Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

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Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
Sections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution procedural policy.
You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.
Additional notes: This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period. Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wpwikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice. The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}. Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request: 1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}. 2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed. 3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days. Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline.
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Category:Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests is where COI editors have placed the {{edit COI}} template: Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests Draft talk:Abdulla Al Nuaimi Talk:Roy Bahat Talk:Monica Behan Talk:Marc Benioff Talk:Shmuley Boteach Talk:Breyers Talk:Michael Calvey Talk:Dahua Technology Talk:Vincenzo de Cotiis Talk:Nina L. Diaz Talk:Daniel Diermeier Talk:Dixy Chicken Talk:Earth Journalism Network Talk:Mary Baker Eddy Talk:Edge Hill University Talk:Eric Gallager Talk:Ex Libris Group Talk:Far East Organization Talk:Florida Power & Light Talk:Global Citizen Awards Talk:Global Strategy Group Talk:GoDigital Media Group Talk:Greystar Talk:Harsco Talk:Henley & Partners Talk:Human Appeal Talk:Index Ventures Talk:Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Talk:Sultan Al Jaber Talk:Jats Talk:Christian Kälin Talk:Elham Kashefi Talk:Jeffrey Katzenberg Talk:A. Gary Klesch Talk:Lally School of Management Talk:LD (cigarette) Talk:Kewsong Lee Talk:Dafna Lemish Talk:Library of Congress Subject Headings Talk:MoneyWeek Talk:Netvibes Talk:Neuroscience Research Australia Talk:NextEra Energy Talk:Dana G. Peleg Talk:Perkins Eastman Talk:Poster House Talk:Joely Proudfit Talk:Shlomo Rakib Talk:Ranker Talk:Reworld Talk:Rivulis Talk:Science Inc. Talk:Seagull Trust Cruises Talk:Dragan Šolak (businessman) Talk:Spotfire Talk:A. G. Sulzberger Talk:Steve Tappin Talk:Tenants and Owners Development Corporation Talk:Tencent Talk:Theatre Development Fund Talk:Topps Talk:UK Biobank Talk:Carla Ulbrich Talk:United States Postal Service Talk:UnitedHealth Group Talk:Dashun Wang Talk:Mark Weisbrot Talk:Martha G. Welch Talk:Yahoo Finance Talk:Zions Bancorporation

Dawoodi Bohra

• Dawoodi Bohra (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Mufaddal Saifuddin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Qutbi Bohra (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Summichum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

[1]:

‘The much cited ghadir khum incident was not a succession deed (Nass) but rather to resolve misunderstandings between a group who complained about Ali to the prophet , and the prophet said "Whoever takes me as his patron , should also take Ali as his patron" and this was said in ghadir and not in the final Haj. If there had to be a succession then it should have been made at a place where all people gathered and not ghadir khumm. In short the prophet did not say that after me some person like Abu Bakr, Ali etc would be the caliph\Imam. The fatimid bohras like dawoodi bohras are a minority group who have invented their own religion and mainstream Islam does not recognize them as Muslims’... Preceding unsigned comment added by Summichum (talk • contribs) 03:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

' Comment:'This is a Serious allegation against Islam as whole. Summichum should be strictly restrained in interest of integrity of Wikipedia and prevention of Vandalism.Rukn950 (talk) 11:18, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The user user:Summichum as per above, has gone up to the extent of making allegation on community invention and recognition. This fellow is attacking on faith of a community,and joined Wiki after the declaration of claim by Khuzaima Qutbuddin. This editor is only editing article related with dawoodi Bohra especially where claim of Mufaddal Saifuddin is described. He wants to forcefully add his favourable material and delete unfavourable material he can.

This editor was blocked recently twice in this period for disrupting the editing. This is clear-cut case of conflict of interest and strong action requested to control the editor.--Md iet (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

• • this is a bad faith view , M_iet himself has conflict of interest and I had already reported him for COI noticeboard with detailed proofs that he belongs to the dawoodi bohra group and is using wikipedia to advertise some members of that group using highly unreliable sources and self published sources or even original research without any citations. This user had been pushing unsubstantiated POV and a closely knit group of people from that group were pushing their agenda and got me blocked after as I only reverted unsubstantiated claims , hence I even sought the help of third party experienced wikipedians User:Anupmehraand admin User:Crisco 1449to check their their behaviour and they agreed to it and reverted all the uncited claims and false statements added by the above user. You can check Mufaddal Saifuddin how these users (including rukn) had added false statements which were reverted , the talk page has all the details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summichum (talk • contribs) 14:52, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Md iet You can verify from history about his edits. And also from his article 53rd Syedna succession controversy (Dawoodi Bohra).Rukn950 (talk) 07:25, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

On the basis of a chat platform [2], where anybody can say anything, all fatwa and whatever anybody likes are discussed, is the source selected by Summichum for making blatant allegation that 'DB invented their own religion and mainstream Islam does not recognize them as Muslims'. This is not just a original research but clear cut violations of all the limits anyone can think off. When Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over the COI guideline., this fellow has crossed all the limits, harassing complete community, declared them a non Muslim and made allegation of inventing a new religion. DB are on real sunnat of Muhammad and follow the deeds of their Imams as principles of working, on the basis of Al-Qadi al-Nu'man's most prominent work, the Daim al-Islam[3].--Md iet (talk) 10:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

• Please look into the case [4], where Summichum has tried to force his POV and deleted the administrator decision itself. I don't want to give notices for every thing, please take action accordingly.--Md iet (talk) 05:22, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
• Please look at [5], this user is repeatedly adding material even after decision of removal by admin twice.
• The user is reverting the language at [6] to suit his POV. The fact is that Khuzaima has not claimed for his right in last 2-3 years after the demise of late Syedna, when he was alive. At that time late Syedna could have easily clarified ,who is the successor, as he was the appointer. After matter was public for Mufaddal to be successor 3 years ago, there was no point in making his claim secret and there was ample time that mass Bohra public or media/authority would have made the case clear to the extent possible. Now Khuzaima is making claim that he had kept it secret as he had promised to late Syedna and was abiding his oath. The fact about report of Hindustan Times on former chief justice of India, make the things clear that Khuzaima family approached CJI well before Late Syedna Daith, hence keeping thing secret was just an scapegoat.

This User want to put the report in such a way that the thing is not explicit and don't clash with his POV. We don't want to add any original research, but put forth this important information in such a way that fact is directly clear in addition of quoted statemnent.

• As per WP:BLPFIGHT, More generally, editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article, just like editors with a strongly positive view of the subject, should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally if they choose to edit it at all. I am not supposed to disclose other person identity, but in present case it is a persistent and rigorous amendment done by the user; using all the means he can; devoting his full time in the activity; searching all the possible sources; rigourously searching all the Wiki rules; not bothered even blocked twice; Joined specifically after this incident of succession and doing editing only on this specific topics and raised the issue on basic principles/faith of Dawoodi Bohra. The user is claiming as a third party, neither from community nor born into it. It means he is not likely to be from independent group like Progressive Bohra who are born in Dawoodi Bohra. As reported above his statement 'DB invented their own religion and mainstream Islam does not recognize them as Muslims' make this thing further clear that he can’t be from any Bohra or Fatimid subsect or a Shia even as he has questioned even Ali’s nass . This means it can be a very serious case of “editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article” and not at all considered as third neutral party and doing deliberate editing to defame community as whole. May please examine the case keeping this in mind.

• Myself and Rukn has already accepted that we belong to DB, we are regular editor from last 7-8 years. We are fan of wiki and respect Wiki regulation and try to abide and learn as much as we can. Respect fellow editors. Myself was doing more good faith editing, supposing that truth and facts will be accepted and prevail and improvement can be done as reliable sources are available. But while facing this succession case, I learnt many lesson any how the original research even if true and fact, can be contested like anything if they clash with other party interest. And as agreed by me above, I have restrained myself of doing any further edit in sensitive articles, if it is undone by anybody and not complying Wiki rules even though it is true and fact. Although I have some bias toward DB, as every human have some bias, but never tried to oppose fair criticism or well sourced , encyclopedic material.--Md iet (talk) 06:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

• This is false accusation , the user Md iet has himself changed my edit war request which i newly made with more diffs. May be he was confused as i made a new edit war request adding more diffs or he did that purposely. He did it purposely as he copy pasted the old request contents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summichum (talk • contribs) 06:03, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
• Don't try to be smart Mr. Sumchum, If you wanted to have new edit war request, why you have deleted old decision of administrator[7]. You will do whatever you want and nobody can reinstate the factual things. I did it purposely to show your way of thinking to hide the facts.

