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    Welcome to Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN)
    ShortcutsSections older than 14 days archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.
    Click here to purge this page
    (For help, see Misplaced Pages:Purge)
    This Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (COIN) page is for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest (COI) for a specific article and whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline. A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connection with article topics. Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Misplaced Pages to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality. For content disputes, try proposing changes at the article talk page first and otherwise follow the Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution procedural policy.

    When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page.
     You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

    Additional notes:
    • This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period.
    • Do not post personal information about other editors here without their permission. Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice.
    • The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject. Editors who have such a connection can still comply with the COI guideline by discussing proposed article changes first, or by making uncontroversial edits. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content. However, paid editing without disclosure is prohibited. Consider using the template series {{Uw-paid1}} through {{Uw-paid4}}.
    • Your report or advice request regarding COI incidents should include diff links and focus on one or more items in the COI guideline. In response, COIN may determine whether a specific editor has a COI for a specific article. There are three possible outcomes to your COIN request:
    1. COIN consensus determines that an editor has a COI for a specific article. In response, the relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, the article page may be tagged with {{COI}}, and/or the user may be warned via {{subst:uw-coi|Article}}.
    2. COIN consensus determines that an editor does not have a COI for a specific article. In response, editors should refrain from further accusing that editor of having a conflict of interest. Feel free to repost at COIN if additional COI evidence comes to light that was not previously addressed.
    3. There is no COIN consensus. Here, Lowercase sigmabot III will automatically archive the thread when it is older than 14 days.
    • Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article, COIN (or a variety of other noticeboards) may be used to determine whether an edit by a COIN-declared COI editor meets a requirement of the Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest guideline.
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    Category:Misplaced Pages conflict of interest edit requests is where COI editors have placed the {{edit COI}} template: Misplaced Pages conflict of interest edit requests Talk:260 Collins Talk:American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Talk:Pamela Anderson Talk:Atlantic Union Bank Talk:AvePoint Talk:Moshe Bar (neuroscientist) Talk:BEE Japan Talk:Edi Birsan Talk:Edouard Bugnion Talk:Bunq Talk:Captions (app) Talk:Charles Martin Castleman Talk:Casualty Actuarial Society Talk:Cofra Holding Talk:Cohen Milstein Talk:Current (newspaper) Talk:Chris Daniels (musician) Talk:Dell Technologies Talk:Michael Dell Talk:Adela Demetja Talk:Etraveli Group Talk:Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) Talk:Steven Grinspoon Talk:Grizzly Creek Fire Talk:Group-IB Talk:Henley & Partners Talk:Mark Hyman (doctor) Talk:Insight Meditation Society Talk:International Motors Talk:Daymond John Talk:Norma Kamali Talk:David Lalloo Talk:Dafna Lemish Talk:Gigi Levy-Weiss Talk:List of PEN literary awards Talk:Los Angeles Jewish Health Talk:Alexa Meade Talk:Metro AG Talk:Alberto Musalem Talk:NAPA Auto Parts Talk:NextEra Energy Talk:Matthew Parish Talk:Barbara Parker (California politician) Talk:QuinStreet Talk:Sharp HealthCare Talk:Shuntarō Tanikawa Talk:Theatre Development Fund Talk:Trendyol Talk:University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Science Talk:Zions Bancorporation


    Possible autobiographies found by bot

    • User:AlexNewArtBot/COISearchResult   This is the large mechanically-generated list of articles having a suspected COI that used to be shown here in full. You are still invited to peruse the list and, if you have an opinion on whether it's a real COI, edit that file directly. When you see a case in that list that needs input from other editors, you may want to create a regular noticeboard entry for it, below.

    MobyGames/ Flipkin

    User:Flipkin has established himself as David Berk, a co-founder of the MobyGames website and has added some 900 links to the website, all still there, right up to his most recent edit . See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jun#mobygames.com . There seem to be an associated farm of socks which have got the site up to over 6000 links. Some legit editors defend some of the links and any clean up would be messy. --BozMo talk 10:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

    It is the general problem when 'good' links are spammed. I would strongly advocate a clean up off all links added by this and sock-accounts (per WP:SPAM; "Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed."; ). Established editors can then revert the edits where they can justify the links. --Dirk Beetstra 11:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
    For something of that magnitude, I would hope the linked websites would be blacklisted. --Butseriouslyfolks 04:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

    There's two templates which transclude most of the spam. I've nominated them for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 9. MER-C 06:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

    Clever. If only he had used his power for good instead of evil . . . Nice catch. Should we disable the links in the template in the meantime or leave them for reviewers at the TfD? --Butseriouslyfolks 06:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
    I urge you to reconsider this decision. Having glanced over the COI page, th only material that seems like it might apply to the links that have been made thus far would be under the following:

    Conflict of interest often presents itself in the form of self-promotion, including advertising links, personal website links, personal or semi-personal photos, or other material that appears to promote the private or commercial interests of the editor, or their associates.

    1. Links that appear to promote products by pointing to obscure or not particularly relevant commercial sites (commercial links).
    2. Links that appear to promote otherwise obscure individuals by pointing to their personal pages.
    3. Biographical material that does not significantly add to the clarity or quality of the article.
    From this I would say that 1. doesn't apply because the links are not obscure, are relevant to many of the game pages being linked and are not commercial except in the sense that the site in question contains ads within the pages and even merchanting links generated to amazon.com and ebay. I would say that 2. doesn't apply because mobygames is a public project and not a "personal page" in any sense. In fact, all edits by flipkin can be viewed from his own page on the site, and certainly don't cover every aspect or even the majority of content. 3. may or may not apply in some cases, but since the "biographies" of various individuals (game develeopers) is dynamically updated on the Mobygames infrastructure, that means that information is constantly updating and becoming more complete. Like wikipedia, actual biographies, photos and other information must be contributed by users and in many cases, pages linked to will not be "complete" in any sense, similar to many wikipedia pages on various individuals.
    Full disclosure: I am also associated with the Mobygames game project and am considered "staff" for the website. (Apologies for if I haven't used the wikipedia formatting codes properly in this comment, I don't use them often enough.) --WildKard 08:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
    I think the bit you overlooked is: "How to avoid COI edits... avoid... 3. Linking to the Misplaced Pages article or website of your organization in other articles (see Misplaced Pages:Spam);"--BozMo talk 11:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Please take a look at Misplaced Pages:Spam and Misplaced Pages:External links as well. They clearly state that massive linking of this sort is not allowed on Misplaced Pages. nadav (talk) 09:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
    Funny, I did that, and right on #3 of what to link to is "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Misplaced Pages article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons." Are you saying MobyGames doesn't qualify under the 'amount of detail' section, especially credits? --Trixter 06:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
    This is a COI notice board. You founded a website and you added hundreds of links to it in Misplaced Pages. That's a conflict of interest violation. --BozMo talk 13:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

    Please note that Trixter and Bhirt have also declared themselves as MobyGames founders in the TfD discussion. --BozMo talk 14:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

    You must have missed the part in WP:SPAM that says: Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed. nadav (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    Proposal

    Looking at the various discussions around on this one there seems to be a lot of support for the idea that we delete the 3500 or so links added by the hard-core COI spammers, put those gentlemen all on a final warning and leave the broader community to sort out any worth adding back over time. Anyone agree/disagree? Anyone got an obvious bot to hand capable of doing this (given the links are all templated and the list of spammed articles we could put together)? --BozMo talk 21:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

    I believe the number of links spammed is closer to 5500. Other than User:Frecklefoot and User:Krótki, no established editors have added a large number of mobygames.com links. On my survey I found an incredible number of SPA's adding moby links in a very systematic fashion; for example alphabetically, or for exactly one calendar year (Jan 1 - Dec 31). The SPA's get warned, some get blocked, but they always return under a new name. Another problem I see repeating is when User:Mathsgeek deleted a bunch of moby spam, the WP:VG community blindly reverted all of it. I like BozMo's proposal but I don't think it is going to work. (Requestion 00:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC))
    I think if we do it with an edit summary linked to an explanation page then we would have a good case for warning and sanctioning mindless reverts of links to empty pages. --BozMo talk 11:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Isn't there a nuclear option where persistent spammers have their links automatically banned by a bot? Sounds like a job for AN/I. -- THF 00:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    I completely agree with BozMo. We can then leave it to regular page editors whether to add the links back. Alternatively, if new SPA's continue to spam then the site will have to be added to the blacklist. Has WikiProject Spam been consulted? nadav (talk) 00:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    (Yep! Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jun#mobygames.com) JoeSmack 14:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Spamming shouldn't be tolerated for even a second. DurinsBane87 12:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Total support for implementation of BozMo's proposal. — Athaenara ✉ 08:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    And nadav's. — Athaenara ✉ 09:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    The last three comments sum up my opinion entirely. Do not tolerate Spam. Nuke Spammed links and let CVG community re-add the useful ones. If they spam again blacklist the whole site. - X201 12:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    I agree with X201. After much discussion here, the Mobygames site appears to have some value as an ext link, analogous to IMDB for films. However, if we were aware that the owner of IMDB was adding links to its site by the thousand, we would never tolerate it. The links added in spam fashion have to go. --Butseriouslyfolks 16:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    Nuke 'em, but keep the templates. MobyGames has some great content (which means the template is still useful), but note I say some; a large number of entries are even stubbier than Misplaced Pages's, and yet these users have been adding links to them regardless of quality or relevance. Garrett 23:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    The template is the reason for the massive spamming. It offers an umbrella to work under. Likewise, many inexperienced editors think they should add the template to any plausible article simply because it exists. Nuking the links without nuking the template would make little sense. The template is the problem. The spammign would never have occured without it. And there is no downside as valid links can be added where appropriate like every other site. Special treatment led to abuse. The real issue needs to be addressed. 2005 21:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
    That sounds entirely reasonable for me. I guess if the template is the problem because other websites/communities are not using a template for their own linking to relevant articles, then we should not have it either. --WildKard 22:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

    3 comments

    I'm going to copy and paste 3 comments from the TfD, because I believe they're important for you to read:

    One problem for me is the complete lack of attempt to mention the issue at either of the templates' talkpages, or to change its instructions to regulate usage to only useful Moby entries. The instructions for TfD state: "If a template is being misused, consider clarifying its documentation to indicate the correct use, or informing those that misuse it, rather than nominating it for deletion." --Quiddity 23:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
    So why not be bold and do it? As for changing instructions, a much wider community worked on WP:EL so perhaps you could just link to that. But we aren't talking about odd innocent editors. We are talking about the systematic addition of mainly shallow links to thousands of pages by a group of people who aggressively reply to queries with "its all agreed". I don't think there is any chance at all that this gang would be influence by comments on a template, even if you just posted "see WP:EL" probably it would just get deleted. Most communities on WP are a bit better at self regulation on these kind of things. That's how it should be --BozMo talk 06:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
    The wp:point is, why didn't you?
    I only noticed this TfD by accident, and am dismayed and disappointed at the zealous/crusading/confrontational attitudes towards other editors (e.g. this comment by BozMo, this initial comment by Hahnchen, ignoring things like the 2 warnings Flipkin gave User talk:69.139.77.86, etc) and towards a free, community-driven reference-project (sound familiar?). More so than that, I'm frankly disturbed at your current discussion of a law-in-your-own-hands solution at WP:COIN#Proposal.
    As Lendorien stated: "Hate to say it, but someone has been going around deleting all the mobygames links from every game article, regardless of whether mobygames link has more or useful information about the game. In some cases, the mobygames link has been the ONLY SOURCE for the article.--Lendorien 23:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)" Is that going to happen again?
    And now you are seriously, nay, eagerly, contemplating razing Misplaced Pages of links to an incredibly useful resource. Slash and burn should only be a last resort solution, where the vast good will outweigh any harm, and that is not even close to the case here (see the thread about featured articles, above. and that's just the featured articles...).
    It reminds me of the theory about how police officers should be required to regularly spend a little time working with innocent children or animals, instead of just criminals all the time. You're all displaying a bad attitude, that is not helpful to anyone concerned in the end, and that needs to be made abundantly clear. --Quiddity 04:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    End of copy. Uses of "You" intended in the selective/encompassing sense, not singular.

