Talk:Landmark Worldwide/Archive 32

Background
This page has been a wp:battleground for many years. There have been numerous edit wars between those who feel that the page was at times overly critical of Landmark and those who felt that it was insufficiently so. Both sides claimed that the other was violating the wp:npov policies and that they were attempting to restore neutrality. Many of the editors were blocked for violations of Wikipedia policies, in some cases indefinitely. There have been many resorts to mediation and other dispute resolution procedures, including an extended arbitration process in  2014, which resulted in a number of editors pushing anti-Landmark material being blocked or otherwise sanctioned, and the page being placed under restrictions for a time. A good deal of work by non-partisan editors and admins resulted in an article which had a broad degree of consensus, and it has been largely stable for some time now. It is a well established Wikipedia practice that significant edits to a page with a history of controversy should be discussed beforehand to check whether or not there is a broad consensus for the proposed changes. Recently there has been a flare-up of wp:contentious editing on the page, all without prior discussion here.

An NPOV Tag was placed on the article on 25th September, without discussion, apart from the editor clearly stating his own viewpoint at the head of the section above. Apart from refusing to provide a justification, the editor proceeded to edit war by replacing the tag when it was removed.[],[], [], []. Arguably this was a violation of the wp:3RR policy, although it maybe escapes that on a technicality, since the third reinsertion was of a COI rather than the NPOV one.
 * NPOV tag and edit warring

I would say that the conduct of the above section on this page headed 'NPOV' speaks for itself...
 * Breaches of civility and wikiquette

The entire section influence an impact was removed [], despite its being essentially factual, relevant and adequately sourced.
 * Recent edits to the article (all without prior discussion and consensus seeking)
 * Wholesale removal of section

This added section [] appears to me to give undue weight to a civil case that was opened 19 years ago and then abandoned. What is the relevance of this to the topic of this article?
 * New 'Litigation' section

And this addition [] of a reported comment by Rick Ross is surely even more irrelevant? Who knows whether he was really disappointed that the case did not proceed, or whether he was just putting a face-saving gloss on matters? Who knows what he would or would not have uncovered if the case had been processed? DaveApter (talk) 15:44, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Reply to Wholesale removal of section
 * Well you seem to be biased toward attempting to remove any negative content, no matter how well sourced and relevant, and pushing the positive content. I'd like to note the entire last paragraph of this removal you are contesting was SELF-SOURCED WP:SPS to Landmark, and can be seen as an WP:UNDUE inclusion of trivial content, the same argument you are trying to use against the Rick Ross comment below.


 * I'm not opposed to re-instating the sentence about the RUOK? Day sourced to the abc news source, and excluding the self-sourcing from the RUOK? Day's own website.


 * The first paragraph in that removal is not supported by the quotes from the sources, which talk about Ehrard, NOT Landmark's ideas.--- Avatar317 (talk) 23:26, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello. I have reformatted this conversation slightly to comply with WP:TPG. Every statement should have a signature, and comments should not be placed in the middle of other comments. Having multiple subsections will make a mess of any future archives, as well. Grayfell (talk) 23:34, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * (Sorry about the location of my previous comment) This is a reply to the "New 'Litigation' section":
 * The relevance is that this organization is 30+ years old, and this Wikipedia article is pathetically small and sparse for the content that has been reported by RS's on Landmark and COULD be included.
 * You claim that because this happened 19 years ago it is not relevant, but that the above positive reporting on RUokDAy, 14 years ago is relevant?
 * You are making it clear that your bias is to keep as much negative information about this organization out of this article, and keep as much positive info included. --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I will re-involve myself in this article. Back in '21 (at above) I explained some of my concerns over the tone of the article. While it has improved in some ways, I don't think the problem has been fully resolved. The article still has WP:TONE issues, and uses far too much filler and softball PR. As just one of many possible examples, I still do not accept that "vitality" is meaningful enough to justify using without a definition. This is a small, subtle point, but I think it helps illustrate the deeper problem. Whether or not this is a buzzword depends on context, so provide enough context that it isn't a buzzword. Similarly, Landmark Worldwide seems to be written from the perspective that "Landmark" is a single sentient entity capable of holding opinions and making arguments and proposing things and so on. This is obviously false, landmark is a business entity composed of many people and documents. The article should explain who, specifically, is making these claims, ideally with some indication of when they originated, instead of merely passing them along as bland truths from some unknown source.