You were already added your material, why didn't you waited for administrator reply? You could have raised new edit war request, just below it, instead you have tried to overrule and hide the previous judgment. Don't try to make fools of other and desist from poking your nose in others matter, if you don't like it. Behave in Wikipedian manner, it is just a request pl and Sorry for using harsh words.--Md iet (talk) 07:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Summichum has not desisted of his COI activities. As per advice of admin at [8] some material which was removed from Mufaddal Saifuddin article was added at controversy article[9]. Rather amending, this fellow is reverted the complete material twice, just on one of his plea and stopped only after my warning for avoiding block for 3rd consecutive revert.--Md iet (talk) 12:16, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

ADC Bioscientific

I am concerned about the editing by IPs/accounts associated with the company ADC Bioscientific. The editing focus of the IP address 213.123.202.173 (talk · contribs) which is registered to ADC Bioscientific and several accounts including Steveadcuk (talk · contribs), Quantify Stress (talk · contribs), and Zoe Stanyon (talk · contribs), involves adding content related to ADC products and their use. Articles involved are Photorespiration, Integrated fluorometer, Plant stress measurement, ‎Plant tissue test, ‎Soil respiration, Chlorophyll fluorescence, Chlorophyll, Fertilizer, Integrated Carbon Observation System, Carbon cycle, ADC Bioscientific, and perhaps others. This has been ongoing for many years. A few warnings related to the promotion and COI have been left for these users, but the activity has been going on unabated for so long at so many articles that I think it will take a number of editors to sort this out. Any help would be appreciated. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:05, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

There's some overlap between images uploaded by Stevedcuk (talk · contribs) and promotional material from ADC. Compare File:SRS1000 being used to measure soil respiration in the field..jpg with page 16 of [10]. The Wikipedia image is listed as taken by the uploader, and the image in the brocure is from ADC. But this may well be legitimate. The general edit pattern seems to be to add pictures of ADC instruments to relevant articles. This is kind of promotional, but then, it's hard to get someone to go out and photograph an integrated fluorometer and give the picture to Wikipedia. (I've been trying to get someone to photograph a common industrial 3-phase synchronous motor, to replace the century-old public domain image we have now.) Over at Plant_tissue_test, though, promotional links for ADC instruments were inserted. They're not the only manufacturer. See, for example, [11], a lower-cost alternative. So I put in references to three brands. Someone else might want to take a look at the other articles. John Nagle (talk) 05:26, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You're right that this has been going on for a long time. I came across Zoe Stanyon (talk · contribs) back in 2011 and hoped that they were editing in good faith, but the continued edits by employees of the company suggests a purposeful intention to spam WP articles. Judging by this most of the links have already been removed, but I think it's time that we added the site to a blacklist to stop future attempts. I haven't had time to look at all the articles in detail, but the content of plant tissue test is worrying as it strongly advocates the use on non-destructive tests of crops (i.e. supporting the use of their products). Articles such as these shouldn't be linking to any product websites and instead need text book references about what the products do and when they should be used. I'd be inclined to remove anything unsourced that these accounts added and examine closely whether anything sourced is given due weight. The photos however are good and so long as the caption is neutral they help readers understand the topics without being overly promotional. SmartSE (talk) 21:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

That's a good point. I don't know enough about agriculture to deal with the question of whether non-destructive testing of leaves is useful to farmers. There's a Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture, but they're not very active. However, we do know that ADC has two or three competitors for most of their instruments, so any article that mentions only ADC should be broadened. John Nagle (talk) 17:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick note that Steveadcuk's COI seems to be declared in his username: Steve ADC UK. It's obvious but I thought it's worth pointing out. -- Atama頭 17:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Banc De Binary

• Banc De Binary (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• HistorianofRecenttimes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

It appears that this user has a bias against Banc DeBinary and is using Wikipedia as an outlet to bash the company.

Parts of the article are referenced with unreliable sources (sources which are affiliated with the company's competition), and on the article's talk page, the user seems incredibly hostile.

List of difs / statements:

• [12] - Dif of talk page where the user begins to make false allegations
• [13] User's contribution log which is focsed soley around Banc De Binary
• [14] Dif where user first attempts to introduce NADEX into the page about Banc De Binary

There are many more examples, but in my opinion this user is an agent of a competing company attempting to do some very "dirty" marketing via Wikipedia.

BDBJack (talk) 18:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The SEC issued a statement reading "The SEC alleges that Banc de Binary Ltd. has been offering and selling binary options to investors across the U.S. without first registering the securities as required under the federal securities laws. The company has broadly solicited U.S customers by advertising through YouTube videos, spam e-mails, and other Internet-based advertising."[15]. Then the SEC followed up with a lawsuit.[16]. This is a scam. A negative article is appropriate. John Nagle (talk) 05:34, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

A section explaining the case with the SEC would suffice, but a "negative" article doesn't seem in line with the NPOV policy of wikipedia. Broad statements such as "this is a scam" also seem rather out of character with Wikipedia's NPOV guidelines. BDBJack (talk) 06:33, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also shut them down in the US.[17] John Nagle (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

How is that relevant to the fact that the article is written from a non-neutral point of view? It's like saying that because the CEO of NADEX is the chief witness in the CFTC's case against Banc De Binary, we should start writing negative content about NADEX too!

BDBJack (talk) 23:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

BDBJack (presumably Banc du Binary Jack) is merely the latest in a series of single-purpose accounts dedicated to whitewashing this Israeli company masquerading as a multinational, and hiding behind a Cypriot flag of convenience. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:09, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Orangemike:, yes I am an employee of Banc De Binary as noted on my user page and in my user name, however I fail to see how this is relevant to the request to investigate the COI of user HistorianofRecenttimes.BDBJack (talk) 08:32, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@BDBJack: A few points:

• No evidence has been presented that even suggests that HistorianofRecenttimes (HoRT) has a COI of any kind. Jack, you may feel that HoRT is biased against the company, but a conflict of interest as Wikipedia defines it is when an editor has a real-life connection to an article subject (positive or negative). You'd have to show that HoRT is working for a competitor, or is a member of an activist group against BDB, or was personally hurt by the bank and wants retribution, or something along those lines. That information has to come from self-disclosure by HoRT, or through an evaluation of the editor's statements and actions, digging up information outside of Wikipedia or speculating on their real-life identity violates WP:OUTING. A bias may lead to violations of WP:NPOV but isn't a COI.
• You yourself clearly have a COI. This isn't a slam against you, you're very open about it (even your username shows it) which is commendable. But it does mean that you're going to have a pro-BDB bias. That is going to hurt your argument, thought it doesn't invalidate it. A person with a COI making a valid claim of disruption isn't going to be ignored, even if removing the disruption is in favor of your POV.
• Our neutrality policy does not dictate that every article has to present an article subject neutrally (in that it includes nothing that reflects negatively or positively on the subject, or perfectly balances such information). That's not what its purpose is. We write articles from a neutral point of view. We don't insert our own analysis, we don't try to make judgments as editors. We neutrally present the facts as we can ascertain them from reliable secondary sources. If those facts end up reflecting negatively on the article subject, then the article as a whole may appear to be negative. But it's not our place to try to omit anything that reflects negatively or positively on an article subject, or to try to come up with a balance between negative and positive information. We present what we can verify through sources regardless of how it reflects on the subject. I hope that makes sense. -- Atama頭 17:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Atama: Thank you for taking the time to give me a clear and concise explanation about the differences between bias and COI. While I still believe that the user does have a COI due to being from a competing company, I have neither the evidence nor the tools to prove it at this time.BDBJack (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

More on Banc de Binary at [18] Banc de Binary is an "associate" of Spot Option Exchange. There are many other "associates" (Banc de Swiss, etc.), about 20 of them. Their sites all look very similar, because Spot Option Exchange runs them as part of their hosted service. Reliable sources for Spot Option Exchange other than its own site are hard to find, and there's not enough info for a Spot Option Exchange article. Yet that would be the right article to have; their associates/brands/domains/etc properly should be sections in the Spot Options article. John Nagle (talk) 18:43, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Windows Media

• Windows Media (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• FleetCommand (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Codename Lisa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This is a request for assistance with a user that seems intent on Wikipedia:Gaming the system having name calling and creating personal attacks as a normal part of the users editing technique. The user seems to follow the edits of Codename Lisa As shown here User_talk:Codename_Lisa#This_one_is_fun.21 Codename Lisa clearly is aware of the harassing manner that FleetCommand undertakes.

In most of the tech space the users FleetCommand & Codename Lisa seem to dominate the space, in a manner that leads people into thinking that these two are in some way providing some sort of oversight to these sections of Wikipedia. In the above mentioned article I had inserted some data that I felt was relevant and would improve the wiki, yet it was simply shut down, with nonsense frankly speaking as Codename Lisa claimed that my addition (User_talk:Codename_Lisa#Windows_Media_Guide Windows Media Guide) was a 404 error and made a rude comment in the edit summary. It was totally incorrect I did bring it to the users attention after a bashing and a series of rude and crass interactions with FleetCommand, Codename Lisa deleted the other users comments, relied rationally and the user was in some regard consolatory but the unsavory interaction just pushed me away from editing in that space.

A week or 2 later I posted for consideration a comment to the effect of the fact that Windows Media was a programming group at Microsoft that created the Windows Media products (It really evolved from Netshow) but within 24 hours of my posting the "thought, observation" I was challenged by Codename Lisa who escalated it directly to the request for a 3rd party opinion board. Both users refuse to talk cohesively on the user talk pages, it is more like a HIT and run, each will insult and run.