    If you do anything like "nuking" the links to a useful reference, purely to chastise a handful of editors who almost certainly thought they were helping both sites (worldwideweb), you're going to be doing a lot more harm than good, and end up pissing off a lot of bystanders. Please please, take a calm and measured approach, and do not take unilateral action based on the single-minded consensus displayed above. Thank you for reading. --Quiddity 16:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    I have re-read these comments and appreciate your good faith opinion on the matter which is at one end of the spectrum of good faith opinions I have seen expressed. I am even happy to believe that the TfD which appeared on every one of 6500 links on CVG pages you were lucky to notice by accident. As for the personal overtones you use in terms of "zealous/crusading/confrontational" I am happy to leave anyone to judge my comments and style in raising the issue with a few COI editors versus the way in which you have approached people who in good faith removed some of these links. What I am missing in the above though is your suggestion on what we should do next (apart from your parody of what you think we are proposing). --BozMo talk 17:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Quiddity, I think your position is persuasive in the TfD discussion but not here. The question there is whether the template should be deleted because it has been used excessively to spam WP. Your position indicates that there are appropriate uses for the template, as the linked site often has value, so it should be retained.
    Here, however, the question is how should we respond to a large-scale linkspamming operation conducted by an editor with a COI. These links were added indiscriminately without regard to whether the content at the linked site warranted the links. Nevertheless, even if most of them were warranted, they are still spam posted by a user with a COI problem. Useful spam links are still spam links. "Live with the COI spam because it might be useful" is not a workable position here, as it invites spammers to linkspam WP in the hopes that some users will find their links useful.
    In a perfect world, we could assign several paid employees the editorial task of reviewing each of these links for propriety and deleting only the inappropriate links. However, we don't have those kinds of resources. The proper course here is to delete the links added en masse in the same manner as they were added -- indiscriminately. Warn the user but don't blacklist the site yet. --Butseriouslyfolks 18:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    To all: I've replied to BozMo at User talk:Quiddity#Hi with some of the background thoughts and impetus I'm bringing to this issue. Just pointing there to assuage any curiosity, and to further clarify who/what I'm frustrated with.
    Here, I'm really trying to make it clear that something is amiss, when the possibility of blacklisting such a site is mentioned, after so little has been done to assist the users at fault from making further mistakes.
    • Examine User talk:Flipkin: He was welcomed and then encouraged/assisted with the usage of the template back in September 2005, then out of the blue he was warned 5 days ago.
    • User talk:TnS, was warned by Chicken Wing in January 2007, and then when TnS offered a measured and intelligent response Chicken Wing replied "Sounds fine. ...".
    • User talk:Krótki was warned for the first time 5 days ago. Welcomed in Jan 2006
    • User talk:Corn Popper was warned for the first time 5 days ago. Welcomed in Jan 2005
    • User talk:Ravimakkar was stomped on in January 2006, but was then told "You don't have to be sorry. ...".
    • User talk:69.139.77.86 was warned twice by Flipkin not to add links unless they were definitely useful.
    And that's it from the list of offenders (those who added 50+ links, excluding frecklefoot. and I'm simplifying, but you get the point). Possibly I'm missing some pertinent facts (?), but after many hours of reading and discussing, I'm left with an uncomfortable feeling that there is a lot more Bite than Good going on, and I'm trying to (emphatically) point that out in the only way I can.
    Thanks again for reading. I really do appreciate the work that Coin and wpspam does, I'm just trying to supply an outside perspective on this particular issue, which seems to be getting potentially way-overblown. --Quiddity 20:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Hello Quiddity. I'd like to remove User:Krótki from your list above and add User:Corn Popper, User:59.182.37.97, and User:63.212.164.226. The accounts in the above list are not real editors, they are WP:SPA and I suspect several of them to be the same person. They mass spam, get warned, blocked, create a new account, and repeat. They are what we call serial spammers. Have you looked at the contribution logs for those accounts? The only thing we could do to assist is to help them add mobygames.com links since that's all that they care about. (Requestion 02:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC))
    (Corn Popper added, but) Those IPs haven't even gotten a welcome/warning template yet... This is exactly the kind of bad faith/bite attitude I'm trying to point out above.
    To try and explain it another way: Some people contribute without reading any more than the warnings and suggestions from just below the edit window (if that). Someone might see that a link to imdb is missing from a movie article, adds it, then goes through all their favourite movies to check that each one has it. I did that in the distant past. Others work alphabetically, because it's straightforward, and that's what they think will help. Look at List of health topics (S); someone started there, and hopes to return to finish it later or hopes someone else will. That's how this place works (One of many). wp:iar is policy to prevent exactly this kind of overenthusiastic wikilawyering. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot by repetitively trying to help you understand, but I know of no other way to expand your world view to encompass what it currently does not.
    --Quiddity 04:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
    Requestion: You just now added 3 templates at once to User talk:63.212.164.226, a user that hasn't edited since January 2007, and to User talk:69.139.77.86 whom hasn't edited since August 2006, and to User talk:59.182.37.97 whom has only made 12 edits. This is very bad faith. You are gaming the warning templates.
    And before you accuse me of stalking, bear in mind that researching and analysing the activities of individual users in order to come to an objective set of conclusions is part of what you are meant to be doing too, as part of investigating possible spam/coi problems. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?: "Who will watch the watchers?". Anyone who notices problems, that's who. --Quiddity 20:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
    Yes Quiddity. You are absolutely correct and thank you for stalking. The edits of those IP addresses were in extremely bad faith. You might not be aware of this but in SPAM and COI cases it's standard practice that all socks are considered to be the same individual / entity. I also just found User:68.46.123.33 who is an extremely interesting sock. That IP address has been banned, indefinitely blocked, and somehow added 300 mobygames.com external links. The more I dig the more interesting it gets. (Requestion 00:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC))
    The User:68.46.123.33 case is interesting. I'm also curious as to how that happened.
    However, that doesn't address why you added 3 levels of warning templates at once, to users like User:TnS. Is that standard practice too? It seems overtly hostile, and is gaming-the-system in my opinion.
    Are there any admins who could weigh in please? --Quiddity 01:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    Well, I could I guess. WP:BITE and WP:AGF are important but we also allow an appropriate treatment recognition of "obvious socks". The disagreement is because you look at a pattern of use and read it as "clearly" something different to how requestion does. I think that takes us beyond policy into subjective judgement. I would personally say that a single anon IP who you suspect to be a sock and does nothing but add a dozen links to a site with spamming issues you probably on balance get guided by WP:BITE and WP:AGF, and talk to them gently, but by the time you have multiple such accounts all similar the chances there are genuine naive users behind them becomes vanishing small. So, I am with Requestion on this one. You are welcome to ask another Admin of course. --BozMo talk 20:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    I meant an uninvolved admin... However you didn't address the only question I asked: Is it standard practice to put 3 levels of warning templates at once on pages like User talk:TnS and User talk:59.182.37.97? Does that not seem excessive and rude? I understand jumping straight to a high-level template is normal, but not posting 3 at once. --Quiddity 21:44, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    What is your problem Quiddity? You follow me around and throw wrenches into the Misplaced Pages machinery like you are trying to make a WP:POINT about spammer sympathy. User:TnS already had a warning from Chicken Wing and Nposs. I just added a 3rd warning but those previous warnings don't even matter. Like I said, it is standard practice to inherit warnings across accounts. Also many spam fighters start at a spam4 warning in cases of mass spamming which +1600 links definitely qualifies. (Requestion 02:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC))

    Well, yes I added a lot of MobyGames links alphabetically to stub video game articles. I can't say anything new, just repeat myself: "I do not work for MobyGames and I am not affiliated with them in any ways. If you noticed I have added MobyGames links mostly to game stub pages. Game stub pages are usually quite uninformative without screenshots." If you noticed I've not added a single link to MobyGames since the warning of Nposs. And thus I would like to ask the removal of the "Courtesy messages" section from my talk page because it is quite embarassing. I did all the additions with good intentions, according to Talk:MobyGames#MobyGames template. I understand that I made a mistake because of adding too many links to low content pages on MobyGames. But that was because of the lack of rules. Someone should update the MobyGames template page and the Talk:MobyGames#MobyGames template section with the guidelines/rules of correct linking to MobyGames. The NeveR SLeePiNG 00:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

    Hello TnS. Wow, your response was quick. I have a deal for you. I'll remove the "Courtesy messages" on your talk page if you agree to remove the 1600 mobygames.com external links / templates that you added. Seems fair. What do you think? (Requestion 02:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC))
    Not all the 1600 links are bad, most of them contains more value than the Misplaced Pages article. That's why I need the guidelines/rules so I can make the removal according to them. The NeveR SLeePiNG 11:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

    The TfD was closed as no consensus. I'll repeat the proposed solution I left there near the end. "The only actual concerning accounts I can determine from the list of suspects are User talk:68.46.123.33 and User talk:69.139.77.86, the edits by those two accounts could legitimately be reverted en masse.". (And any of the edits made after 4 October 2006 by User talk:Ravimakkar too). (The details behind that suggestion are scattered throughout this thread and the TfD, and the contexts are in the individuals talkpages, so I won't repeat it all here.) I don't know much about bots, but I believe mass-reverting the edits of individual editors is a fairly straightforward process? Ask at Misplaced Pages:Bot requests for more info, I'd imagine. Thanks. --Quiddity 17:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

    Only 2 IP's and a small fraction of Ravimakkar edits? You've got to be kidding. With all due respect Quiddity, your understanding of this situation is woefully inadequate. Please stop interfering. Please stop being a hindrance. Please stop throwing wrenches into the Misplaced Pages machinery. And please stop following me around. (Requestion 17:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC))
    Please please try to assume good faith. I'll give the single example one more time, and let you examine the evidence yourself.
    • User talk:Flipkin. As of September 2006 he had been welcomed, and encouraged in the use of the mobygames template. The first mention of the COI guideline/problem was (the next edit) June 8 2007, the day before the TfD.
    If he didn't know he was doing something wrong, we can't punish him for it.
    (and just to clarify, I was explaining to BozMo how I stumbled upon the mobygames thread, as a reply to his disbelief. I'm just trying to be honest and transparent, in action and motive. (Don't label me just because I happened to agree with anything the argumentative timeshifter said!)) Thanks. --Quiddity 02:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
    To be clear if it was a question of "doing something to Flipkin" I could have just done it (sinister laugh). This COI seeks a consensus on some sort of bot removal of links which were put in by Flipkin, and also by a series of SPA IP accounts. Also it has brought up an issue on WP:EL since Quiddity has a view (I hope I am being fair) that we should link to every page which has any information not in the WP article. Getting clarity on that and guidelines for when to link to MG would be a good outcome. --BozMo talk 08:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

    Cutting to the chase

    Has the massive and obvious overlinking been reduced or not? — Athaenara ✉ 01:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    AFAIK nothing has been done yet. I'm finishing up the the WP:COIN#EServer.org case and then I'll get to the mobygames.com overlinking. (Requestion 17:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC))
    Lest anybody continue in the belief that mobygames.com is a reliable source, let me offer two rebuttals:
    (1.) http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,257587/
    "He is originally from Quatloo, Alberta, Canada." Oh, I doubt that.
    (interjected) I must concur, I do not know this gentleman and have never been to Alberta. Also, I agree that Mobygames.com is not a WP:RS. Not because it contains errors -- everything contains errors, including reliable sources -- but for other reasons. Quatloo 00:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    (2.) http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,4916/
    One of his projects was "wwwwolf: Armageddon". That's funny, I heard they were very picky about their content.
    My conclusion from this experiment is that this site is not as useful or appropriate for linkage as we were led to believe. It's absolutely not reliable. --Butseriouslyfolks 23:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
    I should add that the content I quoted from mobygames.com is plaintext. I added the links to relevant users here so that other readers would understand the significance of the names. Also, in fairness, I should add that my attempt to add "Quiddity, Oregon" as the birthplace of another developer was rejected pending further information from me, such as a source. So at least somebody there is paying attention. --Butseriouslyfolks 01:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

    Global Panel Foundation

    The latter is a résumé for an individual who presides to the other two institutions; long but slow warn-and-revert war between inside editors and COI patrollers. Lately an inside editor has resorted to verbal aggressiveness, hence this report. --maf (talk-cont) 00:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

    The following users are all insiders of the organizations and have tried to restore cleaned-up or unsourced deleted content on all three articles - interestingly, as one user leaves, a new one takes his place:

    --maf (talk-cont) 00:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

    IP lookup results:
    • 64.204.217.21 -  Possible - same geographical area (New York), but too populated.
    • 89.56.164.199 and 89.56.133.222 - wrong side of the country.  Unlikely.
    • 203.234.169.3 - Red X Unrelated - South Korea.
    Be careful of 3RR. MER-C 09:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

    All of the accounts listed above, anonymous and otherwise, are single-purpose accounts focused on the Ellenbogen-related articles with evident conflict of interest varying from apparent to obvious. It doesn't matter where they are on the planet: look at the contribs. — Athaenara ✉ 10:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    One month after maf's initial report here, this crew of COI SPAs is still multiplying accounts and proceeding with near-impunity. — Athaenara ✉ 03:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

    Still a problem I am afraid. I have suggested redirecting the Ellenbogen page to the Prague Society for International Cooperation, which is his only claim to notability anyway. Even that group comes perilously close to failingWP:ORG, but would be a hard AfD because it has managed to insinuate itself into the shadow of notable people. Even those claims are probably dubious, For example, a google search on Baroness Cox and the Prague Society turns up mention of a single symposium and lots of Wikimirrors. Anyway, something needs to be done. Eusebeus 14:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

    • I tried editing these for a while until I gave up, & I commend those who perservered. I never did figure out the relationship between the two organizations. I think Ellenbogen has enough refs to show notability at AfD. I am not sure of the organizations, Societies that claim to do their work behind scenes are hard to document & I have a deep skepticism about claims to their importance made by anyone related to them. DGG (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    Gbooks24 / KatieSimon

    An admitted employee of Simon & Schuster using the above registered usernames and IP is posting numerous S&S author bios using text copied from other websites, including the S&S website. I posted the info to the spamdalism noticeboard and an admin left a very nice message for the editor in question explaining WP:C. I think the WP:COI concern is much more substantial. Another editor notified her of WP's COI policy, and I asked her to disclose her identity on the article's talk pages, but she is reluctant to do so. I think the idea of a major publisher posting copyvio bios of its authors on WP is highly inappropriate and borders on User:MyWikiBiz. Anybody agree? --Butseriouslyfolks 20:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

    I agree, highly inappropriate and violate WP:NOT. — Athaenara ✉ 22:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
    Agreed, also: I have requested a move of Kate brian to Kate Brian. This is one of the articles created by User:KateSimon. Bearian 00:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

    The two registered accounts have been inactive since 8 and 11 June, but 199.106.94.136 was still actively linkspamming yesterday. — Athaenara ✉ 04:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

    Mark Dice

    This is a soapbox matter rather a straight COI but COIN is probably the best noticeboard for it. "John Conner" is a pseudonym used by Mark Dice until recently. His internet radio show and writings appear similar to Alex Jones (radio). Under either name he is known for self-promotion. For the past couple of years promotional edits favoring him have been made to Misplaced Pages. In the past he's been sufficiently non-notable that most of the references have been removed. The "John Conner" article was successfully AFDed twice, and speedily deleted a couple of more times too. Obviously it's been recreated several times. The various promotional efforts have paind off and he's probably notable enough now to merit at least a short article. If so, we need to watch it closely to prevent it from becoming a soapbox for fringe theories. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 05:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

