's more explanation on the talk page about the situation, including a link to a draft showing how I used all of the sources in the new version. Would someone here be willing to give this a look? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 04:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Following up just to say, this has now been addressed. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:17, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Mar11 reviews

I've just revoked the page reviewer right from Mar11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as I suspect that they are being paid to review UPE or are a sockmaster. I suspect it might be Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mamadoutadioukone/Archive but can't be sure yet. We already have a case open for them and I can't see any links to those articles. Here are some of the affected articles, but there will be more in Special:Log/Mar11:

SmartSE (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2018 (UTC)


Looking at the timings on handful of articles, this is a sockfarm rather than someone being paid to review UPE. We have reviews being carried out one minute after page creation, which points towards socking rather than a reviewer being paid off. SPI would be a good next step. jcc (tea and biscuits) 23:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I've asked for some of the more recent one's to be CUd already (privately), prior to noticing the connection to Mar11. We may as well wait and see what that turns up first. SmartSE (talk) 23:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Apologies, didn't see this comment until too late, but I created a SPI here: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mar11 going up to 90 days- is that the magic number after which data goes stale? I can't remember. jcc (tea and biscuits) 23:34, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
No worries. Just noticed the CU I asked is busy atm anyway so we may as well start there. And yes 90 days. SmartSE (talk) 23:39, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Something about this case is very strange. Why are US static IPs involved at Otsimo for instance [8][9]? I guess we'll know more when the CU does their stuff. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:51, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I've moved a number of the articles listed above to the draftspace (where I will be watching them), as this normally takes care of SPAs. From what I have seen so far, the articles in question all follow a succinct pattern. First, the SPA joins the project and adds a random template to generate their talk page, then creates a new article (complete and well formatted, but missing some small details like categories) with a single edit. Soon after, Mar11 arrives and tags the article with maintenance templates. Per Special:Log/Mar11, Mar11 was drawn to a select few new articles, the majority of which were created by the SPAs they are linked to; this is very suspicious given the layout of the new page log, which encourages reviewers to review multiple articles in succession. Finally, the SPA would fix the article, and Mar11 or another SPA would remove the article's maintenance tags. Through this process, Mar11 was able to create decent-quality, reviewed articles that were only ever edited extensively by himself and a particular SPA; due to their status as a new page reviewer, Mar11's 'reviewed' marks made it much less likely for more stringent new page patrollers to ever have to opportunity to review the SPA-created articles, effectively cloistering them and allowing for Mar11 to edit without interruption. Should the allegations of them being a sockmaster prove true (I am of the opinion that they are, but waiting for the SPI to conclude is advisable), then Mar11 has been leading a successful native advertising campaign on Wikipedia and his work should be judged accordingly.--SamHolt6 (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I've added some more but only so far back as 10 Feb this year. @Jcc and SamHolt6: It's my fault for not saying, but in cases like this it's best not to note the patterns of editing in public unless it's completely necessary. There are plenty of private discussions going which you're welcome to join if you drop me an email. SmartSE (talk) 13:00, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I quarantined all the pages created by the confirmed socks, with the exception of Payment21 which I deleted under the authority of WP:GS/Crypto. I also added one article accepted from AFC. MER-C 15:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I've left a notification of this discussion at WT:NPP/R#Sock-puppetry and possible undisclosed paid editing by a new page reviewer. – Joe (talk) 15:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
We should also look at his AfC submissions/reviews, though there's not many:
– Joe (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I think the list above is complete now. SmartSE (talk) 21:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Here's a comment on the quality of Mar11's AfC creations since they are listed above. Rajiv Kumar (economist) looks fine. The Brian Tracy article seems promotional but might have to be reviewed in detail to see if he's notable. The Application strings manager article looks to me like a made-up concept that isn't really sourced from the indicated sources. E.g. reference 4 does not contain the words 'string' or 'strings'. EdJohnston (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Ideological bias on Wikipedia 2

We generally think about COI with respect to external interests -- things outside of WP.

COI considerations get pretty house of mirrors crazy, pretty fast, with respect to this kind of navel-gazing page in WP, where it would seem that people who are here to advocate one ideology or another (or to downplay what they see as overemphasis on some ideology in WP) have an "interest" in how this page depicts "ideological bias" in WP.

The line between considerations of COI per se, and considerations of WP:ADVOCACY, are pretty much obliterated.

It is rather dismally forseeable that claims of "COI" will be tossed about on this page, now that the community has been through a deletion discussion and there was no consensus to keep it or delete it (AfD discussion), and this page will itself be cited in the context of content disputes.

I have no idea how to even begin thinking in any kind of valid, rigorous way to consider COI management in Wikipedia with respect to this page. (COI is not a terrible thing, it just should be disclosed and managed).

So - I am posting here for thoughts, in the hopes some principles could be established now at least with regard to:

  • is there any valid discussion to be had about "conflict of interest" on this page, and if so
  • what criteria would we use to say that "X has a COI with respect to this page"?

-- Jytdog (talk) 20:54, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

  • Either every single Wikipedian has a COI in respect to all articles on criticism of Wikipedia, or none do. If someone's trying to include their Brand New Study funded by the Heartland Institute showing that Wikipedia is anti-American, that would undoubtedly be a COI, but nobody's doing that. The closest we have right now is writing an article to show how biased Wikipedia is when your edits are rejected. That's WP:POINT, not WP:COI. Guy (Help!) 20:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I kind of agree. I have thought about this a lot, and I cannot figure out a valid way to think about COI on these kind of navel-gazing pages, with the exception of the kind of SELFCITE issue you mention there. But I wanted to put this up for discussion. The community should obtain clarity on this. Jytdog (talk) 20:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Why do we need clarity on this? Dmcq (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
I saw the mention of this at ANI, which is what brought me here. I also was active in the AfD discussion and am active at some other pages involving the same editors, so I have a feel for what is going on. I don't see much relationship to COI in this, and instead see it much more as an NPOV issue. To put it another way, if an editor is pushing an agenda but there is no obvious evidence of getting a benefit from doing so, aside from the potential benefit of getting their agenda into articles, then it's going to be hard to convince the community that there is a COI, but treating it as POV-pushing is the best way to deal with it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • It is a Catch-22 to say that only people without a COI can edit an article about Wikipedia, and anyone who edits an article about Wikipedia has a COI. So in a general sense, it is moot whether or not every editor has a COI in regard to articles about Wikipedia, as that would be unworkable. In regard to individual editors, if you are a significant editor on a topic that is being criticised in such an article, then you have more of a COI than others in regard to that topic, and that should be kept in mind (for example, if such an article discussed the criticism about Wikipedia's coverage of the Gamergate controversy, key editors of that article would have a COI, but possibly not a significant one and not one regarding Wikipedia in general). If it goes further, and articles critical of an individual editor's activities are published, then that editor has a clear COI in regard to that issue (or at least those articles), but would still be the same as other editors in regard to Wikipedia in general. - Bilby (talk) 08:51, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I think we're better leaving COI as a more definite thing and NPOV is the problem to be dealt with here. People do get attached to things and many Wikipedia editors just don't like something which might be construed as a criticism of their work. Might I suggest in such a case they try renaming the topic so they can distance themselves a bit from it. For instance here one can think of the topic as 'Ideological bias on Topilos' and just substitute Topilos for Wikipedia whenever they see it. It is a simple trick but works well. Dmcq (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Restating jytdog's question: "should Ideological bias on Wikipedia be in the purview of COIN"? If it is, then other things like Wikipedia#Systemic bias are as well. By the way isn't it odd that such an important topic, and probably a superset topic, systemic bias, only rates a few paragraphs in another article but ideological bias has its own? Anyway, this could snowball quickly. My knee-jerk reaction is to say that a wider forum is probably appropriate for questions that touch on the entire community. But I'm waiting for other opinions to develop and be expressed here. Bri.public (talk) 00:36, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Reviewing the prior discussions some more, I'm with Tryptofish: this looks like a NPOV issue for someone deeply involved in the topic. In other words, an editor on the record as strongly anti-ideological-bias-editing has a POV to watch out for, not a conflict. Am more convinced now that it's not somewhere for COIN to go. Bri.public (talk) 00:47, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I'll leave this open a day or so more, but I don't expect any thing much different to arise, than what has been said already. The emerging consensus is that disputes on other pages about politics or ideologu does not constitute any kind of "COI" for this page but is rather an NPOV thing. This is sensible. Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Cuty Pie Sweetu

