Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 120

"Wiki What?"


I'm reposting this from WP:BLPN as suggested. I also only listed three of the articles which were edited by the account, but there are more. Anyway, I saw Kate Upton Doesn't Like Her Wikipedia Page Photo on Yahoo! this morning so out of curiosity I took a look at the article and it appears to have been edited in reference to it. So, I'm wondering if Press can/should be added to the talk page. Also, some of the recent edits made appear to be by SPAs: one just appears to be trying to be funny, but the other might actually be the "Wikipediatrician" (Josh Gondelman) referred to in the article (which may mean WP:COI or possibly WP:PAID). Links to the Wiki What? Facebook page for Gondelman's interview with Upton were also added as citations and an external links. Maybe someone could take a closer look at the edits to see if they are OK. It might also be a good idea to have some more eyes on the article for a few days.

The description of Wiki What? implies that it's a place where celebrities can get help with their Wikipedia "problems". It might be just a comedy page, but after looking at the edit history of the posts of the Mrazzle account shows stuff like User talk:Dammitkevin. Maybe the role Wiki What is trying to play on Wikipedia through its edits should be examined? The editor appears to be citing interviews that he/she might have conducted or be connected to in some way. Interviews in principle are treated as primary sources, which does not make them unreliable necessarily, but does mean they need to be used in caution especially on BLPs; their reliability, however, is probably something for WP:RSN to discuss if needed. My concern is that even if the interviews are OK, citing them might be like WP:CITESELF especially if there is a connection between Mrazzle and Wiki What?. Anyway, clarification would probably be a good thing and any connection should probably be declared per WP:COI if determined to be neeeded. As for WP:PAID, the editor may not be working for the celebrities per se (i.e., being paid by them), if he/she is an employee of whomever does the interviews and is being compensated/instructed to revise articles post interview, then PAID might still apply. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:08, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Also:
 * Tagging who should be in the conversation. I am a paid editor. &mdash;አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 00:48, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Tagging who should be in the conversation. I am a paid editor. &mdash;አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 00:48, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Tagging who should be in the conversation. I am a paid editor. &mdash;አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 00:48, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I admit that I think the show itself is entertaining (one episode is featured in Esquire magazine here). However, it seems the show was linked and cited several times as a source in the T.J. Miller article - to back up assertions in the Wikipedia article, ,. First, a Facebook page is where this show is posted and Facebook is questionable as a reliable source. Second, it seems me to me that using this link over and over to cite content looks like a promotional effort as in using Wikipedia as a platform for promotion WP:PROMO.

Third, as has been mentioned above, it seems to be a case of WP:CITESELF. Fourth, if this is happening in article after article, where the link is cited over and over, then this increases the link's value as a backlink to Wikipedia, which gives the show more visibility on the internet. Again, this appears to be a promotional campaign for the show itself, although it is under-the-radar-promotionalism.

Imho, I recommend removing all the links from all the articles because we normally rely on other authentic reliable sources as a matter of policy. Any content relying on only this show for verification WP:V can be templated (citation needed) or removed. And here the comedian - Wikipedian - Wikipediatrician inserts his name into the T J Miller article. More promotion? I don't know, just asking the question. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:14, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I think what I meant to more specifically say was, the backlinks to Wikipedia probably create higher rankings (more visibility) on Google search pages. Visibility would be raised on other search engines as well. I believe this is known as SEO (search engine optimization). I also recommend removing these links from "External Links" sections on the relevant pages per WP:PROMO. Imnho. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for tagging me here.


 * I have added the press link to the Talk pages for all entries so it reflects the Esquire news articles on this series -- the main source of the Wiki What? videos that comedian Josh Gondelman has been doing. Esquire is a news organization and is a very solid, acceptable news source for citations. I have removed the Facebook citation, as I know these are not ideal. And the Esquire citation is really, IMO, the main source of the citation.


 * I think that while some of the content added is in the vein of humor, this is a very gently comedic take on Wikipedia editing that should be encouraged versus discouraged. The videos are being reported online and on Twitter, and really are not at root a conflict of interest. In my opinion.


 * Gondelman is talking with celebrities and fixing errors or things on their page that are wrong. So far I've corrected two entries where the names were actually wrong and had caused the subjects significant distress (T.J. Miller, John Bradley West).


 * Gondelman is doing a wonderful thing that to me is a key point here: Would you like your entry fixed and/or are there any facts on here (like names) that are wrong? To me, to discourage this type of direct impact to improve Wikipedia pages -- albeit with humor -- is really problematic.