    This is another one that needs to be looked at more carefully not onyl for COI, but notability. He's merely famous for stalking and for being in the news, not being or doing anything per se. I've tagged it, too. Bearian 00:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

    208.54.15.129 is still actively COI-editing the article, adding links for videos the subject has made as (wholly not-RS) references, for example. I have referenced some of his additions, but I wouldn't waste energy on arguing against their deletion, and I'm frankly tempted to stubbify the article. As Will Beback pointed out, there's a soapbox issue here, too. — Athaenara ✉ 08:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

    Drum Major Institute

    Unclear what to do. Seems to be a notable org, but tone of article is promotional. YechielMan 14:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

    I agree. It seems notable, but What a mess of an article: Red Link City, USA. COI and messy articles seem to go hand in hand. Bearian 16:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    And this edit violates NPOV, since Drum Major is a thinktank way to the left of the nonpartisan Brookings, which is characterized as "liberal." THF 16:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

    Note also:

    I notified the first two editors about possible coi issues, and recieved a reply from the first: . I'm concerned that editor Drum Major Institute has continued editing both articles, including removing a likearesume tag, without contributing to the Talk pages of either. I'm hoping a note from another editor would be helpful. -- Ronz  20:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
    I was hoping to close this one, but just a few hours ago coi spa Special:Contributions/Drum Major Institute removed the {{cleanup}} tag. — Athaenara ✉ 05:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    I gave the user a general note about removing the clean-up tag on his/her talk page. Sancho 15:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

    Still self-editing as a SPA on July 3. -- THF 23:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    Bernard J. Taylor

    Article on playwright created by a person claiming to be the webmaster for his promotional website who is also adding promotional information about the playwright to other articles and has started an article about at least one fictional character in playwright's plays. WP:OWN issues are arising -- user is removing appropriate templates. Erechtheus 03:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

    Here's the COI admission. I've left a warning. Block indefinitely on the next COI or spam edit. Somebody needs to go clean up this big mess. This user has been a prolific spammer. Jehochman 04:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
    User maintains webpage:
    Can we please indef block this abusive editor?
    Grab your mop. Every edit from this account is self-serving COI or linkspam, hitting multiple articles. (e.g. ) Misplaced Pages is being abused for a publicity campaign. The editor has been warned up, but persists, and has been leaving obnoxious messages with any editor who opposes. Jehochman 14:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    48 hour block for WP:NPA violations. Follow up with specific evidence of linkspam, etc. if problems resume. Durova 17:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    The most vitriolic personal attack is this one.
    Whether or not problems resume, here are the external links that need to be checked. Many look like spam. The editor claims to be the webmaster of this site, so he obviously should not be adding all these links:
    1. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com linked from Wuthering Heights - SPAM
    2. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com linked from User:Siebahn - This one is OK
    3. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/ linked from Bernard J. Taylor - Also OK
    4. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/BOOKINDEX.html linked from Image:Bernard J. Taylor.jpg -OK
    5. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Books.html linked from Detective fiction - SPAM
    6. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Heights/Heights.html linked from Wuthering Heights - SPAM
    7. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Heights/Heights.html linked from Lesley Garrett - SPAM
    8. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Heights/htsbronte.html linked from Wuthering Heights - SPAM
    9. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Htspages/Heights.html linked from Misplaced Pages:Dead external links/404/w - No issue
    10. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Liberty/Liberty.html linked from List of musicals: A to L - SPAM
    11. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Liberty/Liberty.html linked from Battle of the Alamo - SPAM
    12. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Muchado/Mado.html linked from Much Ado About Nothing - SPAM
    13. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/Nosferatu/nosmoore.html linked from Much Ado About Nothing - SPAM
    14. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/PridePrejudice/pp.html linked from Pride and Prejudice - SPAM
    15. http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/PridePrejudice/ppintro.html linked from Pride and Prejudice - SPAM
    I hope the editor will agree to stop spamming, clean up the above mess, refrain from further COI edits, and agree not to make further insults. Jehochman 18:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

    I'll leave this at a 48 hour block for now. If problems resume the duration will escalate rapidly. Durova 18:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

    I've cleaned up the linkspam listed above. Jehochman 19:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    Blocked 69.218.220.246 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for blockevation. Agathoclea 22:25, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    Block on the sockmaster extended to one week. Report additional problems here and I'll respond appropriately. Durova 16:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    I wonder even about the notability. I don't know about the US venues, but the UK ones - Tonbridge ... Eastbourne ... Rotherham - have a rather small-town flavour, and these productions may even be amdram. And his books track to iUniverse (ie self-published). AFD? Gordonofcartoon 02:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

    Judging by SP edits, two more likely socks, the latter getting uppity about being expected to provide published sources for biographical data: Gordonofcartoon 22:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
    24.93.115.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Artwinters (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    Update: just noticed more advertising at Nosferatu The Vampire (musical), Pride and Prejudice (musical), and Much Ado (musical). Gordonofcartoon 02:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

    Westgate / advertising

    I was told this might be the right place to ask. Westgate Resorts looks like a huge advertisement to me. Am I right? It may be a notable company, but I don't think all of those resort links need to be there. --blm07 15:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

    This looks like a public relations campaign to me. Editor JRoss09 has only edited articles about Westgate Resorts, its founder, shareholders, affiliates, and places where he can add links. I'll warn him about COI editing, and see what he has to say. Jehochman 17:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've tried to fix the main article for formatting and erasing junk from it. Bearian 01:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've done some more cleanup, but it still needs work. Jehochman 03:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

    NBC Universal IP address inserting program ads

    IP whois shows this user(s) is at NBC Universal itself. Editing includes (in addition to a "Fxxx Y**" edit) a history of "this xNBC show coming on at date/time" adverts in Travolta, Eisner and NBC employee BLP articles. I'd suggest that an IT administrator that presides over that IP range at NBC be contacted by wikipedia that wikipedia should not be used to spam upcoming NBC shows and to post in a manner that I'm sure NBC would not want to be associated with. Piperdown 19:38, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

    I've added another possible NBC SPA-COI account (Stephenb214) to the list. Jehochman 22:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've semiprotected Michael Eisner and Becky Quick for two weeks. The account and IP address don't show any recent activity. If this is an ongoing problem, please post the relevant account or IP. I take this very seriously and I agree: this is the type of situation where it's important to act quickly and with discretion. I don't know whether this is good faith action by a new user, whether it's coming on orders from management or some well-meaning low level employee acting alone, but it's the kind of thing that could really cause negative press backlash for a firm. Durova 15:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    Still spamming: . The Evil Spartan 14:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

    Theatre Under The Stars (Houston)

    Created by, and extensively edited by, a new editor with the exact same name. I tagged it for COI2. Bearian 23:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

    . YechielMan 01:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    Edits were reverted 3 times or more in a matter of days, and the page was blanked once, by the same user. Does this violate the rule on 3r's? Bearian 16:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    Philip Stanton

    This article was created by an editor called Stanton Studio, probably in violation of conflicts rules and extensively edited by anonymous editors, with content that appears to be original research. Bearian 00:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    I have confirmed the conflict of interest. There is an equivalent article in the Spanish Misplaced Pages, es:Philip Stanton, which was authored by an identical username and an identical IP address, 83.33.etc. He doesn't seem to be notable, with about 150 Google hits for "Philip Stanton" with 1962, his year of birth, to distinguish him from other people with the same name. Because he has written and illustrated many books, he is not obviously nonnotable, so I have not decided to take any action. If you wish to be enterprising, you could try listing his article for deletion on the English and Spanish wikis. YechielMan 01:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    No thanks. I agree that he's notable, so I won't tag it for deletion. However, I want to keep on the tag as a notice to readers and other editors. Bearian 13:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've left him a {{uw-coi}} warning. Jehochman 13:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    MFauntroy (talk · contribs)

    Wrote his own biography and significantly contributed to father's biography, as well as self-promotional editing in other articles. Videmus Omnia 03:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    Also removing negative information concerning his uncle. Videmus Omnia 03:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've warned the user. If he continues making COI edits, please let us know. Jehochman 04:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    Katrina Swett

    I've left a warning for the user. Please report this as an inappropriate username. Thanks. Jehochman 18:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    Thanks for the swift response. I'll be down the hall, to the left. =).--Flamgirlant 19:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    broken <s> tag fixed.--Flamgirlant 19:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    I have added content and citations I found with a Google search. Bearian 23:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    Financial Access Initiative

    Every thing matches, but I can't tell if there's a conflict. The articles were edited by the same user, and Barrineau is a director of Financial Access Initiative. Smoke? Bearian 00:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    First person "article" + username similar to company title = blatant spam + conflict of interest. MER-C 08:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    Not sure about the second article, seems plausibly notable. MER-C 02:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Branding brand

    → See also: Special:Linksearch/*.collegeprowler.com

    I have tagged the article for: conflict of interest, reads like an advertisement (peacock language, photos and interests of the principals, etc.), red links, lacking third-party sources, and unverified sources. This is an article for PR firm by a PR firm. WP:NOT, WP:OR

    The conflict is that the former employer of three principals and the creating editor have a suspiciously similar name. The creator of the article has most recently only been creating or editing articles about persons or entities that are clients and principals of that PR firm. Also, the editor has made lots of edits, but has not even bothered to make a user page or a user talk page. WP:COI

    I have not suggested to delete it entirely, as it may be notable, or just my error.

    Also, there's possible copy-vio of pictures? Bearian 16:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    Oh yeah!

    Joey Rahimi = Collegeprowler = College Prowler = Branding brand = Branding Brand = Alumni of United Nations International School ]!

    From Joey Rahimi: "Joey Rahimi (born April 20, 1979) is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of College Prowler, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based publishing company of college guidebooks and collegeprowler.com, one of the fastest growing websites in its industry. The company was established in 2002 as a project in an entrepreneurship class at CMU's Tepper School of Business. He attended the United Nations International School and graduated with an International Baccalaureate. Upon being accepted into Washington University in St. Louis, Emory University, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University, Joey decided to attend Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "

    Also, note the Usertalk on Collegeprowler has several copyright violation notices! Bearian 16:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    Images have been tagged as no source/license. Videmus Omnia 19:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
    The portraits in the article are copyvio from company website here. Videmus Omnia 19:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    I unclosed this as there are three more articles that the concerned user has been editing where COI is applicable. MER-C 02:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Freedompress (talk · contribs)

    → See also: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Green Patriot

    See the above user's user page for self-proclaimed COI. Videmus Omnia 20:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    Um, yeah. This might be grounds for deletion, but I'm not sure. YechielMan 10:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

    Christopher Elliott

    Christopherelliott (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has come to edit the article Christopher Elliott (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). However, I doubt this is the same person, and I'm wondering if in fact we shouldn't just block the username unless he says they're the same person. The Evil Spartan 14:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

    Also uploaded a huge number of professional-quality images claiming to be the creator/copyright holder. Videmus Omnia 15:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    Get rid of the violating pictures. Bearian 13:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    They're tagged as GFDL. About the best I can do is mark them as "possibly unfree". Videmus Omnia 15:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


    Omaha Steaks

    → See also: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Nasty mess of SPAs at Omaha Steaks

    The "Beth Weiss" account and the 208.249.105.221 IP seem like blatant COI to me. Power piglet 22:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

    Beth Weiss is the Corporate Communications Director for Omaha Steaks, see the bottom of this page. Videmus Omnia 22:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    And Dsimon12 (talk · contribs) is almost certainly associated as well - the Simon family are the founders of the company and still fill most of the corporate offices. Videmus Omnia 23:00, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    Possibly Dan Simon, referenced here. Videmus Omnia 03:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    I torched the most blatantly promotional text -- after which there isn't much left to the article. Raymond Arritt 15:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've warned everybody. Next time one of these single purpose accounts makes an improper edit to this article, they should be blocked as a disruptive account. None of these are here to build an encyclopedia. Jehochman 03:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    70.171.169.139 (talk · contribs) has challenged by editing again and blanking the COI warning from their talkpage. Videmus Omnia 03:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    Are these folks slow learners, unfamiliar with WP policy, or what? They've got to know this doesn't look good on top of their earlier incidents with spam. Raymond Arritt 03:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    (reset) One of the IPs, User:70.171.169.139, responded after I recreated the warning. As long as they are talking with us and no obviously trying to stall, we should just revert their edits. No blocks needed just yet. I think these are newbies who need help countering bias introduced by their competitors. We have to explain how a corp can use the article talk pages and COIN to get help when needed. Jehochman 06:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    70.187.26.152 and 24.252.62.197 are very  Likely, same ISP as 70.171.169.139 and are in nearby Bellevue, Nebraska. MER-C 09:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    Douglas Hubbard

    I'm looking for unbiased opinions on recent edits of Military logistics by Hubbardaie. Although sourced, his edits focus on his own Applied Information Economics model, work he has done for the Navy all referenced to his recently published book. In my opinion this borders on self promotion and assigns undue weight to a single aspect of a subject. Ehrentitle 21:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

    In retrospect, I can see excluding my point for an article that short. I could see it as a subsection or a separate article. The military logistics article should be much longer. I compared it to the length of the artillery page and infantry page. I think it should be at least as long as those.Hubbardaie 17:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Coi Spa Hubbardaie ("aie" presumably for "applied information economics") has created at least four additional articles, listed above. — Athaenara ✉ 04:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