Having already experienced each of these users enough to see that each of them are clearly Wikipedia:Gaming the system, the use of rude condescending language is in complete ignorance of Wikipedia:Etiquette and if you review the edits of these users it looks like both users seem to enjoy the same rude and demeaning tone, talking down to other users that to a new user would give the impression of authority and domination over edits upon the TECH spaces. FleetCommand has gone as far as to assert WP:OWN that he should be asked before edits are made as he has been here for so long. Yet the user refuses to respond to communication on talk and has digressed to schoolyard name calling "pilot boy" in his posts on public talk pages and restores defamatory statements if removed, yet user hides behind a "I am retired" posted on his pages, as he continues to harass other users. The name calling serves no function and IMHO is simply designed to frustrate others from editing in this area. Even the last post on Codename Lisa Talk Page from FleetCommand seems to confirm that WP:Harassment the users FleetCommand's, main objective. That is a clear conflict of interest with the main objective of Wikipedia.talk→ WPPilot  03:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi.

This is Codename Lisa. Almost half of what WPPilot says is true. On 14 April 2014, he asked whether it is okay to add something to Windows Media. I replied with ""Hi. Preliminary check: What sources do you have? And does it have an article on Wikipedia?". He replied with a message about COI and how I love to be in control, etc. Well, you know that there no redeeming such discussion after that. I tried to crack a joke to lighten the atmosphere but it only got worse. He eventually ended up hiding my message.

He is also telling the truth about two weeks before. He came to my talk page, asking why I reverted his edit and said it looked like a non-constructive edit; and I tried to show him that unfortunately, it indeed did look like non-constructive edit. Judge for yourself: Compare the Windows Media edit with an edit in Microsoft Cortana article. See how similar in nature they are? The guy who made the Cortana edit is now blocked for posting fake malware websites.

How all this point to COI? I don't know!

As for User:FleetCommand, his long-time colleague User:Jasper Deng has once said that FleetCommand can be both heaven and hell. (Well, he didn't exactly say these words.) But I think WPPilot would have hurt far less if he has spent his time discussing the topic instead of leveling COI, rudeness, OWN and everything else all at once.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 10:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

While the partial admissions from Codename Lisa do demonstrate my point, the user seems to conveniently leave out a great deal, and is not in the comparison comparing apples to apples "Microsoft Cortana" was edited by a IP number, that any user can with the click of a mouse see the contributions of. I am not a IP user, I have years of productive and highly valuable photographic contributions and any normal person that edits here would look to at least research the user before calling them a name, ("inventive nonsense without an article. Is this vandalism") as Codename Lisa did in the summary of her first edit, reverting my posting of a Microsoft company website on the page. Codename Lisa claimed that the site I had posted (www.windowsmedia.com) returned a 404 error, that was incorrect, and in fact it now rolls to a MSN site. [19] It is registered to Microsoft. It contains a Microsoft copyright, and if pinged it resolves to, yup Microsoft. After the initial confrontation over that edit, I provided detailed info to source the link and user Codename Lisa told me that I would experience resistance, should I try to make a page about the Windows Media Guide as in the users comments "it is just a TV guide". My personal experience in this space, I felt was valuable.

I did not expect my first interaction with this user, Codename Lisa to be attached to a rather rude comment. 11:19, 27 March 2014‎ Codename Lisa (talk | contribs)‎ . . (2,302 bytes) (-230)‎ . ("‎Other: rm. inventive nonsense without an article. Is this vandalism?") inline in the articles history. When confronted the user then commenced by talking down to me, by asserting the phrase WE WIKIPEDIAN'S over and over, posing as "All of Wikipedia" and asserting in the tone of comments that Codename Lisa is in somehow in control of editorial content on Wikipedia. I did check user rights and user is not a Admin.

The Windows Media Guide was in fact a part of the Netshow player when it was released. Many ISP, worked hard for many years to be featured in the guide and from the perspective of someone that was a part of the creation of that technology, or for the function of making the Wiki about Windows media correct, it should reflect that. Both Codename Lisa and Fleetcommand have, via insults, & condescending language made it clear that editing in that space will only be under there authority. WP:OWN

Other users have also experienced this same conduct from them;

• (Tapered (talk) 20:37, 12 March 2014 (UTC)): You and Codename Lisa both offer to instruct me in editing, taking a tone of authority. from the history in Fleetcommands talk space. XP Security Issue.

• Are you working in cahoots with Codename Lisa, as from your history you seem to ignore other users completely in your reversions and meaningless comments that are not even factually correct! Jimthing (talk) 19:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• (cur | prev) 15:16, 17 April 2014‎ Codename Lisa (talk | contribs)‎ . ‎ . . (Reverted 1 edit by WPPilot (talk): Hello, Kettle. This is WPPilot. You are black!)

• If anyone has to ask for permission from anyone, it is you and Codename Lisa who must ask for my permission, "pilot boy". Fleetcommand. Talk:Windows Media 22:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Condescending language, served directly or via line notes in the edit summary comments is in complete ignorance of Wikipedia:Etiquette. Refusal to remove and the subsequent restoration of comments designed to inflame other users is WP:Harassment. Dominating article space (taking a tone of authority), WP:OWN serves no valuable function and would discourage newer users from editing in any space that these users seem to desire to control. If you do detailed reviews of the talk page histories of each user, this is a pattern and it is a pattern that provides a clear conflict of interest WP:COI, to the basic function of Wikipedia by Wikipedia:Gaming the system. talk→ WPPilot  14:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• There is a proverb in my culture: To call the doctor beforehand, lest not get sick. It means a person starts a large-scale effort to frame someone for something before it is revealed that it is in fact himself who had committed said sin. WPPilot is calling the doctor beforehand, lest not get sick.

To make my argument short: All I did was saying "It does not have due weight." WPPilot did not try even one of the avenues of WP:DR. Instead, he just went WP:ALLSOCKS! Fleet Command (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I made every effort to resolve, with the user my personal issues, but, upon review it was clear that a pattern of conduct that was described above has become commonplace with the two users in question. Every interaction with Fleetcommander is packed with insults and I am clearly not alone in my observation. Calling someone a childish name is inexcusable, and to do it as part of your editorial style, as mentioned before only serves to dissuade other users from editing. This user uses a hit and run, plus hides behind "I AM RETIRED" yet demands publicly that he has some right to control these sections of Wikipedia and be offensive to other users as part of his contributions here. talk→ WPPilot  22:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@WPPilot: Just to let you know, a conflict of interest by Wikipedia's definition (in its guideline that you linked to earlier) is identified when an editor's has a real life connection to an article subject, or to something else they are editing about. An editor linking to a personal web site they own has a COI, or an editor who is editing an article about themselves, a friend, or a relative may have a COI. A COI may be identified if someone is editing an article about their employer, or a competitor. And so on. I think what you're trying to establish is what Wikipedia calls disruptive editing, which is a catch-all term for a pattern of behavior that makes it difficult for other editors to contribute to Wikipedia. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But nothing that you've said here even comes close to a COI, and this board isn't the place for this discussion.

However, I won't just say "this isn't COI, go away". I'll try to address this here anyway. To begin with, while Codename Lisa's initial revert at the Windows Media article did not have the best edit summary (hinting that a person's edit was vandalism is a borderline personal attack, though I will say it's borderline at the very worst) it wasn't incorrect. The "see also" section of an article should only contain links to other Wikipedia articles, so you shouldn't have included it there. It may have perhaps gone into an external links section, though that would be a debate to have with other editors if they objected, where you'd need to show how it's relevant to the article. I also don't see the problematic behavior that you're suggesting, with ownership and editors tag-teaming.

Honestly, the most problematic behavior I see here is from you. I'm not trying to attack you here, I've spoken to you before at this noticeboard and at other venues and I believe you mean well, and I know you've made valuable contributions here. But this is what I see... You make an addition to an article, and you're reverted (in a somewhat rude, but not awfully rude manner). You start a discussion on the talk page instead of reverting back, which is good, you're choosing not to edit-war and you're choosing to instead discuss the issue, which I wish more editors would do. But when Codename Lisa asked you a reasonable question (whether there is an article on Wikipedia that can be linked to in the "see also" section, and whether you have sources to back up your assertions) you took on a tone of authority. (I find it odd that you claim that the other editors did so, I mostly see that from you.) You establish your own conflict of interest (an actual COI as Wikipedia defines it) by stating that you worked directly with the Windows Media Group, that you were the best man at the wedding of one of the lead programmers, etc. And you also launched into an attack on Codename Lisa, claiming that she was exhibiting ownership of the article by disagreeing with you, when she was asking perfectly reasonable questions. When TransporterMan refused to give a third opinion because there was no legitimate discussion, since the discussion to that point was "almost entirely about conduct, not content", that was accurate. I've seen you do this before, you have an unfortunate tendency to escalate very quickly what should be a simple discussion about content, and turn it into an indictment about the person(s) you're debating with.

