User talk:Ebikeguy/Archives/2012/February

Electric Bicycle
Hello my friend. I'm just wondering why you called this edit vandalism. What am I missing? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * My mistake! I missed that the deleted material had been moved.  Not sure what I was thinking.  Thanks for pointing it out.  I'll remove the associated warning on the user page.  Sorry!  Ebikeguy (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I forgot the section heading. No worries about the vandalism thing. I too had to scroll down, and almost missed it.


 * I think we should be gentle with this editor. He seems like he could be a good asset and just needs a bit of attention and guidance. A bit of personal care and encouragement instead of templates might be best. Let's both give him a hand when needed. Cheers. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Initially, I thought this was a single-purpose, promotional editor. Now, it seem I might have been mistaken.  Yes, I agree, let's be encouraging (although perhaps a bit cautious as well).  Cheers,  Ebikeguy (talk) 22:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That was my first impression too. But the refs are quite varied. It's just that they're pretty commercial. Let's assume good faith and guide on what are good and bad refs. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Amen! Ebikeguy (talk) 22:29, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

please check the last bullet and replace the edit Motor-assisted Bicycle - a bicycle to which a small motor is attached. A motor-assisted bicycle does not qualify for a registration as a motorcycle, moped or ATV and does not have the same equipment. Emgreene (talk) 23:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not entirely sure what you are suggesting. If you feel you are proposing a valid edit, please make the edit yourself.  Thanks!  Ebikeguy (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Even if NY won't register motor assisted bicycles, it isn't relevant to Electric motorcycles and scooters because it makes no difference if the motor in question is internal combustion or electric (or steam or nuclear for that matter). The page New York's restrictions might be relevant is Motorized bicycle, but the section Motorized_bicycle does a pretty good job of summarizing the fact that local laws vary state by state. Listing each state's specific laws is probably not realistic, nor is it necessary. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Also see Electric bicycle laws.  Cheers,  Ebikeguy (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

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Private Companies editing to improve their image
I saw your edit at Jimbo's page re "Cracker Barrel and other companies wishing to improve their image by modifying their Wikipedia articles to minimize negative publicity". I had no idea that this was allowed on Wikipedia and it certainly will affect my future interest in editing here. I'd appreciate more information on this policy. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 03:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no official policy against paid editing, so it happens. There are a substantial number of editors, including Jimbo and myself, who think that paid editing should not be allowed.  See this ANI for a taste of the debate.  Cheers,  Ebikeguy (talk) 16:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether it's allowed or not, they would have to change the NPOV policy before they'd be allowed to whitewash their articles by removing negative content. If that change ever happened, Wikipedia would lose lots of credibility. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "If that change ever happened, Wikipedia would lose lots of credibility lose even more credibility." Fixed it for you! --Biker Biker (talk) 16:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. I will read the debate when I have time. Until now I just assumed that at least at Wikipedia corporations are not people.  I should think that any fool could see what that policy has done to our democracy in the U.S. Gandydancer (talk) 17:17, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The main problem, as I see it, is that the paid editors have plenty of time available to build up and post arguments supporting their POV as neutral. This is, after all, what they are getting paid to do.  See the removal of references to the Tom Delay campaign finance scandal in the recent rewrite of the Cracker Barrel article.  The paid editor and his allies (not sure if they are being paid to edit or not) methodically built up the argument that this content was somehow not significantly notable as it relates to Cracker Barrel, despite the fact that Cracker Barrel's role in the scandal was prominently covered by a host of reliable sources, such as NPR, the NYT, etc.  Volunteer editors with jobs and families and lives outside of Wikipedia, are prone to just throw up their hands and give up in the face of corporate-sponsored, full-time opposition.  It's sad, but there does not seem to be any way around it at this point.  Efforts to specifically prohibit paid editing have failed, to date, and as more and more corporations realize that paying people to make them look good on Wikipedia is a worthwhile investment, I think it is safe to say that the number of paid editors on Wikipedia will increase dramatically.  Of course, as the number of paid editors increases, so will opposition to any suggestions that paid editing be banned or limited.  Ah well, such is life...  I hope they don't ruin Wikipedia, but I am not optimistic.  Cheers,  Ebikeguy (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the long post and I'm in complete agreement. I made an edit at Cracker Barrel and we'll see what happens - I figure that if they have the space to let us know that they serve breakfast all day long there is space to do more than just skim over the court's findings re racial bias to the point that it would appear that no judgement was made at all and they just chose to change their ways.  Yes, I agree that once the word is out and the Big Boyz find out that they can edit for their special interests, this place will be crawling with industry editors just like our Congress is crawling with lobbyists. Gandydancer (talk) 20:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Good work, but you should make sure to add comments to your edits in the future, especially on an article that just got GA. If you want to see a real whitewash on the part of WWB Too, see Academy of Achievement where the attempt is being made to bury the "bad stuff" so deep in the article that no one will notice it.  Ebikeguy (talk) 20:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure which wording you saw as I was unexpectedly called away from my editing for quite some time. My edit was changed almost as soon as I made it and I was going to do an edit summary on the talk page.  I finally did get that done just now.  Gandydancer (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I think paid editors have, at best, days or weeks to spend whitewashing. They're on the clock and have to eventually show a business justification for their time spent. Or else they're unpaid interns, and they split in 3 months. On the other hand, I have years and I'm not going anywhere. Even if a flack for hire can get away with a whitewash in the short term,, volunteers can wait them out and overwhelm their piddly efforts, because we have all the time in the world. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I hadn't thought of it in those terms, Dennis. Nice perspective!  Thanks!  Ebikeguy (talk) 00:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I have been dealing with a similar situation since last June. In this case, it is a case of allowing government agencies to edit articles that are related to their interests. The editing issue has flared up again and today, going back and reading the old talk posts to the beginning of the controversy, I found this old post of mine which somewhat explains my concerns. The bold section was taken from EPAJames talk page since he was then using his talk page to discuss proposed edits.

''It has been suggested that the entire section regarding the NRDC lawsuit be removed. I will quote the suggestion:''

Regarding the NRDC lawsuit text, does anyone object to its removal as well? My thought was that updating the lawsuit text to reflect the facts I referenced above would make USEPA look great, but I’m concerned about an appearance of a conflict of interest. I feel the suit was more of a flash-in-the-pan news item and probably didn't belong on the clothianidin page in the first place. Deletion would be consistent with the WP:NOT#NEWS policy and would help avoid the appearance of COI from me just updating the text. Thoughts? --USEPA James (talk) 21:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

''Yes, I do have concerns. It can not be argued that this is "old news" since most of Wikipedia is "old news". This editor feels that it was just a flash-in-the-pan item, however most news is of the flash in the pan nature - it becomes newsworthy and then after awhile it is no longer newsworthy. To suggest that a deletion would help avoid the appearance of conflict of interest of an EPA employee is very troubling to me. As one of the top contributors to the BP oil spill, I shudder to think how differently the article would read if the Coast Guard, NOAA, the MMS and the EPA could have had this same advantage. I remain very troubled that government agencies are allowed to post to articles in their own name. If that is policy I have no choice but to accept it, but I do feel that it will bring Wikipedia closer to an establishment-controlled encyclopedia rather than a people's encyclopedia. If they even must state, "I want to avoid a COI", is not this problematic? Gandydancer (talk) 16:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)''

At that time I had no idea that Wikipedia allowed corporations to edit, but now knowing that it is allowed I guess I can add BP, etc., to my list of COI editors. Gandydancer (talk) 16:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

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