    Watch your name-calling. Perhaps I'm automatically COI for no other reason than my publications but the SPA label is out of line. I've edited lots of articles for a long time with absolutely no reference to me. Stop the labels or I'll just refer to you as Racist Athaenara or Child Molester Athaenara (you can pick).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hubbardaie (talk • contribs) 13:13, 30 June 2007.
    by the way, one of the "Hubbard family" articles is redundant. I'm not sure how that happened. One simply has "family" capitalized in the title and the other does not.Hubbardaie 18:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    It appears someone just redirected the duplicateHubbardaie 19:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    If you're not a SPA, it should be no trouble to point to say a dozen edits from the last month that are not about "Applied Information Economics", or "Hubbard", or disputes and discussions relating to same. Looking over your contributions log, I have trouble identifying those. Could you please provide such links? Facts are a better defense than name-calling. –Henning Makholm 15:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    In defense of HubbardAIE, he didn't say "dozens". He said "lots", whatever that means. Again, facts first.BillGosset 17:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    Correct, I did not say "dozen", Henning Makholm pulled that rule out of thin air. Care is always needed about the facts. In fact, I found in short order three edits I made that had absolutely no reference to me: Anti-globalization, Nobel prize in Economics, and Vulcanization. I believe one would suffice to refute the "single" purpose position. Technically, I would need a dozen if I were accused of being a "sub-duodecad purpose". But, fortunately, I was only accused of being single purpose, so three is more than enough.Hubbardaie 17:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    I noticed he didn't actually create the article reference for his name but he did fill in some bio information after someone else created it. The sources on these other articles are mostly other information, not his book. We used this guy's methods in my firm a few years ago and he would know best. I've also edited some of these articles and added a couple of references. Other than listing himself as a "prominent Hubbard", the sources on the "Hubbard Family" article appear to be independent geneological resources.BillGosset 18:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

    Huh? It sure looks like he created the article himself. OR did you mean this or this? –Henning Makholm 16:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    I only created the article because someone else made it a link on the AIE article which I did write but linked to nowhere. Feel free to remove it or nominate it for deletion. Seriously, I don't care. I kept it short and factual because I figured someone would protest. You will notice that the hubbard family article uses two independent references.Hubbardaie 17:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    This brings up another topic I've wondered about. I've published quite a few articles around financial portfolio management and statistical models. I haven't referenced all of my own articles in Misplaced Pages yet but if there is a rule against that, then that would seem to elliminate some of the most qualified people from writing on most topics (people who are published in that area). Is it frowned upon to reference one's own work? Even if it is supported by the work of others? In other AFD discussions I've seen, COI was itself not sufficient reason for deletion but a lack of supporting references can be.Hubbardaie 19:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

    I would minimize further changes by yourself on any of these articles unless it is a purely minor change like fixing a link. The military logistics page includes only one brief comment about AIE and you provide one source. I added in the military logistics discussion that it should stay in but it would be a smaller part if the article grows (and it should). The other articles seem to have several other sources besides your own. And it's not like you are just referencing a business website for marketing since the work you cite has been published in respected sources. Still, its a fine line to walk. I would resist the temptation to make further changes yourself.BillGosset 19:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

    Hmm... I smell socks. BillGosset, are you sure that you're not Hubbardaie? For example, your only edit to Talk:Measurement is to sign a comment left by Hubbardaie three minutes earlier – which spoke of Hubbardaie in the third person, agreeing with him(self). –Henning Makholm 16:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Actually, we have used the same computer, but we are two different people. Bill has visited and he previously revealed in the Military Logistics talk that I did work for his firm - you can verify those comments. He must have wrote the comment you refer to before I signed off and then corrected it later. We talk about wikipedia a lot. I've explicitly used the "HubbardAIE" username to be as forthcoming as possible when I write articles. Actually, I'm suspicious of most of you regarding your agendas and sock-puppet status. I didn't even have to admit that much. Most of you don't.Hubbardaie 18:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Technically, I'm more like a "meat puppet", but I don't like the sexual connotations. He's ok but I'm really not attracted to him that way:-) Seriously, we only use the same computer when we are both in the same office. We should talk more about our arguments so the wiki-cops aren't so suspicious.BillGosset 18:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Ok, comments from an admin:

    1. It is generally inappropriate to write about yourself, especially a bio about yourself. I will be userfying it in a moment. For more information about this, please read Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest and Misplaced Pages:Autobiography. It is okay to occasionally cite one of your own works, see Misplaced Pages:No original research#Citing oneself, but it really needs to be kept to a minimum.
    2. We don't need duplicate articles, so I've redirected Hubbard Family to Hubbard family.
    3. It is acceptable for you to write about areas inwhich you are an expert. In fact, it's encouraged. But it is also recognized that if you're an expert, you will be knowledgeable about other references, particularly secondary sources, and it is preferred that you use those rather than referenceing your own works on a large scale.
    4. User:BillGosset: I've dropped a welcome template on your page...I would suggest that in order to avoid the appearance of wrong doing, you carefully consider what and where you edit. There's absolutely nothing wrong with collaboration, but even "meat puppets" (in the non-sexual sense) are discouraged.
    5. Be careful about civility...the responses above very quickly got a bit heated. If you really are an academic/professional, you will understand the need to act professionally, especially here.

    I am always available to answer questions. AKRadecki 19:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    I agree on all points. Here are my individual responses:

    1. I just made a note in your talk page (before I read your points here) that I was always ok with deleting my autobiography - which I honestly would not have written except that someone else made my name an article link (I felt obligated to fill in, who else would?). I wrote a point in the talk page that someone should then, at least, remove the article link to my name. I've recused myself from making any further changes to that article.
    2. Thankyou for redirecting the duplicate. I'm not sure how it happened. I think it was the first full article I created and I may have done something klutzy with it.
    3. Again, my username is meant to disclose my identity for the purpose disclosing my identity when making references to my articles. I was quite explicit during the creation of the AIE and the AFD discussion. I will at least make sure that additions to future articles include at least a majority of other sources besides my own.
    4. I'm sure Bill was kidding when he refered to himself as merely a meat puppet. We know each other, have similar intersts, and live near each other, so we will probably be commenting on similar articles. Even though we have long since disclosed our relationship (non-sexual) in wikipedia, I agree we should steer clear. On the other hand, if Bill always discloses that we know each other, I don't see the harm. We'll both be sure to do that when we edite the same topic.
    5. My apologies on the heated-sounding responses but I thought the SPA label was unfair. By the way, I claim only to be informed on my topics of expertise. I don't always claim to be a "professional" and I meet lots of professionals in heated debates. On the other hand, I concede your point for the purpose of productivity and community in wikipedia.

    Hubbardaie 19:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Michael Lucas (porn star)

    I was not aware of this noticeboard until just now. I'm bringing this over from the BLP noticeboard, and I've edited my comment a bit to focus on the COI issue. The other editor's comment was just added today. The page is currently under full protection due to the continual re-adding of several contested passages which are violations of BLP, one not mentioned here which involves another individual. In this case, I don't think there is any doubt of the subject's notability. The issue is his desire to control the content of his page, via his own edits, and now, apparently, through recruiting others to edit his entry. Here is my edited BLP noticeboard post and a comment placed there by another editor: -Jmh123 21:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

    It appears that Lucas uses an anon IP (216.57.17.234) and, until "outed," (see the Talk page) the username User:Lucasent (Lucas Entertaiment), to edit his own Misplaced Pages page. He usually stays within the boundaries, but has apparently recently recruited some of his fans to make sure external links to his blog, myspace, and Lucas Entertainment are included, as well as a passage about an "unauthorized" biography. Another editor has made a good case on the Talk page , I think, for not including these links and mention of the biography. Reversions have been going back and forth on this for days. Each contested edit could go either way, as to whether it should legitimately be included or not, but I'm bringing this up now because Lucas may be recruiting others to make sure the entry is written the way he wants it to be written. It is my personal opinion based on a long controversy over an entry on one of his new "stars" (now deleted via 2nd AfD and no longer working for Lucas), an entry that in my opinion was clearly intended to sell a DVD, that Lucas has been around Misplaced Pages a long time, knows how to work the system, and knows the benefits of Misplaced Pages for self-promotion and promotion of his company. See also Lucas Entertainment (now merged with and redirected to his biography). Any perspective, advice, recommendations, comments? Thanks. -Jmh123 20:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

    I can offer my observations. When I first came across this article, I immediately noticed some conspicuous omissions vis-à-vis what I'd read about this actor Andrei Treivas (Michael Lucas): e.g., Lucas's work as a male prostitute in Europe and in NYC, Lucas's work under Jean-Daniel Cadinot, the fact that Lucas founded his production company with money he earned from working as a prostitute, and the fact that Lucas located his company in NYC (instead of the more traditional Los Angeles) because of the lack of competition in NYC. Over time these facts were added and some balance was achieved. Along came 216.57.17.234 (hereinafter referred to as "216") who proceeded to, at times, systematically, and at times, haphazardly, delete any mention of these facts or anything else s/he didn't like, most times without any edit summary and almost never with any dialogue on the talk page. The only time 216 wrote on the talk page was in response to a challenge to an awards box; s/he wrote that the challenging editor should go to Johnny Hazzard's page or Chi Chi Larue's page and edit their awards boxes, in effect saying, "this is my page, leave it alone and go edit somebody else's page." I cannot be sure that 216 and Lucas are one and the same, but it's a well-known fact that Lucas is a shameless self-promoter. 216 has added and re-added material that promoted the products of Lucas's production company, sometimes using the same phrasing as that used in the company's website. In a 4 April edit on a related page, that of Lucas's "La Dolce Vita" film, 216 added the entire plot section lifted directly from the production company website. And in one peculiar addition on 24 April, 216 added "lungfish" to the list of animals living with Lucas in NYC. Go try and find anything on the internet about lungfish and Lucas -- you won't. Based on her/his history, I don't think it will be sufficient to place the page under partial protection or to even block 216 from editing. 216's confederates will simply come along and edit as they please, as seen in the activity of Theshape4 while the page was under partial. I don't know the exact jargon to express this, but I would suggest two things: have the activities of 216, Lucasent, and Theshape4 investigated for the issues you've raised; and, have the page placed under the form of protection whereby additions can only be made by an authority from Misplaced Pages. Thank you for your good work. 71.127.230.77 18:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
    This fight has broken out again, and there is edit warring, name calling, and the like going on. If anyone wants to check for sockpuppetry, unregistered user User:Lucasent and User:216.57.17.234 are both engaging. The other IPs on the anti-Lucas side are nearly all the same individual. While he is being accused of changing IPs deliberately, it may simply be in the nature of his system. At any rate, he doesn't pretend to be more than one person. The situation is too heated for me today; I have other things that I must do. If anyone wants to step in, please do. -Jmh123 20:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

    Molefi Kete Asante

    Article subject seems to be doing major edits to his own article. Videmus Omnia 01:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    Even stated that he is "renowned". Videmus Omnia 01:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    This required some digging. I tried to remove COI additions by Masante and 24.126.96.187, but I may have messed it up. Shalom 15:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    I've been working on the cleanup also; I think Shalom's changes were very much needed. — Athaenara ✉ 03:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


    Patrick Murphy

    Edits about a political candidate being made by In2itionmedia (talk · contribs), a single-purpose-account which is the name of the media group that operates the candidate's website. Article hijacking of a disambiguation page. Videmus Omnia 18:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    Add to that vandalism of an opponent's page. Videmus Omnia 19:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    This is ridiculous...the other candidates have pages with their history and campaign promotional materials. How is this a "neutral resource" if all the candidates can't have pages with background information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by In2itionmedia (talk • contribs)

    • thats fine the only reason i moved it was because the patrick murphy page was all about the guy running. the reason i didnt change anything on his page was because i commented in the discussion and thats my defense Gang14 04:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

    User:Shattereddd - http://spam.invasionschat.com

    User removed this report, which was restored. Videmus Omnia 17:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    Twice. --Ronz 18:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    Four minutes apart at 17:45 & 17:49 UTC on 27 June. — Athaenara ✉ 10:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

    68.82.245.213 is likely to be a compromised computer. 5 blacklists but dynamic IP so cannot block for long periods. http://spam.invasionschat.com is hosted in Boston, 68.82 is in Chicago. MER-C 07:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

    Shattereddd just recreated DigiChat with no references or other indication of notability. I've given it a prod tag. --Ronz 19:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

    Peter DG Tompkins

    Looks like almost all of his edits have a conflict of interest. --Ronz 23:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

    Vdoogle/ Nickboyett

    IP accounts

    67.182.4.58 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    67.182.36.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    67.182.36.111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    12.44.170.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    67.181.201.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    67.182.36.151 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    67.182.0.3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    → See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Spamming_of_http:.2F.2Fspam.vdoogle.com
     → See also: User_talk:Hu12#Complaints
     User:Nickboyett is Nick Boyett , a co-founder of the Vdoogle search engine which was started October 24, 2006. 13 December 2006 Created page Vdoogle, which was promptly speedied WP:CSD#A7. Since that time Its become evident all contributions from this account and the related IP's were being made for promotional purposes. Despite the attempts to explain the relevant policies allong with the importance of Neutrality, I believe this user fails to see this from the point of Misplaced Pages when it comes to having a conflict of interest.--Hu12 00:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    James Sherley

    I'm having a little trouble with a couple of accounts that appear to have probably been created by MIT professors or students. The only edits these accounts make are to the James Sherley article, and these accounts usually turn half the article into a defense of MIT's not granting Sherley tenure. While MIT's position merits mentioning, it shouldn't dominate the article, and be careful of the links the accounts add also, as they do not always back up the statements being made in the article by the attack accounts. Chicken Wing 09:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Saaty's

    The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)is being vandalized or recreated with strong POV and COI. It appears the inventor of AHP and his wife, Thomas and Rozann Saaty (Usernames TSaaty, RozannSaaty), are repeatedly deleting citations of published papers that point out flaws in the AHP method. It appears that the accounts were created specifically with the single purpose in mind and with a conflict of interest because the only edits made by these accounts so far have been recent changes to this article. Both should be considered Coi and Spa. The last edit by RozannSaaty amounted to replacing the entire existing article with what was clearly blatant advertising. The last edit by TSaaty was to simply delete the entire article. They have been invited to articulate their rebutals to these papers without deleting the citations but they appear unwilling to do that with a neutral point of view.Hubbardaie 12:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    unwikipedian? Good word. That's definitely going in my dictionary.Hubbardaie 20:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    Easywayout (talk · contribs)

