Talk:Brad Smith (American lawyer)/Archive 1

Peacock and COI tags
Hi, I'd like to address your concerns about the article. Please list them, and we'll find a compromise. --GRuban (talk) 11:20, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the article was moved from draft to main space by an experienced contributor, admin on multiple Wikimedia projects, without a Microsoft connection. I'd appreciate it if the COI tag were removed.--GRuban (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The disclosure was made, GRuban went through it and it was approved. COI is perhaps how it started, but after some rework it seems fine. Also, if you want to poke a larger world, try the WP:RFC system. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 16:11, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey, again thanks for contributing. Great job on the article it is quite detailed, and all the information is presented clearly. I patrol new pages and with over 4,000+ unreviewed pages out there, I can't sift through all the diffs in the edit log. Sometimes I need a second pair of eyes to review a page. I put the Undisclosed paid, coi, and peacock tags on there for various reasons. It was clear to me initially wrote this article and was paid for it. I am highly suspicious of any article that starts out WP:PAID so there is obvious possibility for WP:COI. So I added the Undisclosed paid and coi tags together. Additionally, this article was due to be deleted in the Draft space, so the timing made me concerned. I also created this talk page to make users aware that there was a disclosed payment. A much more experienced new page patroller than me, , was the second pair of eyes, deemed the Undisclosed paid unnecessary, and marked the page reviewed. So long as you have no affiliation or WP:COI with this person or company, you are more than welcome to remove the WP:COI. The peacock tag was added after re-reading the page. It seems that Mr. Smith has been in power for a great deal of time. This article tells me about all the good that he has done, the cases he has won, and how he has protected consumer privacy. What about the big cases he lost? What about the times he has been bad for consumers? He comes off as a little too sterling, compounded by the fact that this article initially was paid, it makes me concerned that I am not getting his full story. Therefore, the article might not be WP:NPOV or free from puffery. If you feel like I am in the wrong, I won't fight the removal of the peacock tag. Hope I answered your questions! Great writing. Best, Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 20:03, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Thanks. Pinging per request. No, I do have a COI, that's why I asked User:Jarekt to move it to main space instead of doing it myself. I've been a Wikipedian for 12 years, you can see the ... maybe 50? ... articles I've written on my user page and the pictures I've uploaded on my Commons page; but last summer I did join Microsoft after 9 years at Google. It does actually say that on my user page, but not highlighted because it's not the main part of my Wikipedia career. Writing this is not part of my job, this is spare time work, which is why it took 2-3 months. This is the second time I'm writing an article about a coworker. Here's how it was handled the other time, for the Google manager I wrote about (by an Arbitrator, and an Admin who wrote much of WP:COI!): I only write in draft or talk or user space, then experienced Wikipedians without COI review it, and move it to main space, so it doesn't get the COI tag-of-shame. That's the way I understand the rules about WP:COI to work, and what happened this time.
 * About peacock, well, I frankly couldn't find any bad things that any reliable sources write about Smith; all the articles I've read about him are used as refs, and they don't say anything bad. I looked, honest! He paid out a lot of cash to settle lawsuits, which could I guess have gotten stockholders mad at him, but if so, no newspapers or magazines wrote about anyone getting mad. He also files lawsuits against the US government, but, again, I haven't found reliable sources writing about anyone mad at him for that. If you have other specific issues, I'll be glad to answer them. Since it is a Wiki, you can also do it yourself, I don't own the article. (In fact, since I do have that COI, so shouldn't make substantive changes to the article in main space, you'll eventually have to do it yourself; but if you prefer, I will try to write text that you can copy and paste in!)
 * So I hope that suffices and explains why I'm asking you to remove the tags, rather than doing it myself? --GRuban (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * , your answer concerns me a little more. But against my better judgement, I removed the tags. Again, great work. Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 00:33, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --GRuban (talk) 01:30, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Pictures
Thanks, your work finding so many photographs of the subject is appreciated; but do we really need six in the article? I mean ... doesn't he look pretty much the same in all of them: thin, short blond hair, suit, smile? I know I had to argue pretty hard just to have four pictures on an article about a fashion model, where her looks were a big deal in what she did; while he's a lawyer and business executive, where looking nice is probably useful but hardly the main thing. I'd hate to have people think the article is promotional. Maybe ... 2-3 representative pics? How about:
 * Brad Smith - Microsoft - 11.jpg by the beginning of the Microsoft section, since it's the earliest one, showing him in 2008,
 * Brad Smith - Microsoft - 42.jpg by the middle of the Microsoft subsection that mentions his interactions with government types, and
 * Brad Smith at Digital Values 2016.jpg for the infobox, mainly because it's in color? I understand why you might like Brad Smith - Microsoft - 01.jpg which is more of a portrait, but it is black and white; he hasn't changed very much since the 2008 picture which is also basically a black and white portrait, and I think that since that one will also be in the article having a color one in the infobox will be best.