As I said back in 2021, the article has many problems and merely fixing these examples would not, by itself, be enough to fix the entire article. Grayfell (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't really know how to address the threading with the structure that this section now has.
 * Responses

@Grayfell Thank you for returning to contribute to the debate. For what it is worth, I have removed the claim about 'vitality' since you objected to it, and I don't mind having a stab at re-wording the 'Concepts' section to avoid the vague attribution to 'Landmark' as an entity. I do appreciate that this will not satisfy all of your concerns since you say that these are only examples, and you feel that the article has more fundamental issues. However, unless we have specific concrete suggestions for changes that will improve matters, I don't see how we can move forward. DaveApter (talk) 16:00, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@User:Avatar317
 * 1) Please don't make personal attacks, and confine your remarks to constructive suggestions for improvement of the article.
 * 2) Regarding the 'Wholesale removal' comment (which was not your edit, but you have rushed to defend), my main point was that this had been done without any prior discussion on this talk page. In fact both of your objections to the sourcing for this section are mistaken. The source for the first section did mention Landmark as well as Erhard. The source for the third section was The Times of India (and the ref does need fixing to cite the original publication, rather than its re-quote on Landmark's website).
 * 3) Regarding the addition of the 'Litigation' section, again, my main point is that this was added without any prior discussion. Why do you feel that this court action two decades ago is sufficiently noteworthy to add to this article?
 * 4) In any event, even if the case is worthy of mention, surely it is egregious to add the following material: postings on the Institute's websites which characterized Landmark as a cultish organization that brainwashed their clients .... Ross stated that he does not see Landmark as a cult because they have no individual leader, but he considers them harmful because subjects are harassed and intimidated, causing potentially unsafe levels of stress. These are at best non-notable opinions, and at worst malicious fabrications on Ross's part. What is the justification for using Wikipedia to propagate these viewpoints? DaveApter (talk) 16:00, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * If the current arrangement is frustrating, you can use subsections for individual comments, but please add your signature to each comment in a section so that other readers can understand who is saying what. I personally recommend against this, however. Talk pages are intended to be a record, not just an ongoing discussion. It's not always realistic to expect a detailed response to many different points, so this approach can often feel frustrating and incomplete. This is why I have emphasized that my examples were examples, because I hoped that they would illustrate the deeper issues without having to enumerate all of them. If you understand the problem with the 'concepts' section, than you should also be able to recognize more subtle version of that same problem elsewhere in the article.
 * I have adjusted the formatting of the reference for the Ross case in the article (repeated here for convenience, with full archive link):
 * This source appears reliable and does specifically include Ross's comments regarding Landmark not being a cult, stress, and harassment. To me it would seem very strange to mention this without mentioning Ross's stated opinions, since they are obviously relevant to this lawsuit. Since Rick Alan Ross appears to still be living, including his opinion does help comply with WP:BLP. In this situation, if this is mentioned at all, the details help clarify the bigger picture.
 * If you would like additional suggestions for how to improve the article: The 'Landmark Forum' section is overly-detailed and includes some strange MOS:OVERLINKs as well as WP:SYNTH of multiple sources. The 'Current operations' section should adjusted to avoid MOS:CURRENTLY (which involves slightly more than just renaming the section) and to remove trivia and name-dropping which is only supported by passing mentions or primary sources. Grayfell (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * If you would like additional suggestions for how to improve the article: The 'Landmark Forum' section is overly-detailed and includes some strange MOS:OVERLINKs as well as WP:SYNTH of multiple sources. The 'Current operations' section should adjusted to avoid MOS:CURRENTLY (which involves slightly more than just renaming the section) and to remove trivia and name-dropping which is only supported by passing mentions or primary sources. Grayfell (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you @Grayfell. It is helpful to have experienced editors who are not motivated by strong personal views about Landmark contributing to this discussion. My personal goal is for this to be a good quality accurate account fully in accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
 * As regards your suggestions re the Landmark Forum section and the Current Operations section, I will take a look and see whether I can make adjustments to address your concerns. I would agree that there is an excessive number of wikilinks, several of which are not helpful. However, if there is going to be an article at all about this organisation, it seems to me that it is necessary to give some sort of account of what its activities are.
 * Regarding the Litigation section, I cannot disagree with your assessment that the source is acceptable, and that it does say what is summarised in the paragraph. What I am questioning is whether it is a sufficiently significant fact to be incorporated into this page. What I am more concerned about is that it appears to me to be a trojan horse to incorporate unsubstantiated and defamatory (and in fact false) allegations into Wikipedia, thereby giving them wider currency. It may well be in accordance with WP:BLP to detail these on the Rick Ross page, but does that justify including them here?
 * What is your opinion regarding the summary removal of the entire 'Influence and impact' section? - especially in the light of the fact that I pointed out above that the objections to the sourcing (by a different editor than the one who did the removal) were erroneous.