    → See also: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Juniper Shuey

    The above two articles were created by the SPA Easywayout (talk · contribs), which also happens to be the name of a collaboration between the two artists. Strongly promotional in tone. Videmus Omnia 17:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    I'll send these to WP:AFD. Shalom 18:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    Anne Lindfjeld

    → See also: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anne Lindfjeld

    The names are too close for coincidence. Seems like an autobiography. It's a poorly written article, with bad links. Also I sent this to WP:AFD. Bearian 19:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    User:Tlrp

    This user seems to be creating articles about itself and its principals, in violation of conflicts rules, and inserting spam links into other articles as spam. It and they may be notable. It is a suspicious situation, and may involve a single purpose account. Bearian 19:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

    I've been on both sides of this type of situation. I've written an article about a method I personally invented but I made sure there were plenty of independent, notable and verifiable sources and then I voluntarilly removed myself from further substantive edits in the article (it passed a speedy delete vote unanimously). The problem with this article is that the only "reference" cited is what appears to be an unpublised internal document and links to their websites. It also seems highly unnecessary to simply list names of directors in an encyclopedic source. In general, its just a very light treatment of whatever this is supposed to be. It should probably just go up for an AFD discussion.Hubbardaie 20:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    SSRC is certainly a highly reputable organisation, and their major projects are probably notable--at least once they have been going for what is now 7 years. However, their PR people are like pother PR people, and the main article is as much spam as information. My personal touchstone for excessive spam is excessive emphasis on individual names or project names, and I have just removed some. The principal investigators on a project of this size are normally already highly notable, but the same can not always be said for the administrators. So I think the thing to do is to work on the articles individually according to their ordinary merits. (As is not unusual, the PR people have somewhat missed the boat--what would show notability is discussion of substantial published work and third party reviews of it, rather than just research plans--just as with anything else.) I'm watching them all. DGG 04:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

    Cogswell College

    Some dude (User:Joel_Lindley) constantly deletes anything from this article if it is not negative enough. I see that *he* reported a conflict of interest with someone else, and people investigating it found out that "Joel" had been involved in some sort of incident with the college, apparently involving the better business bureau. As the person responding to HIS conflict-of-interest report noted, he has an epinions page containing details of his experiences with the school, and he is constantly trying to make the wikipedia page for the school match the opinions in that page by deleting any material that could be considered positive. the latest, for example, was that he deleted a link to a story in IGN (a neutral, third-party publisher with a decent reputation and which is fairly well-known in the gaming industry) because it was "an ad for the school.")

    He definitely seems to have some personal issues regarding the school - as pointed out in the response to his conflict-of-interest (in the archives), he was accusing some anonymous guy of a conflict, and the anonymous guy traced back to a law firm in chicago, while the college is in california. As the previous "investigation" showed, he had filed a better business bureau complaint against the school, and, according to a epinions review by someone with the same name, apparently some sort of civil rights complaint against the school as well. In the discussion for the cogswell page, he seems to admit having had some sort of "past" with the school. Although he seems willing to leave the page as it is alone for the moment, I'm not quite clear from his recent discussion entries what his actual position is.

    He also constantly is threatening people with various sanctions for posting anonymously, which, at the least, seems like it should be discouraged, but i don't know where to go to complain about that.

    Joel's previous conflict-of-interest report and responses: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_13#Cogswell_College

    Camaier 17:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

    Competition law

    User:TedFrank has been recently editing the Competition law article, in such a way that is politically motivated by his place of work - the American Enterprise Institute. This is a conservative think tank which lobbies for the viewpoints of certain economists, which the Competition law article deals with, e.g. Robert Bork. It began with a section (now) titled "Chicago School" where he complained of the first sentence using the word cranks. I changed that and accordingly removed the neutrality tag here because that had (I thought) been the complaint. User:TedFrank then added more and more objections, and the whole thing deteriorated. I made edits a number of times to keep up. I probably am to blame, for being too sarcastic on a few occasions which is poor form on my part. It seems now however the user has another agenda, the page being called "pro interventionist", "eurocentric" and in his view now "not even a B class on closer inspection." The latest complaint is about a nobel prize winning development economist being in a footnote, because undue weight is being given to him and not for two conservative economists, Richard Epstein and Frank Easterbrook. The theory part has an entire section for what's known as the Chicago school, but now the entire article is tagged to be rewritten, presumably with the conservative outlook of User:TedFrank's thinktank. I would like to ask for some intervention and am happy to take any advice offered on this one from administrators who don't have a particular political interest. I'll stop editting the article in the mean time.Wikidea 08:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

    This is the opposite of serious. Before I saw this complaint I asked two Wiki administrators, User:Newyorkbrad and User:Cool Hand Luke, who are also attorneys, to inspect my edits for COI problems, and both found that my suggestions and tags were appropriate. For example:
    THF is entirely right. I cannot understand why we should cite two of Posner's books inline without even hinting about what his views are or they are or why they became influential. This section still reads as if a capitalist cabal of cranks was sinisterly stationed into positions of power by Ronald Reagan. It mentions some of the key players and documents their relationships, but nobody could read this article and have any idea why the Chicago School thinks as they do. Cool Hand Luke 17:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    The bad faith of the COI accusation can be seen by the fact that one of Wikidea's examples of my alleged COI--which occurred on the talk page--was self-reverted twenty seconds later. The real problem here is WP:OWN: the article is shoddy and unbalanced and Eurocentric and violates NPOV, but the editor does not want to edit collaboratively, and has inappropriately attacked every editor who has objected to his version of the article, in this case making uncivil personal attacks against me and accusing me of "vandalism" because I added an NPOV tag and objected to his edit-warring. This complaint is utterly inappropriate: I have made thousands of edits here without a legitimate problem, yet am being accused of an "agenda." Every suggestion I've made for editing the article is legitimate. Where is the COI problem because I'm discussing these issues on the talk page and simply asking for NPOV to be adhered to? I'd like to see Wikidea investigated and sanctioned for the violations of WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:OWN, and WP:NPOV, and I strenously object to the violation of WP:BLP that appears in his personal attack here that my edits are "politically motivated." THF 17:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    I've responded to an inquiry concerning this thread on my userpage. In view of the opening comment above, hopefully it will not be necessary for anyone to raise civility or personal-attack concerns again with regard to this article. With regard to the substance, I don't see any overt COI issues at this time, but I remind everyone to adhere to the fundamental policy of NPOV. This article, as I've mentioned on its talkpage, should address all significant perspectives on competition/antitrust law in a wide range of national settings. We have plenty of editors with relevant legal and/or economics background and this should be a fine article if everyone edits with our policies in mind. Newyorkbrad 18:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Undoubtedly THF's employer would disapprove of the article's slant, but this is not a COI issue. The article is in fact seriously biased, and THF has made many legitimate suggestions to improve it. It's true the THF has opinions, but this does not prevent him from contributing well-sourced and NPOV text—he does not appear to be censoring the article. The principle author also has a bias, as shown by the heading he originally gave the Chicago School—which is the dominant line of thought in US competition law—he titled it "neo-liberal radicalism". This term is both POV and apparently an invented neologism. Misplaced Pages is better off because an editor with a complimentary point of view (THF) helped fix this problem. I think further cooperation would greatly improve the article. Cool Hand Luke 18:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Counsellors, I did not mean the COI was serious, I meant it was a serious issue for WP:LAW. I alerted Newyorkbrad. We need a well-balanced article with references to law from many countries. Sorry for the confusion. I am happy to make suggestions and edits, although antitrust is not my area of expertise. Bearian 18:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Incidentally wikidea, accusing the AEI of complicity in these edits is a very serious claim. As THF points out on Newyorkbrad's talk page, it would be illegal for the AEI to do this. It's one thing to accuse users of bad faith, but it's quite another to attack third parties. I think you should carefully edit your remarks. Cool Hand Luke 18:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    To clarify, it is illegal for my employer (or for me) to lobby. It is not illegal for my employer to edit Misplaced Pages, though they do not do so. My employer's most likely reaction would be "Why are you wasting time on the Internet instead of writing another law review article?", but I do resent the personal attacks, which force me to waste time defending myself, and reduce the spare time I have to make productive contributions to Misplaced Pages to the detriment of the project. There should be some consequence for what has been repeated disruptive behavior by Wikidea, and I'm not the first editor who he has tried to bully away from collaborative editing. THF 18:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Not satisfied with the unanimous rejection of his complaint here, Wikidea is now engaging in personal attacks on the competition law page. I object, and would like Misplaced Pages rules to be enforced. THF 21:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Addition Just to restate, no one has said that Ted, or his Luke acting with him, is being paid to lobby for certain changes, but his edits are overwhelmingly bias, according to the place he works. This is not some conspiracy theory, it's the far more mundane allegation that the User is unfit to be commenting on this page because of the pursuit of his slanted viewpoint. The so called "personal attacks" that he is referring to above, by the way, were exactly the same comment as I've posted here to begin with. I was then threatened with blocking, because Luke happens to be an administrator, when I tried to revert its deletion from the talk page. It seems a typical thing to do, according to the conservative philosophy they hold - start posting POV tags on pages, rubbish people who reply and object to deletion of good material, accuse them of breaching WP:OWN, don't compromise and keep writing until the other gives up. An example of the same pattern of action can be found on the Talk:The Great Global Warming Swindle page. Wikidea 17:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
    Again, it's simply not the case that only left-wing editors are permitted on Misplaced Pages and it's not the case that the mere fact that I hold views consistent with the United States Supreme Court on competition law prohibits me from participating on any law-related articles. Wikidea's admitted refusal to adhere to WP:NPOV and WP:AGF, and his continuing this disruptive vendetta, despite not being able to identify a single non-compliant edit I have made, should face some administrative sanction. THF 18:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


    Match magazine (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

    Comments There's been a lot of discussion on the talk page, user's talk page, and in the wikitext of the article itself. The creator with the "self-evident" nomiker has been editing it again, possibly in violation of WP:COI and WP:NPOV policies. Should we place a COI2 tag on it? By the way, I wikified the introductory paragraph. Bearian 15:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
    I've added the COI2 tag to the article and noted COI on Matchmagazine (talk · contribs)'s talk page. not sure what the next best step should be?--Hu12 20:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

    Light Children

    Marisa Canales

    International Securities Exchange

    Lauren Jones, etc.

    -- Suspicious doings by spa editors at these articles, which all smack of boosterism. THF 17:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

    Mark R. Graczynski

    Graczynski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -article appears to have been started by its subject. --A. B. 20:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

    Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

    Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
    Peter Doroshenko (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    The Centre's own press office have admitted to cleaning up the article. The current version has a long unreferenced section hyping the program and is not consistent with other UK gallery articles.212.85.13.113 14:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

    Both articles are problematic and have been edited by the same group of local editors such as Surface01 (talk · contribs) and Kjhughes (talk · contribs). I'm not sure what to do beyond slapping on COI tags and praying for rain. It's way past my bedtime anyhow. Shalom 05:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

    Ron Paul

    In the future, I predict Misplaced Pages will be a political campaign battleground. For Ron Paul, the future is now. That article is being edited by strong supporters (some of whom admit to it on their userpage) and several talk page commentators have complained that it reads like an ad. Sourced critical commentary has been removed as "hearsay" and a list of his political positions has been repeatedly removed from the intro. Given that Paul's positions are quite divergent, very unlike typical Republicans, I feel the summary of political positions is important. It would be nice to have some neutral editors have a look. BenB4 20:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

    I normally deal with the "cheapo" COI reports, such as where the author's username is identical to the article, so it's pretty obvious that the article should be deleted. The Ron Paul page has almost 100 references, and it's way out of my league. I think the best place to resolve your concerns is Misplaced Pages:Peer review or perhaps Misplaced Pages:Third opinion. Shalom 05:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
    Call me naive, but it looks like a fairly fair article. Let's face it, he's controversial. I agree that WP will probably become a battleground. Bearian 22:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

    It's sourced, and you too can add sourced info to balance it out. The problem just might be that ROn Paul is so unambiguously awesome that any article about him will seem like an add. Basejumper 21:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

    David W Solomons

    Dwsolo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is David W Solomons. The vast majority of his edits are adding links to his own site. He has now uploaded content and is linking that instead. Nice to have free content media (if he genuinely owns all rights) but it's still vanity. Can anyone find any edits by him that are not promoting himself? Guy (Help!) 08:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

    He is continually adding music created by himself and if someone were to verify where the music came from by looking at his user page they'll find his website. He is definitely not interested in adding the music created by others to build up Misplaced Pages as an encyclopaedia. He also seems to be using Misplaced Pages to store his files WP:NOT#REPOSITORY. The only reason he makes his music GFDL is to promote his own work. Jono1970 07:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
    Agreed, I thought that was the purpose of MySpace. Bearian 22:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
    On the Solomons Usertalk page, User:Moreschi is adamantly defending the uploads. I don't understand how they're being used but he seems to feel they are important to Misplaced Pages. -Jmh123 00:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
    I have an issue with the account being created solely to upload music files created by himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Dwsolo He was adding links to his website before but has stopped. He appears to have no intention of adding any text despite having knowledge on the subject being a composer. He has also been told that he should only upload music files with no reference to his name. I believe the sole purpose of his account is self promotion. Jono1970 12:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    Frank R. Wallace

    User:Bi may be involved in WP:COI edits. This user and his website are cited as competitors with the organizations of Frank R. Wallace (1932-2006). This status is stated on a Nouveau-Tech Society homepage. (Pax Neo-TeX and it's author are listed in the last paragraph.)