 * I am willing and have proactively improved the pages that Gondelman has been editing. I have also reached out to him about doing some either IRL one-on-one Wikipedia skillsharing or via phone, etc. I am not sure if he is continuing this series -- I hope so as I think they are terrific and fun -- but if so I am hopeful it might be possible to WikiFacilitate a bit more on some of the conventions and rules (i.e., try not to link to Facebook, avoid promotional tone, etc.).


 * So yeah, I don't see this as a conflict of interest either. If this was me talking to a random person who had a Wikipedia page and the subject of the page had problems with facts on their page -- or wanted to add info -- I could and would do anything in my power to address these issues. Just because Gondelman is doing this from a comedic perspective doesn't mean that there is any less value in this.


 * Wikipedia/Wikipedians need to have a sense of humor about this. It's good for us! Ha ha ha! -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 14:01, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Also as far as paid editing goes, this was already addressed here on the T.J. Miller talk page. As stated there, Gondelman is not being paid by the subject of the article, so this is not paid editing. -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 14:03, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Just curious, at this point, do you believe that there is enough evidence to support adding Mrazzle to Wikipedians with articles as the account of Josh Gondelman? Or could it be possible that Mrazzle is actually another editor (or editors) editing on behalf of what Josh Gondelman states on Wiki What? (Which, if I recall, if this account is used by multiple people, would mean that Mrazzle could potentially receive an indefinite block as a shared account unless the user behind the account identifies themselves, probably by creating a user page declaring who they are?) Steel1943  (talk) 14:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Forgot to ping Steve Quinn. (See previous comment.) Also, it seems that Mrazzle even knows of the potential conflict of interest issues in regards to them editing on behalf of Wiki What?, so the fact that I'm presently not finding any declaration about who they are anywhere easily locatable on Wikipedia (such as their user page) is a bit alarming. Steel1943  (talk) 15:04, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Missed pinging Janweh64 as well. Steel1943  (talk) 15:06, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Here is confirmation that yes indeed Gondelman is Mrazzle. :-)
 * It seems clear that Gondelman will update his user page -- and I will attempt to encourage him to declare his understanding of COI (like I do with GLAM folks) so there is full transparency. I have reached out (see link above) to offer WikiFacilitating and to explain some of the more important concepts of Wikipedia editing like the 5 Pillars, etc. I am hopeful that Josh might take me up on my offer of outreach so he can reduce disruption while still doing the pieces with the subjects.
 * I don't think it's anything Machiavellian or especially alarming that he hasn't updated his User page. He's sort of busy doing stand-up and winning Emmys and stuff. If you read the T.J. Miller Talk page link above it's clear this is not a paid editing issue -- or a conflict of interest editing issue either.
 * I would encourage Wikipedia editors to not approach this Wiki What? stuff with WIKI:RULEZ but instead enjoy the sense of humor and funny aspects of this. This series is actually very helpful to Wikipedia editing, I think, displaying how gorgeous and easy the Visual Editor is, and fixing entries for people who have mistakes or might be adding details to their BLPs. -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 15:21, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Gotcha covered .  (I don't anymore. Read my additional response with this time stamp for details. Steel1943  (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC))  Also, per the thread above, I do not see any paid editing issues since as stated, Mrazzle is not being paid by the article's subject. In fact, I kind of wanted to do something like Wiki What? myself, but my lack of starpower prevented any such show from picking up! But, in all seriousness, this whole thread started to figure out how the Wikipedia community should handle these edits due to being scarred in the past (and thus, the reason why these policies exist in the first place ... to prevent actual issues on here from spiraling out of control to a point where the whole site is nothing but vandalism.) So, it kind of is a big deal. Either way, the largest discrepancy in connecting Mrazzle with Josh Gondelman has been resolved ... which is awesome.  (Turns out that I do not acknowledge this at this time, though I have already said what I said.  Steel1943  (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC))   Steel1943  (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I really appreciate the constructive nature of this discussion. I think it's really great. -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 15:59, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It might be better to wait a while after a particular show is over before making reversions. We have enough problems without mobilizing more Twitter-enraged fans. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:20, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * i was asked to comment here by User:Marchjuly. There is a whole bunch of stuff that is making me cringe.
 * first everybody please be way, way more careful about linking to off-WP stuff. Some of you are perilously close to violating OUTING.
 * We need to establish the facts better before moving forward. I have read everything and generated an analysis but before I present that, I want to understand the basis for two claims that User:BrillLyle has made.  BrillLyle will you explain the basis for the following:
 * Mrazzle is not being paid by the subject of the article. He is a comedian being paid by his employer, not by the subject. (diff, the second claim there (not paid by Miller) was repeated with more force here and here)
 * The two claims are a) that Mrazzle is being paid by "his employer" and b) that Miller did not pay Mrazzle.
 * These claims are very different from saying "Mrazzle said he was not paid by Miller" which is supportable with this diff by Mrazzle. And do not violate OUTING in your answer.  Jytdog (talk) 17:48, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for refreshing my memory about WP:OUTING. After carefully reading over it, I have reverted my edit on Wikipedians with articles. (Not linking my diff for WP:OUTING reasons.) I'm not going to restore that edit. Either way, my original concerns about the Mrazzle account (shared account, COI, etc.) stands unless Mrazzle themselves declares who they are through the Mrazzle account here on Wikipedia. Steel1943  (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK. I am waiting to hear from User:BrillLyle before I post my analysis in case there is something I have missed. Jytdog (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and posted. Jytdog (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Reboot

