Talk:Madoff investment scandal/Archive 1

Madoff Investment Scandal
Is there a reason for the full title to be capitalised? It usually wouldn't be the case so I was wondering if this is special? -- Candlewicke STundefined 19:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good catch, which is now fixed. Newguy34 (talk) 22:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

History Merge
I tagged this article for history merging since it was split from Bernard Madoff. However, the tag seems to be for renamed articles, so I'm not 100% sure it applies to split articles. If another tag was supposed to be used instead, please replace the tag I added. Calathan (talk) 20:03, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, looking at WP:SPLIT I don't see a history merge as being part of the procedure. Among the templates provided for splitting articles, none of them apply to merging history. I believe it's because you're not supposed to do it because unlike a rename or merge, this is a brand new article being created. I can understand your reasoning behind wanting to merge history because the content here was originally worked on by another article, but the problem is that unlike a merge or rename, with a split most of the page history from the old article just wouldn't apply to this page, because it would be for content other than this. I won't touch the template because I don't have enough experience with splits to say whether or not it's appropriate but I'd guess it's not what should be done. --  At am a chat 20:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking you are correct. Really, all that needs to be changed is that the edit summary when the page was created should mention the split and what article it was split from (as stated in WP:SPLIT).  I don't know if an admin could edit the edit summary, or if that isn't possible.  Hopefully someone will come along who knows the proper thing to do in this case. I'm going to leave the tag there for now since I think it will alert anyone who knows what to do that something needs to be done. Calathan (talk) 21:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I get the impression that page Madoff investment scandal was created over several edits of page Bernard Madoff around 17:50, 12 March 2009, cut-&-pasting some matter each time. There is no one definite cut point to choose, if I tried to move the history of page Bernard Madoff before the split to page Madoff investment scandal. Sorry: this history-merge cannot be done. Anyway, that older edit history is partly editing matter about the fraud and partly editing matter about the rest of his personal and business life. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I took the content of Bernie Madoff and used much of it for this new article. I intended to accomplish creation of a new article re: the scandal by using information that was in Madoff's BLP (inappropriately so, IMO).  My error was forgetting to add the "Split" tag in the edit summary.  Newguy34 (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The size of page Bernie Madoff went down by about a half over 8 edits over the period 17:47 to 17:55, 12 March 2009. Page Madoff investment scandal was created full size in one act at 17:30, 12 March 2009. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I made a null edit to introduce into the history a link to the article from which this was split, which, in my estimation, for reasons I'll not bother to enumerate unless someone undertakes to take a different position on the question, satisfies the GFDL, even as, theoretically (though not functionally) suboptimally, it does not precede the creating edit. Joe 23:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