The bottom line is, I think that you were in the wrong here, WPPilot. You're not a bad editor, and I'm not giving you a warning, but I really wish you would not do this in your interactions with others. You're not doing yourself any good. You have to not assume the worst of people. I see Codename Lisa trying to keep things light so as not to escalate matters too far, you seem to have taken it as flippancy which further upset you. You can't do that, you're communicating with people through text only, you can't see their faces to see their intent, which is why we have a guideline to assume that someone means well until you have very solid evidence they don't. I really hope you can take this to heart. -- Atama頭 23:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, This is an anonymous uninvolved observer who was bitten by Codename Lisa some time ago. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that I have observed this pair of users behaving in a similar fashion. Please see the entire sections of the discussions where these users participated on the following pages:

• Talk:Bliss_(image)
• Talk:Windows_XP
• Wikipedia_talk:Other_stuff_exists
• Talk:Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools
• Metro_(design_language)
• User_talk:WilliamJE
• User_talk:Codename_Lisa

96.253.76.142 (talk) 00:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Again, I see nothing beyond some mild rudeness in those diffs. This board isn't the place to discuss this anyway, this is for conflicts of interest, not requests for people to be more civil. -- Atama頭 02:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The perceived COI is FC posing as a third opinion to forge consensus when the user has a close connection to CL even if the intent is harassment of CL and others. 96.253.76.142 (talk) 03:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

@96.253.76.14: That has nothing to do with our WP:COI guideline. I suggest you read it, because Wikipedia does not define conflicts of interest in the way you think. -- Atama頭 13:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

"Whac-A-Mole" "nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility" - To simply look at the public interactions you see now is to overlook the historical manner that FC uses to harass people and keep them from editing in a area of Wikipedia that needs editors. Both of these editors carefully maintain there talk pages to remove comments that would more adequately provide for review of these users regular conduct. Atama, you are correct that I disclosed FULLY my Conflict of Interest as suggested by WP:COI. I tried to use the talk page to address what I felt needed to be addressed. My experience, as you had pointed out in the past should be considered under WP:EXPERT in this space as you have brought to the boards attention previously. How do you forge a consensus when, as the IP user 96.253.76.142 mentions, these users dominate a space with disruptive editing and Wikipedia:Gaming the system to keep others from contributing. I was perhaps a bit short with Codename lisa in the last interaction on the WM talk but for the user to escalate it to the 3rd party opinion board, 23 hours after I posted the question, sure looks like that user trying to control the article, and keep my contributions away from it. My comment came after a detailed review of prior edit interactions these two users have had in a rather short time frame with a lot of other contributors, to address this request, based upon my interactions alone, would be an incorrect interpretation of the request. I could care less about the name calling, that's just childish, my concern is the inability to obtain a genuine consensus to contribute valid data to the Tech space in general, or do you propose that we allow them to control that space and continue to drive others away with the condescending, insult filled "Whac A Mole" tag team, editing technique? talk→ WPPilot  04:16, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

@WPPilot: You're wrong. Codename Lisa was properly following our guideline at WP:DR. You two were in a dispute, and she sought an independent third opinion (as opposed to, say, having FleetCommand back her up). The 3rd opinion request failed because you were refusing to even attempt to come to a consensus, you were attacking her. You did the exact wrong thing here. You are supposed to focus on content, not contributors. Why did you bother to make a "detailed review of prior edit interactions" rather than just calmly try to justify the edit you wanted to make? You were the one who had no interest in forming a consensus, again all you did was dig up dirt on the other person and then go on the offensive. That isn't the way Wikipedia works. I've tried to be patient with you, and give you the benefit of the doubt, but you've been showing time and again that you have a battleground mentality antithetical to this project. Again, please stop this behavior, or your editing privileges can be revoked. -- Atama頭 14:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

@Atama:, @WPPilot: I think both of you might find this soothing: Remember how I compared WPPilot's edit to that of the blocked user in Microsoft Cortana? Well, in Cortana case I gained a little experience that I didn't have back then. So, I present to you: Whois report on WindowsMedia.com Unlike, microsoft-cortana.com, this website is not fake.

Okay, I don't know how would it impact the discussion in Talk:Windows Media because I had requested proof of significance, which is needed anyway and would resolve the genuineness issue as well. But... I thought you might find it soothing. Look, I am sorry if WPPilot took "is this vandalism?" as a rhetorical question. But in my defense it was not a revert; I will never accuse a registered user with vandalism while reverting. (Doing this is always wrong.) Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 14:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

battleground mentality??? You have to be kidding me, most the time I just stop editing in the area of friction. I will do that again and I will simply not contribute to Tech related Wiki's, controlled by the two users mentioned and I will try to simply resort to childish name calling, in the future, Atama. Q: Why did you bother to make a "detailed review of prior edit interactions", I did this after seeing over and over again that the two users like to insult and use abusive language in there dealings with me and other users. Codename Lisa had already made it clear that, if I was to edit this space I would encounter friction. The moment I stepped back, the user followed though on the threat. You have been successful in Driving me away from editing this area. Good Job & Cheers! talk→ WPPilot  16:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Be Happy Now: http://vimeo.com/92345954

So I ask you not to attack other editors, but to instead calmly discuss the content issues, and then Codename Lisa even tries to extend an olive branch by conceding that the web site you tried to link to was a valid Microsoft site and apologized for suggesting vandalism on your part. And you instead declare that you've been "driven away". This is exactly the kind of behavior I'm talking about. You can't act this way on Wikipedia, you have to make an effort to collaborate with other editors. -- Atama頭 16:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I have NEVER attacked any editor, Atama. If I have been short forgive me. I edit here to relax, this is not relaxing. talk→ WPPilot  18:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not true that you've never attacked another editor, I've seen you do so. But specifically in this case, I mean that you've chosen to discredit the editor and try to bring some sort of sanction against them (a ban, a block) rather than discussing the validity of your edit. This is a pattern of behavior for you. Here are previous examples:

• 3RR Noticeboard in August 2013: You reported someone for 3RR when nothing of the sort had happened. The discussion here was proceeding normally until you exploded on Paul 012 the exact same way you did on Codename Lisa, making the same ownership accusations and taking a simple dispute personally. You also declared here that Paul had "petty control issues".
• Admins' Incidents Noticeboard in March of this year: That thread included you accusing Beyond My Ken and alf laylah wa laylah of being sockpuppets, just because they both disagreed with you. BMK did call you an "ass" which was clearly a personal attack and an insult, but this response was way out of proportion, and this legal threat was clearly hyperbolic. That dispute did eventually settle down but your responses inflamed things unnecessarily before it ended.
• Admins' Incidents Noticeboard again in March: That thread shows you directly attacking another editor per our harassment policy, calling them an asshole which also involved an inappropriate removal of that editor's talk page comments per WP:TPO. By the time I intervened in that incident, you'd withdrawn before anything was settled (just as you've done in this most recent incident). I know that your actions in this incident contributed to driving an editor away from Wikipedia in the midst of legal threats that you'd sent, they haven't edited Wikipedia since.

As I said, this is a pattern with you. You do this over and over again. I've also seen you make positive contributions but the fact is that when you get into a dispute, even a simple one, you can overreact to the extent that discussion is impossible. That is unacceptable behavior. -- Atama頭 21:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Atama, as I said I will simply not edit in the space controlled by the users in question. It' sailings sailing season so I will find something else to do with my time. Cheers! talk→ WPPilot  22:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

"PLEASE Be Happy Now": http://vimeo.com/92345954

Cdrtools

• Cdrtools (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Schily (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Schily has been making controversial edits to the Cdrtools article for a long time. He has repeatedly self-identified as the author of that software package (here for example -"on my request"-, but see the whole Talk:Cdrtools), and has been including unsourced personal opinion as references, failing to assume good faith by accusing editors of wanting to attack his software, and otherwise unwilling to work towards consensus. He was blocked recently at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit_warring.

I have repeatedly asked him to avoid making edits to the article directly and to discuss everything at the talk page, but today he has just added this unreferenced content after this conversation at my talk page. I would like that Schily is given a formal warning to make him aware of what WP:COI entails, so that he will avoid making controversial edits to the article. Diego (talk) 12:46, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry to see that User:Diego Moya did not follow the rules that we introduced for the cdrtools article and instead made own highly controversional edits that have not been agreed before. He even treated me, see: this edit. Please encourage [[User:Diego] Moya] to first discuss planned edits on the talk page and not to make controversional edits. Collaborative work is only possible if all involved people follow the rules. Schily (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I have stated what I require in order to make agreements: that you provide links to references that support your claims. You have provided none, so there's no way to reach any agreement. Diego (talk) 13:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

What "rules" were "introduced for the cdrtools article"?! Wikipedia doesn't work that way. Unless some exception (like discretionary sanctions) has been set up by the arbitration committee that refers to an article (or more commonly an article topic), all articles follow the same guidelines and policies. One of the most important is verifiability. I see that much of these problems have been discussed publicly here. I'll point out that in that discussion, Diego was one of your biggest defenders. Yet a week later, here you are. -- Atama頭 14:02, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Because the cdrtools article has several authors with COI, we agreed on not to make edits that are not in a consensus in order to avoid future conflicts. Unfortunately User:Diego Moya recently made edits without previously asking whether the related edit could be seen as neutral statement. Several of his edits would have no problems to get an approval, but there also have been edits from him that will not get an approval for being neutral. The problem is that the Cdrtools article is an article that needs to mention that there have been some conflicts caused by Debian in 2004 and following. This is why the article has a high conflict potential. I see no other way than to agree on a collaborative way of editing. For this reason, I made the proposal that other people may make proposals (and thus keep the privilege to control the wording) if they do not edit the article unless thare was an approval before. If there was only User:Diego Moya, I am sure that there was a way to get to an agreement in a simpler way but there are other authors with a high level of COI that usually only make biased edits. The problem in the article is that there are a lot of claims that are not correctly verified because they have pointers to unrelated "proving". The best way to deal with this problem seems to be a common agreement that nobody is allowed to make changes without previously discussing the intended text. Schily (talk) 14:47, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

In theory most contested edits require consensus to settle any disputes. So in principle what you're saying isn't unreasonable. But it's also true that unverified information in an article that is contested should not be in the article. So there is also that. I'm concerned with your approach at the article. I understand that you are an expert, heck you WROTE the software. But that naturally gives you cause to try to edit the article with original research, because of what you personally know (not what you believe, or what you think, but what you know to be true). Unfortunately Wikipedia just doesn't work that way. That's for a number of reasons, one of which is that it helps objectivity when we are restricted to writing only about what information we can accumulate from reliable sources. But another, more important reason, is that Wikipedia itself isn't reliable, and any information is only as good as its sources. That's what I tell people who use Wikipedia for knowledge, especially for research; don't go by what's in our articles, go to whatever we're using as sources and use that. When we write articles based on our own research and knowledge, people can't do that.