 * Incidentally my removal of the reference to 'vitality' in deference to your remarks about it was summarily reverted by user:Polygnotus, who is also accusing me of having a COI on this topic, and implying that I may be a paid contributor. DaveApter (talk) 17:03, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "motivated by strong personal views about Landmark"... "unsubstantiated and defamatory (and in fact false) allegations"... Sounds like you have pretty strong personal views about this company. You've been editing this page for 18 years. Polygnotus (talk) 17:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Kinda funny how you write about another editor as if you were uninvolved, but you forget to mention your role. The fact you broke the rules (e.g. WP:MAINTENANCEDISAGREEMENT), editwarred to keep your preferred version and removed the warning about 3RR.. Polygnotus (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * These remarks are irrelevant to the process of discussing how to improve this article. I will respond to them on your talk page. DaveApter (talk) 20:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * But you did post remarks about me above, which were also irrelevant to the process of discussing how to improve this article. It is not very complicated to figure out what your goal is. Polygnotus (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding the "Influence and impact" section, it was not neutrally written and I think the article is better off without it. I do not view such content as "essentially factual" nor is it adequately sourced in this context. Asking these loaded questions undermines your case.
 * Since you asked and this is part of the article's ongoing issues, I will elaborate: WP:WEASEL words should be avoided, so talking about how "some writers" have so-and-so is not going to work, and I dispute that it is a neutral summary of those sources. Also, these ref-template quotes are long and include multiple elided section, which suggests to me that they were curated to support this wording, instead of being neutrally summarized on their own merits. Additionally, the sources for that section, yet again, appear to include WP:SYNTH issues. Grayfell (talk) 21:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I am happy to go along with your judgement on those points, and to leave it out if you think the page is better without it. If the editor who removed it had made that case here first and allowed a few days to see whether anyone produced any counter arguments, I would not have raised an objection. My complaint was that it was done peremptorily without discussion. It was the advice of the Arbitrators at the close of the 2014 case that discussion should be held first, before making major amendments. DaveApter (talk) 11:19, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, as for Ross's opinions, they are clearly presented as his opinions, with a source, and are not falsifiable, so calling this "defamatory" is not a valid justification for their removal. If you somehow think that Wikipedia is being defamatory for repeating these properly-sourced, non-falsifiable opinions from a notable third party about a business entity, with attribution, than... no, that's not how any of this works, at all. Perhaps you may wish to review No legal threats and also chilling effect and maybe Streisand effect for good measure. There are reasons to discuss removing this lawsuit, but calling it "defamatory" is non-productive, to put it mildly. Grayfell (talk) 21:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You seem to have misunderstood my remark. I was not threatening anyone with legal action or intending to imply that I or anyone else might do so. I am aware of the other three guidelines you mention, and again cannot see how they relate to my comment.
 * The point I was making was that the remarks that Ross was being held to account for - "which characterized Landmark as a cultish organization that brainwashed their clients" were self-evidently "defamatory" (in the normal everyday sense of that term, not necessarily any technical legal sense; I am not a lawyer). Similarly with Ross's further comments that " he considers them harmful because subjects are harassed and intimidated, causing potentially unsafe levels of stress". My main reason for objecting to the inclusion of the report about the lawsuit is that it is (IMHO) a piece of trivia, but I have the further concern that it seems to be serving as a flimsy excuse for introducing the aforementioned opinions into the article. DaveApter (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * On another matter, do you consider that the the COI tag is currently justified, and if so, under what circumstances do you feel it would be appropriate to remove it? DaveApter (talk) 11:52, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, please stop using legal terms. Grayfell understood your remark perfectly, but you do not seem to understand that on Wikipedia we should refrain from using such terms unless necessary (e.g. when discussing actual legal action). If people threaten to sue they get swiftly blocked to protect the encyclopedia. And please read Help:Maintenance template removal. Polygnotus (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * If the article were in better shape, I would suggest the part about litigation be integrated into a reception section, or a history section, or similar. Right now, it would sort-of make sense in the "Public reception and criticism" section, but not yet. Just for starters, that section title is painfully non-neutral. Not only because of WP:CSECTION, but also because it implies that "scholars" are part of the public. The subtle implication here is that their expertise should be doubted. Since this is based on reliable and independent sources, it's unpersuasive dismiss this as "trivia". At this point, a near total rewrite of the article will be necessary for the article to be in decent-enough shape to not justify any tags. If not COI, an NPOV tag or ADVERT tag would make just as much sense. Presumably, this rewrite is going to involve a hell of a lot more edits which will be made peremptorily without discussion, which is how Wikipedia articles typically get built. Grayfell (talk) 22:20, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I support having the tag at the top of the article; when I first came to this article I was astounded by how little real information was in this article, it seemed to be a "sanitized" article which had barely any more info than what one would expect to find on Landmark's site. I haven't reviewed the history, but the COI seems appropriate for Alex Jackl, based not only on what he might have added, but what he might have removed or kept out of the article. --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:29, 31 October 2023 (UTC)