POV
This article appears to demonstrate a strong anti-madoff POV. It violates evey rule in WP:AVOID using such words as "perpetrated" and "victims". The title also uses "scandal" and a good part of the article seems to deviate off into a laundry list of various victims. It also uses various phrases, linked to citations, that are not proper wording for a neutral article. It also fails to balances points of view properly and just goes down the page, picking one source and usin its statement. All this in a BLP-related article is cause for serious concern.--Ipatrol (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, WP:AVOID states that there are no words that shouldn't be used in Wikipedia, so the use of these words is not, on its face, a problem. So, how should we refer to those that invested with Madoff, who he, himself, admits he bilked out of tens of billions of dollars in a fraudulent scandal?  I think when we are talking about criminal activity, these terms are probably OK.  And, relatively little of the article talks about the victims directly, so I am removing the tag related to that.  Let's leave the POV tag while we work through this.   Newguy34 (talk) 02:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL, this is like saying that an article on the Soviet Union is anti-Stalin because they use words such as "dictatorship" or "communist". 169.232.114.130 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC).
 * In line with the above comments, your argument seems to be completely without merit. I will remove the tag. Wimstead (talk) 11:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The only bias I can see is that the article appears to go out of the way to mimimise mention of his Jewishness, even though it was a significant factor in his ability to perpetrate the fraud. Articles about Jews with positive achievements rarely downplay Jewish identity. This is an example of systemic bias. Wimstead (talk) 11:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The fact that someone has found it necessary to label Madoff as a Jew in his Profile is itself a form of bias. This is not even the page about him personally, but the scandal he created.  The pages for Carlo Ponzi and Reed Slatkin, for example, do not label them as "Catholic" and "Scientologist" despite the fact that these were their belief systems, And they also used their membership in their respective communities to gain trust in the same manner that Madoff did.  Apparently the article needs a label up top to remind us all not to trust those Jews with our money. Talk about a bias that transcends Wikipedia. SPQR 1107 (talk) 08:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have evidence to support the idea of editors actively excluding/removing information because of systemic bias ? Do you have reliable sources to support your statement that his Jewishness was a significant factor in his ability to commit fraud that would comply with WP:V ? If so, there is nothing stopping you adding those to the article. Do you have statistical data to support your positive achievements => article rarely downplays Jewish identify, negative achievements => article minimises mention of Jewish identify view ? To say that this is an example of systemic bias seems like the kind of statement that requires solid empirical data to me, call me old fashioned. Otherwise it's not possible to distinguish between systemic bias in Wikipedia and systemic bias in comments about Wikipedia.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 16:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not think the article shows systemic bias or bias of any kind. No dog in this fight; have not edited it.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * What a OTT pedantic, policy-obsessed comment. I am not going to waste my time on arguing with someone displaying such uncalled for hostility. If you had actually thought about the tone of my comments you would realise that I was saying that there was NOT a serious problem, You need to stop hyperventilating. Your gleeful call for a potentially endless wikilawyering debate is a perfect illustration of why people with a life should not waste their time getting involved in Wikipedia. Wimstead (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * hmmm...you seem to have mis-interpreted the emotional content of my words. There isn't any. Perhaps you thought I was rallying to the defence of an ethnic group or wikipedia. I don't care about any of that stuff. I'm not interested in defending ethnic groups or wikipedia. They don't need my help in that way. There are plenty of editors here ready to jump in and defend their favourite football team, ethnic group, religion or whatever in talk page spirals of death. Your statements seemed quite clear to me though. You identified a problem of systemic bias in this article and in wiki in general from your perspective. These are bold words. You may very well be right for all I know but you didn't provide any evidence and I couldn't see it (which means nothing because I probably have my own systemic bias like everyone else). Obviously nothing changes here without evidence. If your statements are right and there is systemic bias in this instance (whether it's deliberate or accidental) then I care about it and it needs to be addressed (including by you since you brought it up) because it's a serious issue. If your perception is wrong for whatever reason then that's good news. My interest is in combating systemic bias in wiki articles particularly if it's related to ongoing ethnic/political/religious conflicts.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 11:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The media has a general viewpoint (as can be deduced from the citations) that Madoff was a greedy evil person who used his religion to rip people off. This type of bias, called "citation bias", is the result of a large portion of available sources supporting a POV. That may make that viewpoint notable, but it does not make it neutral. Madoff in his court statement said it had nothing to do with greed: that it began as an attempt to get his clients through a recession and became impossible to undo. This viewpoint is hardly mentioned anywhere in the article. Material relating to a person must follow very similar standards to a BLP. Furthermore, a NPOV tag objectivly states that there is a neutrality dispute, not subjectivly that the dispute has merit. Therefore, do not remove the tauntil there is consensus that the article is neutral, which my opposition means there is not.--Ipatrol (talk) 16:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm having difficulty understanding why you feel this article is not neutral. Can you cite some specific examples of absence of neutrality? This is an article about the largest Ponzi scheme in history, the perpetrator of which has admitted culpability and pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts. So I think it is inevitable that it will have a negative tinge. For it not to have a negative tinge would not be neutral, as these are negative facts. If you have an article about a tornado you will have words like "death" and "destruction" and this article inevitably has words like "victim" because there were victims. The article is wordy in spots, but I think that the neutrality tag is not justified and should be removed, unless you can show basis for it. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with JohnnyB here ... Ipatrol's argument would have merit if Madoff hadn't pleaded guilty. The judge himself said that with that plea, he is no longer presumed innocent. Blueboy96 16:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could include that in a few sentences explaining Madoff's professed motivation for creating a Ponzi scheme? This is an article about Madoff's crimes, not his good intentions and remorse. Faradn (talk) 07:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I understand the above discussion as one editor saying there is a POV issue, and no other editors in agreement. I'd like to remove the tag on that basis, but I'd like to hear other opinions. JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * At the risk of starting a vote tally, I'd agree. Newguy34 (talk) 14:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * support not having a vote about it...  Sean.hoyland  - talk 08:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Now that Madoff confessed and pled guilty we can probably stop worrying about injuring his reputation. The guy is a convicted criminal in a cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center and will probably die in jail. The remaining questions are about who else was involved. --John Nagle (talk) 05:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Anybody who rips off 64 billion dollars from average joes trying to put kids through college deserves the death penalty. The fact that anybody would even dare accuse this article of anti-Madoff POV is highly troubling to me.Kcchief915 (talk) 00:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