 * Commons contribs for "Sophie Hearst", the user who uploaded the images to the commons. (note the "hearst")
 * Commons contribs for "Sophie Hearst", the user who uploaded the images to the commons. (note the "hearst")

Please see this article, called "Behind Hearst’s Facebook Watch Programming Strategy". What we have here is reality TV editing mostly fake and all about making money for the people involved.

What is going on here is that Hearst Communications and Josh Gondelman have built a web property around "celebrities editing their Wikipedia pages with the Wikipediatrian". Hearst has a web video/Facebook division that does this sort of thing; Hearst also owns Esquire which has followed the web series, big shocker, and has been cited by BrillLyle as somehow a better ref than the facebook videos. (Please note that the piece linked above says "Hearst is hoping to turn them into brands of their own. It also offers the company inventory for its branded sites like Esquire, who wraps the video into a promo article about the series.")

The edits by Mrazzle are about making money for everyone involved, and about celebrities keeping their name up there and out there in a way that seems personal and fun and that the gossip mill just eats up. This is reputation management and PR, not "fun" or "helpful". It is an abuse of Wikipedia to make money. I have no idea who Mrazzle is in the real world and it doesn't matter.

Mrazzle should be indefinitely blocked for violating the Terms of Use and for being WP:NOTHERE and per WP:PROMO.

User:BrillLyle is either part of it or has just been duped. But per their contribs, they have supported Mrazzle's edits on Talk pages, made weird and fierce claims denying COI and paid editing, and implemented and furthered the edits of Mrazzle in articles. BrillLyle also has massively pumped up the Josh Gondelman article, including this diff which added an infobox including the branding "Wikipediatrian" under "other_names". This looks alarmingly like part of the PR campaign. Jytdog (talk) 22:16, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Going through Mrazzle's edits in time, and not making any assumptions about who Mrazzle is in the RW.
 * 2 June: The Mrazzle account made its first edits here - 4 diffs to the Miller article. Those are not bad edits.
 * 1 Aug: The next edit was to the Kate Upton article and is very poor -- it includes unsourced personal information and removed negative information.  This edit clearly reflects advocacy; perhaps COI.
 * 2 Sept this diff series to the Miller article. Those diffs cite the WikiWhat facebook video.
 * 4 Sept diff series edit warring to restore the edits made on 2 Sept, many of which had been reverted.  This series includes this diff where they wrote Wiki What' is NOT a paid-for interview series and does not violation Wikipedia's Content Rules in any way.
 * 4 Sept they struck up a discussion with an editor who had objected to their Miller edits, at the editor's talk page, here which includes the following statements
 * The video you referenced in my edits of T.J. Miller is not promotional but a series whose sole goal is to fact check individual's Wikipedia pages. diff
 * It's a video series that just happens to be airing on Facebook diff
 * Mrazzle was directly asked in this diff, Do you or do you not have a connection to the article subject?, to which Mrazzle answered I do not have any connection in any way to the article subject. I've been helping edit his page for the past few months, that is all. diff
 * I am going to pause now, as that last statement is confusing at best. Mrazzle says I have been helping edit his page. and yet, I do not have any connection to the article subject. If (and I don't know), Mrazzle is Josh, then sitting across a desk from Miller and acting as Miller's "Wikipediatrician" is definitely a "connection".  If Mrazzle is somebody else working with or for Josh, that is still a "connection" as we define that here in WP.
 * I will also pause here, to say that this "web series" is absolutely a vehicle for Josh to continue his professional work as an entertainer, get press, keep his name out there, which is what one has to do in the comedy/entertainment world. It is likewise celebrity-mill fodder for Josh's guests. If you look at these videos they are very produced.  They have a title sequence, theme music, music in the background, they are all edited, etc.    I pretty much object to BrillLyle's description of this innocuous If this was me talking to a random person who had a Wikipedia page and the subject of the page had problems with facts on their page -- or wanted to add info -- I could and would do anything in my power to address these issues. - there were no serious BLP issues; and this is very much about getting PR working with celebrities. (I can see how it is fun... celebrities are people, and i could see sitting around having a beer and talking and "my Wikipedia page" comes up and as a goof and an adventurous foray into youtube-guru-ness as a fun career wrinkle, starting a web property around this seems like fun and a way to generate some press and attention.  The writeups in Esquire reflect the success of this web property for Josh's professional career and ditto some nice PR for his interviewees.  I would be more convinced this was purely for the greater good if Josh were also working with notable people who weren't celebrities.  Right?  So while it might be useful for the WMF to see this as popularizing Wikipedia editing or something, let's be clear that this is not "pure" anything.  We are in celebrity/entertainment-landia here.  And again there were no BLP violations in these articles that needed fixing.


