User talk:Molevol1234/Archive 1

Ariel Fernadez
Hi! I've reverted User:Spinrade and asked him to refrain from non-constructive and inflammatory comments. I'll ask you to do the same. Unless you have proof that Spinrade is AF, and not, say, a friend or fan or agent, or just a random admirer, please refrain from calling him by that name. If you have such proof, take it to WP:COIN and/or WP:SPI. Thanks! In general, when discussing people with a sharply different opinion, I find it useful not always to insist on stating my (obviously always correct) opinion, but to ask myself if something I post will help resolve the conflict, instead of further escalating it. Also see Duty Calls. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:58, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you aware that he has a history of sock puppetry here and that there have already been several puppets posting to this page? If you are able to check the IP address, chances are it maps to Argentina Molevol1234 (talk) 18:08, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not a Checkuser, and while AF may have socked before, there also are about 6.5 billion other possibilities. As I said, take it to WP:SPI, where a Checkuser can look at the technical connection details. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:13, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Nomoskedacity made a request already, which was declined for some reason I don't understand (non-stale socks). It really doesn't matter if the account gets banned, because he will just start a new one. He has done this several times so far and had several accounts banned. As for saying anything constructive, it literally will not work. Molevol1234 (talk) 18:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, if saying constructive things won't work, I doubt saying non-constructive things will. I also believe you need a change of perspective. You may not (for the sake of argument) change his behaviour or opinion. But Wikipedia runs on consensus, and he is not the only one reading the pages. Keep calm and bring sources and arguments. Don't let yourself be baited. If you don't have a reply that advances the discussion, keep quite. I sometimes find it useful to simply state "I've read this (and I'm not commenting)" if somebody post something so outrageously stupid that no discussion is possible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, well we will have to disagree. I have a lot of as yet non-public information. I am not content to see him whitewash his bio. It will get much worse for him in the long run, but in the short run I would like the public information about misconduct to not be hidden. Molevol1234 (talk) 18:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's an entirely different question. I'm discussing style. As you may have seen, I tend to support inclusion of the retractions, if only mildly (because it's really not mu field and don't have time to dig deep enough to form a stronger opinion). I'm just suggesting you change your approach, not your goals. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Point taken. Have a nice day. Molevol1234 (talk) 20:01, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Notice of ANI discussion
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. See this thread. Fyddlestix (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Conflicts of interest in Wikipedia
HI Molevol1234 I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia along with editing articles about health and biology. Your edits to date are all about Ariel Fernandez, and in a remark you made above, you make it clear that you have some kind of real-world relationship with him.

I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, Molevol1234. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, please:


 * avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
 * instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you.