But any other reasonable combination will do. I am less concerned about the specific pictures, mainly worry that six is too many.--GRuban (talk) 16:52, 2 March 2018 (UTC)


 * GRuban I much more prefer articles with a lot of photographs, and I am occasionally criticized for adding too many. I try to make sure images do not extend below text on regular screen, but otherwise I add as much as possible. I removed one, but if that looks excessive, please trim the list more. I also created Wikidata entry for him, which could use some work and references. --Jarekt (talk) 17:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I read your image position suggestions closer and they sound good. --Jarekt (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Image for DYK
So, a few weeks ago I nominated the article for Did You Know, with an image in the article at the time, (1). Meanwhile Jarekt replaced it with other ones, and the DYK reviewer, RickyCourtney, made the reasonable point that the image really should be in the article. I still think it's a good image for DYK, but am not dead set on it, several of the ones Jarekt found could also be fine, say (2), or (3) , or even the original infobox image (4). They each have some pluses and minuses, 1 and 2 are black and white, 2 is the best "passport" photo, but has a watermark in the corner, 3 and 4 are in color but have a lot of background space. So let me appeal to the two of you:
 * which of the four do you think is best for DYK? If it's (1), would you be willing to restore it to some appropriate place in the article so DYK could use it? (I think I suggested a place above, just an example.) If it's one of the other three, which?
 * which of the four do you think is best for DYK? If it's 1, but Jarekt doesn't want to restore image 1, would you be OK with or have a preference for any of images 2-4? --GRuban (talk) 19:55, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not mind restoring image #1. I also removed watermark from image #2 and that would be my pick for DYK. --Jarekt (talk) 20:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, will propose #2 at DYK. Thanks! --GRuban (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Still too many images
This man is not notable for the way he looks. One or two images would be more than adequate, the rest are simply decorative and are actually distracting. My first thought when I read the article and saw all the images was "wow, Smith has paid someone to do this". And it turns out he has. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The irony is that the images were added by the uninvolved reviewer. The involved people were happy with just the one infobox image. Anyway, Vanamonde93 has removed most, as below - better? --GRuban (talk) 13:58, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I trimmed it to two images. Five was basically promotion.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Defense and Cybersecurity
Hi and other interested citizens. I think it would be interesting to open up a section on Smith on China, Cybersecurity, AI and global defence. I know that he has spoken at Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz, which is connected to the Atlantic Council, which, in turn is a leading think tank behind NATO. Smith has also spoken at the Reagan National Defence Forum on AI, data, and the global advantages that China has in some respects. Seems to me that his voice is increasingly influential and worth documenting here. Thoughts? Erasmus Sydney (talk) 14:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have no objections, in fact it sounds like a fine idea, but I won't be able to edit the article directly per User:GRuban/CoI. As a side note, any particular reason you put this in the middle of the talk page instead of at the bottom? --GRuban (talk) 15:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sorry about that, I thought I'd gone to the bottom of the page, but it appeared at the top. You may have guessed, I'm still finding my feet with editing. While I'm learning, can you fill me in on the protocol you're observing here - such that you can't edit the article directly? Erasmus Sydney (talk) 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Follow the link! Conflict of interest describes the general issue: for fairly obvious reasons, as a rule you aren't supposed to write about your boss (even if he's your boss N levels up for a large N, and you've never met him). If despite that, you still want to write about your boss, there are a number of hoops to jump through, described therein. User:GRuban/CoI describes my CoI(s) specifically, and the hoops I jumped through to write most of 3 specific articles. --GRuban (talk) 01:41, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Moved this section to bottom, that's where people will look for it. --GRuban (talk) 14:00, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Book
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age By Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne. Foreword by Bill Gates. Something should be said about his book(s). --Error (talk) 16:34, 4 March 2021 (UTC)