circular wikilinking
beginning of article's 2nd paragraph - "Madoff founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960," - includes link "Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC". said link returns one (via redirect) to this same article (i.e., "Madoff investment scandal"). given size (pre scandel) the securities firm, in my opinion, should have had its own article already (and still should).--71.183.238.134 (talk) 02:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I removed the link. Baeksu (talk) 05:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

i agree. i created that page which is an unbiased title, but it was transferred to this. let's rename this or split it.

Furtive admirer (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Whoa!
This page is HUGE. It needs to be about 1/2-1/3 this size to be in line with WP:SIZE. Readable prose size What to do > 100 KB Almost certainly should be divided (this article is larger than this) > 60 KB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time) > 30 KB May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size) < 30 KB Length alone does not justify division < 1 KB If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, why not fix it by adding more info? Soxwon (talk) 17:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * After reading it through, I suggest splitting off:

Previous investigations Others possibly involved

And also summarize the charges more. Soxwon (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Edited, took out a lot of general information that wasn't really necessary. Soxwon (talk) 02:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Just want to point out you should consider what the definition of readable prose is. That doesn't include references which is a huge amount of this article's size. This article probably doesn't need to get any larger but it's not even close to 100 KB in readable prose. Someone with a good program to measure readable prose can give you the real amount. LonelyMarble (talk) 05:00, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Because this is an on-going legal proceeding about a very complex matter, we are including more footnotes than usual and must be very careful to include enough detail to be balanced and fair. A one sentence article, "The guy is a crook and people are mad at him" would not be helpful. We need to include enough detail to be a helpful reference source. This topic will only grow more complex as the claw-back lawsuits begin in a effort to redistribute money from the guys that received payouts from Madoff to the guys that kept their money with Madoff. Racepacket (talk) 05:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a mammoth scandal so the size is understandable. Perhaps someone can suggest cuts. I wouldn't know where to begin. 165 footnotes may be necessary,but can't they be formatted to take up less space? JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah it's big, but it is still pretty volatile since it is an ongoing case. I think that there's not much point editting it violently until things settle down. As for the footnotes, I don't see a way to trim these as the text is in the links embedded in the page. Jesus on E&#39;s (talk) 02:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As per User:Jesus on E's, it may be easier to take a look at this in a couple of weeks and trim the fat. CopaceticThought (talk) 07:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I did an estimate of the readable prose size, just by copying and pasting the body of the article without reference text, and it is about 49 KB in size (about 49,000 characters with spaces). 49 KB is pretty large but it's not excessively large, I wouldn't trim just for the sake of trimming. Tightening up redundancies and such is always good, and like others have said, it will take awhile for the scope of this article to come into complete focus. LonelyMarble (talk) 10:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I deleted over 11 KB of pure prose from the article already, another big problem is that it read like a newspaper and had information that was unecessary. Soxwon (talk) 22:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree about not making big cuts. Maybe it can be trimmed, and I will give it a look. JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, a lot of the information I've deleted so far are things like the Dante's inferno quote (really?), "had been confined to his apartment until he entered his guilty plea and was ordered to jail pending sentencing. He faces life in prison, as well as restitution of up to $170 billion. Madoff pled guilty to all charges without a plea bargain" (pulled from the lead, yes it's important, but not really something for the lead), and such statements as "The investors believed their money was safe, it wasn't." Much of it is just generally things that really don't matter and don't belong. Soxwon (talk) 14:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * But all that is important stuff. His penthouse confinement has been a subject of widespread public outrage, and his sentencing to life imprisonment was page one news around the world. Seems by any measure to be important enough to put in the opening paragraphs. JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * An opening is supposed to summarize what happened, the outrage should be stuck in the appropriate section of the article. Soxwon (talk) 16:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about the outrage per se. However, come to think of it, the widespread public outrage is a significant part of the scandal that I suggest deserves mention high up. I don't believe it is at present. We don't want to slant the article, but a neutral mention of the widespread public indignation, and the vocal concerns expressed in Congress, is a major part of what makes the Madoff scandal such a historic event. JohnnyB256 (talk) 17:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. However, I'm not sure we can accurately gauge this while the event is still going on. "Widespread" seems a bit POV and blanket. Soxwon (talk) 18:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