In January 2018 I have filed an COI-case. The discussion solved nothing and no reply to this case ever came from Cuty Pie Sweetu, nor here, nor on her(?) user page or talk page. The only thing that changed was that now she sometimes add related sources to her talk page as explanation and claimed them to be valid sources.

I am afraid that she also falls foul of WP:CIR, with edits like this. With more than 500 edits on her name, it should be expected that the editor masters the art of adding sources.

She still only edits articles related to the three companies mentioned in the lead. There is still no disclosures of any COI from Cuty Pie Sweetu, although her editing makes clear that there is a COI.

This goes on and on, without any sign of improvement or useful response. The Banner talk 12:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Corey Parker (actor)

I blocked Coreyparker11 pending identity confirmation via OTRS, and added autobiography and BLP sources templates to the page, only for Ohayo65 to pop up and remove them. Some more eyes on the article content would be welcome. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:59, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

It is WP:TNT case, it is utterly rank. I removed some heavy puff for the lede, but more could come out. It is a webhost case. The guy is notable, Ive heard the name, but the article has never been good. I doubt there will be disclosure; It could a fan(s) job. Well see. scope_creep (talk)

I want to update Public-Private Alliance Foundation

Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation.

I want to update Public-Private Alliance Foundation, which is very badly out of date. I am the board secretary. I would update most aspects.

Jinkastillman (talk) 23:35, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Here is what I would do. I believe it is factual.

Proposed content

Public-Private Alliance Foundation Formation 2006 Type NGO Legal status 501(c)(3) nonprofit Location New York President/CEO David Stillman, PhD Website http://www.ppafoundation.org

Summary The Public-Private Alliance Foundation (PPAF), a non-profit organization based in New York, promotes the United Nations Global Goals and a business approach for poverty alleviation through projects and seminars involving multi-stakeholder cooperation. PPAF currently engages in work on renewable energy, public health and entrepreneurship. As a special focus PPAF is building evidence to increase impact of innovations for clean cooking in Haiti. PPAF and collaborating organizations are conducting research & development activities to improve lives and livelihoods, especially for women and girls, through solar, biogas and ethanol fuel and cook stoves and related small business. The concern is to help families exit the poverty-respiratory disease-deforestation trap of heavy dependence on charcoal for daily cooking. Operations Overview Established with support from United Nations ambassadors from Madagascar, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, PPAF has conducted development activities in each country and convenes seminars at the United Nations and elsewhere to bring attention to energy and climate change, sustainable development, and gender and public health issues. PPAF conducts research, acts as a voice for clean cooking and women’s empowerment, and takes steps toward commercialization of low-cost cookstoves and fuels. Support to PPAF comes from international organizations and from individuals, community groups and businesses. Since the 2010 earthquake PPAF has focused on the need for improved cooking methods in Haiti. Research and development on fuels and stoves includes ethanol (from Haitian sugarcane), solar ovens (from abundant sunshine), and biogas (from kitchen and other waste) for cooking and biodigester effluent for garden fertilizer. In 2012 PPAF worked with the U.S. representative of a Swedish ethanol stove to test them with a group of women. In 2013 the Inter-American Development Bank engaged PPAF on possibilities for local distilleries to make ethanol fuel. In 2015 PPAF conducted a project for the UN Environment Program working with a local manufacturer to design and test an affordable ethanol cookstove. In 2016 PPAF provided advisory services for upgrading small-scale distilleries. Beginning in 2017 PPAF is now working with collaborators on biogas & solar cooking at several sites. In keeping with its name, PPAF collaborates with other organizations to implement, monitor and advocate for affordable non-polluting cookstoves and fuels, growing from or advancing their separate efforts. Settings include a network of girls' clubs, several women-owned small-scale businesses, a Haitian university, an elementary school and a USA-based agricultural training center. The efforts engage local groups, document innovations, assess challenges and successes, publicize results and promote expansion. Beyond this PPAF has participated in Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves deliberations for an action plan to transform the cookstoves and fuels market in Haiti. Also it has publicized the prize-winning documentary “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” on the ruinous clandestine trade in charcoal between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Seminars Convened

PPAF has convened seminars at United Nations Headquarters and elsewhere since its establishment in 2007. In recent years these include the following:

In March 2018 PPAF and the United Nations Association of the USA, Southern New York Division (UNA-SNY) co-sponsored the seminar “Clean Cooking for Sustainable Development” as a side event to the 62nd annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). It was held at the United Nations Foundation (UNF) in New York.

In March 2017 PPAF and the UNA-SNY co-sponsored the seminar "Girls, Women, Clean Energy and Entrepreneurship, in Haiti and Elsewhere." It was a side event to the 61st Session of the CSW and held at the UNF in New York. In May 2017 the PPAF Executive Director spoke about the work of PPAF at the United Nations High-level Event on Public-Private Partnerships, held at UN Headquarters.

In June 2016 PPAF senior fellows with support from New York Medical College and Rutgers University School of Public Health held the seminar “Our Health, Our Environment.” This was under the auspices of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) START series (Skills and Technology Advancing Rapid Transformation), and held at UN Headquarters.

In March 2015 PPAF and UNA-SNY co-sponsored the seminar “Women and Innovative Approaches for Clean Energy Solutions” as a side event to the 59th session of the CSW. It was held at the UNF in New York. Also that March PPAF and UNA-SNY co-sponsored the seminar “Challenging Gender-based Discrimination across the Life Cycle: The Evolution and Revolution of the Beijing Agenda” as a side event to the CSW, and held at the UNF in New York.