 * In reading through the current talk page and the listing on the NPOV notice board, it appears to me that the editor who started the NPOV thread has a definite negative POV about the subject of the article. I also looked at the version of the article just prior to the current round of edits and my opinion of that version of the article is that it already contained substantial amounts of what could be considered critical academic and media views on the subject. The addition of the Rick Ross litigation section is beginning to shift the article towards WP:UNDUE. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 18:22, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * But, as you must be aware; I didn't write the article. When looking at the version of the article just prior to the current round of edits; did you not notice the POV-pushing and the promotional text? Have you not read the talkpage archives that shows a bunch of WP:OWN and WP:COI and WP:TAGTEAM and WP:PUSH and WP:IDHT problems? Currently, the article is still far from neutral. But if you want to improve it, you need more than "some guy who didn't write the article does not like Landmark". All I did was remove some promo/puffery/pov/weasel stuff and I changed part of this sentence:


 * is a company, headquartered in San Francisco, that offers personal-development programs.


 * to this:


 * is an American company that offers personal-development programs. Polygnotus (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Negative POV Pushing
I commented in the background thread, but now I am starting a new topic because it looks to me that there is now a distinct effort to represent this company in a negative light. I point to the recent changes to the history section that includes a new paragraph on the prehistory of the company using weasel words and wiki-links such as mental illness and placebo. Nearly all of this new addition is sourced to single article that appears to be an opinion piece. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 18:06, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is no need to wikilink the words mental illness in this context. I have unlinked those words. I did a quick Google search and here is a snippet from landmarkwordwide.com:


 * "...people who have a history of mental illness or serious emotional problems personally or in their immediate family may be more vulnerable to stress and may experience additional and very severe physical, mental or emotional problems. In people who have physical, mental or emotional problems, even normal amounts of stress from any source may generate severe physical, mental or emotional problems. If you have any history of mental illness or emotional problems personally or in your immediate family, whether temporary, occasional or intermittent, and whether treated or not, or have concerns about your ability to handle stress, OUR ADVISORS STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT PARTICIPATE in the Programme..."
 * So it seems that Landmark does indeed warn people with a (history of) mental illness. Can you list the weasel words here so we can take a look? Not everyone know what a placebo is so I did not unlink that wikilink. Hope that helps, Polygnotus (talk) 18:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Dave Apter - where does your knowledge about Landmark come from?
I notice in the old edits (where most of the article was COMPLETELY unsourced) that you have often added LOTS of information (many times very specific, with percentages) about Landmark (all unsourced, but the majority of the article was that way, so I'm not complaining about that.)