What does a Madoff statement look like?
I don't know if this is gone into anywhere - I don't have all night to check this out - but someone said to me that if you had invested money with Madoff you would get a statement (how often?) which contained details of trades and investments that did not actually take place. Or was there just one line telling you what your profit was for the month? Anybody know the answer? JohnClarknew (talk) 05:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * See this here 216.153.214.89 (talk) 05:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's a better one: Rune Kock (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice. I added a link to the statement in the article, as it clearly demonstrates the impossibility, discussed in the text, that one person could manufacture these statements alone. Ecphora (talk) 17:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Footnotes screwed up
Many of the reference notes in this article do not connect to the correct footnote. For example, if you click on 147, it highlights footnote 143. Can someone who understands this fix it? Thanks. Ecphora (talk) 13:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've fixed this. There were all sorts of problems affecting several refs. The most common cause is that people are being careless and removing the instance of a named ref that contains all of the information like the url etc. That means that all subsequent uses of the named ref will fail. So, if you see something like ref name="somename" immediately followed by information like cite news | ... etc, don't remove it unless you are deliberately removing all cites for that ref in the entire article.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 14:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * They're still messed up. 216 connects to 211.  Ecphora (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I assume someone has fixed that as it looks okay to me. Perhaps editors should use the refTools gadget to avoid these kind of errors. Go to my preferences -> Gadgets -> check the 'refTools' editing gadget which... adds a "cite" button to the editing toolbar for quick and easy addition of commonly used citation templates.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 03:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Nope. If, for example, you click on ref 216, then footnote 212 is highlighted. The lower numbers work correctly. Ecphora (talk) 11:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by highlighted but I assume you mean aligning the ref # you clicked to the top of the browser page. For lower ref numbers the page will do that but it can't do that once the ref # goes beyond a certain number (e.g. 203 on my screen) because it's already reached the end of the page e.g. it can't align ref 224 to the top of the browser page because there's no page left to scroll down. Does that make sense ? Is that what you meant ?  Sean.hoyland  - talk 13:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is over-referenced (yes this does occasionally happen on Wikipedia) and I'll suggest that deleting a few - especially those not properly formated - might help out this problem. Smallbones (talk) 19:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Highlighted - When I click on a footnote number in the text, the list of footnotes comes up, with one footnote at the top of the screen highlighted in blue. The footnote that comes up appears to be the correct one as far as content, but its number does not always correspond. Thus, if you click on 58, footnote 58 is highlighted in blue. But if you click on 224, footnote 218 comes up highlighted in blue. The text of fn 218 seems to be right, but shouldn't the number be the same? There apparently is some problem in formatting some of the notes, or perhaps I simply don't understand this. Ecphora (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep they're messed up again. I think it's probably things like this which is missing an > between -- and i.e. the comment isn't closed. That will cause a whole bunch of refs to vanish from the ref list which produces number mismatchs. Gadgets are better at this than people so I vote for the refTools gadget.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 14:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like we have got this fixed for now. I'd like to ask everybody to use a format such as:  

for the references. I think this prevents many of these problems, and gives properly formated text to the footnotes. Improper footnotes include links to yahoo news (which inevitably break). There are also multiple footnotes per sentence which foul things up (e.g. a 7 word sentence with 5 footnotes). We can get rid of most of these. A little planning with footnotes goes a long way. Smallbones (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing this. It was beyond my abilities. Ecphora (talk) 19:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Dante
I'm not starting an edit war over this. FurtiveAdmirer can you please give evidence as to why this particular quote should go in the lead? Quoting the poet laureate is nice, but that space could be filled with much more meaningful and/or important information and substance. Soxwon (talk) 18:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It has been moved. you must stop your reversions. you are very verbose and all i am doing is tightening the article. if you want a byline, please write a book in your own personal words. you can even self-publish. you appear to be bullying everyone. try to see yourself more clearly.