In March 2014 PPAF was invited as the first Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to organize a briefing session jointly with the UN Department of Public Information (DPI)/NGO Section. It was a side event to the 58th session of the CSW and was entitled “Putting it Together: Bioenergy, Clean Cookstoves and Sustainable Development.” In August of that year PPAF led the seminar “Energy and Climate Action: Essential Tools for the Post-2015 Development Agenda” as part of the 65th DPI/NGO Annual Conference. Co-sponsors were UNA-SNY, the UNA-USA national office, the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development and the Batey Relief Alliance. Communications PPAF communications efforts are accomplished mainly through its website, its newsletter, of which copies are also filed on its website, through social media, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and through the convening of seminars. In September 2017 PPAF was featured in the Solar Cookers International newsletter, and in December 2016 PPAF was the “Partner Spotlight” in the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves newsletter. See below for the links. Leadership PPAF is led by a volunteer board of four women and three men, including the Executive Director. It relies on volunteers for nearly all its work. All board members have had extensive international experience and several speak several languages. They include an attorney working in international trade finance transactions; the former Ambassador from Madagascar to the United Nations; a nutrition and food science practitioner with an MBA and extensive experience with multinational corporations and with training women and girls in entrepreneurship; a public health and economic development specialist; a public health specialist and former career officer with USAID and the State Department; and a consultant in international public health with experience in non-governmental organizations, universities and international organizations. PPAF relies on its Senior Fellows (six men and four women), Interns (over 60 in the past ten years, from many countries, cultures and ethnicities), and Volunteers (eight women and five men) in its work. Board members, Senior Fellows and Volunteers are selected according to their special technical or experiential backgrounds, as needed. See the About Us section of the PPAF website. Associations PPAF has consultative status with the UN Economic & Social Council, is associated with the UN Department of Public Information, and is a member of the UN Global Compact, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the Global Gender & Climate Alliance, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials and the UN Association of the USA and its Council of Organizations. It participates in two technical associations, namely Solar Cookers International and Solar CITIES Biogas Innoventors and Practitioners. As seen on its website, PPAF has a Guidestar gold seal for 2018, is top rated by Great Non-Profits, and has published its latest (2016-2017) commitment of engagement to the UN Global Compact. References http://www.ppafoundation.org https://www.facebook.com/PublicPrivateAllianceFoundation/ https://www.guidestar.org/profile/71-1016293 https://greatnonprofits.org/whitelabel/reviews/public-private-alliance-foundation https://view.publitas.com/solar-cookers-international/digest-vol-20-2017/page/3 http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/12-26-2016-partner-spotlight-public-private-alliance-foundation.html https://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/un-event-focuses-on-advanced-biofuels-development-in-dominican-republic-way-to-fight-poverty/

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinkastillman (talk • contribs)

@Jinkastillman: Do not edit the article directly. Suggest changes on the article's talk page. These changes need to cite independent professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources as much as possible -- with footnotes instead of just shoving all the references at the end so we don't know what reference supports what statement. We're not a PR firm for organizations we have articles on. Material needs to be phrased such that even people who don't like the subject can agree with the article. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:56, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
@Jinkastillman: To expand on what Ian has said, Wikipedia tends to work incrementally. It's best to request specific edits of the form "change X to Y" rather than replacement of large blocks of text. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:45, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Everette Taylor

Was alerted by a re-creation of Everette Taylor, which had a CSD A7 speedy deletion on 6 August 2017. All of these 7 articles were started by this editor and look like paid editing. User has been warned about COI/paid editing on 7 June and again today. Edwardx (talk) 13:06, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I similarly came across this account through some filter logs; definitely paid editing given the diverse range of subjects. I didn't notice that they ignored my enquiry, given the last article was created after my message I think we're in block territory at least until they reply to the message. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:54, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, jcc. Just noticed that you had some discussion about Everette Taylor with User:Alex Shih in October last year, User_talk:Alex_Shih/Archive/2017-3#Talk:Everette_Taylor. Paid editing looks like the only plausible possibility. Edwardx (talk) 21:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Edwardx jcc You know what, forget that the user hasn't edited since warning; this is obviously undisclosed paid editing, so I have gone ahead and blocked the account indefinitely; all of these pages should be tagged accordingly. Both Yicai Global and Everette Taylor are connected to UPE rings, so I will try to look deeper into it. Alex Shih (talk) 02:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Alex Shih. I have tagged them all with UPE, and will look into whether we should be deleting any or all of them. Please try to find the time to dig deeper! Edwardx (talk) 15:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Dominic Lam (physician)

I'm not sure if this is the right venue, so if there are other more appropriate places, feel free to point me to them. This article was created by Cigarettesmoking in 2010. This editor later said here that much of the information was provided by the subject himself and not verifiable. The IP editor then turned it into a puff piece at the request of the subject here. Most recently Polyduo has been editing the article. After being asked multiple times, Polyduo has stated here that they have no connection to Lam, however the uploading of multiple personal photos as Polyduo's own work raised questions for me that have still not been untangled. I have gone through the article today and it was full of all kinds of unverifiable claims, including to awards that do not seem to exist, however there are multiple sources online making the same claims, all of which seem to trace back to the subject himself. There were questions raised on the talk page back in 2011 as to whether this is some kind of elaborate off-wiki hoax. Can someone else take a look and maybe suggest how best to proceed here? Melcous (talk) 12:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Melcous, Polyduo is intentionally abusing multiple accounts, so I have blocked them accordingly. The notability of the subject can be dealt with at AfD. Thank you for your work on this. Alex Shih (talk) 16:48, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design

There's some obvious conflict of interest issues with this article. I've reverted some blatantly promotional recent additions, but it looks like the entire history of the article is written by connected contributors and it could probably use a complete rewrite (maybe WP:TNT even applies). -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:35, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Alantuck11113 and Emmetmaclellan442

Upon patrolling recent changes I came across these two new editors Emmetmaclellan442 (talk · contribs) and Alantuck11113 (talk · contribs) who are editing pages in which they clearly have a conflict of interest (check out this edit for example). These two editors are editing the same article, Catherine MacLellan and Al Tuck within minutes of each other and they seem to be ex or current-husbands of this BLP. I have dropped a COI template on each of their talk pages which they seem to be ignoring. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 01:31, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Woohi

Recently a project was posted on freelancer.com which required the creation of an article on Johnnytaylor, an obscure comedian. A freelancer accepted the projected and created the article. I nominated the article for deletion and notified them of COI and paid editing guidelines. However, despite these instructions they accepted another project from freealncer.com for $250 and have created another page contrary to the guidelines. 2Joules (talk) 11:24, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeffed. MER-C 12:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Could somebody check Bitcoin

Please be aware of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies and the 1RR rule there. BTW bitcoin appears to be crashing, see e.g. Financial Times That crypto-crash in full from 2 days ago - prices are now much lower. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Applied ECP indefinitely. MER-C 18:03, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, MER-C. I was thinking about this earlier. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Black Scar Blues

Draft:Black Scar Blues is pending a deletion discussion at MFD, but the real issue is an undisclosed but obvious interest, in that the author is an actor and an owner in this movie. The movie may be notable, although the drafts don't establish notability, but the real issue is COI. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:48, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