There have been suggestions that you be banned from editing cdtools and related articles, at least from editing the article text directly. Given that you're not the only person with a conflict of interest, I don't think that's fair. But I do think it would be fair if such articles (especially cdtools itself) had an article space ban against all editors with conflicts of interest, both positive and negative. I don't often make such suggestions, I've been an advocate for allowing COI editing in most situations (as long as the editor avoids disruption) but I think that it would ease the situation here greatly. Identifying who should be included in such a ban may be difficult, determining the scope of the ban could also be difficult (just the cdtools article space?), and I don't think this board is the best place to initiate such a ban. It can be, it has been done here before, but I'd suggest WP:AN might be a better venue to get a wider community input. This is just a suggestion from me, it's not something I plan to implement yet. -- Atama頭 15:33, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

People who write scientific papers avoid using secondary sources and prefer primary sources. This is in conflict with the WP rules that disallow primary sources, so information on Wikipedia in the first attempt is information from hearsay. Using only primary sources is of course not a good idea either - you should rather only use information that can also be verified independently. I am a primary source in the case of cdrtools (and in many cases that are e.g. related to the UNIX history). This frequently causes disputes when people compare my statements with statements from unreliable second level sources. This is why I avoid to make edits that are only reproducable from my memory. In a recent case, I could e.g. correct a false claim from a Siemens Web site related to the first telephone system in Germany, but in this case I have been lucky and could present a copy from a book from 1882 that verifies that there have been more than ten-thousand of telephone exchanges in Germany before Siemens believed that the first exchange was installed. There are other cases where I cannot disclose my sources to the public because of Copyright problems (but I of course have the proof that I could present people in a private meeting) and there are cases where it is not possible to present a single pointer to verify a claim. I can e.g. definitely prove that the claims from Debian related to cdrtools are wrong, but this can only be done by checking many unfakable time stamps in order to verify that what Debian claimes to be cause and reaction is wrong as the so called reaction from Debian happened before what Debian declared to be the cause. As you see, with the current rules from WP, it may be easier in some cases to deliver something that can be seen as a verification than to prove the same claim to be false (where the latter would be the truth).

I don't believe that a bann is the right way to go unless you have people that deny a fact based discussion. WP needs people that write the articles and if we woud have such a bann, the result would be that the current unbalanced state of the article would stay until forever. I hope that it is possible to find a way where interested people all follow the proposed rules. I however fear that it will be the same as it was the last time: people wait for some time and do nothing and then one of the users again starts with edits that have not been discussed before.

What should be taken into account is that we have a person in the list of recent editors, that is related to my question here. I am not shure whether there is an easy way to deal with this problem. Schily (talk) 09:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Schily, I have repeatedly asked that you provide those links to public repositories so that we can evaluate them for ourselves. Maybe we could include one or two of them in the article, allowing readers to reach their own conclusions. Or you could compile all those links and publish them on your own blog, together with your conclusions about them, and maybe we could link to that, thanks to our neutrality policy; your conflict of interest prevents you from changing the article, but also gives you a unique spot in it as a primary source for your point of view on the subject.

But for reasons which entirely escape me, you refuse to provide us with those links, fighting every attempt we make to improve the article according to our own criteria, and insist in injecting your conclusions directly in the article as facts, which is forbidden.

Why do you insist in breaking our standards of quality at every step, and will only agree to solve the problem in the exact way that you like? Does everything have to be "your way or the highway"? Why can't you agree to collaborate and follow the rules that other find acceptable, and compromise a little in order to gain a lot? We have rules in place that would allow for a neutral and balanced account of the facts; if you are unwilling to follow those rules, don't blame them for arriving to an article that you don't like. Diego (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

If you verify that you are interested to follow the rules I am happy to help you. So let us remove the biased text from the article and when you make a proposal for text you wish to add (including a link to prove the correctness) I'll tell you whether your proposed text is OK. Please note that your recent edits verified that you also have a conflict of interest and for this reason are not allowed to edit the article. Please understand that you don't have more rights than others and that you also need to follow rules. Schily (talk) 14:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Schily: "Please note that your recent edits verified that you also have a conflict of interest and for this reason are not allowed to edit the article." Can you give examples of Diego disclosing a conflict of interest? Diffs would be preferable, but even just explaining your reasoning here would be helpful. -- Atama頭 15:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This change can be seen unfriendly as it is easily verified by reading the man page. This change is a big problem as it removed comments that have been added in order to make extremely problematic claims understandable as incorrect. The removal from Diego left over extremely biased or false claims with pseudo references (references that are not related to what they claim to prove). Trying to discuss this with User: Diego Moya resulted in a treat from him and I could not see a will to even understand that the left over claims need to be removed as well when their explaining counterpart is removed. With the same edit, Diego did also add own false claims as he tagged a pointer to GPLv3 (which does not apply to cdrtools) and as he indirectly made a false claim that is seen as own research: By adding his "own research" statements to a previously present statement he intended to use this as a "prove" for a verifyable false claim from Debian (that says that the GPL claims "the scripts used to compile" must be under the GPL), see: a guide to the book Die GPL kommentiert und erklärt check section "Die Definition des Source Codes in Ziffer 3 Absatz 2 GPL". Note:book page 85 is PDF page 61. Relevant is the last section on the page. In short: The GPL is very obvious about the fact that these scripts may be under any license, they just need to be present together with the source. So Diego entered a verifyable false claim and was not willing to discuss this. Some lines later (in the same edit), he added a circular reference to WP wich is forbidden to prove something, so in fact he added another unproven claim related to static vs. dynamic linking and in place removed a well proven statement (verified as reference #26 in the current version of the article). As he did also make several correct edits, he must be seen different from other people that only add problematic text. I hope this helps to understand the problem. Schily (talk) 17:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

A conflict of interest on Wikipedia is present when an editor has a real-life relationship to whatever they are writing about that can "undermine their role" as an unbiased, independent editor. You definitely have a conflict of interest with the cdrtools article, and editors who work for/with competitor products/organizations have a COI. If you're accusing Diego of being generally unfriendly and adding false statements, that has absolutely nothing to do with our COI guideline and your warnings above are invalid. -- Atama頭 17:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So you like to tell me that User:Diego Moya may happily continue to add false claims to the cdrtools article and I am not allowd to correct this? Given the fact that he tried to confirm claims from Debian even though these claims are wrong, I assume that he has a relation to Debian and thus a COI. Anyway, if he did not make this intentionally, the best signal from him would be if he did not make edits before they have been discussed on the talk page. 17:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schily (talk • contribs)

I'm not saying that Diego is given carte blanche to make whatever edits he prefers to the article, I'm just saying that there is no basis for a COI claim or any warnings based on it. And using Debian as a reference does not in any way imply a connection to Debian, that's absurd. If you have a dispute with material that Diego is modifying and you cannot settle it by discussing it with him, the dispute resolution noticeboard can help in that regard. Otherwise, most of the disruption I've seen is from you. Some of your edits and claims may be correct, but regardless you rely far too heavily on original research and you are very heavily influenced by your own bias as the creator of the software. This is understandable, but at the same time it is still problematic for Wikipedia. -- Atama頭 18:00, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

When discussing the problem, it is of course imprtant to know that the disagreement (when looking at User: Diego Moya) seems not to be a general disagreement but is rather related to correct or incorrect information on the licensing activities and that the license was changed after Debian started to attack the cdrtools project 10 years ago and after Debian enhanced these attacks 9 years ago with the claim of alleged license problems with cdrecord. For this reason, a person with a closer connection to Debian definitely has a COI. I am convinced that User:Diego Moya has such a closer connetion to Debian. Using your interpretation, this alone would be a reason for him not to edit the cdrtools article. Using my interptretation, this alone is just a challenge, but Diego seems to be unable deal with this challenge.