    To note, User:Bi has been heavily involved with editing the article on Frank R. Wallace. These edits may be an obstruction (such as Afd nominations). Edits also seem to go against guidelines which suggest to avoid or exercise great caution with COI edits on articles and their Afd discussions (rather than extensive participation). Many articles are available that User:Bi could be extensively involved in that do not violate Misplaced Pages’s policies. The article on Frank R. Wallace (and his company) is not one of them, as per User:Bi's COI.

    (Represents separate issue from self-promotion COI --above-- which mentioned link spam. That incident is on it's way to resolution... a self-promotion link to User:Bi's site being mostly considered as inappropriate.)

    Though a COI is possibly evident, can compile references or examples of COI edits if this would be helpful. Thanks. J. T. Lance 11:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

    The article on Frank R. Wallace, and the conduct of Bi and other involved users, is now the subject of a Mediation case. The Mediation Committee now has jurisdiction. Also, I would not consider this a normal COI case. Rather, Bi evidently has an anti-Wallace POV, and J. T. Lance has explained why he might have that POV - but that still doesn't tell us what to do in a complicated dispute resolution situation, so I've decided to punt and let MedCom handle it. Thanks for the report. Shalom 20:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
    Actually, the MedCom case is closed, but I still can't be bothered to do anything about this article. Shalom 20:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
    Thanks for helping. A concern though was with User:Bi’s COI (noted above) more so than dispute resolution with MedCom (previously closed incident). Would it be beneficial for an editor to post a tag on user's page found to have a COI, or to ask user's with a COI to gain consensus on talk page prior to additions to articles? I hope this is okay. Thanks again. J. T. Lance 08:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

    List of Tamil language television channels

    List of Tamil language television channels (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
    Galaxy7953 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    202.76.226.226 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

    This user is a single purpose account devoted to adding items from the Galaxy TV network to the list above. The aggregate diff of his edits to this article shows an addition exclusively of shows with the word "Galaxy" in them, similar to his own username. I recommend that these all be reverted, and I wouldn't be horrified if the article got deleted altogether, but I want a second pair of eyes to review this and execute the revert if it's appropriate. Shalom 03:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

    Done. I also dished out a few speedy tags. MER-C 06:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

    Biscayne Landing

    User (and "anonymous" but same user based on IP address) from the PR firm representing Biscayne Landing are regularly deleting/spinning sourced information. In addition, they are threatening to sue wikipedia if any negative information is included in Biscayne Landing article. User_talk:Marketingsupport While some minor NPOV edits are valid, the large amount of POV edits make it difficult to replace improperly deleted info without reverting entire article. Additional problem with Munisport article by same user(s) --RandomStuff 17:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

    I noticed this because a report came to WP:SSP regarding the three editors listed here. The page history is too muddled to attack the COI by a normal method - i.e., take out whatever the COI-editor put in. Instead, the article just needs to be kept neutral. At first glance, it seems neutral at the moment, but if these folks persist in POV pushing, the next step is probably dispute resolution. Shalom 05:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

    Anime Detour

    This single purpose editor has repeated removed a cleanup tag and twice replacing it with a note directing readers to an external website. (comments justifying actions) The editor's more recent edit was to place a self referencing message asking the article to be written, which was the purpose of the original cleanup tag along with this demand for the article to be "fix" instead of having the cleanup tag reapplied.

    Because of his/her edits and username and indications of WP:OWNernship over the cleanup tags on the article, I highly suspect that the editor is connected to the convention which the article is based on. --Farix (Talk) 03:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

    With these three edits, he has effectively declared WP:OWNership of the article. --Farix (Talk) 03:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
    His userpage proves the COI beyond doubt. It's almost laughable. I'll add a warning, and I'll check for 3rr. Shalom 13:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
    The user had never been warned before. If he continues, a short-term block may be necessary. Until then, just keep an eye on the article. Shalom 13:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
    Would this have been sufficient enough to be classed as a warning?At the time, it wasn't clear that there was a COI, but the guideline was referenced and one of the links above also demonstrates that he/she responded to the message. --Farix (Talk) 18:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
    Although the blatant assertions of ownership have gone, I still read a tone of WP:OWN into the "under construction" tag in conjunction with a statement about the article being "under construction until further notice" . Gordonofcartoon 22:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
    Actually, I put the under construction tag there, because it served the purpose better than the bold text that was previously there. MER-C 02:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
    Yeah, how dare people who actually run the convention update a wikipedia article about it! The link in question goes to Anime Detour's website, which is the best source for information there is about the convention. It's not like this is a political link or something like that-- the site provides just information about the convention, nothing more and nothing less. The user in question runs the AD website, in fact, and is part of the board for Anime Twin Cities, Inc. (the parent company which runs Anime Detour), so he is rather knowledgeable about the subject. Jtrainor 20:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    NBC Universal (again)

    Brought this up before , and it's happening again. NBC Universal IP address editing the BLP's of an NBC employee . Piperdown 17:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

    WZID, WMLL and WFEA

    Obvious SPA and COI. User says on her user page that she is the promotions director for the above radio stations, and continues to add promotional material for her stations. Huge WP:OWN problems, as she constantly reverts any other addition to the articles (at least three other users). She has already been blocked once for 24 hours for spamming, and came back immediately after the block expired and began editing the articles again, reverting changes. Rockstar (/C) 18:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

    This may rise to the occasion of an indef block. A person who is a promotions director and adding this type of material, after previous blocks, appears to indeed warrant it. I would support an indef block, and, only if the user promises to stop, should she be allowed to continue to edit. The Evil Spartan 17:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
    The contribution history of this user includes many reverts of the work of editors trying to enforce policy, for instance . Since she seems to know that she's doing, and she's doing it anyway, I think a block would be justified. I thought she had stopped on 13 July, but the reverts continued on 16 July. Is it appropriate to make a posting at WP:AN/I? Is there some kind of a final warning that should be issued first? EdJohnston 18:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    Per your note to me, I sent her an email laying out the potential consequences if she keeps this up, and promising to call her employer to see if this network abuse is OK with them. An indefinite block leading to community ban would be the only realistic remedy next time. Daniel Case 18:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    Should the promotional material from the articles be removed (which will most likely result in more reverts) or should we wait till this clears up/the user responds to the email? Rockstar (/C) 20:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    OK. She wrote me back at some length; I just finished writing her back. Basically, she was asked by her employer to do this ... apparently the article about Saga Communications gave the wrong headquarters city in Michigan (I suppose I would be upset if my workplace were in Grosse Pointe Farms and Misplaced Pages said it was in Detroit ... big difference there) and she felt that there should have been an article about WFEA since (she says) it's the oldest radio station in New Hampshire. She feels like she was singled out, as she tried to make the articles similar to other radio station articles she had read (there doesn't seem to be a standard format for them, AFAICT). I explained a lot of our policies and suggested that, while I understand it is conceivably part of her job to be aware of what information is out there about her employer, given her position it is probably best that she refrain from editing directly in all but the most urgent circumstances (i.e., vandalism reversion), and should probably raise any other issues she has on the appropriate talk pages.

    I also decided to help her out a bit by adding the articles to the radio stations and NH projects (and referred her to them) if they weren't there already, and wrote fair-use rationales for the logos she uploaded (Two could stand to be reduced, and all could be made into transparent .PNGs, but that wasn't the most important thing at the time). I think she is genuinely contrite ... we'll see where this goes from here. Daniel Case 03:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

    Robert Bernard Hass

    Subject appears notable from Ghits, but apparently all contributions are by subject of the article. Left uw-coi tag on user's talk page, but he doesn't seem to be recently active. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

    The article is pretty objectively written - it's not spammy or anything. I say just leave it for now. The Evil Spartan 17:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

    State University of New York at New Paltz

    I'm afraid that an edit war over COI/POV is about to break out. On the talk page, User:RadicalHarmony has accused the unregistered User:137.140.48.96 of being an employee of the SUNY New Paltz and of making POV edits and thus having a COI here: Talk:State_University_of_New_York_at_New_Paltz#Crazy_POV_edits. User:RadicalHarmony has also admitted to his own POV and COI. (My interest is that I'm an alumnus, class of Dec. 1986, and a member of its planned giving club, the Tower Society.) What should be done? Bearian 18:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

    There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger of an edit-war: the article hasn't been edited in over a week. A good starting point might be to zap all of the material that's gone unsourced since March - if nobody's interested in referencing it, it should go. Of the edits by the IP listed above, I notice only that this section is largely a copyvio of this page. — mholland (talk) 20:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
    Thanks for the advice. User:RadicalHarmony has also contacted me about this on my talk page. Bearian 20:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

    Stillwater Mining Company

    The accounts listed above, anonymous and otherwise, are single-purpose accounts focused on promoting Stillwater Mining Company (and related companies) by creating or editing related articles with evidence of a conflict of interest. all links added by these sock-accounts have been cleaned.

    → See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Stillwater_Mining_and_related //Hu12 02:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

    Paul Truong

    Polgar is the wife of Truong. She makes many edits to this page that may or may not constitute a conflict of interest. I'd like others to weigh in and take a look. Among her edits is the occasional removal of statements that support the fact that she is, in fact, married to him. She also keeps adding statements about a chess program that she and he run at a university in Texas. So any other eyes and comments on this would be appreciated. Metros 03:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

    Technical analysis

    Rgfolsom, who acknowledges his COI (he runs writes for a technical analysis business), keeps removing a POV tag from an article where there is a dispute over the NPOV status of the article. (Among other problems, the article has a criticism section.) I don't object to Rgfolsom editing articles where he has an "expertise", but I do object to the POV-pushing of this pseudoscience and undue weight given to the minority view that there is any validity to technical analysis. THF 22:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

    And there seems to be some unusual tagteaming going on with Sposer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). THF 02:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    I do not acknowledge a COI, and I do not run a technical analysis business. A similar COI accusation was made against me in an arbitration case that was decided in this past March -- the committee ruled unanimously in my favor. The suggestion by THF of sock or meat puppetry shows an incivility and lack of good faith that speaks for itself. --Rgfolsom 03:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    The committee ruled unanimously that you had a conflict of interest, but the other editor you were in a dispute with had acted worse than you. The committee did not write you a permanent blank check, much less absolve you of a COI. I have no idea what your relationship is with Sposer, but it's curious that the two of you edit the same articles at the same times. There is tagteaming going on that is preventing any single editor from fixing problems with the article; that can be for innocent reasons. THF 04:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    I have no connection with rgfolsom. If we were playing tag team, he probably would have told me about this page the 2+ weeks ago, when it was posted. Instead, I found it on my own today. Note that I have removed some of his edits in the technical analysis article. Sposer 03:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

    Daphne Rosen

    Extensive autobiographical editing by article subject. Videmus Omnia 05:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    Games Workshop

    81.109.165.97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - this IP is owned by Games Workshop PLC and has been used to edit articles relating to Games Workshop products. Most of their edits are old – I only came across this IP in the last couple of days - and This isn’t a very serious case but some COI edits have been made, by adding what looks like promotional spam to pages.

    Most of their edits are just clean-ups . Others are unsourced and possible spam

    These are the articles that this user has edited with a possible COI:

    I'm not sure what action to take, generally this IP has made constructive edits elsewhere and is mostly cleaning-up articles where they have a COI, but a games workshop IP editting Games Workshop articles has the potential for real COI issues--Cailil 23:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    The editor doesn't have many contributions, and none of them seems to provide a COI/spam problem. I would say it's not a problem. We don't necessarily discourage editors from making minor changes about subjects that concern them; we mostly suggest they avoid major changes or spam-like insertions. As there are one or two edits that might be a problem, I've simply templated the IP; hopefully this should resolve the problem. The Evil Spartan 14:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

    R. John Hayes

    These are all being contributed to by Angelos2812 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) such that I believe said user is Hayes or knows him well. The articles he is adding to are all things Hayes is involved with personally. MSJapan 18:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

    Enfield 8000

    So far, I have recommended suggesting the changes on the talkpage, but I do not believe they will heed the warning - after the previous COI warning, they continued to edit the article, so they dont seem to be very responsive. I am not sure how to proceed. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

    Buy.com

    (Moved from WP:AIV)

    209.67.181.254 (talk · contribs)

    This user is apparently someone at buy.com who has, according to the original complaint, been editing the article to remove a great deal of (admittedly unsourced) negative information based on "personal experience". S/he justifies himself on the talk page. Daniel Case 23:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

    COI  Confirmed through RDNS. MER-C 02:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

    Tassajara Zen Mountain Center

    Article
    Single-purpose accounts

    A primarysources reminder was placed (by me) last month.

    67.86.221.27 removed it soon after and began adding material including detailed schedules from proprietary sfzc.org webpages and unreferenced accolades.

    I {{fact}}-tagged the unreferenced and non-neutral statements, found some references, began adding them and, after they were removed, posted a request for a third opinion. Two days ago, user Thw1309 offered one on the article talk page.

