Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solyndra loan controversy


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Solyndra. The main objections to this article are that it is a content fork of an event that is covered elsewhere, it is not neutral, and it was created by a banned sockpuppet. There seems to be agreement in this discussion that since other editors have contributed to the article, outright deletion may not be appropriate, but since there is some good material here that doesn't appear at Solyndra, it should be merged there before being redirected. -Scottywong | chat _ 18:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Solyndra loan controversy

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This article is a clear content fork of Solyndra, an article that is not nearly large enough to demand a daughter article. Further, this article was created by, and most of its content was written by the banned sockpuppet Grundle2600. The entire thing reads like a partisan hack job. Even if we were to do the very extensive work needed to clean this article up, it wouldn't matter as the information already exists in the main article. Suggest deleting or merging if any useful and unique information can be found in this article. Loonymonkey (talk) 05:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS JAMMMY &#9734;&#9733; 13:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - This is an event of sufficient importance, and an article of sufficient size and depth of sourcing to justify a free-standing piece as a "spin off" of Solyndra, which is about the company. Sort of like the way an article in 1930 Wikipedia would have had an article both on Sinclair Oil and the Teapot Dome Scandal. Carrite (talk) 15:37, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I considered that, but this company is primarily known for having secured loans and gone bankrupt which is the focus of both articles. That's discussed in just as much depth in the parent article, so why would this article need to exist except as a POV-fork? --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Procedural delete or merge (without prejudice to recreating). We cannot allow Wikipedia to be gamed by sockpuppet accounts trying to enact a political agenda.  This is not a one-time return of an editor formerly in good standing who loves Wikipedia too much to honor a block period.  Rather, it is an editor indefinitely banned for trouble-making, who has created dozens of new accounts across wide IP ranges for the purpose of trying to alter Wikipedia to cast Obama in a more negative light, and lately, to whip up other like-minded editors in support.  The only practical course, per WP:DENY, is to block the accounts on sight and unceremoniously revert any changes they make, whether or not they've managed to garner any new support (as pitting editor against editor in process disputes is one of the side-effects of this kind of trolling).  It would be difficult to undo the work of this editor here, and with more than half the content and sources removed it would be too chaotic to stand on its own as a viable article.  One fairly infrequent, but valid, reason for deleting an article despite the subject being notable is that the article is in such bad shape it would be easier to start again from scratch than to rescue it.  That's where we are now.  If someone can fix the article before it gets deleted, more power too them.  Otherwise, best to simply delete it and let the legitimate editors build it up from scratch. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:01, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete or merge - per WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV and WP:DENY. Agree with Loonymonkey and Wikidemon. As noted on the article's talk page, the article was created by and largely written by sockpuppets of banned User:Grundle2600. Half of the current article is attributable to identified and blocked sockpuppets of Grundle2600, and some of the remainder of the article may be by unidentified and unblocked sockpuppets of Grundle2600. It would be best to delete the current tainted article. This is not the Teapot Dome scandal. There is a Solyndra article with "Government support" and "Shutdown and investigation" sections that appear adequate, but to which WP:NPOV, non-Grundle2600 parts of this article could be added if close attention is given to maintaining appropriate WP:WEIGHT. Newross (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Commenting, no vote yet I can see where there are POV concerns. That said, the Obama article has flagrant POV issues -- see my user page.  And my attempts to fix those were stopped by a group of users which includes some of the people commenting here, and several members of that group took frankly intellectually indefensible positions in the process.  Similarly, the Seamus article is an attack page, and it's still around, rather than having been merged into a "Dog wars" mutual attack page, which is what the issue has become.  Personally, I prefer a world where everyone plays fair, and I want to AGF as much as the next guy does.  But I don't see how I can get there by agreeing to deal with others' POV concerns, when those same individuals appear, to me, to be taking a "tactical" approach intended to defeat my POV concerns, rather than an intellectually honest approach to evaluating their validity.  It gives me no pleasure to be where I'm at on that subject, but that's the truth.William Jockusch (talk) 03:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I wasn't proposing this for deletion/merge simply because the article has POV problems. That's not a valid reason for deletion and can usually be fixed through editing. The problem is that two parallel articles exist about the same subject, one of which is a total mess.  So if one of them needs to be deleted or merged, it would make sense to delete the one that was created and primarily written by a sockpuppet for POV reasons.  Problems in other articles don't really have anything to do with it. --Loonymonkey (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "Can usually be fixed through editing" is not true in my experience.William Jockusch (talk) 13:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete as a fork created and primarily written by a sockpuppet for POV reasons. Johnfos (talk) 08:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge anything sourced properly back into Solyndra per WP:NPOV (no pov-forks) and WP:DENY. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - Tempted to call for a Speedy G5 as a Grundle2600 shtick here but too much time has probably passed to get that to swing. This is what we have to deal with time and time again in this subject area; that something happened (there was a loan to Solyndra) is fact, that that fact is a controversy is what is debatable here.  Criticisms of a fact don't always add up to a full-blown controversy per se; this is the political arena where anythings politician does is going to be automatically hated by slightly less than half of the electorate.  I think to justify a full article or an entry at a politician-related page (e.g. Dan Rather memos or Bill Ayers stuff), a "controversy" has to reported as exactly that, and not just be a composite of "well, some people criticized it" news stories. Tarc (talk) 13:01, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment For the record, here is all of the info that Grundle2600's sockpuppets added to the article:

In 2009 the Obama administration gave a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, with the promise that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company's shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama's campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and that Solyndra executives had had many meetings with White House officials.

It was also revealed that the Obama administration had already been aware of Solyndra's financial troubles. For example, according to the company's security filings in 2009, the company had been selling its product for less than the cost of production.

In September 2011, federal agents visited the homes of Brian Harrison, the company's CEO, and Chris Gronet, the company's founder, to examine computer files and documents. Also in September 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department launched an investigation.

On September 13, 2011, the Washington Post reported on emails which showed that the Obama administration had tried to rush federal reviewers to approve the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory. The company was a hallmark of President Obama's plan to support clean energy technologies.

The New York Times reported that government auditors and industry analysts had faulted the Obama administration for failing to properly evaluate the company's business proposals, as well as for failing to take note of troubling signs which were already evident. In addition, Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office, had found that the preliminary loan approval had been granted before officials had completed the legally mandated evaluations of the company.

The New York Times quoted Shyam Mehta, a senior analyst at GTM Research, as saying "There was just too much misplaced zeal at the Department of Energy for this company." Among 143 companies that had expressed an interest in getting a loan guarantee, Solyndra was the first one to get approval. During the period when Solyndra’s loan guarantee was under review, the company had spent nearly $1.8 million on lobbying. Tim Harris, the CEO of Solopower, a different solar panel company which had obtained a $197 million loan guarantee, told the New York Times that his company had never considered spending any money on lobbying, and that "It was made clear to us early in the process that that was clearly verboten... We were told that it was not only not helpful but it was not acceptable."

The Washington Post reported that Solyndra had used some of the loan money to purchase new equipment which it never used, and then sold that new equipment, still in its plastic wrap, for pennies on the dollar. Former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn told the Washington Post, "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right... Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy."

On September 29, 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had continued to allow Solyndra to receive taxpayer money even after it had defaulted on its $535 million loan.

On October 7, 2011, The Washington Post reported that newly revealed emails showed that Energy Department officials had been warned that their plan to help Solyndra by restructuring the loan might be illegal, and should be cleared with the Justice Department first. However, Energy Department officials moved ahead with the restructuring anyway, with a new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the company were to default. The emails showed concerns within the Obama administration about the legality of the Energy Department's actions. In addition, an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, had pushed for the loan, despite having recused himself because his wife's law firm had done work for the company.