    • I disagree that the draft doesn't establish notability, indeed I would !vote "keep" at AfD. "The real issue is an undisclosed but obvious interest, in that the author is an actor and an owner in this movie" indeed. It is a fairly extreme case of ignoring or ignorance of WP:COI, but is plausible. The user only edits a single page, never uses any talk page, and may have never read his usertalk page, and may even be unaware of it. I am interested in knowing what the community thinks, and I believe that the community is not in a single mind on these questions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
    • The account was created years ago (Created on 5 August 2015 at 15:14), and appears to have been renamed. Are there deleted contributions? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:13, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

IndiaSpend.com

These are articles are not notable one of them is for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IndiaSpend.com 122.174.38.251 (talk) 10:42, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Celestica

Repeated addition of text that strikes me as promotional (although the worst of it wasn't readded, which is progress). I'd appreciate someone with more COI expertise taking a look at this and possibly opening a discussion with the user in question, who I strongly suspect has a conflict of interest here. I've made a quick post on the article's talk page, but not sure that will be sufficient to get the ball rolling toward disclosure. COI editing on the article looks to have been taking place intermittently for a long time now. /wiae /tlk 14:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

The username indicates that it might be Celestica's Communications Manager. I also note that "448" forms part of Celestica's corporate telephone numbering system (i.e. +1 416-448-xxxx). So I'd say that it is pretty likely to be an employee. Shritwod (talk) 07:51, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
That was my thinking as well. Hopefully the user will engage in discussion here. /wiae /tlk 11:45, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Ankitkmwt and Lom Harsh

As stated here and here, Ankitkmwt has a self-admitted conflict of interest, allegedly being a member of the production team for Yeh Hai India. The editor has remade the page Lom Harsh 5 times as far as I can tell, despite being warned many times not to create promotional edits on their talk page. Lom Harsh was deleted three times via speedy deletion (and again), once via AfD, and is now once again nominated for deletion here. Because the editor has admitted their COI but refused to stop creating promotional pages related to said COI, I would suggest sanctions against the editor, up to and including an indef block. Thanks, Nanophosis (talk) 18:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Bernie44

Advertisement Article created in mainspace by correctly-disclosed paid editor. It's a puff-piece for the owner of Juice Generation – which is another puff-piece by the same paid editor. I redirected it to that page, and did so again after that was reverted. Bernie44 seems incapable of understanding that he is strongly discouraged from editing in mainspace, and that discouragement often takes the form of reversion or removal of the COI edits. What other forms of discouragement are available to us here? – I'm certainly not going to edit-war over it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers, blocked for advertising. As per my comments above, disclosure is not exemption from following WP:NOTSPAM. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:35, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, I saw – and I agree. I've no idea why we tolerate paid editing at all, but there's a world of difference between a paid editor who makes appropriate talk-page requests (OK, I know that's pretty rare!) and one who just carries on as if the guidelines didn't apply to him at all. Thanks for the prompt response, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I concur. While paid editing is allowed, paid editors should not be given undue leeway by volunteer editors. For example, I have twice had to move the article at Ryan Cohen back to the draftspace after Bernie44 moved it to the main article space in the face of the WP:PAID requirement that editors with a conflict of interest submit their articles through AfC. I left a note ([10]) on Bernie's talkpage requesting he send his article through AfC, and yet they chose to themselves move the article back to the mainspace anyway. Looking through their archive, Bernie44 has been a fairly productive and cooperative paid editor since 2012, but they have been made aware of paid editing policy multiple times, and were explicitly directed to WP:PAID at User_talk:Bernie44/Archive_4#Paid_editing_in_Wikipedia; with this being put forward, I support Bernie's block as they have been shown to lack the competency to follow paid editing policy.--SamHolt6 (talk) 20:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I've received (via email) a courteous and complete apology from Bernie44 for his actions at Eric Helms – thank you for that, Bernie! However, I've also started looking at some other edits by this user, and am not much reassured by what I see; there may be a good deal of clean-up to be done. What I've noticed so far:
  • Paid articles created directly in mainspace with appropriate disclosure but in direct violation of our guidelines, such as DTV Shredder – how many of these are there, and what should be done about them?
  • blatant undisclosed paid editing, for example at Ben Gulak (one of the owners of the above shredder, and thus one of those who paid Bernie to promote it here), or at Chewy (company), owned by Draft:Ryan Cohen whose biography Bernie was paid to write
  • pages that seem likely to be UPE, such as Diane Tuft – complete with Flickr-washed image (note: that's a different project, but I'm particularly perturbed by the idea that it could ever be "easier" to steal someone's intellectual property, and make Wikimedia a party to that theft, rather than go through the proper process)
I'm inclined to think that a systematic review of all his edits may be needed. Any thoughts on that? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Bernie44 pages

disclosed paid editing that need review and check for talk page tags

Bernie44 disclosed additional pages not listed on their userpage:

In addition, the following ~look like~ paid editing but are not their userpage nor in that list:

--That's all for now. I am out of time. The pages disclosed on their user page also need to be reviewed, as he has been editing those directly. Big load of work. Jytdog (talk) 23:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Godrestsinreason

indeffed and banned via boomerang at ANI here Jytdog (talk) 21:27, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

has shown up as you can see in their contribs. The account appeared just as Bernie44's edits were starting to be contested, as this account has concentrated on two paid products of Bernie44, Chewy and the founder of Chewy, Draft:Ryan Cohen where Godrestsinreason contested speedy deletion of Ryan Cohen before it was draftifed. They also argued for unblocking Bernie44. I asked Godrestsinreason to disclose any connection to Bernie44 and they said I have no connection to Bernie. I started the account to talk about things I know about. Chewy, the company, Steven Universe, and the WWE..... At their talk page, I asked them to disclose any connection they have to Chewy, and they gave nonspecific answers. diff, diff, diff. There is some vanishingly small chance that this person is not connected to Bernie44 or to Chewy, but since the discussion is going no where I am posting here. I have also filed at SPI. Jytdog (talk) 20:20, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I've offered proof multiple times, and have attempted to ward off baseless attacks and accusations from this user, as well as a bogus edit war warning on my talk page when my reverts to the page don't merit it. I've made sparse edits to Wikipedia in general, and have only come across the user Bernie44 in order to make adjustments to the Chewy page. I'm not sure what information is needed of me, but at this point, I've been dragged into this user's personal vendetta against another user, as well as what appears to be paid editing in general, all simply because I happened to be around the Chewy page, and contested what I believe to be an overly harsh edit blocking of another user. Everything I know about Wikipedia is that you can create pages and make edits as needed to a page, so long as the information is relevant and properly sourced. I saw a 7-year contributor to the website be permanently blocked over a single revert by this user, who is now also attempting to drag me through the mud, also for a single edit. This user has acted in bad faith, made baseless attacks, made accusations of COI/sockpuppeting, and is all-in-all not behaving in a way that's constructive to the continuation of this encyclopedia. I'm still brand new, and all of this is very overwhelming, but I don't know where to contest talk page warnings, nor do I know where to settle disputes in regard to what I feel are bogus warnings on my talk page. This is a huge red flag on my brand new account which I would like removed as I feel they're inappropriate, and I feel that this user should be reprimanded for wasting time on this. As for this section, what information needs to be provided in order to have my name cleared? Godrestsinreason (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
  • If this all helps, I'm a low-level employee of the company, making edits on my personal time, and have only added information to the article using publicly available information before getting dragged into someone else's dispute. I'll cease making edits to Chewy all together. I didn't realize this was an issue. Godrestsinreason (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Biografix and American civil servants and political appointees

Biografix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I suspect that this user is engaged in undeclared paid editing on articles of primarily Republican/US conservative bureaucrats, civil servants, and political apointees that can be described in my view as the DC-D-list. Most of them aren't notable and are mid-level administrators, but you have several that could be notable in there as well. The articles are written in a promotional tone and show signs of undeclared paid editing. The name of the account also suggests it is here to "fix" biographies for these figures. Listing the articles here. I suggest a block of this account for spamming in violation of local policy, but want to get thoughts of others first. The list of articles is here.