See above: the incident where he removed a hint on what is in a paper from professor Determann and added own research on license compatibility and an unrelated pointer to GPLv3 that does not apply to cdrtools. There was another incident, where he removed a pointer to a paper from the faculty of law at the university of Washington that explains that OpenSource licenses do not grant the right to publish modified variants of covered OSS to be published under the the original name. So this cannot be seen as an accidental mistake, as there is a common pattern behind these unaceptable edits.

As mentioned before, I am OK with allowing him to make proposals on the talk page, but I do not agree when he likes to make edits that did not first get a review. Schily (talk) 12:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

So far I only see you attack Debian (and some people who did something in 2004 by name) as well as various Wikipedia authors “Note that recently the following users did make edits with conflict potential: User:Diego User:Chire User:Tzafrir User:LFaraone.” The edits by User:Diego Moya to me seem to be backed by wikipedia policy NPOV, as do most others except yours. Can you please elaborate what is “conflict potential” in the two edits by User:LFaraone? It was suggested to AfD this article. I start to believe this is a good idea... 38.123.136.254 (talk) 12:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Various article (science)

• Trajectory (fluid mechanics) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Peteymills (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sea ice emissivity modelling‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Sea ice thickness (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Sea ice growth processes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Uncertainty coefficient (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Isoline retrieval‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Collocation_(remote_sensing) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Sea ice concentration (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Chaotic mixing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Contour advection (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Editor creates secondary (niche) articles to promote own work. Articles always include what appears to be some snippets from his own work, but presented as the standard method or even suggested as the better solution (ie. "While Cox and Weeks[8] assume thermal equilibrium, Tanboe[9] uses a more sophisticated thermodynamic model based on numerical solution of the heat equation." link - Tanboe is the paper he is part with). Often references are weak. Work appears to be non significant or average/standard (Not from the experts on the field). Even after years articles draw little attention, possibly because terms are already covered in main articles. I'm not sure about the motives here but the editor should stop promoting his own research and some articles could be deleted, especially in the case of sea ice which has to much articles. I had a discussion recently with him. prokaryotes (talk) 10:37, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Update: Subsequently i asked here on the RS noticeboard for more input. prokaryotes (talk) 18:18, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

---

Obviously, this charge deserves a more detailed response, but in the only example you cite: by "sophisticated", I mean "complex" (actually I've just changed it). There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and I even state when the more complex approach is advantageous. Peteymills (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Peteymills (talk · contribs) FYI, something is screwy with the grammar there. I don't know what you tried to say.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:00, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There are even more articles he created and subsequently added his references, see user page. prokaryotes (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

However, the other articles appear to be either merged or without added references, directly attributed to him, but some at least to team member G. Heygster. prokaryotes (talk) 11:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Question Have you successfully elicited comment from any other editors at any of these article's talk pages on any of your allegations about Peteymills edits? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

It should be clear that articles mentioned here are used to promote own work and that this isn't an isolated case. Also i noticed that you recently begun to follow my edits, and that by your own admission, you do not intend to read up on particular topics discussed here. Therefore i suggest you start looking into the science at hand or focus on something else. prokaryotes (talk) 12:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What about the question I politely asked? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Even after years articles draw little attention, possibly because terms are already covered in main articles. Some articles do not have a talk page. I don't see how your question is relevant to the report here. As pointed out, the articles are mostly edited by Peteymills. prokaryotes (talk) 14:12, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

(A) It's a simple question, why can't you just say "No" and then explain as you see it?

(B) Even though I participated in a discussion not mentioned above, suggesting your criticisms are best at article talk or AFD, you didn't ping me. At the risk of someone saying I'm violating AGF, it feels kinda like a stealth WP:FORUMSHOP. Why is this relevant? Because if you're going to attack an editor instead of his edits, you really ought to have Clean hands to avoid the boomerangs.

(C) All that said, I'm only in this because Prokaryotes' contribs make clear he's a passionate climate change editor, and that's my primary area also. I'm participating to try to address process issues as they arise, to try to help smooth the future waters to produce a graceful compliance with WP:ARBCC. It is quite possible all the listed articles should be deleted. I'm not qualified to render an opinion on those technical subjects' articles. I just think we should be talking about the edits, rather than the editor. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, i brought attention to the articles and the specific content parts. I've no idea what all the rules are for you just posted, but to my understanding is your question and everything you posted here so far, irrelevant. Shall we discuss the specific "potentially promotional content" now?? And to answer your question, No, i did not thought the input from other editors from these various articles, since in my opinion it is pretty obvious that there is a COI issue here. prokaryotes (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Since I haven't dealt much with COI, I'll let the regulars respond. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:59, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Please point out where i attacked the editor? My intention is not to attack an editor, by no means. I tried to reason with the editor on the talk page linked above, but it wasn't successful. I think it is interesting what he posts but to technical, and sorry but criticizing edits or articles doesn't equals an attack. prokaryotes (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So..... this complaint is actually Plan B, after you got into a content dispute and found it slow going? I think you would be better served reviewing your dispute resolution options but hey, that's just me. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So, you make an allegation (suggesting i attacked the editor) and now you claim i didn't followed the options? What is it? Or better yet, focus on something else, since your intervention here is off topic. prokaryotes (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Since you ask, you said in post #1, "Editor creates secondary (niche) articles to promote own work....I'm not sure about the motives here but the editor should stop promoting his own research....". You came here with this complaint after being unsuccessful discussing article edits with him. Usually people take content disputes to WP:DR. So, yeah... looks kinda like a shortcut on a slow going content dispute, at least to me. And I note you haven't got any other eds making similar complaints about either the content or the perceived COI, but at least the regulars here are starting to weight in. Good luck figuring out the dispute resolution things we do. Note to self, WP:DROPTHESTICK. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC) PS. I am no longer watching this page, so if I should be aware of anything, someone please explicitly ping me, thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk, from the start i cited COI issues based on one particular article, when i later realized that there are many more articles i filed this report. And yes this is exactly the way this is done. There was nothing wrong on my part, concerning the formality of this report, since i tried to reason with the editor on the talk page, but when he showed no interest i saw no reason to further engage in a discussion there. Hopefully you understand this now. prokaryotes (talk) 15:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Prokaryotes: Please help me out here. You're claiming that Peteymills is engaging in self-promotion. But I'm not finding it. You gave a single example, quoting something about a Tanboe paper at Sea ice growth processes. Yet looking at that article (which is pretty static, it has only had 5 edits since 2012) that language doesn't appear anywhere. Even if it did, what is linking this editor to the paper?

Please understand how this noticeboard (and all noticeboards on Wikipedia) work. When you bring an issue to a noticeboard seeking help, you need to prove your case. You can't claim a problem and let others deal with it. Notice how the top of this board states: "Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the What is a conflict of interest? list." Myself and others who volunteer here have no idea who Peteymills is, and we have no idea what he's done or what disputes he's been involved with. You need to show that. So how did you determine a conflict of interest? What led you to that? Can you show diffs or link to specific discussions (not just pages) that show the editor claiming these works as his own? Do you even have anything with "Peter Mills" as an author? (I checked a few of the articles you linked to and don't see his name attributed in any of the references.)

@Peteymills: Just an FYI, I removed a link on your user page that linked to a Sourceforge page where you are asking for PayPal donations. You're showing a low level of class with what amounts to panhandling on Wikipedia. I understand wanting support for your science work, but seriously, what made you think that Wikipedia would allow you to use your user page to solicit money from people? Your user page is not your personal web page. -- Atama頭 15:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Am I? I think you're showing a low level of class by removing it. Look, I'm currently not employed by a university or other scientific institution. I'm trying to work as an independent. It's not just editing Wikipedia that I do for free, most of my scientific work is also currently unpaid. I can't run off the ether. Don't you find it hypocritical that Wikipedia regularly canvasses for donation yet somehow expects their editors to work on a strictly volunteer basis? Sorry, but this doesn't fly, at least not in my book. Peteymills (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see it so much as hypocrisy that Wikipedia solicits donations from people on the page and doesn't allow others to do it, so much as it is self-serving. I can understand being annoyed by that, but think of it like a department store that won't allow people to pester people for money at their front door, but has charity donation boxes at the registers. The Wikimedia Foundation owns these servers so they reserve the right to do that. We're trying to determine if you're at Wikipedia to be self-serving, and you're really hurting yourself by insisting that you keep a link to a donation page in violation of WP:ELNO. I'm removing it again, if you reinsert it, I will block you, because that is proof that you're not here to improve the project, but to promote yourself. -- Atama頭 16:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Each of the linked articles above has in the reference section of that article page a paper cited, associated with the author/editor and consequently parts of this paper used in the article. The author name is often "P. Mills", or "Petey Mills, or "Peter Mills". If you still want me to list all pages with cites etc please say so, otherwise i think that this is pretty obvious (when you loook at the refs and then the related content, often articles are almost entirely sourced from these references). prokaryotes (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

You're right, that was my fault, I'd missed that. In that case, yes the COI is pretty clear. The relevant section of our guideline is at WP:SELFCITE, which says the following:

Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

So yes, in citing himself as a reference, that is a COI. It is definitely not prohibited per our guideline, but should be done with discretion. There are a few things to consider here.