 * 8 September diff series to the John Bradley West article, citing the WikiWhat video that was posted that day.
 * 8 September 2 diffs to the Tarly article, promoting the web property, without citing it. (citation was added by... BrillLyle in a subsequent diff)
 * 16 Sept - diff adding EL to the John Bradley West to the WhatWiki facebook page. This is promotional spamming, pure and simple.
 * 22 Sept diff series to Kate Upton article, citing WikiWhat (https://www.facebook.com/wikiwhat/videos/115380242492586 link]), and including a spam link to the facebook page in the ELs. What is interesting here, is that Mrazzle said in this diff that the interview was conducted on 1 Aug.

So that is all their edits. They are all promotional for the WikiWhat web property.

So there is other stuff going in here. I noted above that Mrazzle's first diff was to the Kate Upton article on Aug 1, and Mrazzle said above that the interview happened that day. Looking at that interview, one of the first things they do, is take a new picture of Upton.
 * Looking at the commons, there is a user there, Sophie Hearst, who uploaded this image, and all the others in the web series, to the commons.  This person is obviously connected to this web property.
 * As I mentioned above, Mrazzle's first edits were to the Upton article.  What Mrazzle did that day was 1 diff, which was immediately reverted by Cluebot.  While the video is made to same all happy/cheery, as I noted above, Mrazzle removed scandalous negative information about naked pictures being leaked.  They didn't talk about this in the video that was published.  Which again, makes this appear to be something uglier  - PR/reputation management -- than what BrillLyle is depicting this as.  And oddly, BrillLyle came along after and also removed that content.

