User talk:Openthewaygate

June 2020
Hello Openthewaygate. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to Technical analysis, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially egregious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat SEO.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are  required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Openthewaygate. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message.  MrOllie (talk) 15:45, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi MrOllie, I am not (and have never been) directly or indirectly compensated for my edits. Openthewaygate (talk) 15:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Do you have some other connection to Alpha Vantage? Every edit you've made thus far has mentioned them. - MrOllie (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

No connection with Alpha Vantage. However, it's public information that Alpha Vantage is (1) a member of Harvard Innovation Labs, (2) a graduate of the Field X class by Professor Randy Cohen at HBS, (3) a Y Combinator company, and (4) a provider of technical analysis APIs. Hopefully these "false positives" can be reverted. Thanks! Openthewaygate (talk) 16:03, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * We shouldn't be namedropping particular companies either way, it serves to inappropriately promote them. - MrOllie (talk) 16:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Could you please reconsider your edits? IMO, the original content contained material, factual information that enriches the subject matter. I deeply resonate your view to minimize paid/promoted content on Wikipedia. However, the company Alpha Vantage (and other Harvard-incubated companies) was included in a purely organic and relevant fashion. (Take Prof. Randy Cohen as an example, he still teaches Field X to this date and displays Alpha Vantage as a representative Field X "alumni" in his course materials. Same for Harvard Innovation Labs: https://innovationlabs.harvard.edu/current-team/alpha-vantage/). We will be drawing a dangerous line of censorship here if all citations that mention a specific brand are flagged as Conflict of Interest or Name Dropping, regardless of the nature and value of the edits. Openthewaygate (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Building on the last message, for the Technical Analysis page, I would be happy to remove the reference to Alpha Vantage but still mention the existence of application programming interfaces (APIs) as a modern software vehicle for technical analysis. I believe the readership will benefit from this fresh information on technical analysis APIs. For Harvard Innovation Lab, since the page also mentions many other iLab-incubated companies and the charter of Harvard Innovation Labs is to support and fund new companies, we can keep the original text there with a reference to Alpha Vantage and the other 2 noteworthy companies. For the Prof. Randy Cohen page, since his Field X and Field Y classes are essentially about building new companies, we will include Alpha Vantage and one other company as a representative graduate from Field X. Openthewaygate (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * As to the Technical Analysis page, if you have sources that are not tied to particular vendors (and are not a top 5 listacle), have at it. As to the Innovation Labs: I have to insist, listing particular companies there is undue weight and effectively advertising. We'd need secondary sources to establish which of them are notable, we can't just make personal judgment calls. - MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Mr. Ollie. Kudos to you for being transparent and rational. I will edit the Technical Analysis page so that it doesn't cite any particular vendors (or top N vendors). For the Innovation Lab, there are secondary sources from Forbes, Tech Crunch , and AmericanInno that cover Alpha Vantage from multiple angles. Agreed with your comment on avoiding "personal judgment calls," but the amount of coverage on Alpha Vantage from premier media circulations is tangibly higher than many of companies already mentioned on the Innovation Lab page. (Same for LovePop... If you are in the United States, you will see their "pop" up shops in many metropolitan areas filled with beautiful hand-crafted paper products, but I digress here.) Overall, since the mission of Innovation Lab is to build and launch companies, it might be more natural to mention some of the noteworthy companies coming out of the program. Thanks again, Mr. Ollie. I believe we are overall aligned on many of the content quality philosophies on Wikipedia.


 * Any forbes URL with /sites in it is actually a self published blog and is not written or edited by Forbes staff. AmericanInno is a know purveyor of sponsored content. Techcruch is an indiscriminate list. - MrOllie (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

At least there are secondary sources, albeit potentially with varying quality. The point I was trying to convey is that most of the company listed on the Innovation Lab page don't have ANY secondary sources at all, yet they are still listed (sometimes in more prominent positions) because the nature of this Wikipedia page is to talk about the Harvard Innovation Lab program (including its current and former member companies). Would appreciate a more even treatment of Alpha Vantage vs. other listed companies - why only giving them the benefit of the doubt (while they may not have any proof of "noteworthiness") but not Alpha Vantage (when there is actually some publisher signals).

If I can secure an email from Professor Cohen that approves the mentions of Alpha Vantage and other Field X companies to his personal Wikipedia page, is it OK? Openthewaygate (talk) 17:48, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * No, we need secondary sources, not primary sources such as email correspondence. The existence of other inappropriate company listings is a reason to remove those mentions, not to add more. - MrOllie (talk) 17:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

−	 And what about this Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_data_vendor#cite_note-17)? Tons of company names, and reference #17 is clearly a "top N listicle". Discriminative policing? Openthewaygate (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Again, the existence of inappropriate or spammy content is a reason to remove it, not to add more advertising. - MrOllie (talk) 17:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Can you do the same for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_data_vendor#cite_note-17?


 * Also, do you have any primary or secondary sources that say no Wikipedia page can display brand names even thought the brand mentioning are totally organic and natural? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Openthewaygate (talk • contribs)


 * WP:NOTPROMO and WP:SPAM for starters. Your fixation on including a mention of this company is starting to make me doubt the statements you made above. Why are you so focused on getting this mention on Wikipedia? - MrOllie (talk) 18:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The clauses you cited didn't say "no brand mentioning for ANY Wikipedia pages whatsoever." You seem to be expanding the definition of spamming/promotional content to include organic brand mentions. Why are you so fixated at removing company names? The current version of Innovation Lab is quite ridiculous to be honest: as a startup incubator, it doesn't mention any companies it has incubated. It's like going to a local bookstore and, sorry, no books to be found :(
 * I'm not really inclined to answer any more of your questions if you're just going to dodge mine. - MrOllie (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't dodge your questions. I am NOT a paid affiliate to any of the brands we have discussed so far. I was simply arguing for organic brand mentioning that enriches the underlying content (not just Alpha Vantage, but the other "victims" you have censored under the noble pretext of spam prevention.) This should be an online platform with diverse perspectives on what constitutes spam and what not, and you are acting like a rule maker. I respectfully disagree with your adjudication.

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:13, 23 June 2020 (UTC)