• Should Mills' works be considered as reliable sources? Our guideline shows how to determine whether or not a scientific work is reliable, at the WP:SCHOLARSHIP section. I have to admit that I'm not well-versed in judging scholarly works for reliability. You could ask for assistance at the reliable sources noticeboard to help make that determination, and to build a consensus either in favor of or disallowing this work for references. It wouldn't be forum-shopping to do so, since I'm making the suggestion myself. :) If these references aren't reliable, then they shouldn't be used on Wikipedia and should be removed. (And this would be done on a case-by-case basis, you won't necessarily say that Mills himself is unreliable, it depends on how each of his works have been received by the scholarly community.)
• If these works should be considered reliable, then determine if each source is relevant to the article it's included in and if the article relies too heavily on such works. If so, then the sources should be augmented by other sources, and/or replaced with other sources to avoid the appearance of self-promotion by Mills.
• Finally, if the article body itself seems unduly self-promotional, especially if it is unsourced or poorly-sourced, then it should be given additional scrutiny and promotional language should be modified or removed. If it's determined that Mills is acting mostly to promote himself and his work, he can be sanctioned to include editing restrictions (page bans, revert restrictions) or even a block. Though I don't see a need for any of that at this point.

Of course, if there are articles that just don't meet our inclusion criteria (especially for notability) they should be taken to articles for deletion unless they meet one of the criteria at categories for speedy deletion. -- Atama頭 16:02, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this now. I will wait a little and then probably will ask at the reliable sources noticeboard for advice. prokaryotes (talk) 17:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Changed my opinion Edits at Peteymills' user page alerted me to another dimension I had not previously considered, and in light of his defiant attempts to solicit donations on his user page, I suddenly have a very dim view of his position in all this.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What does this have to do with COI in the articles? The user page is not an article. The two are separate issues and should be treated as such. As for the issue of COI the only reason it is an issue is because I am open: all my work and affiliations are linked to for everyone to see. Many (most?) of the other editors are anonymous so you don't know what conflicts-of-interest they might be hiding. prokaryotes seems to be having a great time gutting all the articles relating to climate change. Is this because he is paid by some conservative think tank? We don't know because his user page is anonymous and his affiliations unknown.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: true objectivity or "neutral-point-of-view" is a fiction. It is not attainable. This is why I keep my affiliations and identity public: so my work is accountable. You can check my work for yourself and see if my methods are sound and my intentions good. Almost all of the software I used to derive the results in my papers are freely available online. You can download it and run it and check the source code. This is the model of science that I'm striving for. What is our source for authority in knowledge? In a world where even "respected" publications consult Wikipedia, and yet Wikipedia claims to have stringent guidelines for "notability" what else can we offer? Check it for yourself. That's the philosophy I'm using here. Peteymills (talk) 17:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

You admitted at your talk page that soliciting money for editing is more important to you than improving article content. Good bye. PS, as for Prokaryotes (talk · contribs) I disagree with a lot of his wordsmithing and a fair bit of technical nuance, but I'm laughing at the inane suggestion his personal POV is anything other than hawkish on climate.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Peteymills, being open is one thing, putting up many small articles on sea ice and adding to each of them your own work is something different. I'm willing to discuss with you edits i made (ask on talk page) but we need to bring more balance into the different articles from you or maybe merge some of them, and we need to add or modify content so that it is understandable to a broader audience. This doesn't mean there can't be highly technical talk in those articles, but not primarily. Even if your additions turn out to be good and reasonable, there is currently undue weight given to your papers. I will ask for some more input on the reliable sources noticeboard. prokaryotes (talk) 18:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Your transparency and disclosure is commendable, and appreciated. And you are correct that true objectivity is impossible. But we still try as best we can to meet it. It's generally acknowledged that everyone has a bias of one kind or another, it's a consequence of free-will and sapience. It only becomes a problem with that bias skews articles away from neutrality, and cause an editor to serve interests outside of Wikipedia to the detriment of Wikipedia. Everyone is expected to try to compensate for whatever bias they have, and if they are editing in an area where the bias makes it difficult or impossible to act within our normal standards of behavior, they shouldn't edit there. (There are certain topics on Wikipedia where I'm uncomfortable editing too, as I consider myself too biased or too close to the subject to be reasonable.) -- Atama頭 18:09, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I've been forced to block Peteymills, per his own admission his primary goal at Wikipedia was to promote his own work and to raise revenue via the donation page on his user page. He was very forthright about it, and I had to give him credit for it. But at the same time I can't allow a person to edit the encyclopedia in that manner. With all that being said, that doesn't invalidate all of his contributions. Any article he created, or edits that he made, should be considered by their own merits whether or not they should be deleted or reverted. The discussion at WP:RSN can continue to determine the reliability of the self-cited references he added, but the discussion will have to proceed without his input. -- Atama頭 22:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your time and input, it was a rather no brainer outcome. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:11, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Comodo Group

A plethora of related articles have been subject to years of editing that shows strong indications of COI, such as creating separate articles on trivial products, dozens of citations to the company website, promotion, etc. with the latest wave coming from 178.255.86.1 and user:UKAmerican. user:Codename Lisa has been doing some watching over related articles, resulting in edit-warring, and I have been watching over the article on the CEO. I've also started prodding some of the individual product articles, but they could really use more editors to cleanup all the primary sources to the company website, decide which articles to PROD or AfD and watch over the ones we keep.

• Comodo Group
• Melih Abdulhayoğlu
• Comodo Endpoint Security Manager
• Comodo Internet Security
• Comodo Mobile Security
• Comodo SecureDNS
• Comodo SSL
• Comodo Dragon
• Comodo IceDragon

CorporateM (Talk) 21:27, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I concur with CorporateM about the edit warring point: I tried to reason with UKAmerican and did number of reverts that at the time of doing, thought to be uncontested. But I was wrong and as a result it became more than I liked. I disengaged for the fear of a full-blown edit warring and have not edited those articles for a long time.

But the issue of the conflict of interest is a serious one Comodo Internet Security:

• On 29 May 2013 I restored a gross instance of censorship: Someone had gone through the article, removed every instance of negative review and left only the positive ones.
• On 22 July 2013 UKAmerican deleted all mentions of reviews by established reputable magazines and expert sources, with the following edit summary: "make the page less promotional and advertising like, removed 3rd party reviews which appear to be self servin" [sic] The edit itself is vandalism (content removal without a plausible reason) and the edit summary is an instance of falsehood.
• On 24 July 2013, UKAmerican's tag-team buddy, counter-reverted, saying "rv corporate vandalism by evidently paid editor Codename Lisa". Again, the edit itself is vandalism (content removal without a plausible reason) and the edit summary is personal attack plus falsehood.
• On 27 March 2014, UKAmerican changed the infobox URL from the more neutral homepage address to less informative and more advertising-like promotional page and added "Major Releases" section that contrary to its name, is an editorialized news report. Actually, I am going to revert this right now.

I am not ready to say that UKAmerican has a COI but I think this person is definitely very smitten about the grandeur of Comodo and its products, has no respect for Wikipedia policies and the Manual of Style and hates talking to others, let alone going through dispute resolution.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 00:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

American Scientist

• American Scientist (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Kcorder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. Katieh5584 (talk) 19:14, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

User has admitted on my talkpage that they work for the organization. They keep adding content to the page which is copied exactly from their own website, it makes the article read like an advert. Katieh5584 (talk) 19:14, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the edits up to date weren't helpful. The issue is that they were promotional, the tone wasn't encyclopedic, and the external linking wasn't warranted. But as the article is in need of expansion, I would be fine with Kcorder editing it in a scholarly (nonpromotional) matter. The Scientific American magazine article is a good example of a well-written article about a related subject. It doesn't brag about anything or give out a bundle of links back to its website. Kcorder, if you want to improve the American Scientist article, that is a good template to work off of, in terms of writing style and appropriate content. ThemFromSpace 20:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I concur with using Scientific American as an example. That's a tactic I try to use with COI editors (or even non-COI editors with problematic articles); rather than just telling them what is wrong and what should be done, show them what a good, related article looks like. I always try to make the provision that it can take time to get a new article up to the level of quality that the better article has, and that it may require input from multiple experienced editors. Which is why it's important for them to be cooperative and willing to collaborate with others (including having to make compromises and concessions on certain points). -- Atama頭 20:17, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Deepak Chopra

• Deepak Chopra (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• SAS81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (formerly editing under ChopraMedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The user has a self declared conflict of interest [20].

as can be seen by the article talk page, they have filled it numerous times with WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT repetitious discussions on such topics as asserting that Chopra must be identified as an endocrinologist in the lead sentence and in unending bouts of declaring that we must discuss what "neutrality" means, rather than accepting that Chopra's fringe medical theories will be treated as fringe theories because our WP:NPOV policy does NOT mean that we present every claim under a "neutral" light, but rather we frame things as they are seen by the mainstream academics in the area WP:BALASPS / WP:VALID / WP:FRINGE.

the tendentious editing has now spread beyond just the article talk page and the users page to another tl;dr post at WP:BLPN.(Wikipedia:BLPN#Deepak_Chopra_representative._Biographical_bias.2C_overtly_critical.2C_UNDUE_BLP_concerns)