There is more I could do but this is more than enough. Jytdog (talk) 22:09, 23 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I have to say that I am just really appalled at this so-called analysis.
 * First off, I don't know Josh Gondelman AT ALL. I thought Wiki What? was sort of wonderful, and it was like catnip to someone like me, who likes to edit BLPs. I don't have a huge amount of connection to the subjects of the videos, so it was just regular editing for me, something I do consistently on Wikipedia and Wikidata. Usually I try to edit articles that are about people I am more interested in, but since there was a lot of work I could do to improve these articles and advocate for changes that people were saying they wanted in the videos, I did that. It's my contribution of free digital labor as a Wikipedia editor. It's nothing more or less. There's no Machiavellian agenda at play here. If you look at my edits, I edit all over the place, whatever is interesting to me or if I see someone complaining on Twitter, I'll do some heavy lifting. Call me co-dependent -- I will allow for that -- but don't freaking question my motives or accuse me of being in cahoots with someone I don't even know, or to some big media behemoth. I mean really, to see plotting and gaming of the system in my actions says much more about others than it does about me. I am just shaking my head here.
 * Secondly, I updated Josh Gondelman's page because it was pretty clear it needed to be fleshed out, cleaned up, and added to. And before you go ahead and accuse me of being overly thorough or too promotional about his page, let me just stop folks and say that there is NOTHING wrong with entries being good, up to date, and full of good, well-curated citations. Just because other pages are not at this level doesn't mean there should be a penalty for an entry that has been improved. My wish is that Wikipedia is better and has good citations, representing the subjects of the articles accurately. Josh had NO INPUT whatsoever in me spending my Saturday editing his page. I told him I was going to clean up his page on Twitter, told him he needed a picture, and that was the sum of the interaction. I then let him know it was done and let him know if there were mistakes or things he wanted changed -- which is his right under BLP -- to let me know. I finished, and now I'm considering what I will focus on editing next. But to be crystal clear, _I_ am the one who instigated this work. He had nothing to do with it.
 * I understand wanting to protect the encyclopedia. That said, if me contributing to Wikipedia is problematic, let me know. I don't see a lot of people actually adding content to the encyclopedia. It seems like when people do add content, there's this tendency to rake editors over the coals, and to hold the edits under scrutiny under this weird deletionist, protectionist approach to protecting the encyclopedia. I have over 55,000 edits, and care deeply about the content found on Wikipedia. I want it to be good, well curated, wonderfully sourced, and rich with metadata in Wikidata, and have pictures in Commons. I don't get where these goals are something to be hassled over. And all of this discussion has the impact of being hassled.
 * This is all meant to be constructive feedback to maybe take forward with other interactions with editors. Not everyone on Wikipedia is trying to pull a scam or push an agenda. I think it's really sad, and it's why people stop editing Wikipedia -- and don't even start or continue. It's so problematic.
 * That's my feedback here. I don't want to hurt any of the entries that I've worked on via this Wiki What? thing, but I raise my hands in defeat at a certain point.
 * I have offered to Josh to either meet up in person or via phone, etc. to WikiFacilitate and SkillShare with him, as he is in NYC. I used to be very active doing this here in NYC at the various editathons the local chapter held, and I enjoy that. I help people all over the place if they want it. I like seeing people get jazzed by the possibilities of editing -- and empowering communities to address gender gap and issues of diversity on Wikimedia projects. So again this is not something Josh or anyone else initiated. It's all me.
 * -- Thanks for reading. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 23:18, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Want to add that the person who uploaded the pictures to Commons has every right to upload them, associated with Wiki What? or not. People are allowed to control their own media. It is not the same thing as editing the entries. This is a clear policy on the Commons. There was nothing wrong with the uploads. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 23:20, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * And another thing. Shouldn't we be encouraging media folks and media organizations to contribute to the Wikimedia projects?!? As long as they understand the fundamentals and act accordingly. To be hostile to this seems really problematic and wrong. In the last year I've been doing Wiki outreach to various news organization with very positive outcomes, with the idea that the foremost takeaway is they understand the 5 Pillars, COI, etc. so that they know the parameters to engaging with and contributing content to the Wikimedia projects. Educating people needs to be the priority, not expecting the worst and pushing people away from contributing. I prefer to take a positive and constructive approach here, to encourage people and entities to contribute. I just want to make that clear. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 23:24, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Making money off exploiting WP is what it is. What we ask is that people disclose their conflict of interest and not edit directly.   This is not rocket science and is common in publishing in the civilized world.  "Reality TV editing" is really horrifying - way too many people confuse WP as a platform for promotion and the levels of that in this fake web production are mind-boggling. I am happy to accept that you were not knowingly involved in a money-making abuse of Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 00:03, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * A couple of things after reading all of the above. While it's important that Wikipedia be fun for editors and the community find ways to encourage not discourage participation, it's also important to remember that we want editors to be here and edit accoirding to established policies and guidelines, and not try to use Wikipedia in a way it is not intended to be. So, if someone is notable enough to have an article written about them, then they have (at least in my opinion) a COI with respect to everything about them on Wikipedia regardless of how funny they are helpful they might seem to be, which means that they should follow WP:COIADVICE, WP:BLPSELFPUB and WP:BIOSELF and work within established policies and guidelines. In addition, PAID does not ncessarily have to mean "Celebrity A specifically actually pays person B to edit celebrity A's Wikipedia article", but also covers other forms of compensation or the fact that "Person B's employer pays person B to edit celebrity A's article".
 * My concern about all of this started because of an article I saw "Kate Upton Doesn't Like Her Wikipedia Page Photo" (link is provide in my original post) which contains the sentence "But Wikipedia isn't also trustworthy or flattering, so Upton and Gondelman fixed a few discrepancies as well. For one, she got him to change the photo that accompanies her profile. Turns out, she wasn't a big fan of the shoulder armor." After reading that sentence, I checked the article and saw the recent burst of editing by Mrazzle, and my concern grew as I checked some of the other edits made by Mrazzle. Interviews can be tricky things to deal with, which is why the community considers them be WP:PRIMARY, not only for celebrities but for all people. Interviews, depending upon the circumstances, may be more to promote something/someone than to critically analyze something/someone, and may not be subject to the same vigorous fact checking/editorial control the community typically expects from a reliable source. The Wiki What? interviews, as Jytdog points out, do seem to be for promoting the celebrities, the interviewer/host, and the "show" itself; It also seemst to be using Wikipedia as sort of a plot point for doing so. So, if someone connected with any of the three is adding content/images to article which inserts the names of the host or the show into articles (here, here, here) or inserts links to a interviewed celebrity's dog's instagram account into an article just because the celebrity wants more followers for their dog's instagram account (here), then that is a COI and possibly PAID (at least in my opinion) regardless of how funny the show might be. I think Jytdog's analysis is pretty thorough and the diffs seem to show there is at the very least an WP:APPARENTCOI which is problematic. There are a number of images in c:Category:Kate Upton which could've been used instead of the body armor one, and changing the infobox image could've been discussed on the article's talk page. The dog image is not so bad, but it seems to have bee uploaded (again as Jytdog points out) specifically for promoting the show (File:Wiki What?! x Kate Upton.jpg), etc. That's not a screenshot, so it had to be taken by someone connected to Upton or the show if taken at the time of the interview, which appears to be the case per the file's EXIF data.