    64.252.4.220 ("Having lived at Tassjara for several years, I can vouch for …") began similar edits yesterday, removing all references other than links to the proprietary webpages. Whatever patience I had for explaining encyclopedic neutrality policies has been exhausted - the users just ignore them. — Athaenara ✉ 00:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

    I left a {{uw-delete1}} warning for 64.252.4.220 (talk · contribs · count) for removal of properly-referenced content with no edit summary and no Talk discussion. From the above list, no logged-in editor has touched the article since the end of June. Since the trouble comes from two different IP accounts, semi-protection might be considered. EdJohnston 04:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
    Tension now reduced, since a conversation is occurring at Talk:Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, about the use of reliable sources. EdJohnston 15:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
    (Added userlinks for 64.252.8.47 above.) — Athaenara ✉ 06:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

    City Harvest Church

    These are a series of "megachurches" in Singapore that have recently been getting a lot of attention from obvious COI accounts. I've been trying to nip things in the bud, deleting sermon schedules and whatnot, but I've noticed that my cleanup tags are getting deleted and other edit wars are starting, so it would help if we had a couple other non-COI editors who were helping to keep an eye on things. Thanks, Elonka 19:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

    Newcreationcorpcomms is an obvious source of concern, particularly the outgoing message on the user page. Recommend COI caution at the user talk page. Durova 19:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

    The article Kong Hee also seems to have a conflict of interest. Accounts that have edited the City Harvest Church have also edited it. Kong Hee is the senior pastor of City Harvest Church. Champlainant 07:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

    MobMov

    The draft you created includes some very respectable third-party sources, and more are provided at . At present, it seems that the cultural phenomenon of do-it-yourself drive-in movies is what is significant. The phenomenon is currently addressed in Drive-in_theater#Decline, although that article does not have proper references. I suggest that MobMov is correctly placed in the Drive-in_theater article and that some of the references you found might be added to that article. I'm not yet convinced that MobMov itself is notable enough for a free-standing article. As a first step, you might try enhancing the section in Drive-in_theater that talks about this; a section header other than 'Decline' may be appropriate. EdJohnston 14:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

    Amy Mihaljevic

    see also: Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Amy Mihaljevic
    see also: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Amy Mihaljevic

    The user above is the author (James Renner) of a book about this crime victim, and is editing the article to include his own theories, citing his own book as a source. The article was fully protected per WP:BLP, listing here as a record for our WP:COI experts. Videmus Omnia 22:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

    IP above (suspected to be same SPA) removing maintenance tags and IfD notices. Videmus Omnia 14:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
    Add to that removal of the COI tag from the article. Videmus Omnia 14:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

    National Academic Championship

    National Academic Championship is being edited by user Mensa1960, whose only edits are to this article, and who claims on the talk page to be "a member of the National Academic Association" (the semi-fictitious group which runs the National Academic Championship. It is likely that this user is Chip Beall, as he is the only known member of the "National Academic Association" and a previous user under the name "CharlesBeall" disappeared from Misplaced Pages after similar conduct. Whether he is Beall or not, he does admit on the talk page to editing an article about a product that he sells.

    User:Mdomino

    Mdomino (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is uploading Ashley Bickerton creations and claiming to be the creator of the images, then adding them to the Bickerton article. He or she has also been editing the Bickerton article. Either Mdomino is Bickerton, in which case he's violation WP:COI with his edits, or he is not, and therefore the images he is uploading are not his creations. I have left a message on his Talk page. Corvus cornix 20:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

    Mdomino has indicated on my talk page that they represent the gallery which shows Mr. Bickerton's work. I have pointed them to the WP:CP page and how to prove the right to release images. Corvus cornix 20:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

    Mark Hudson

    • Mark Hudson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Both COI and BLP issues. The subject's daughter, an up and coming musician, is apparently both adding information about her work to her father's bio, and also trying to delete information -- Her father, a music producer, was fired in 1995 because of allegations of sexual harassment. The story has multiple sources, including the Los Angeles Times, but there is disagreement as to how much of the Misplaced Pages article space, if any, should be devoted to this incident from over 10 years ago. --Elonka 21:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

    American Chess Association

    Edit protected the article for one week. Refactored speculation about user's real name. Durova 21:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
    Foster Winans – Inactive, cleaned up – 12:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    The following is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above Please do not modify it.

    Foster Winans

    • article Foster Winans - heavily edited by subject
    • User:Rfwinans is editing by name and by declarations that he is the subject of the article.

    Piperdown 14:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

    No edits since April this year. Article now looks reasonable. MER-C 12:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    The above is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above. Please do not modify it.


    The Grace Evangelical Society

    SPA entirely devoted to POV hyping the notability of this organisation and writing it into prime position in related theological articles. See : "I'm a member of GES, and have been one for years. I have also been far more successful in editing in a "Neutral POV" than has been found in Wiki on this issue for years ... You've seen the changes I made to the Lordship page, now take a good look at the juvenile nonsense it replaced ... etc". Gordonofcartoon 23:52, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

    While I don't understand some of the jargon in the above accusation, and I freely admit a conflict of interest I also argue I am far better at putting at arms length my conflict than the very juvenile bias that has been on display in the Lordship Salvation debate for years on Wiki. Apply your standards evenly. The GES represents the minority position in the debate and I am intent on learning and putting into practice your standards, but I'm new and am still learning. I've no interest in arguing the debate or hyping my side on wiki. But the majority position shouldn't be the only one allowed as an entry. Was the John F. MacArthur (an advocate of the majority position in the Lordship debate) entry really not written by his staff? Gordonofcartoon has made declarations on the discussion page like that the GES entry, "wrongly gives the impression that the GES is the prime mover relating to this school of thought. It ain't." This is easily shown to be a falsehood but I can only show it, so far, with primary sources: that is, the two biggest names in the majority position of the debate have recognized the GES as the main voice of the minority position. But, so far, I havn't found secondary sources that explicitly affirm the GES as notable. May I have more time? Johanna Sawyer 01:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

    It's a commonly moot point here whether mere membership of a group counts as a significant conflict of interest. But given that you don't yet seem sufficiently familar with how the neutral point of view, verifiability and original research policies work, I think there's a problem.
    You can't make editorial inferences along the lines of "X are important because Y published them or Z engaged in debate with them". That much I could spot and remove, but it makes me worry whether there may be specialist problems I can't spot in the selection of material - especially if your general synthesis of that material is informed primarily by the GES itself. Gordonofcartoon 14:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

    Sapientis

    FIx it then. You can re-edit the article to be less spammy, and remind the subject we are discussing of his COI issue. He can edit, he just has to avoid being unfair. Basejumper 21:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

    A quick check suggests Sapientis is likely to be notable, with some mentions in the mainstream press. I've given User:Dzehr a friendly reminder about COI. Basejumper's advice is sound. Raymond Arritt 02:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    Tj galda

    Crosspost from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#User:Joe_animator (Reported by user:Ronz).

    Article created by Joe animator, who seems to be the subject, Subject seems notable, but article needs cleanup for style. Dirk Beetstra 09:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

    The Arc of MA


    My name is John Thomas, I am the Deputy Director for The Arc of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts affiliate of The Arc U.S., a non-profit advocacy organization that works on behalf of people with developmental disabilities. I do not understand your term "blatant promotional" on whatever content I may have posted in an effort to clarify the mission and size of our organization. I have never posted before, so may have inadvertently done so in an improper manner - however, I welcome your proof of any of the content accuracy.

    After reviewing Misplaced Pages over the last few months, I have concluded The Arc does not have any presence of note on Misplaced Pages – an exception being an external link at the bottom of the page dedicated to Mental retardation where there is a reference to “Association for Retarded Citizens” an outdated acronym formerly associated with our organization.

    Our homepage is www.arcmass.org and our national URL is www.thearc.org

    Our state organization is 50 years old - you may view a chronological history I have documented at the following link: http://www.arcmass.org/Home/WhoWeAre/History/tabid/117/Default.aspx

    As mentioned, we are a non-profit, and despite the extensive size of our combined national affiliates, my office is small, we have no dedicated IT professional, nor any media or public relations staff (that would be me, informally). To put things into perspective, despite having a master's degree in public administration, my annual salary is $53,000, so I am not posting content to increase personal or organizational revenue.

    My only goal is to provide more accurate and up-to-date information on Misplaced Pages on behalf of the constituency my organization represents. I welcome any assistance you may offer to help in this effort that would seem to benefit both Misplaced Pages and people The Arc represents (people with disabilities).

    I have blocked this user name indefinitely as it contains the name of the organization the user has been promoting. -- But|seriously|folks  03:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
    (after edit conflict) Mr. Thomas, I appreciate your desire for Misplaced Pages to have accurate information, but the core issue here is our conflict-of-interest guidelines, which strongly discourage you from editing articles about yourself or your organization. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be an independent reference source based on reliable, published secondary sources. We are not a place for organizations to promote themselves. I realize that you were unaware of these policies, but we guard this nature of the encyclopedia pretty carefully, so that may have been part of why this received such a strong response. AKRadecki 03:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    NetSuite

    While I don't have definitive proof of conflict of interest on the part of any given editor, the article seems to devolve into press release/marketese pretty frequently (removed here), would appreciate another pair of eyes or two. Seraphimblade 04:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    Joseph Di Virgilio

    It appears that User:Jdivirgilio is Joseph Di Virgilio. The IP 66.9.131.70 could be either of the two founders, but most likely it is Roland A. Jansen. This account along with the ip's are SPA's, and have no other edits out side this topic. Joseph Di Virgilio is managing partner and Co-Founder along with Roland A. Jansen of Juno Mother Earth Asset Management. I have tagged the userpages and the articles. These may require deletion. --Hu12 05:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Juno Mother Earth Asset Management. The founders seem plausibly notable.

    As for the IPs, COI is  Likely for 66.9.131.70 and Red X Unrelated for 207.191.11.10. MER-C 10:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    I tagged Juno Mother Earth Asset Management for speedy because it qualifies under CSD11. It would need a substantial rewrite to become anything more than spam. Joseph Di Virgilio is tagged AfD, but I think it also qualifies for speedy under CSD 11. Roland A. Jansen has written a book that is on sale at Amazon and has an ISBN number. He is possibly notable so that one has been left alone. Perhaps some metion of Juno could be added to that article. We don't need a bio of every Wall Street executive. Unless they have substantial, independent news coverage, it's hard to write an article that could ever be more than a stub. Jehochman 18:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    69.125.233.94 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blanked this discussion. COI is  Possible for this IP: same densely populated geographical area (66.9.131.70 seems to be about 1 km from the company office, hance the difference). MER-C 13:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

    Dan Bazuin

    Could User:Thebazattack be this person? Grandmasterka 21:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    Can't tell. It's a vandalism only account however, so you can block it indefinitely (if it edits negatively again) and we can close this report. MER-C 13:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    User Benderson2 and TREC

    → See also: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation

    User:Benderson2, webmaster and marketing advisor of TREC" (translation from userpage: "I work … on the supply of information about the non-profit initiative TREC … Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation), is a COI SPA: a single-purpose account with a professional and corporate conflict of interest and clearly evident article ownership issues. — Athaenara ✉ 22:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

    I noticed he added some PR-type peacock language, so I left a gentle reminder on his talk page. Hope this clears things up but if not, let us know. Raymond Arritt 00:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    A search for news coverage found articles about several other organizations with the same initials (e.g. the Twin River Energy Center: "Power plant seen as boon" in The Times Record, 19 July 2007) but none about Benderson2's organization.
    Reliable sources with in-depth coverage of related and pertinent topics (e.g. "Arab countries urge solar future" in The Times of Malta, 8 July 2007) did not mention a "TREC" organization.
    The article as written by its webmaster and marketing advisor is extremely unbalanced. It will not conform to NPOV policy without extensive copyediting. — Athaenara ✉ 02:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    OK, I suspected as much. If it's not fixable WP:AFD is just a few doors down the hall. Raymond Arritt 02:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    Done. — Athaenara ✉ 03:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    I opened the Afd because the issues need discussion, not because I personally want the article to be deleted. As warned on every new article page, Misplaced Pages is not an advertising service and articles created as part of a marketing campaign will be deleted, but it may be salvaged by neutral editing.

    To recap, User:Benderson2 is "Michael Straub, Webmaster and Marketing Advisor of TREC." He identified himself and declared his conflict of interest on his single-purpose account user page in March 2006:

    "Ich arbeite … an der Bereitstellung von Informationen über … TREC … "
    Translation: "I work on the supply of information about TREC"

    This week, Straub revised his declaration after his conflict of interest and its results had drawn comment from neutral editors on the article talk page, on this noticeboard, and on the Afd:

    "Ich … pflege den Artikel über … TREC … "
    Translation: "I maintain the article about TREC"

    Timeline:

    2006 - March — user COI declaration on user page.
    2007 - July — user COI noted by neutral editor on article talk page.
    2007 - July — user COI noted by neutral editor on COI/N.
    2007 - July — user COI noted by neutral editor on Afd.
    2007 - August — user COI declaration revised on user page.

    In spite of the visibility of the encyclopedia's policies and guidelines and the open discussions of how they apply in this case, Straub/Benderson2 (see recent contribs) is continuing to assert ownership of the article he wrote about the organization as part of his employment by it. — Athaenara ✉ 07:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    http://spam.schleimerlaw.com – Blocked, indefinitely – 12:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    The following is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above Please do not modify it.

    User:Wellreadone

    http://spam.schleimerlaw.com

    schleimerlaw.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

    No new mainspace links. MER-C 12:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    He didn't even respond to the message I left on his talk page. Moving to incidents noticeboard. —Emufarmers 18:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    The above is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above. Please do not modify it.
    Stephen C. Sillett – 2 sockpuppets blocked indefinitely – 12:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    The following is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above Please do not modify it.

    Stephen C. Sillett

    I stumbled across this page while tracking back some vandalism. It looks like there is a lot of vandalism on the page, but it looks like the subject of the article is trying to police the page and is possessive of it. I'd like someone more capable to look at the page and the situation and see if something needs to be done. (The talk pages of some of the article contributors may provide some context, as well.) GargoyleMT 04:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    It's well possible that the editor isn't Sillett. It's under investigation at Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/67.55.159.44. Gordonofcartoon 15:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    The above is an archived debate of the possible conflict of interest related to the article above. Please do not modify it.


    Long term COI Spamming by Toughpigs


    “ Hi, I'm Danny. I'm the founder of a bunch of wikis on Wikia about the Muppets, Flash Gordon, John From Cincinnati, Bionic Woman, Journeyman, Chuck, and Pushing Daisies. ”
    — User:Toughpigs

    → See also: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Spam#Long term COI Spamming of related sites by Toughpigs

    There seems to be a consideral ammount of promotional spamming from this user which began with his 3rd edit on 16:46, 14 November 2005. Since that time there are very few edits outside of promoting his site own site http://toughpigs.com, and all the related wikia wiki's he's founded (See below). many of these links have been converted in to templates.