Review of the articles and thoughts on a block would be appreciated. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I just reviewed their talk page and contribs, and don't see where they have been asked or have replied. Some paid editors come to WP and just don'tknow about the PAID policy and COI management process. I will post on their talk page to ask them. In the meantime yes the pages should be reverted reviewed for their compliance with the content policies. Thanks for bringing this! Jytdog (talk) 17:08, 8 June 2018 (UTC) (bad mistake, fingers. fix your clumsy mistake Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 8 June 2018 (UTC))
My concern is less with UPE than with advertising and promotion of what amounts to a bunch of relatively minor administrative figures. The deceleration is important, yes, but it is not an end in itself: the purpose is to help identify problematic content, which is what we have here. In most cases, it doesn’t factor into my decision to block or not: most blocks should be handled through the local policy on advertising and promotion, which I’m fairly confident they are in repeated violation of. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I hear you. Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Given their response in no way is adequate to explain things such as this being their first edit I've gone ahead and blocked. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:27, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Revunami -- nonprofit spam mostly

It's a thing, per the NYT.

  • Per the Revunami blog: "Wikipedia Analysis, Strategy, Content Creation, and Monitoring – Wikipedia is consistently in the top results for the vast majority of Google searches. Revunami leverages this visibility to your organization’s advantage, ensuring your messaging reaches key audiences and advances your organization, its brand, and its people. We help you influence opinion and establish your organization as a trustworthy and authoritative source on the topics that are important to you and your mission."
editors (all appear to be one person)
articles - nonprofits
articles - more typical UPE stuff

All edits are spammy/sourced to the organizations' websites or press releases, and promotional like crazy. Couple of key diffs:

  • disclosing employee of JDRF at that time (Apr 2008)
  • diff and diff from Nov 2009, about deletions related to PDF. This is when Gnusworthy was created.
  • here, doing the typical paid editor thing of trying to get tags removed.

-- Jytdog (talk) 07:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC) (redacted date, added Sesame Stick, re-ordered proposed socks in time Jytdog (talk) 14:00, 15 June 2018 (UTC))

Per my research, the editor in question probably was a "social media manager"/"content strategist" for multiple orgs, including JDRF. Pretty clearly an UPE rather than simply an employee of one organization, especially given all their subsequent edits. Voceditenore (talk) 09:21, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Jytdog, you should add Sesame Stick (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (active Nov 2009 to May 2014) to the list. In addition to their edits here to JDRF and creating Parkinson's Disease Foundation [11], see File:Miguel Forbes 10-14.JPG. It was uploaded by Sesame Stick and added 2 days later by Gnusworthy to Miguel R. Forbes [12], which in turn was created by... er... Rmlewinson. This request for a name change is very indicative. I wonder if what we have here are two or three employees of the same digital marketing company specialising in non-profits [13] at different times rather than one editor with several socks. Hard to tell. Note also that Rmlewinson was active from Feb 2012 to Aug 2017 [14], not from Feb 2007 as stated above. Voceditenore (talk) 10:07, 15 June 2018 (UTC) Expanded by Voceditenore (talk) 11:21, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for looking at this. I agree with all of that and have added Sesame Stick and fixed the date. Jytdog (talk) 14:00, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Ah the last diff of Sesame Stick was asking for a username change from "GF Revunami" to Sesame Stick. So, see Revunami, a digital marketing and SEO firm for nonprofits. Have fixed the header. This is all clearly UPE now as they changed the disclosure via username, and it was all direct paid editing. Will go through and fix tags on articles Jytdog (talk) 14:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Ross Porter (Canadian broadcaster)

User:Jazzidiot seems to either be the subject of the page, or be closely connected to the subject. This has been noted as early as 2015 on the page's Talk section. As an example, they recently made alterations to information taken directly from a reliable national newspaper (the newspaper said the subject was accused of sexual harassment by "over a dozen" employees. But User:Jazzidiot changed this to "three" without citation.)

142.216.128.5 (talk) 16:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Mossy Oak

Could somebody else have a look at this? My earlier attempt at POV correction was reverted with summary "restored spam" [15]. I don't feel like continuing with the other party. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I've had my own go over it and added some maintenance templates as well as warning the SPA about potential COI ... we will see. Melcous (talk) 04:13, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Great cleanup, thanks Melcous and JJMC89. I'm going to leave a note on the talkpage about a couple of additional items regarding sponsorships/"official product" deals. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:04, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Adding Toxey Haas to this case; some of the same editors are very active there. It has signs of promotionalism including "has been mentioned in" type stuff indicated in WP:Identifying PR and at least one award from an entity he is connected with, which has now been deleted. However many more citations to his own companies remain and I am moving on to other things right now. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:48, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

CareKit

I noticed this conversation. Most of the articles Gupta has written have been deleted for being NN with a tendency to be ad-like, so only two remain. There's no required disclosure and you might interpret his statements to be a clever non-denial. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:15, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Hm, here is Anna's question "are you paid" and here is the editor's reply, on a different talkpage for some reason, and not a clear yes/no, at least to me. The reply appears to be about their editing on App store optimization to which they added a link to a "wisitech.com" blog. I've added the article to the list above. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:53, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Let me answer that question for him: yes. Indeffed. MER-C 10:14, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

First haul of ACPERM evaders

We have a sockfarm already: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Brown and Orange 12. MER-C 14:57, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

CU uncovered the following additional pages:
MER-C 11:14, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Is any of this G11 eligible? I'm thinking specifically of Draft:Alexander Galitsky. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Nah.....Even our most non-conservative sysops would decline a G11 on this:) ~ Winged BladesGodric 09:54, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Second haul:

Most of these are up for deletion, which is good news. MER-C 15:42, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

And now for the list of articles moved straight from user/draft space, with some screening to remove obviously genuine articles. Many of these are obviously native advertising. MER-C 19:29, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

All: what's the process if one finds an article that appears to have circumvented ACPERM? Convene (company), specifically. Do we just keep listing them here? ☆ Bri (talk) 14:12, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I think we should wrap up this section -- I'll start another one the next time I run the tools. But yeah, all these pages need scrutiny here, especially for sockpuppets. I get the feeling the article you've presented is a sock creation... might be worth a CU if you can remember which of the numerous sock masters has this behavior. MER-C 14:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately it looks like it could be one of many English-as-a-first-language operators who use throwaway accounts. Found it randomly on new page patrol. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:13, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Wanderift