 * If Mrazzle had been editing for years and years across all kind of articles and then suddenly started adding content from Wiki What? interviews, then it might be a little easier to understand and even possibly accept the "random person just editing" argument made above by BrillLyle, but Mrazzle account seems to be more of an WP:SPA created for a specific purpose of promoting (even indirectly) the web series and whatever is associated with it. Being an SPA is not necessarily a probem in and of itself, but being an SPA who is WP:NOTHERE is a problem in my opinion. The show could be a serious discussion of the issue celebrities face with respect to Wikipedia, and how there are policies/guidlines which allow changes to either be directly made or requested to be made, but my guess is that would not be as "funny" as the current format and possibly not allow actual changes/edits to be made while the interview is being filmed (if that's what happens). -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:09, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching this Marchjuly! It is not a complicated thing, especially with the article describing the whole scammy nature of it.  Jytdog (talk) 00:26, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It's NOT a scam. It's comedy couched in people giving feedback on their entries which last time I checked BLP folks are allowed to do. These responses you've made are what drive people off Wikipedia so congrats. Well done. Delete away. You're not protecting the encyclopedia by this approach. You're just pushing new editors off and turning off experienced editors like myself. Please hear this feedback and please listen. What is happening here is a real disgrace. If new editors need help shouldn't we encourage and educate them? None of this does that. It's destructive and completely unhelpful. -- BrillLyle (talk) 00:38, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Read this article. It is cynical reality TV editing of Wikipedia meant to generate eyeballs for the celebrity, the comedian, and above all Hearst.  One of the things Mrazzle did was remove the content from the Upton article about the naked pictures being released.  Didn't talk about that on the video, did they?  No, can't talk about anything unpleasant, this is all phoney "celebrities hanging out in real life" bullshit.   And it teaches people that it just great to abuse Wikipedia for PR.   Not a damn thing to do with the mission and harmful to the mission.  Again I am sorry you made yourself part of the publicity machine.  (I'v added the credits page from the video above, btw.  Clearly shows it is a Hearst production) Jytdog (talk) 00:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This is the exact same thing that companies that offer paid editing do -- abuse Wikipedia for reputation management (google that phrase and you get a couple of million hits)-- only taken up a nudge-nudge-wink-wink post-modern notch and made into "comedy". Ha ha. Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Gads. As the subject of of a BLP she is totally allowed to have content she doesn't want on the page -- esp that is harmful like nudity -- to have it removed. This now goes beyond what is reasonable.
 * It's too bad you are supporting this negative perspective. It's sad and will only make Wikipedia editors look like fools. So good on that. Badly done here. Really badly done. -- BrillLyle (talk) 01:04, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes living people are of course very welcome to point out actual problems with their articles, and of course we want to fix problems when they exist. That is entirely different from abuse of WP for reputation management and no it is not OK for people to remove negative information about themselves. (The question of whether the release of the naked pictures is really encyclopedia worthy.. I don't know. I don't edit articles about people who are notable for being celebrities and perhaps in this world, this is appropriate.  It is something for discussion, not for the subject to determine should not be there because they don't like it).  And you are missing what is going on here which is an abuse of Wikipedia to make money and celebrity PR. Have you read the article describing the Hearst strategy here? (please answer)  I am sorry you have been fooled.  Jytdog (talk) 01:10, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It is pretty arrogant on your part to assume I am being fooled in some way. How dare you. The article is not the problem. Your argument and rationale and assumption that what is happening here is negatively motivated in some way being the innocent humorous thing that it is. Why encourage anyone to add content? Again I completely disagree here and think you're doing nothing but hurting the encyclopedia. It's a mistake. It's wrong. -- BrillLyle (talk) 01:17, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not going to respond to you further, as you are not engaging with what people who work on this board deal with every day, which is people dumping PR garbage into Wikipedia and abusing it in other ways. I have posted at BLPN here about the naked pictures thing.
 * Otherwise, this is a community noticeboard, and the community will look at what is going on and decide what to do with regard to Mrazzle. Jytdog (talk) 01:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I opened a discussion about using Esquire/WikiWhat-facebook as sources at RSN here -- Jytdog (talk) 02:23, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Everybody should be really clear here. The first actual edits by Mrazzle appear to have been done in real time by someone (again, I have no idea who and it doesn't matter) on the day that Josh had the "consult" with Upton.  The subsequent edits, where the facebook videos were actually cited, were done later, after the videos were all edited and then posted to facebook.  I have not gone back and looked to see if any other edits were done in "real time", but the "editing" you see happening in the videos appears to be mostly fake.   This is part of why I am calling this "reality TV".  The main part, is that the people being filmed are obviously aware of being filmed by the team from Hearst Communications, so nobody should think their interaction is somehow authentic, like people really hanging out.  This is celebrity public relations junk. Jytdog (talk) 02:41, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * One other thing we should also be ultra-clear about: this is not paid editing in that the edits are not being performed in exchange for a cash payment from the subject of the article in order to advance an agenda. It's a comedy show in its essence, generating information to be used or not used with high editorial discretion. Carrite (talk) 01:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Carrite I am super-curious as to the basis on which you make this claim that who ever Mrazzle is in the real world, that they are not being paid (for example by Hearst in order to add citations to Hearst properties to Wikipedia... which would be exactly "paid editing" -- WP:REFSPAM is common as dirt). Jytdog (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Now, now, somebody with your background in science should know all about not being able to prove a negative. I also can't prove that any particular editor is not a mass murderer or a money launderer or a person that undertips their newspaper delivery person (assuming that there is still such a thing as newspaper delivery people). All I am saying is that a show like this is not paid editing. Carrite (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You made a statement of fact about the editor and their editing in bolded font. Support it or strike it.  I have always thought of you as a straight shooter and not a bullshitter.  Prove me right on that. Jytdog (talk) 01:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You apparently are not comprehending what you read. Please try again. Carrite (talk) 01:51, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * If you are talking about the "editing" that one sees the host doing on the show I have three responses: 1)  we have no evidence that the specific "editing" we see being filmed is actually happening in Wikipedia; 2) we don't know if Mrazzle is Josh; 3) it doesn't matter.  All that matters is what Mrazzle has done, and their edits are 100% promotional for the show, whoever they are in the real world.
 * And I have no idea on what basis you would be making claims about any deal that Josh has with Hearst. If his deal calls for him to interview "clients" that Hearst brings to him, and if he is actually editing, and if he is being paid, he would indeed be a paid editor. But I don't know how you would know anything about that relationship that would permit you to make a statement of fact.
 * I am not going to respond further as you are wasting everyone's time here, making shit up and stating that made up shit as facts, and not talking about actual editing of Wikipedia that we can see in diffs, which is all we care about here at this board, with respect to Mrazzle. Jytdog (talk) 02:05, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I should have added, Carrite, that if you are saying that this is not paid editing because the interviewee and subject of the article isn't paying them, this too is irrelevant. If Mrazzle is being by paid by Hearst (and at this point it looks very much like, especially due to the collaboration with "Sophie Hearst") this is paid editing.  The TOU calls for disclosure of "employer, client, and affiliation"  - the "client" doesn't have to be the one paying and in any case the real financial client here is Hearst, which like every digital media company wants eyeballs.   The web series itself and the Esquire coverage of that can each be picked up directly by audiences, and then of course the citations in Wikipedia (oo! how post-modern and self-referential!!) drive traffic back to both.  It is very clever.  And very disgusting from the perspective of Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 17:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