The tl;dr circular discussions by someone who is working on behalf of the subject and known to be editing the article (of which Chopra himself has publicly stated he disapproves of) means that the SAS81 cannot edit neutrally because of the risk~ of their archiving project. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom

I'm not here to edit on Dr. Chopra's article. I am here to represent the concerns of Dr. Chopra per BLP and participate in talk discussion only. SAS81 (talk) 00:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

also, this feels a little like retribution for me posting a BLP noticeboard which are exactly the required steps I am to take as a BLP representative. I've encouraged TRPOD to try to engage with me in a more productive manner - and these sort of things just make me feel harassed, regardless of his intentions. SAS81 (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

The article Talk page is indeed too long to read, but I have been looking in on it from time to time. I see numerous proposed article edits discussed in detail and relevant policies thoroughly explained both in general terms and as they specifically relate to the proposed edits. Contrary to what's asserted here, I see no evidence that this COI editor is being stonewalled or brushed aside, or that the BLP is written using unfair negative bias. The community needs to carefully consider that a promised campaign of polite but constant filibustering by a Chopra employee (supported by their dedicated project team) is not in the best interests of the encyclopedia. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe this is a COI noticeboard and not a place to discuss BLP. SAS81 (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I also don't appreciate the many aspersions this editor has charged my way since I have arrived. When I ask him for evidence of his aspersions, he provides nothing. I've revealed my COI, informed the community of my direct representation of a living person and have raised very reasoned and pragmatic concerns regarding the article in relationship directly to WP Policy only. We're archivists, not PR or marketers. SAS81 (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

All of that being said, as an open COI acting as a direct representative of the subject matter, I'm willing to work within whatever the restrictions for COI are. If I have somehow overstepped them, I hope someone can kindly and specifically point out where so I dont make the same mistake twice. I'm signing off for the day. SAS81 (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

SAS81 has declared a COI and is operating with in the boundaries set out by the Wikipedia per COI. He has declared his intention to operate within NPOV. That he asks for specifics on what others consider to be neutral is an act of good faith given that he is dealing with a group of self-declared skeptics who believe the neutral middle point of this article is to label Chopra in pejorative terms. I believe he has a right to request a discussion on establishing what is the center point of neutrality before trying to go on. With out that information the editors on this article have been talking past each other. He has also posted on the BLP Notice board requesting input. This is a BLP and a request for uninvolved eyes is an appropriate step in dispute resolution. (Littleolive oil (talk) 01:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC))

Agreed that SAS81's COI prevents them from editing the article, but have they? There seems to be some uncertainty on that issue, butI don't see any edits on the article. As far as being a filibusterer, let's WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH until we see evidence of intentional disruption. I offered on the BLP noticeboard to help mediate the sourcing issue; I'll check out the references and we'll see if/how many are workable. That way we don't have a flood of citations (how many are we talking about, actually?), SAS81 doesn't get involved in inappropriate editing and everyone has someone to yell at if they don't like the references on the page. I'd prefer to avoid that last part, but I also don't want to see honest editors get blocked if there's a resolution. The Cap'n (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Askahrc: I can confirm that SAS81 has never made a single edit to any article space page, either through deleted or non-deleted edits. Every edit has been to user space, user talk space, article talk space, or Wikipedia (noticeboard) space (and one edit to WT:FRINGE). They have faithfully avoided all direct edits to any article. I can also assert that SAS81 did not make any article space edits when they had accidentally logged into the redundant account created after their initial username change request. -- Atama頭 19:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Advice for SAS81. Before you again complain about the lack of "neutral" editors who will help implement your proposed changes to the article, you may want to read this. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo's opinion is just that and does not give us permission to do anything except what our policies and guidelines dictate including to behave in a civil way to other editors. This comment by Jimbo has been brought up three times so far, so....(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:57, 28 April 2014 (UTC))

But it illustrates well what wikipedia thinks of woosters, and is well worth bringing up again and again. Our policies and guidelines forbid us from framing woo as anything other than what it is. -Roxy the dog (resonate) 23:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

No, Jimbo's comment does not speak for Wikipedia's editors. It only speaks for him and those who agree with him. And this is a BLP article first. We do have to keep that in mind.(Littleolive oil (talk) 23:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC))

There are no "BLP issues" in framing a woo meister as a woo meister when the framing is well supported by mainstream academic sources. BLP rests body and soul on NPOV which clearly advises us to present such framing: WP:UNDUE / WP:BALASPS / WP:VALID .

Now back to whether the perpetual tl;dr and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT editing by a COI editor is appropriate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

While this particular paid by the article subject COI editor still hasn't got their head round even the most fundamental of WP policy and guidelines, they have had the decency not to edit the article under their two usernames. They also now appear to have mastered the basic procedures of logging into a WP account, always a big bonus. As suggested by TRiPoD, they should now work on IDHT, and perhaps recognise that Chopra's notability lies in his woo beliefs, where he may well be a "thought leader", and his ability to promote unproven medical ideas and sell them. It would also be nice if they could recognise that an avalanche of unreliable sources (Clinton? Gorby?) is worthless against the sources we already have. I am not optimistic that this editor will ever lose their COI approach. -Roxy the dog (resonate) 09:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

There does come at point IMHO at which politeness is by WP:IDHT indicated by repeatedly making similar requests on talk pages, WP:FORUMSHOPPING and posting polite but WP:TLDR requests on talk pages that essentially either ignore policy or try to WP:WIKLAWYER out of them. I'm sure we will reach this point sometime sooner or later. Barney the barney barney (talk) 10:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

• I think that any serious discussion needs to start by acknowledging the asymmetry of the situation. On one side, you have an editor paid by Deepak Chopra to edit his Wikipedia article. On the other, you have a bunch of unpaid volunteers whose interests are not focused on Chopra. Since joining Wikipedia, SAS81 (talk · contribs) (the Chopra employee) has posted a near-daily barrage of material on the article talkpage and/or assorted noticeboards. Those of us who are not paid to look after this article are then required to spend substantial amounts of volunteer time evaluating this material. Again: we've put a bunch of unpaid volunteers in the position of having to sort through a daily stream of Chopra PR posted by a dedicated, paid employee. This situation is perhaps technically "legal" according to WP:COI, but in order for it to work, SAS81 needs to show a bit more restraint. There is no deadline on Wikipedia, at least for those of us not being paid to edit here. Slow down, post less, listen more. Recognize that this is a hobby, not a job, for the rest of us. Pick one content issue and work through it until it's resolved before moving on. Limit yourself to a handful of posts a day - it's a good habit which allows for greater participation in the discussion by those of us who aren't being paid by the article subject. Finally, I can't prove this, but I think if you weren't pushing quite so hard to get all of the Chopra PR talking points into the article at once, you'd encounter less resistance. MastCell ^Talk 18:25, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

• As an uninvolved editor (with no intention of involving himself) I have to say that there's a problem where SAS81 is up against a bunch of involved editors with clear bias against the subject, judging by the repeated use of pejoratives here and elsewhere. That is not to say I disagree with the systemic bias we have in this particular case - I think also that Dr. Chopra is a snake oil salesman on any good day. But that's exactly the reason I would never involve myself in editing his biography. We as a community need to come up with a better solution than having a user with a declared COI and valid intentions go up against a small army of vociferous skeptics and wiki warriors. This should be handled neutrally from both ends. We can't ask SAS81 to be "nice" to us when they are assailed at every turn because they have a COI (!), or because we don't like his boss. As to how to do that... I have no idea. Maybe there's a kind soul amongst our more experienced editors that doesn't think badly of Chopra and can help out SAS81. But this situation tends to reflect badly on us as a community. And MastCell has a point, but all that excessive posting and forum shopping might simply be a reflection of SAS81's frustration at running into the same walls over and over. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 18:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

News America Marketing, et al

• News America Marketing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• NinaSpezz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Posting here because the pattern of conduct has been ongoing for several years. The pattern goes like this: User:NinaSpazz working in their capacity as a Public Relations manager, suggests flattering edits for an article related to one of their clients. In doing so, the user (usually) notes the conflict but then indicates they will edit the page directly, incorporating their own suggestion, within a short amount of time if no objections are raised. This seems to violate WP:NOPR which permits edit suggestions and requests when conflicts exist, but does not permit paid advocates to directly edit Wikipedia by accepting their own edit requests.

From a practical perspective, most of the talk pages User:NinaSpazz edits appear obscure and relatively low-traffic, and so the user's 'deadline' is likely to pass (and their edits be incorporated) without serious scrutiny. This might be less concerning if the edits were objective, but in most cases they plainly are not.

If this is an accepted custom or I have misinterpreted the COI rules, then I apologize for my ignorance.

Omaharodeo (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

For those researching, I have corrected the username in the userlinks above (NinaSpezz, not NinaSpazz). --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Multiple editors related to U of SD School of Law

• University of South Dakota School of Law (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Lawschools (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Nativecultnlaw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sdgovt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sdpolitico (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jungleneetwiki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Logic4bott (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Seems to be an editing campaign by COI users related to University of South Dakota School of Law. Frankly too many COI for me to try to handle individually via talk pages so making this COIN. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:22, 29 April 2014 (UTC)