Where/how did you get all this information/knowledge about Landmark? --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm surprised that you need to ask that question, since I have been completely transparent in stating on several occasions that I'm a former customer of Landmark's (along with two or three million other people). I did the Landmark Forum over twenty years ago, followed by a few other courses and found them valuable. I don't know what specific information you are referring to, so I can't comment on that, but I would imagine it would have been things that were in the public domain somewhere. Unless you are talking about content which is in the article today, this hardly seems relevant. DaveApter (talk) 15:48, 19 November 2023 (UTC)


 * People seem to think that carefully dancing around COI questions is a genius tactic. We don't have to rehash all that. It has been discussed many times.


 * In reality it does not matter if you work there or if you are a shareholder or if you are Werner Erhard or his gardener. Denying or openly declaring that you have a COI changes nothing.


 * COI means that you have two interests: one is the topic of an article (in this case Landmark) and another is editing Wikipedia.
 * The conflict between those interest arises from the inability to accept that Wikipedia articles contain criticism if reliable sources contain criticism. This makes editing collaboratively impossible and turns every discussion in a WP:CPUSH and if that fails sealioning and WP:IDHT. I do not care if you break the ToS. Please just let us try to fix the damage caused. Go do something more fun. Go on a walk. Feed the squirrels. Ignore us. Forget Wikipedia exists. Move on. 18.77 years will soon be 19. I ordered "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of Est" from Amazon. Polygnotus (talk) 14:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Elmmapleoakpine
repeatedly made an edit 1 & 2 that moved criticism to its own section at the bottom.

The edit summary that was used was: "restoring a reverted edit that addressed WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure".

This is the place to get consensus for that edit.

I do not think mentioning the accusations that Landmark is or was a cult is UNDUE because those have been mentioned in pretty much all reliable sources that mention Landmark. Polygnotus (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)


 * That is not what my edit addressed. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 02:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? I am referring to your edit summaries. Polygnotus (talk) 02:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I do think the section header is really clunky. "Cult-ish accusations and litigation". But creating a criticism section is an obvious violation of NPOV (hiding all criticism in one section near the bottom is the opposite of NPOV). Changing the section header to "Criticism and litigation" may be less clunky; but its not perfect. Is "Accusations of being a cult" better? Polygnotus (talk) 01:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)


 * This topic belongs in the reception section not the history. Moving it back to where it and calling it Criticism and Litigation avoids violating NPOV/Article Structure as stated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure. My doing so was expressly following that policy Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 02:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I do not know why you claim that Neutral_point_of_view is a reason to make the edit you did. Can you please explain why you think that section is a justification for the edit you've made? It literally says: "Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative" which is the opposite of what you are trying to do. Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 02:23, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If you say it does not belong in the History section, do you mean there are still accusations being made and there is still ongoing litigation? Polygnotus (talk) 02:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

What do you think of "Accusations of being a cult" as a section header? The accusations and litigation are part of Landmarks history (right? or are there more recent accusations?). Polygnotus (talk) 01:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)


