Talk:Nat Simons

Paid editing disclosure, apology and request regarding tag
Hi, I’m John. I’m a former longtime CNN journalist but very much a wiki newbie so I appreciate any patience that can be afforded a rookie. I own a consulting firm and for the last couple of years have consulted for the subject of this article, Mr. Nat Simons, and the foundations co-founded by him and his wife. I offer communications advice on the issues of climate change mitigation and clean energy policy. My firm is paid for our work, so I have a financial relationship and am disclosing that here and committing not to edit this article. It was recently brought to Mr. Simons’s attention that an undisclosed paid editing tag had been placed on the article. This was a surprise and Mr. Simons asked me to investigate. I’ve done that for the past month, learning Wikipedia rules and researching thoroughly the history of edits. As a result, I believe there was a violation. In brief terms, I believe the article was created as part of an SEO project several years ago. Although it doesn’t absolve him of responsibility, Mr. Simons was unaware of the undisclosed paid editing and certainly was never informed that disclosure of this paid work would place him in good standing. I have been unable to uncover the identity of user Balle010 who appears to be the primary author behind the article’s creation in 2017, and whom I see has been blocked after a recent sock puppet investigation. I have not identified any other edits where anyone on behalf of Mr. Simons has been involved. I note there are two other editors, Deltagammaz and Ezpeazylemon, who have since been blocked for sock puppeting. These users are unknown to us and were not acting on behalf of Mr. Simons. I took my findings to Mr. Simons who agreed with the recommendation to initiate an honest and open engagement with the Wikipedia editing community. On behalf of Mr. Simons, we are acknowledging an undisclosed paid editor violation in 2017, accepting full responsibility for the error and offering a sincere apology to the Wikipedia community for the violation of standards. We now understand and acknowledge Wikipedia’s rules on paid editing and pledge to abide by them going forward. To our knowledge, there has been no paid editing since Balle010’s contributions and we have no intention of initiating any going forward. Indeed, after reviewing the edits made since 2017 it appears to us that the Wikipedia community is doing a fine job keeping the article accurate and up to date. Our goal has been to find out what happened, address any issues discovered and report openly in the hope it would allow for the removal of the undisclosed paid editing tag. We believe we have done our part. However, if there are additional issues, I am happy to work with Wikipedia editors to resolve them. Respectfully submitted, EnvoyJT (talk) 18:49, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Inviting User:MER-C to review this message, as they had added the tag to the page. Also, I noticed that of the main contributors to the page, User:Edwardx appears to be the most active editor still in good standing, so I wonder if they have any thoughts on this. Respectfully, EnvoyJT (talk) 16:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you and discussion close out

 * Thank you to User:Twofingered Typist for their review and copy edit of the page, resulting in removal of the tag. I am closing out this discussion as my query has been resolved. I would also like to thank editors who responded to me elsewhere for their input, specifically User:Blablubbs, I appreciate your patience and advice. Respectfully, EnvoyJT (talk) 01:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Two sites
There are two sites, in the same business. See https://www.meritagegroup.com/. See https://meritagecapital.com/.
 * Both sites are rather odd.