    The following is only a sample of the thousands of COI edits this user has made.

    Additions of toughpigs.com by "Toughpigs (talk · contribs)" ref dating back from 2005 - june 2006

    Additions of flashgordon.wikia.com or {{wikia|flashgordon|Flash Gordon}}
    Flash Gordon (2007 TV series)
    Flash Gordon (serial)
    Flash Gordon (film)
    Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
    Flash Gordon
    Flash Gordon (1954 TV series)
    Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
    Flash Gordon (TV series)
    Alex Raymond

    Additions of jfc.wikia.com or {{wikia|jfc|John From Cincinnati}}
    John From Cincinnati
    David Milch


    Additions of muppet.wikia.com or {{wikia|muppet|The Muppets}} ref

    I had to stop, It is extremely excessive in its scope and nature. this is just a sample dating back from 2005 - june 15 2006. It seems the majority has occured this Mid july and earlier. Very possible this may even require Imposing community sanctions, or even a Community ban--Hu12 08:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    I'm thinking a rfc on user conduct here, but I wonder how much spam has slipped under the radar due to the use of interwiki links. MER-C 09:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    As a user, let me say that I find the Muppet wiki a very useful and impressive resource. It doesn't appear to me to be an inappropriate spamming; someone should be adding links to the wiki (as long as it's to appropriate articles), and why not the person who created it? I don't have an opinion on the other wikis being linked. THF 13:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

    Robert Prechter

    User Rgfolsom works for Prechter, and is edit-warring to sanitize the and POV-push on Prechter-related articles contrary to talk-page consensus after losing multiple WP:3O rulings and RFCs. Editor has announced that he will violate WP:3RR to sanitize Robert Prechter article on specious grounds of WP:BLP. See also Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Socionomics (2nd nomination). THF 17:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    THF is venue shopping his accusations -- administrators can please look here to see what an admin said on the BLP noticeboard, especially about THF's removal of the reputable source in the first diff listed above. The BLP noticeboard diff also includes another diff that will shed light on my "losing" other rulings and RFCs. Please let me know if I can answer any questions, I welcome help from any administrator.--Rgfolsom 19:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
    I don't think it's so much that THF is venue shopping, as that he is being told that this is the appropriate venue. I am perfectly willing to concede that Rgfolsom may well feel that he is defending The Truth from vandals; but that doesn't diminish the fact that there is a major COI here on all three articles (Ted left out Socionomics, currently the subject of an AfD2 discussion that Folsom is active on), and that Folsom is often the sole advocate of the edits he makes. If there weren't a COI involved, we'd still have a bad case of a WP:OWN problem. --Orange Mike 14:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
    This is the third noticeboard that two or three editors are using to edit war by other means (after failing on the other two noticeboards).
    These diffs show that THF especially sides with the critics' material, and uses a conjectural interpretation of a source.
    As I explained on the BLP notice board, the diffs also show that I have tried to offer compromises edits that another editor received in good faith, but THF rejected the effort with insulting and uncivil language. Bad faith is manifest in these violations, and I have appealed for an administrator's intervention. Regarding the suggestion of a COI, administrators may wish to know that there was an arbitration case about these issues decided earlier this year: here's the text of the decision--Rgfolsom 15:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
    A March 2007 arbitration decision did not give you imprimatur to repeatedly delete a July 2007 verified reference to Prechter's investment results or to violate WP:NPOVD by removing an NPOV tag without talk-page consensus. THF 16:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
    The reference is not "verified," and there is obvious reason to believe that you yourself do not have access to the reference, as I show here. Administrators can please check talk page and diffs above to learn all they need to know. Thanks.--Rgfolsom 16:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    User:Frater FiatLux

    User is a member of the latter order. He's been asked to suggest changes on the talk pages but refuses. He has been reverting to months old versions authored by himself, reverting many intermediate changes and improvements. An example of his COI, he keeps moving his own order to the top of alphabetically ordered lists. He also attempts to bias legal information in favor of his order. Another thing he is doing is asserting "worldwide" scope of his order without any third party supporting references. He has a history of edit warring over these things, showing up every few months to revert to his chosen version. IPSOS (talk) 04:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

    After this report was filed, a long and productive discussion has begun on the main article's talk page. Shalom 20:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

    promotional additions for Dr. Gary Berger

    Accounts

    CHTRCwebmaster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Gsberger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Dr. Gary Berger
    Brykat73 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Benwalsh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    70.232.102.36 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    70.144.190.158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    74.227.105.121 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
    64.105.227.106 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

    → See also:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#promotional_additions_for_Dr._Gary_Berger_http:.2F.2Fspam.tubal-reversal.net

    mostly clean however additional monitoring will most likely be needed. --Hu12 11:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    HughesNet

    • HughesNet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - IP address 67.142.131.41 has made edits that read like they were written by an Public Relations department. Many of them are weasel-worded. Here's a link to the changes. I have WHOISed the IP and it resolves to HughesNet. Because HughesNet is an ISP, there is a possibility that they are not guilty of these charges, however the additions are phrased exactly how the HughesNet Public Relations people would probably phrase them, making it likely that they have been behind these edits. Life, Liberty, Property 22:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
    I see these edits as amounting to the addition of unsourced positive material about the merits of the company. The wording very much resembles the style of a press release rather than an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 03:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    Whitley

    Username, promotional tone and focus on citing thefatherofhollywood.com suggest a possible COI. Gordonofcartoon 23:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

    Gordon, didn't you !vote Keep at the AfD for "Father of Hollywood"  ? DGG 03:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
    I voted Keep for Hobart Whitley, as he looks notable. The COI over editing it is a different matter. Gordonofcartoon 17:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
    Looks like a pretty likely coi. Editor is likely Gaelyn Whitley Keith given the edits and username. Note that the book publication date according to Amazon is 21 March 2007, which predates almost all of the edits on the subject. --Ronz 00:27, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
    Most of these articles look AFD-able. Do a POV-ectomy on whatever remains. Looks like a single purpose COI account, but not active enough to be particularly worrisome. Durova 15:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

    User:Topiarydan

    Editor was given coi warning on 04:20, 28 May 2007 for edits to date.
    Editor was given uw-spam2 warning for edits on 29 July 2007, for spamming Topiary Communications's website, personalpro.com.
    Editor has repeatedly justified his edits by pointing out similar behavior from others. --Ronz 18:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
    I've left a soft-ish block warning because I'm not sure this editor understands site standards. Follow up if problems continue. Durova 23:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Pro-Gravity_Records

    The articles have been deleted and, according to one of the most recent talk page posts by this editor, maybe this person is getting the point. Follow up if problems resume. Durova 23:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

    Alasdair Taylor

    Scottish artist of borderline notability, but the subject of a campaign by Alasdair Gray and others to raise his profile. Gray's blog post on the topic has a comment from an Avril Rennie that "He has been a good friend of mine for almost 40 years now". I've tried to deal with this with a light touch, but I'm not getting much useful response to my advice about WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:COI. Gordonofcartoon 23:49, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

    This looks like a sincere editor and a possibly notable artist, so I've handled this gently. Follow up if problems continue. Durova 02:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    I agree, but I think a cluebat mentorship is needed about basic policies, particularly the need for citation. Gordonofcartoon 03:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    I've suggested WP:ADOPT. Suggest a soft touch here: this is someone who's trying to honor a deceased friend. If there were no notability I'd recommend a polite delete. This may turn into a decent article. The editor's tone is a bit emotional, and being so close to the subject makes it hard to write about, but it's not a formal COI. More like a poor choice for an editor's first article. Durova 05:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    There seems to be enough material for notability: the two texts from the retrospective brochure, and Alasdair Gray's statement (he's eminent enough that I think his blog post can be taken as a data point). But however soft the touch, the OR is going to have to go at some point. Gordonofcartoon 09:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    Just a plea not to be too hasty in removing stuff from the article. I've recently succeeded in acquiring some books with a view to improving the West Kilbride article (which still needs a lot of work), and I'm sure I could use these to supply refs on North Bank Cottage and Portencross. But it's likely to be a while before I can get round to doing this. WP:ADOPT is a good idea.
    --NSH001 12:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    Obviously views vary, but a lot of people go by the hardline advice at WP:V: Jimmy Wales' comment that unsourced information should not be left for long, if at all. It can always be re-added when sources are available.
    But by far the better method is to follow WP:V and not to get into this situation in the first place; i.e. if editors don't add material until they have the source. Then there is none of this potential for antagonism when the unsourced material is challenged. Gordonofcartoon 13:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

    Addendum: I'm backing out of this (I've reached a point where it's hard to be objective about the material itself). However, a little background research makes me less certain about lenience being appropriate. This is not the first article where Avril.rennie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has written about a friend and then complained about the application of Misplaced Pages standards.

    • Sandra Brown (campaigner) - see ("I do not agree with you that the article reads like an advertisement. I know Sandra Brown personally, and I count her as a friend. But I have written the article in a very balanced manner, without overstatement or inaccuracy of any kind")

    Other unsourced articles with potential COI were Margaret Kidd (now dealt with, but originally "a piece about the pioneering (woman) lawyer Dame Margaret Kidd whom I had the privilege to know" ) and Phillip Clancey (see where she's conducting OR on a blog "I am a relative by marriage of the late Dr Phillip Clancey ... I wish to write a piece on Misplaced Pages about Phillip, and should value any contributions from yourself or others").

    One mistaken creation of an unsourced article with COI is excusable, but this is a pattern. Gordonofcartoon 19:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

    The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc. (history|Watchlist this article|unwatch)

    This article looks like an advertisement for recruitment and lacks in W:V and W:N. I am requesting administrative attention and opinion on this as this could be a possible case for W:COI. A new editor who is a single purpose account with the name of the organization appeared out of nowhere and seems to be collaborating with another editor on his or her talkpage.I nominated the article for deletion for this reason but many editors seem to have ganged who might be members of this organization and use subjective terms in wanting to keep the article. I may be wrong but could someone take a look at this? Thanks. Kephera975 23:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

    Xirrus

    I have watched over the last week as various editors have tried to respond to this company's vanity postings. They were deleted once with a db-spam and now the TE's JLmerrill and Chomperhead have started trying to reinstate them. I was so upset by such persistent violation of the rules given above every page edit box not to promote your own company that I created this SPA to join the effort to defeat this. Chomperhead is either a colleague or employer of Jlmerrill and both are employees/owners of Xirrus. Can I prove it beyond doubt, no. Is it likely, well first Jlmerrill avoided the issue chomperhead denied it then admitted that merril was an employee. I looked up merril on linkedin.com where he is listed as marketing/technologist. When I edited his user page to reflect his employment it was blanked and deleted. Chomperhead has already edited merrill's edits on nawlinks page before he claims on the xirrus talk page to have done research and "outed" me.

    I request that jlmerril and chomperhead be blocked and that Xirrus be deleted and protected so they can't reinstate it again under yet more names. I will be responding to the call to police corporate vanity pages by editing others with db-spam, I have to start somewhere. If you wish to block me as an SPA as well as these two then so be it.

    Eloheim 06:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

    I've put Xirrus up for AFD. It certainly doesn't look notable. Gordonofcartoon 12:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

    Energybase (talk · contribs)

    Energybase seems to be intimately connected with the organisations BASE - Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy and Sustainable Energy Finance Directory, which I've prodded as they fail to establish any real notability. He's also very liberal with the external links and pretty keen on:

    I've advised of WP:EL, WP:COI and the prods. Deiz talk 13:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

    Herd of Swine

    I believe that Herd of Swine has a Conflict of Interest which should preclude him from editing the Morgellons disease article. He runs a website devoted to debunking Morgellons disease. He stands to lose a great deal of credibility if the disease is found to be, as the CDC has stated, “a newly emerging public health condition.” He continually violates wiki rules to promote his POV by using weasel words and cherry picking. He makes changes without consensus from people with opposing view points. He jusifies this by saying his is the majority POV, but this is not completely accurate. He should not be allowed to use Wiki as a soap box to promote his propaganda.

    The fact that he maintains “morgellonwatch” is well known by other editors. Here is a quote from the Morgellons article by another editor to Herd “I - and the other editors- know that you have an endless source of information like this from maintaining your debunking website. I see that you posted this same link on your website today.”

    I believe that if you review the edits made by Herd, you will see that they are overwhelmingly biased towards saying that the disease is delusional or a mix of existing medical conditions. He consistently uses weasel words and cherry picking to support his position and discredit any statements to the contrary. He does not maintain a NPOV. He is intent on promoting the propaganda from his website.

    Despite the fact that the CDC has described Morgellons as an debilitating, emerging public health concern; despite the fact that the CDC has reported that an increasing number of health care providers and public health official have contacted the CDC urging them to investigate this disease; and despite the fact that the CDC has received reports of the disease's serious systemic manifestations, including reports of substantial morbidity, he (and a few other editors) are determined to convince wikipedia readers that the disease is delusional.

    The article is biased. It emphasizes any statements that support the idea that the disease is delusional and minimizes (by weasel words, by their placement in the article) or removes any references that support the idea that it is not (without getting consensus from anyone with an opposing point of view). If you read the discussion page, you will see that anyone who tries to make the article more neutral by adding references that support the idea that the disease is not delusional is bullied and ignored and efforts are made to try to have that person banned from editing.

    In the words of an unbiased editor who reviewed the article, "I've seldom seen so much bitter, mean-spirited, hostile prejudice , without even a hint of justification for it" see the discussion page). This should not be allowed to continue.

    The result is an article which has become downright hurtful to patients with this illness.

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