 * First, I apologize for the clunky section header name; I think of Wikipedia as a work-in-progress and I often can't come up with the best section header names (fully descriptive yet concise for a table of contents) so I name it the best I can think of. That's why the section was first named "Litigation" and was its own section, as the article was getting built/improved.  I'd be fine with "Accusations of being a cult" or something else as well.
 * Second, from the sources I have seen so far, the litigation is now historical but the descriptions where the reputation among everyday people that its graduates and the program is cult-ISH/cult-like still persist. (2017 and 2019 sources talk about cult perception as current.)
 * Third, while the "Reception" section might make sense as a good location for the cult-allegations, the "History" section probably makes better sense for the Litigation, so it could be split up, but I don't know whether that's the better option, because the reason for the litigation would be confusing without the allegation "introduction". --- Avatar317 (talk) 22:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Use of quotes in reference templates.
Regarding this edit, Template:r doesn't appear to support including multiple quotes for a single reference. To demonstrate this, one of the removed quotes had the word "displace", but this word is not found in on that version of the page via a word-search. In effect, these quotes were hidden in the code of the article, but were not displayed to readers. For obvious reasons, this is not a practical approach. For quotes which do display, it appears that many of these quotes are unnecessarily long for the cited content. It's good to make sure each source supports the attached statement, but the length of these quotes makes both editing and reading the article more difficult, so if a more succinct approach can be found, that would be helpful. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 06:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I’ve been away from Wikipedia for a while. Part of what is drawing me back is the current activity on this article. This use of quotes is reminiscent of a number of years ago when the article was placed under discretionary sanctions following an attempt to turn it into an attack piece led at the time by the disgraced Admin, Cirt . Nwlaw63 (talk) 17:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This problem is something that I've had and not found a good solution to. The quotes I included which you deleted are visible to the reader on mouse-over of the page number of the quote (for webpages, that is the small "1" (page one) which appears after the reference number.  Try it, you have to get the mouse position just right for the quote to display.
 * I use this R template with DIFFERENT quotes than the ones included in the normal reference "quote=" parameter (which as you show with "displace" are listed in the reference section) because I often edit on contentious topics (like this article) and feel that quotes help other editors to easily see specifically which statements in the reference most support that statement in the article, and so readers can have some confidence that the references are being reasonably summarized/paraphrased. Sometimes I have used lengthy quotes (and seemingly unrelated quotes) in the "quote=" section because the same source is used for several unrelated statements, as a way around this issue, if I'm only using the source for two or three statements.
 * The other idea I had is that we could put the quotes in a comment, so they would be visible to editors, but less cumbersome for readers.
 * If you have a better suggestion on how to have only the quote appropriate to the specific statement display, withOUT duplicating the reference (and thereby hiding how many times the reference is used, and making it appear that the article has more references than it has) I'd love to hear it. Thanks! --- Avatar317 (talk) 22:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * For me, mouse-over does not show these quotes. Instead, it again shows the reference itself and any quotes in the main ref template. Perhaps this varies by browser or some other setting, but this information should be consistent for all viewers, so the issue is the same either way. I do not think hiding these quotes in a wiki-comment is appropriate. If these quotes are important enough to be included, they need to be visible to regular readers, not merely experienced editors.
 * I appreciate the use of quotes, as it does make things clearer, but there is a very substantial trade-off with such a large volume of added material. Perhaps it's obvious, but I don't think these specific quotes are vitally important, otherwise I would not have removed them. Quotes can sometimes, but not always, prevent confusion or disagreement. Quotes are also a great convenience, (especially for non FUTON sources) but they are only strictly necessary in exceptional circumstances. If a source needs so much interpretation and editorial guidance that it only makes sense with a specific, lengthy quote, it starts to introduce WP:OR issues.
 * With that said, I believe switching to Template:Harvard citation would resolve this, as each individual citation can contain a quote and page number in a 'Citations' section while also linking to a shared reference in a separate 'references' section. The article does use some Harv refs, but not consistently, and switching would be a time commitment and would also make future editing slightly more difficult and significantly more intimidating to newer editors.
 * If you strongly feel this is necessary, feel free to revert my edit and use that as a starting point for this change. Grayfell (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll use the harvnb or harvtxt to try to improve this situation. Thanks for that suggestion.  I'm still planning to do much more reading of sources and work on this article, (I figure I'm barely half way through, probably a couple months more of work) so I'll switch to the Harvard style and fix and trim the existing ones in the process.
 * I feel that quotes help resolve disputes when new editors read a statement they feel is non-neutral and modify it without looking at what the source says; quotes allow another editor unknowledgeable in the subject to easily determine whether the statement represents the source (as well as editors like me who may have written the statement but forgot where in the source it says that, or specifically what it says). That said, easily findable facts like total yearly revenue probably don't need quotes, so I'll try to reduce the amount of quotage. Thanks for the help and explanations. --- Avatar317 (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2023 (UTC)