In January 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had thrown millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes into garbage dumpsters, where they ended up being shattered. Solyndra told CBS that it had conducted an exhaustive search for buyers of the glass tubes, and that no one had wanted them. However, CBS discovered that Solyndra had not offered the glass tubes for sale at either one of its two asset auctions that took place in 2011. In addition, David Lucky, a buyer and seller of such equipment, told CBS that he would have bought the tubes if he had had a chance to do so. Greg Smestad, a solar scientist who had consulted for the Department of Energy, also agreed that the tubes had value, and had asked Solyndra to donate any unwanted tubes to Santa Clara University. Smestad stated, "That really makes me sad... Those tubes represent intellectual investment. These could have had a better value to do public good. I think they owed the U.S. taxpayer that." In April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial amount of toxic waste at its abandoned facility in Milpitas, California.

Sally 65295 (talk) 23:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Working on cleaning some of that up. A lot of the Grundle references appear to be perfectly good references.  But much the text can and should be changed.William Jockusch (talk) 23:51, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge or weak keep: I wrote a fairly substantial portion of this article, but I'd be OK seeing it merged with the Solyndra article. I'm not convinced that both Solyndra the company and the ongoing controversy both merit inclusion on their own, although we've been operating under the assumption that they do. The controversy is sufficiently notable for inclusion, and I'll be honest in saying that the statement about User:Grundle2600 sockpuppets may be a bit exaggerated. A lot of the flagrantly POV content he contributed was removed as vandalism/soapboxing and much of what remains is as neutral as possible given the nature of the subject matter and the fact that it's still an ongoing current event. There's plenty of work that can still be done to make it better, though. I'm just not sure an AfD is really the best venue for a discussion on improving the article when the talk page of the article has been pretty much dead for months. Kari Hazzard  ( T  |  C ) 23:51, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep, but fix the Grundleisms I've just done a bunch of this, removing weasel words, putting in commentary from Obama and Chu, removing duplicated information, and reducing the prominence of jobs created, and reducing the previously excessive emphasis on unproven allegations of cronyism. The references to the article make notability obvious: among others, I see ABC, the AP, the Atlantic, Business Week, CBS, HuffPo, Media Matters, MSNBC, NBC, NYT, Reason, Reuters, and WaPo.  I agree that WP:Deny should be a concern here, so much of the Grundle material should be rewritten.  I've done some of that and tried to move the article towards NPOV.  In light of the subject matter, this is going to be a critical article, much as the Niger Uranium Forgeries article is heavily critical of Bush.William Jockusch (talk) 01:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. I was going to vote merge (merge sourced content back to Solyndra), but I've actually looked at the article, and it seems that there may be a story to tell there. Note that the fact that this was created as a POV article by a banned sock editor isn't enough in my mind to delete the article. That's a simplistic solution - articles should be judged on their content - not by who created them - and articles about notable events should be cleaned up, not deleted. -Stevertigo (t | c) 05:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep, as a notable controversy, but remove all content contributed by sockpuppets of Grundle2600. That may not leave much of an article left, in which case merging may start to look more attractive, but I think there is a reasonable case for having an article on this subject for the time being. It's had enough contributions from other editors that it's not a straightforward WP:G5 candidate. Robofish (talk) 13:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge into the company article while keeping sourceable content. Its the most reasonable way to organize the content for our readers, who I do not think would prefer two separate articles on a company known primarily for the political "scandal".   The "loan controversy" is certainly notable.  At least the content is not currently infected with Obama Derangement Syndrome Webring links.--Milowent • hasspoken  12:30, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:DENY et al. As has been said before, Solyndra is chiefly notable for receiving government largesse and then going tits up, so why do we need two articles on that? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:07, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge with the company article, or maybe merge the company article here. Cavarrone (talk) 13:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep This has received significant coverage in the media during the height of this controversy and has served as a political controversy. If you have a problem with POV then edit the article, do not delete it. Truthsort (talk) 18:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.