Comments and requests
Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by out WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with Ariel Fernandez in the real world? Before you answer, please read WP:BLPCOI which is Wikipedia policy and also read  WP:EXTERNALREL about how we think about "external relationships" that create a COI in Wikipedia. You can answer the question about connection how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, with please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), perhaps we can talk a bit about editing Wikipedia, to give you some more orientation to how this place works. You can reply here - I am watching this page. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:49, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Molevol1234 you have made comments on the Ariel Fernandez article since I posted this. Please do respond here.  Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I did not see your request, sorry. To my understanding, any COI does not prevent me from participating on the talk page. I have never edited Fernandez's biography, have never attempted to vandalize any pages on this site, and I have not posted anything whatsoever that is untrue. Looking at the COI guidelines you have posted, I do not believe that I am in violation of them. If you need me to declare my COI, I do have some knowledge regarding investigations of his work. I have no personal stake in the outcome, but what I know has compelled me to act in order to ensure that his biography is not whitewashed. Being completely frustrated with his behavior here, I did say one thing that (while true) crossed over a line. I believe it may be archived now, but if you'd like me to somehow go back and formally redact it, I will do so. Beyond that, I don't think there's much more I can add to the discussion at this point. I have been cordial and collaborative with non-sock editors, and we've arrived at a revision that I believe everyone is happy with. Thank you. Molevol1234 (talk) 17:26, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for your cordial reply.  Fernandez has indeed taken up a lot of the community's time with his SOCKing, which is why he has been indefinitely blocked.  It is frustrating.  And you are doing the community a service by monitoring for SOCKing activity.  But this is about your relationship with him, in the real world, and what you do here in WP.   I did notice that you have refrained from directly editing the article about him as well as articles he generated or contributed a lot to while he was still a valid user, and as a sock.   You have been following the COI guideline in that regard which I appreciate very much.  So thanks for that too.  The disclosure of the real world relationship is exactly the issue - you nailed it.  The question is, do you have an external relationship with him or matters concerning him that you bring to the table when you work in WP?  I think the answer to that is "yes" and I think that this (the fact that there is an external relationship) should be disclosed to the community.
 * Further (and I am being really frank here) while your monitoring the articles and bringing SOCKing to the attention of the community is great, your directly engaging with Ariel's sockpuppets is inflaming him and exacerbating the problem. I know that is not your intention but that is happening, especially in light of the lack of disclosure.  For what it's worth, I suggest that you refrain from directly replying to any of his SOCKs, and instead interact with other editors.  And I advise that you be very careful to mind BLP and avoid making any claims about Fernandez on a Talk page (anywhere in WP) that are not supportable with very reliable sources. (BLP covers all of Wikipedia, not just article content).
 * So here is what I suggest.  I would like to place a Template:Connected contributor tag on the Talk page of the Fernandez article, indicating that you have a COI due to an external relationship, so that the disclosure is made.  In that tag, I would like to place to a link to a single post by you, disclosing the external relationship (generally, in a way that doesn't OUT you) and in which you say that you agree to the disclosure being made, and that you have not, and will continue to not, edit content about Fernandez.   If you agree, will you please provide such a reply?   Thanks. Really - thanks.  And I am happy to discuss any of this. Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * indeed, I agree with you that some of the exchanges with Arifer socks have been counterproductive. More recently, understanding this on some level, I have tried to avoid direct back and forth with him except to respond to his mischaracterizations of things. (I was being quite serious about suggesting a Hydra award for prolific wiki socks, for what it's worth.)
 * I am honestly happy at this point to leave any remaining debate to the senior editors, if that is helpful. I am also happy to write a COI statement (does that go on this page?). Do you have any wishes as to what if anything needs to go in it beyond what I've said above? If you would like private details regarding the complete COI situation so as to advise, please let me know if we can arrange that. Also, if simply not contributing more edits to his talk page at this time is a preferred alternative, I am satisfied with the outcome of the process and don't see the need to comment further at this time. My only thought at this point was to make one last post to thank the various editors who have been helpful in resolving this situation. Thanks, and have a nice day. Molevol1234 (talk) 18:21, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying! As I said your monitoring for socks and making arguments for content you like is fine, and welcome.  I am not by any means suggesting you walk away.   And no I don't need to (nor want) to receive any personal information about you.   Just a disclosure that you have some sort of external relationship with him or his work (I don't know how you have "knowledge regarding investigations of his work" that you have said are not public, nor if you have ever interacted with him directly in the RW or if he would know your name, and I don't want to know - what matters is that there is an external relationship).   So if you would like to reply and say something like: "I have had access to the investigation of at least one of  Ariel Fernandez' scientific publications in the real world and I acknowledge that this involvement constitutes a conflict of interest in Wikipedia per WP:BLPCOI.  I have not and will not edit content about him and will be sure to abide by WP:BLP in talk page discussions."  Something like that, if that is accurate enough.  This is something that doesn't OUT you (at least I think it doesn't) but makes the external relationship relatively clear.   That is something you could post on your User page, if you like but that I could at least link to in the connected contributor tag (which is all that is really needed, unless you broaden the scope of your edit to include other articles affected by him).  Then nobody can complain about undisclosed COI.  (btw if you are a scientist, please know that we love experts and your contributions are welcome in the rest of WP, which is vast and often less fraught. :)  Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, it is there now. I adjusted the wording slightly. Indeed, I am a scientist and have found the contributions of others to be tremendously useful. I have not as yet felt the need to edit content in my area, but I will do so if I see relevant material in need of updating. Best wishes to you. Molevol1234 (talk) 19:05, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to ping you here about this, but I agree about not agitating the socks. Ariel just asked the wiki editors to post a link to his "alleged" self-published sockpuppet blog where he "allegedly" interviews himself pretending to be another person. I think he monitors the IP traffic to that site, so I would warn editors to be aware of outing themselves if they follow the link. Also, the original version of that "interview" is far, far more entertaining than the cleaned up version and won't give Fernandez your IP info. https://web.archive.org/web/20141207160735/http://scienceretractions.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/interview-with-dr-ariel-fernandez-on-the-nature-paper-controversy/ Molevol1234 (talk) 13:39, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like allthefoxes denied his request just as I was posting this. However, when he is asking people to follow links to places where he has the IP access information, I think you may want to point this out to the others. Molevol1234 (talk) 13:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)