User talk:IanRivian

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Welcome IanRivian! Now that you've joined Wikipedia, there are 41,081,330 registered editors!

Hello IanRivian. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions!

I'm E.Wright1852, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge. Alternatively, leave me a message at my talk page or type  here on your talk page and someone will try to help. To get some practice editing you can use a sandbox. You can [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Mypage/sandbox&action=edit&preload=Template:User_Sandbox/preload create your own personal sandbox] for use any time. It's perfect for working on bigger projects. Then for easy access in the future, you can put  on your userpage.

Please remember to: The best way to learn about something is to experience it. Explore, learn, contribute, and don't forget to have some fun!
 * Always sign your posts on talk pages. You can do this either by clicking on the OOUI JS signature icon LTR.png button on the edit toolbar or by typing four tildes  at the end of your post. This will automatically insert your signature, a link to your talk page, and a timestamp.
 * Leave descriptive edit summaries for your edits. Doing so helps other editors understand what changes you have made and why you made them.

 Sincerely, E.Wright1852 (talk) 22:12, 4 March 2021 (UTC)   [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:E.Wright1852&action=edit&section=new&preload=Template:Welcome_to_Wikipedia/user-talk_preload (Leave me a message)]

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COI-editor work on improving Rivian article
Hi IanRivian. I think your comment today on the Rivian Talk page was helpful, and it illustrated a good (and to this editor's eyes) proper appreciation for Wikipedia policy and practices with respect to company-involved editors.

Moreover, except for the one thing that I have taken issue with, I believe every action and attitude I've seen on your part has constructively engaged with Wikipedia and our WP:COI practices.

That is all true. And, that being said, I was thinking yesterday (before your helpful comment today) of dropping in on your Talk page and inviting you to consider a thought experiment with me. (yeah, I occasionally teach an econ course at local uni and I sometimes talk that way. ;)  )  I'll do that in the next section.  N2e (talk) 02:13, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Thought experiment on COI-editor writing full paragraphs of prose for Wikipedia
First, I'll just summarize a few facts as they are, and I suspect we can agree on:
 * 1) You have written a multi-paragraph section of good/reasonable prose, with a bunch of citations, (mostly? or all?) secondary sources on the Rivian Talk page that is ready-to-go, finished article prose.  Although it is "good/reasonable" prose, the fact remains it was authored by a Rivian company employee.
 * 2) You, of course, know that as a company employee, it would be wrong for you to place that into the article mainspace.  So you do not do that.
 * 3) Tesla seems to be a much followed (and much loved, and much hated) competitor of Rivian in the EV space.  I think it is fair to say that there are many editors on WP that edit/improve/argue over the content the the many articles on the company, and the many related articles on their vehicles, etc.  This could become a factor in what occasions below.

Now, for the thought experiment:
 * 1) Some editor might come along and just cut/paste that "good/reasonable" prose you've written, with your sources, into the article.  (one editor there on the Talk page has indicated they are close to doing this).
 * 2) Let's say that occurs.  Now, it is YOUR prose, a Rivian employee wrote, in the Wikipedia article on Rivian, the company.  (whether or not you intended it to be so)
 * 3) Now, let's say that some outside media (whether well intentioned, or not; whether just doing good investigative reporting, or being a click-bait site) comes along and sees this.  Maybe sees a bit of (light or heavy) controversy stirred up in Wikipedia discussion pages, where not all Wikipedia community think this is/was a good idea.  They write a story.  The lede might be something to the effect:  "Rivian xyz-position person Ian _______ wrote parts of the Wikipedia article describing the Rivian company.  Wikipedia community is up in arms about it."
 * 4) How do you explain this to your boss?  Do you want to explain this to your boss?
 * 5) How does this go for the company?  Is it a PR win?  Is it a PR disaster?  something in between.

Okay, that does it for my thought experiment. Maybe it is all crazy; perhaps it is P=0.99 it never happens. Maybe I represented something wrong. You decide.

But here's the question for you: "Why open yourself up to this possibility?" "Why expose yourself in this way?"

There may be many alternatives you can control to mitigate this. Here's one I thought of; leaving it here for you to contemplate.

What if instead of writing fully-complete article-ready prose for Wikipedia, as you have done on the Rivian Talk page diff, what if you did something like this:


 * Founding, 2009, founder Robert "RJ" Scaringe.
 * Scaringe background.
 * company renamed a few times: Mainstream Motors (yyyy) to Avera Automotive (yyyy) to Rivian Automotive (in yyyy).
 * name background
 * company’s initial vehicle concept: fuel-efficient 2+2 coupe
 * transition to utility vehicle market, 2013.
 * “stealth mode” wrt news and publicity
 * investment/growth, 2015

Etc. ... etc.

Food for thought.

Three other miscellaneous notes. Promise, I'm trying to be constructive.
 * The article uses "dmy" date format. See {Use dmy dates|date=April 2019} in the article.  If you are going to provide citations, which as you know I think is very helpful to editors who might choose to use your helpful list of sources, then you really ought to conform your dates to the format the article uses.
 * I would lose the multiline citation format, and go with the cite closer to the format I did as an example in one of your citations (above). Most editors nowadays hate the multiline cite format.
 * use rather than  whenever you have a bonafide news source.  It will help you in your quest for a better more accurate article about your company.  Use the web form for the ones that can't really be tied to a news source, which defaults to being treated as a secondary source.

Cheers. N2e (talk) 10:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * User:N2e: Thank you for your thoughtful feedback regarding COI article participation. I appreciate your time and coaching pointers. I am going to look through what I have and begin to list topics and sources on the article talk page as you suggest. I think I will start with news that doesn’t impact the history section for now since there is ongoing discussion on how to handle its current state. Shall I tag you when I have something to include on the talk page, or will you monitor it from your watchlist? Thank you again. IanRivian (talk) 22:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)