Username appears to be a shortening of aricles founder, "Zachary Burau". Additionally, the page is written with some amount of puffery. Deletion discussion is ongoing here. Xevus11 (talk) 19:07, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Calm and its executives

Calm pages
editors
executive
editors for those pages

-- Jytdog (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Nathanl01444

(non-admin closure) This entire thread (including the retaliatory follow-up report by a new user) is going nowhere quickly. Being an admin does not give additional authority to make closes like this. All of this should be at the talk page for the relevant articles, WP:NPOV/N, or possibly WP:ANI at this point if the unnecessary bickering and attacks continue. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:47, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nathanl01444 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This new editor seems to only edit article associated with Fox News. Some of their edits are fine, but other are indicative of a strong COI, for example this edit to The Ingraham Angle or this one to Hannity ("Fortunately for Hannity, many advertisers have silently put their advertisements back on the show."). - MrX 🖋 16:09, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

This editor does have a COI of Sahuarita Unified School District, per this edit summary. Unclear if is an employee there or a third-party PR agent. DMacks (talk) 15:00, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Mr. X

NPOV issue, not a COI issue. Not a matter for this board. Jytdog (talk) 16:22, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This editor has a partisan mission to change conservative figures/shows into his agenda. For example, he has had warnings with making changes to Kyle Kashuv and has made many changes to the Ingraham Angle following the controversial comments made and has been reverted many times. In regards to my changes, these are factual, if you've watched the channel, you would've seen these differences. - Nathanl01444 Datestamp: 16:32, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

The last sentence demonstrates that the filer is here to use WP:OR and apparently WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. See filer's history for evidence that they are here as a COI agent (not yet certain the range of clients). This filing seems to be at least in part retaliation for where MrX filed a COIN against Nathanl01444 half an hour previously. DMacks (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
It's still not a COI issue, and is devolving into a personal attack. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I see no particular reason that this non-admin "close" of this section is appropriate when other sections of this noticeboard are closed only when the account is either banned or declares/handles their COI, but more often are left open indefinitely. Nathanl01444's opening of this may be in part retaliatory, but the same could be said of MrX WP:BITING a newbie by posting here. MrX does seem to involve himself heavily lately in topics of political interest, and it might warrant at least some uninvolved editors to investigate the claim that there could be a COI. His timecard displays a very rigid schedule, his top mainspace and article talk edits are within activist/political areas, and he seems to participate heavily in project dispute/admin noticeboards as a result. Page creations might be worth a look for recent overt activist COI. KODAKCoin may be promotional. -- Netoholic @ 19:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

With what organization or entity do I supposedly have a conflict of interest? Don't bother trying to answer that. It's obvious that this is some grudge-motivated posting because of my edits at Ideological bias on Wikipedia that Netoholic objects to. Netoholic I'm not going to tolerate any more of this. I let this go, but next time you cast aspersions like this, I will seek sanctions against you at WP:AE.- MrX 🖋 19:50, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A second non-admin closure, this time by Tryptofish is clearly WP:POINTy, disruptive retribution for a separate conflict (see WP:BLPN#Neil Gross).

@MrX: I don't know if there is, that's why I think this should stay open so uninvolved editors can take a look. Its no more "aspersions" than you cast against the newbie account with no evidence on June 13th. -- Netoholic @ 20:18, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Netoholic cant we get you to stop the combative behaviour voluntarily or is a topic ban the best way forward? So many problems all over need to stop.--Moxy (talk) 20:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
Its not combative to echo a voice of concern and ask for independent input. If this COI investigation truly ends up in nothing, that'd be fine too. The out-of-process closures, the threats of bans, etc. are what is combative.-- Netoholic @ 20:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

JUST, Inc. and founder Joshua Tetrick

pages
editors

Unclear to me if Just Mayo should be its own page. Jytdog (talk) 21:22, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

It is a single food. How many food products, individual food products are there, in the billions, probably. I dont think it is wise for WP to be a directory for food products. scope_creep (talk) 21:40, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Emily Jane Fox

The recently-created Emily Jane Fox article has been edited by User:Emilyjanefox. Should someone confirm her identify, add a connected contributor template, or post a user talk page note re: user names in case this is not really Emily Jane Fox? ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:21, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Another Believer. I've left a note about the issue on her talk page with links to guidance pages. I don't blame her for removing that highly inappropriate edit by the IP. I have a feeling this article is going to be a constant target both pro- and anti-trump trolls. I'll also put it on watch, but it may eventually need semi-protection. Voceditenore (talk) 18:01, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:01, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Anubha Sourya and User:Srdsom

User indef'ed, a separate sock pool found and blocked, all articles by the original editor triaged. DMacks (talk) 03:30, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note the statement in the draft talk page, " Page must be published as soon as possible." In Wikipedia there is no deadline, but there are often deadlines for paid editors, and statements that acceptance of a draft is urgently required are a mark of undisclosed paid editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I have blocked the account indefinitely and deleted/salted the target article. Alex Shih (talk) 16:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

What to do with the other page creations? They all look like classic undisclosed paid editing to me. Nominated two for speedy. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:XxDalekcaanxx/sandbox, User:XxDalekcaanxx, and B Yellow

This editor has been promoting this non-notable band and using Wikipedia as a web host for it for two years now. An article was speedy-deleted, and a draft was already deleted via Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:XxDalekcaanxx/sandbox, but the sandbox is back, and is at MFD a second time. A block is in order. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Bitcoin Cash

This article has been subject before to much attention from people who keep track of COIN. There is a heating up of back and forth editing between these 2 users over the last couple of days. I haven't checked to see whether it technically meets the definition of an editwar or violates the 1RR restriction - that might take a lot of work to prove. But "back and forth editing" is obvious, as are some comments on the talk page.

I'll note that I've tried to clean up the article a bit, but haven't made an edit there in about 2 weeks. Similarly, @Jytdog: has edited there about a week ago, but I don't see any problem there. I'll inform Ladislav Mecir and Jtbobwaysf of this discussion. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:24, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know what to add here on COI other than note that Mecir is subject of this still open ANI Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive299#Next_cryptocurrency_topicban relating to actions on this particular Bitcoin Cash article. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Patrick Geoffrey Knight

As per User talk:Patrick Geoffrey Knight, an individual identifying themselves as the leader of the Canadian Economic Party has been making edits to the page "List of political parties in Ontario", updating the information on their own party. This appears to be a conflict of interest, as they are not editing the page from a neutral point of view. Thanks, HamOntPoliFiend (talk) 22:36, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I made him aware of WP:AFC and WP:ORG. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Moses Godia Shipi

After being asked about COI, the author has acknowledged that they are an employee of the subject's political committee. The required declarations have not been made. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Lingsa

Undisclosed paid editing, takes projects from freealnmcer.com and creates them onto mainspace using throwaway accounts. . 2Joules (talk) 08:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

IMO, clear-cut throwaway accounts need not be notified about COI-stuff.Block straight-away. ∯WBGconverse 12:43, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Indeffed. MER-C 19:46, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Tunego

Very suspicious advert article made in one-click with reference, formating and everything in order to deflect attention. The only article added in "See also" section was made by the same author one month earlier using similar modus operandi. He also only edited three distinct articles all his stay here. –Ammarpad (talk) 05:05, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I have disclosed my affiliation to tunego on my user:AzaleeMaslow page. (AzaleeMaslow (talk) 17:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC))

You have registered since 2016, that is 2 years ago. Why you have never disclosed that you were paid? until now that I suspected that and opened this thread? Maybe @TonyBallioni or Kudpung: can take a look. –Ammarpad (talk) 17:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Tis the season - for summer interns

Query - in my view somebody doing a paid or unpaid summer internship who is tasked to edit WP, is obligated to follow WP:PAID. If they are paid... well, they are paid, and even if they are not, the internship is a thing done for the resumé line (and of course the experience that the line signifies), and that is the compensation.