There are several issues here. Let's try to disentangle them. Despite the bad-tempered discussion in this entire subsection, it is possible that Jytdog and others actually agree with the principles outlined above (though they may disagree on the actual details). If yes, that's something we can build upon. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 05:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I found the show funny. Others may find it cynical, but that is not relevant.
 * Separate out the disclosure part from the review part. Jytdog has asked Mrazzle on their talkpage to declare their COI, if any.
 * Separately from that, one can review the edits made. If they are useful, they can be kept.
 * The show is basically an interview, and some information comes from the source directly. Such sources (WP:PRIMARY) can sometimes be used and sometimes not, based on editorial judgement through normal consensus methods.
 * I laugh at inappropriate jokes sometimes and I laughed at this too some. But whether it is funny is not relevant.
 * There is no doubt based on their edits, that Mrazzle is here solely to promote the web property. I did open a discussion with them and hopefully they will engage and disclose and stop editing directly per the COI guideline. In my view they should be indeffed already for being part of this abuse of Wikipedia but we can wait a bit and see if they start acting appropriately.
 * The discussion about sourcing is happening at RSN and I've provided my thoughts on the appropriateness of the sources there. We will see what others say... Jytdog (talk) 06:26, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Mbarywiki


Promotional editing ++ Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:04, 27 September 2017 (UTC) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Dustin Cumming being one article
 * Sherry Argov
 * Why Men Love Bitches
 * Why Men Marry Bitches
 * Cleaned up the last three. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:19, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I posted at their talk page, here, with more elaboration of their edits thus far, and they have replied. As I said there, I do not find their explanation credible. Jytdog (talk) 06:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The topics on which they edited promotionally across multiple articles are:





