Talk:Ian Urbina

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Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2021
Add the following to the section on Ian Urbina's Outlaw Ocean project

On Dec 2, 2021, allegations were made by some artist participants in The Outlaw Ocean Project, including musician Benn Jordan, that no non-profit actually exists and that Outlaw Ocean Project represents a money-making scheme for Urbina himself. Thousands of artists have been contacted for the project and told that their work is unique and exclusive, with promises of live events and large-scale promotions that have never materialized. Participants must agree to contracts that give Ian Urbina a writing credit and assign an overwhelming share of royalties to Synesthesia Media, Urbina's for-profit record label, which he misrepresents to participants as a third party.

Synesthesia Media posted a reply on their twitter account, which claims that all of the funds are used as up-front payments for future productions, but no examples have been provided. According to Jordan, no artist to date has reported that they received any advance for their work on Outlaw Ocean. The statement also claims that Synesthesia's mission is to "highlight the topics covered in Outlaw Ocean stories, and to develop funding to support more reporting", but does not specify any recipients of the funding other than Urbina. Hannasanarion (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Jordan's allegations represent a primary source, which may not be used in a situation like this. We would need a secondary source for three reasons: first, they could do some research and vetting of the claims; second, the editorial review process would provide some oversight of the journalists' reporting; and third, coverage in an independent source would show that the story has enough traction that it warrants mentioning in an encyclopedia. —C.Fred (talk) 19:04, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Adding comment: the issue has been added to the article with an independent source. However, lacking significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, additional details beyond the mention currently in the article are undue. Schazjmd   (talk)  19:08, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Controversy over music streaming rights and ownership in the Outlaw Ocean Music Project
Any mention of the Spotify controversy gets deleted, but an uncited section talking positively about the project stays in? 2600:6C40:7500:1173:7053:5514:D283:871B (talk) 03:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I removed the uncited section about the project. It may be verifiable, but I wasn't able to immediately find an independent source. Firefangledfeathers 15:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Firefangledfeathers, thanks for that. I am concerned the skew is even more extensive—95% of the entry was written by a series of WP:SPAs, and for example the first passage under “Creative work” is cited almost entirely to sources either self-published by or affiliated with the subject. The whole entry needs scrutiny IMO. Innisfree987 (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

An article related to the controversy has now been published by Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/allenelizabeth/2021/12/06/how-one-journalist-is-using-music-royalties-to-fund-his-ocean-reporting/

I am unable to add the source myself because of the semi-protection. MaxParadiz (talk) 15:10, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The Forbes source is unreliable, see WP:FORBESCON. There's also coverage in an Input Mag source. I am unsure about that source's reliability, but it is currently being used on 44 pages. Since this is clearly negative/contentious content on a living person, I think it's prudent to wait for a high-quality source. Proponents of this content may want to start drafting based on the existing sources. Firefangledfeathers 15:35, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The high-quality source has arrived, a well-reported article in Rolling Stone. Added some detail, with Urbina's denial and clarification on what has been alleged. Added the statement from The New York Times saying the allegations are troubling and it is investigating. (Urbina had sent the solicitation from his New York Times email address, even after he was no longer employed there.) Added links to Rolling Stone and Forbes. Confined it all to one short paragraph.Baltimore free (talk) 01:07, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The sockpuppets have managed to remove almost the entire section on the music allegations. No more mention of using his Times email address to recruit participants. No more mention of claiming a Times affiliation after he left the paper. No more mention of musicians presenting emails showing deception and lack of transparency. 173.2.125.106 (talk) 20:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I wonder who is anonymously removing any references to the music scam controversy. Who could be motivated to scrub those details? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.28.72.122 (talk) 18:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Reporting the Book
Each musician made their own album, inspired by the book and using field recordings that Urbina collected while reporting the book.

The source for this does indeed say 'reporting the book' but this doesn't quite make sense. Was he reporting on his own book? Was this part of researching his book?

Any thoughts?

94.126.214.7 (talk) 16:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Some accounts seem to abuse Wikipedia to promote Ian Urbina's work
Several user accounts have tried to edit Wikipedia to promote Ian Urbina and his work, and it looks like they were paid by Urbina. For example, accounts like JessChasten, Blake Shawl and probably many others added content mentioning Urbina (even in only loosely related articles), or added news articles written by him as sources. Then there are accounts like Faela.silva, Eli779632 and probably many others who almost exclusively edit articles related to Urbina. As far as I can tell, almost none of these accounts ever responded to requests about WP:COI and WP:PAID. Some of these accounts were blocked in March 2021, but other accounts continued. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * @Chrisahn, yes at one point the Authorship tool reported that 95% of the entry had been written by these WP:SPAs. At this point the best solution is to edit the entry to remove promotional or poorly sourced material. A few editors have done some work but as you note more is needed—help welcome. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and removed lots of spam, unsourced claims, and non-notable fluff. — Chrisahn (talk) 23:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I looked at the history and came to the same conclusion. User Gravitymonkey seems another one. Adding this page to my watch list, will try to help monitor it. Retxnihps (talk) 15:32, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Apparently the Urbina fans will continue forever to try to water down or erase the section on the accusations against him. There was no WP:BIO problem with the language that had been settled on through multiple edits by multiple editors. This one bears watching.Baltimore free (talk) 03:22, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Another Source for the Urbina Scam
--84.189.84.17 (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Added. Retxnihps (talk) 16:06, 24 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I reverted the addition. Sorry! Of course, the video is the original source for the controversy, but YouTube videos are generally not reliable sources because they are self-published. See WP:RSPYT and WP:YOUTUBE for details. It's also not a new source – the video link has been added and removed from the article before. See article history and discussions from early December above.
 * I also reverted the introduction of the "Controversy" section. "Controversy" section should generally be avoided. See WP:CSECTION.
 * Sorry, ! Don't take this personally, and please don't be discouraged from editing. I'm sure you'll quickly get used to Wikipedia rules like these. :-) Happy editing! — Chrisahn (talk) 21:50, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing to apologise for . Thanks for taking the time to explain the reasons for reverting, I've learnt something today. Retxnihps (talk) 22:01, 24 December 2021 (UTC)