There is no doubt they have a COI; am just asking about PAID in particular. Jytdog (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Yup. The last line of Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure#Meaning of "employer, client, and affiliation": Interns are considered employees for this purpose. If they are directed or expected to edit Wikipedia as part of an internship, they must disclose. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Psy-Dream

The draft in question is about a variety of electronic music which it says was developed by Daviel (whose external link appears in the draft body). No declaration has been made, but the author is the developer, and the article is just a promotional brochure. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Digital marketing firm sockfarm

articles

CU-confirmed sockfarm, assessed UPE. From known articles, appears to be a PR firm representing authors, CEO, digital media entities. Active since ~2012. Really gross pushing of specific credit cards endorsed by The Points Guy. I'm thinking we should blacklist thepointsguy.com for starters. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay, from off-wiki evidence related to the social media account of one of the socks, plus another on-wiki breadcrumb trail which I won't elaborate on, this is definitely a group working for Red Ventures. Now it gets interesting because one of their subsids is Bankrate. That article is a trove of suspicious editing but this one stood out: Republic683, part of another sockfarm. According to the November 2014 SPI case, they seem to be highly active in U.S. politicians' biographies. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:39, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Langevin family

Paul-Eric Langevin (talk · contribs) is the son of Paul-Gilbert Langevin. He is creating and editing articles about his family members. — JJMC89 (T·C) 08:38, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

  • @JJMC89: I assume to contribute on some pages about my family members, because some of them played a role in a field or another, and even sometimes in scientific and political history. But however, a lot of my Wikipedia contributions are not at all linked to my family members. I created something like a hundred Wikipedia pages on French Wikipedia, and most of it is not about my family members. Only ten percents are. My purpose is to do some transmission considering the fact that the older generations are now passing away more and more. If English wikipedia considers it may represent conflicts of interest, I am sorry about it, but I try to stay as objective as possible, giving for each page a short biography, a short bibliography, references and links. I don't think it may represent conflicts of interest of any sort, especially about deceased personnalities and because there are no money questions related to this work. Paul-Eric Langevin (talk) 11:17, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
    • @Paul-Eric Langevin: A conflict of interest does not necessarily mean that you are being paid to edit; it means that you are connected to the subject matter in a way in which others might question your ability to maintain a neutral point of view and edit in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines. As I tried to explain to you on my user talk page, different language Wikipedias often have different policies and guidelines; this means that if you are going to edit English Wikipedia, you are going to have to comply with English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. English Wikipedia doesn't expressly prohibit COI editing, but it does highly discourage it. You should follow WP:COIADVICE and use the article talk page to propose any major revisions (any edits which are not WP:MINOR edits) to any of the articles about your family, etc. This will allow other editors to look at your proposals and ensure the content is sutiable for English Wikipedia. So, unless you are making some spelling corrections or formatting fixes, or removing serious WP:BLP violations from an article, you probably should avoid directly editing it and request help on the article's talk page instead. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
      • Paul-Eric Langevin, what Marchjuly said; while you are certainly contributing in good faith, it is difficult to stay objective editing on subjects you are closely connected to, which is why it is strongly discouraged. Please use the talk page instead. Alex Shih (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
        • @Marchjuly: My father's page, as the pages about other members of the family, may represent a conflict of interest (COI) in English wikipedia policy, because I am a family member, so the frames might be useful. But the frame on "general notoriety guideline" on my father's page is not, because he was a noted musicologist and a specialist about Anton Bruckner and Franz Schubert's works in France, as were his colleagues Harry Halbreich and Pierre Vidal (composer), and as Marc Vignal still is. You can ask for example Marc Vignal himself, or some other English or French musicologist. My advice is to keep the frames about COI active, but to suppress the one about "general notoriety guideline". If you don't look for the right informations and don't suppress it, you can do as you think might be the best, but no doubt it is a mistake. Kind regards, Paul-Eric Langevin (talk) 16:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Knotel

Author has been tendentiously resubmitting this draft to AFC, and it is now pending at MFD. Author has declined to answer whether there is a conflict of interest. The purpose of the draft is probably to promote a cryptocurrency. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Yet another sockfarm

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Donnie Juanito

I don't have the time to deal with this right now, but there are a few paid for articles that need the flamethrower and some promotional content that needs to be reverted. MER-C 08:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's all been deleted and reverted (mostly by User:The Mighty Glen) apart from maybe the partisan edits to various American politics articles (didn't check those too thoroughly). MER-C 19:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Some of these have magically reappeared, after being deleted between 4-7 months ago. scope_creep (talk) 08
48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Yener Koc

Not sure if this is the proper place to report this. I tagged Yener Koc's userpage for speedy deletion, for being promotional (of themselves) and misusing WP as a web host. The user has now added a COI template, and deleted the CSD template in the process. As I understand it, CSD templates cannot be removed by the page creator; should I just reinstate it? I would also appreciate some help from a more experienced editor in relaying to Yener Koc that WP is not a place for self-promotion. Thank you! –FlyingAce✈hello 19:56, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Prisoners' Advice Service

Apparent employee of the service, turning the article into a lengthy press release on its behalf. WP:SPA. The article badly needs paring; I've begun with the introduction. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 10:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Geofjarvis is currently blocked for edit warring, and has also been warned about numerous COI and copyright issues. I have trimmed the hospital article from some of the promotional content. Melcous (talk) 22:59, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Republic (crowdfunding platform)

Probable undisclosed paid editing. Draft is pending at MFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for posting User:Robert McClenon but it was disclosed here. The person has disclosed and put through AfC. They have been nonresponsive to reviewers hence the MfD but there is no bigger issue I think. Jytdog (talk) 03:16, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Large farm of query paid editors

Working on these two topics: Angelique Rockas and Internationalist Theatre. Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:27, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Russell A. Brown

editors
affected pages

More (very apparent) academic self-promotion. SPI filed. Oldest account nonresponsive here. Jytdog (talk) 21:03, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Philippe Parreno

The bio has been owned by apparent COI accounts for a long time--this is merely the most recent attempt to restore promotional content. I've taken this to the BLP noticeboard, and requested assistance with copyright violations, but gather that further steps are necessary now. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 12:58, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

A Soldier's Story (2015 film)

Self-admitted COI. Promoting an unreleased movie and adding unsourced content to an unrelated article. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 13:07, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Hannuri Law