Furtive admirer (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Instead of attacking me, why not provide examples of unfair editing that you perceive. I've cut out a lot of information that A) was redundant B) made it read like a newspaper C) was synthesis with regards to how it was involved and D) wasn't really important information. If you disagree, plz point to where and why. Soxwon (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

no attacks from me; just constructive criticism. i merely think your grammar and syntax needs refining. sentences lack noun- verb agreement and too many clauses repeat same info/person in different tenses in the same sentence. you are writing as if you are conversing, using lean lexicon. just cleaning up for brevity also. that is, if you are the writer of the "previous investigation" section.

did you put back the dante reference/quote in the lead? thanx if you did. you can't be all bad if you are a red sox fan!

Furtive admirer (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm putting back everything I've taken out (or am in the process of doing so). Soxwon (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Finished Soxwon (talk) 20:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Madoff mug shot
can we use the DOJ mugshot free and clear for this page? if so, here it is to post:

http://www.cbs12.com/news/million_4715820___article.html/madoff_ruth.html

Furtive admirer (talk) 01:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The Daily Beast Article
A paraphrase from an article by Lucinda Franks in the Daily Beast was added. It is very interesting, but I'll remove the section (and put it below) because it is all from an anonymous employee, with no solid info on who the source is, and I don't think that the Daily Beast is a reliable source, though Franks seems to be a prize winning journalist. The info in the article is new, interesting, quirky, etc, but I question whether it is solid (in several senses, e.g. personal opinions vs. verifiable info, non-attributable vs. attributable, gossip vs. fact)

I'm certain that my removal of this section will be disputed. Can I ask that we leave out the paragraphs until at least 3-4 people have commented below and (if) they reach a consensus to include? Smallbones (talk) 17:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If you read the intial paragraphs of the article, which was linked from reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52J4IF20090320, this person is a government witness, which is why his name is presently withheld. It should be in the article, but perhaps in a section of government witnesses.

"Sources in the Madoff investigation confirm the losses that the employee described to me. We sat across from each other at a long black table in the house of an intermediary who arranged the interview. He was nervous, swallowing, hesitating, reluctant to talk. But when we got started, he spoke freely and even eagerly about his strange experiences with the Madoffs."
 * i am sure the accountant who was just charged will turn state's evidence and become a witness to reduce his sentence.

wait if you want, but not long enough to be archived. i am sure more witnesses will be revealed soon. Furtive admirer (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Reuters actually reprinted it on the Reuters website, which is a plus; but it doesn't say "government witness" only something about "lawsuits." Smallbones (talk) 12:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

that the daily beast article will not name him implies he has value for the feds. they don't want tainted testimony. Here is another long-time employee's story. the madoff's were obviously loyal to staff as if they were blood. i guess they expect reciprocity. stories are similar. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5949961.ece it is a reprint from yesterday's paid online wsj. Furtive admirer (talk) 03:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

This link has now been broadcast as a full segment on CNN's Anderson Cooper. Is that a good enough source for insertion here??

Furtive admirer (talk) 03:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

"It was good to work for Bernie"
"It was good to work for Bernie" was the office motto. A former Madoff employee who designed the computer trading programs and was part of a trading group has disclosed that the business was run by three managers with no knowlege of computer trading, who made between $500,000 and $750,000 per year, and a senior computer programmer who made $350,000. "There wasn't anyone who wasn't paid in the hundreds of thousands. There were twice as many people as were needed and there was rampant inefficiency." Even in years when they grossed $25 to $50 million, the firm barely broke even due to the outlandish spending. All furnishing and decor was obsessively black.

"Shana Madoff, the compliance legal counsel, Peter Madoff's daughter who was married to an SEC compliance officer, worked half-time in the office, and seemed to work on human resources rather than compliance.” he said. Ruth was the firm’s bookkeeper, but worked rarely.

The 17th floor was described as "organized chaos" with obsolete computers and printers. The staff wore jeans. Bernie was always traveling with Ruth, and only in the office about six months per year. Emails of both the legitimate and illegitimate businesses were handled and stored on the 18th floor.

There was a duplicate office in the Bulova building near La Guardia airport, with "fire drills" in the event of a disaster.