Reporting for the record. No action needed at this time as the known socks have been blocked. We can expect that more attempts will be made. Since the draft title is create-protected, standard procedure for an AFC reviewer, which is to move a sandbox draft to draft space, will run into the salt block and alert a reviewer. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Recommend salting the title in article space also as protection against end run. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:46, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I'll be watching some variations of the title such as the obvious redlink Hannuri, and looking out for injected junk at Batterygate. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:03, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

David Michigan

Following up on User talk:Czar#Recreation of David Michigan at David Michigan (fitness trainer)

This article was previously created twice by a sockpuppet (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Raju Adhikari/Archive) and was recently recreated at another location to circumvent the page creation restrictions. A checkuser on my talk page says that the recent recreation is unrelated to the socks, but the current copy is promotional enough and the page's creation has closely coordinated with this Commons user's image uploads enough to cause concern. Any input? czar 03:19, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I would take no action after the user's disclosure here: ([17]). The user should answer on whether or not David Michigan has explicitly asked the user to create a page for him, and whether or not David Michigan has asked other people to create a page for him in the past. In any case, this article should probably be sent to AfD. Alex Shih (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Haven't heard back from the user. Article now at AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Michigan (2nd nomination) (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 17:10, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Another NPPer blocked for sockpuppetry and native advertising

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seokochin (though not a sock of this farm). The four most suspicious articles are above, but Caldwell Partners looks somewhat dodgy. The politician articles seem to be fine, but you have been warned. MER-C 14:42, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Editor Jakenicholson, possible promotional editing

While checking out a report of an alleged BLP violation, I came to the opinion that the subject Matthew Tye was not notable and nominated it for deletion, only to discover that it had been delete twice already. An examination of the edits of page creator Jakenicholson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indicates a very promotional style of editing. The short edit history of May to October 2017 makes me suspect that there may be other accounts controlled by the same person that have been active before and afterwards. Shritwod (talk) 03:13, 25 June 2018 (UTC)


Infidgit Consultants

I reviewed and declined the draft, noting that it had notability issues and tone issues. The submitter thanked me for my "valuable feedback" and wrote: "Already forwarded to my content team." This appears to be clear conflict of interest, more "native advertising" than "undisclosed paid editing", Robert McClenon (talk) 14:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

> Infidigit Consultants Pvt. Ltd is an SEO agency
Clear covert advertising. Deleted. MER-C 17:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

National Iranian American Council

The user's sole edits have been regerading this organisation and has been edit warring with other users. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:35, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Fernando Vendrell

Persistent addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content, addition of non notable films, building a resume. 2601:188:180:11F0:CDA0:623:849E:B032 (talk) 03:02, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Poet's Beach

Should any templates be added to Talk:Poet's Beach per this version of User:Gangstaoflove profile page? There is ongoing discussion re: COI editing and article improvement on the article's talk page, but not sure if more clarification is needed. ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:54, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Spectra29485

Pretty clear WP:COI, WP:PAID. Also, the user's first edit back in 2011 was speaking in the plural first person to remove "slanderous" material on the Spectra Records article -- and look at the username #facepalm. FlamesElite (talk) 19:02, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

The user has denied a paid relationship after I left {{uw-paid1}}. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 16:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
I am somewhat doubtful of this denial, for the following reasons:
--Drm310 🍁 (talk) 22:29, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
@Drm310:There is a definite connection; per the Beacon Publishing Group article, said company is a subdivision of Spectra music. This is corroborated by several sources online, such as this blog (not the best source, I know) [24] which describes Beacon as a subdivision of Spectra. This article [25] indicates that a high-ranking employee at Spectra has a connection to Beacon, and this article [26] directly states "will be distributed to stores across America via Beacon Audiobooks, a division of Spectra Music Group". My holding of Spectra29485 in good faith has suffered some chipping.--SamHolt6 (talk) 23:10, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
@Samholt6: That was enough for me to file a report at WP:UAA. Let the chips fall where they may. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 04:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I have blocked this account indefinitely per this discussion. Alex Shih (talk) 05:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Steve Down

Scope Creep insists on duplicate content:

In 2017 Down and The Falls Event Center were under SEC investigation and several of company's centers were in financial straits.[9][10][11][12][13][12][14]

vs

Beginning in 2017, Down and The Falls Event Center were under SEC investigation and several of company's centers were in financial straits.[9][10][11][12][13][12][14][16]

Moresie with 85 edits, altering Steve Down article to remove soften or remove litigation stance against down. scope_creep (talk) 09:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your note here. I'm happy to "take out" Steve Down if you'd like, using Wikipedia. But a straightforward review of my edits shows:

1. Grammar is perfected. 2. I remove a duplicate sentence:

In 2017 Down and The Falls Event Center were under SEC investigation and several of company's centers were in financial straits.[9][10][11][12][13][12][14]

vs

Beginning in 2017, Down and The Falls Event Center were under SEC investigation and several of company's centers were in financial straits.[9][10][11][12][13][12][14][16]

These sentences are a duplicate.

3. Add reliable sources. QSR magazine etc. I agreed with you on Huffington Post and Forbes not being reliable sources.

4. I have no COI. Perhaps review WP:OWN or perhaps a third party can weigh in on Steve Down page. Otherwise I Have no bone to pick here. Moresie (talk) 14:09, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Update: still seeing duplicate content and an attempt to WP:OWN the page @ScopeCreep. Moresie (talk) 18:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I removed the duplicate sentence; and left a note on the talk page explaining why. However, you do seem to have made a few more changes than just removing duplicate sentences; I can see that Scopecreep has spelt out his objections on the talkpage to the changes; its your turn to state why the changes you want to make will improve the page. Thats how the Bold, Revert, Discuss thing works. Curdle (talk) 14:17, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Perfect; thanks for weighing in. Where scope_creep (talk) and I 100% agree: Pages like these need more eyeballs. Thanks for your edits Curdle (talk). Moresie (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Vinay Varma

Single purpose editor whose username is the subject's first name + the subject's company. Editor didn't respond to a message left on their talk page and continued to edit the page in question. The material they've added doesn't seem ~promotional~ per se, but there's probably a COI here. originalmesshow u doin that busta rhyme? 10:51, 29 June 2018 (UTC)


Hello, We have declared our COI (Paid COI) in our article talk page, user talk page. Please let us know if anything else required. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Vinay_Varma&diff=848176239&oldid=848176177 Thanks Vinay sutradhar (talk)

Aquaria (drag queen)

I'll assume User:Giovannipalandrani is not really Giovanni Palandrani / Aquaria (drag queen), so not sure which tags/talk page templates are most appropriate here. ---Another Believer (Talk) 05:41, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Another Believer: Maybe consider leaving them a {{Uw-uall}} notice. If they continue to edit their page, then the account should be blocked accordingly. Alex Shih (talk) 11:04, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

UpFront

Hi, having trouble here with promo edits including a mass of youtube links to videos with advertising. The 2 editors look like sockpuppeting and on their edit history are probably connected to AlJazeera, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Atlantic306 I've ran a check and blocked all related accounts accordingly. Alex Shih (talk) 02:54, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
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