-- Jytdog (talk) 06:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe that I have been subjected to an unreasonable amount of bullying. It goes far beyond "biting the newbies." As a teacher of college students, the students are given assignments. Last year they wrote Yelp and Google pages, for businesses as a classroom assignment. This year, I wanted to incorporate a lesson to write a Wikipedia article. This was why I wanted to contribute myself. I can't teach something I have not experienced. With regard to the property listings above, Cumming and Beisel and related real estate links were my first attempt at writing an article. Yelp page and Google pages require business listings (only) and I did not know Wiki policy was different. I added the business shown above onto Wikipedia, it was nominated for deletion. I was told that I should not add businesses to Wikipedia. I turned my attention to individuals and TV shows I enjoyed. I edited Million Dollar Listing and was again attacked, until a more experienced contributor defended his own edits. When I was told that there were too many pages for real estate, I stopped editing any and all real estate pages. Yesterday and today, I was accused of being in the PR business. I am not in the PR business. I do not get paid for my contributions. I was trying to get away from entertainment articles. Yesterday, I edited a medical page about Parkinson's Disease (something my family members have had) and I then saw Doc James went onto many pages I edited (none of which I created) stating I may be getting paid for my contributions and he deleted all my contributions (as he states he cleaned them up) which included deleting content that other people contributed before me leaving one sentence. The books (referenced above) had "stub" notices a specifically asking for more citations and references. I saw "this is a stub page, please add references" and I took the same content already appearing on the author page, verified the links were still active, and expanded the page and supplemented the references on the  book pages pursuant to the "stub page" notices. I tried to edit to fulfill the posted request. To date, my edits have covered a wide range of subjects, which is not reflected in the list above. Without mentioning names, I would respectfully request that the cyber bulling that I have been subjected to be investigated contemporaneously along with any investigation as to my edits and whether they were made in good faith. The people who have bullied me are bullying other people as evident by the entries on the talk pages. College kids (the age I teach) commit suicide over vicious cyber bullying and this kind of harassment is a reasonable concern to any teaching professional. I was viciously attacked and this does not create an environment conducive for learning. Mbarywiki (talk) 10:02, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Just noting that created Cumming & Beisel Real Estate in July and also made edits to Why Men Marry Bitches two days before Mbarywiki. The content was almost certainly copied over to Mbarywiki's article as some of the sentences were very similar. I haven't decided about Mbarywiki yet, but this is certainly very strange. SmartSE (talk) 12:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice catch on that.
 * I opened a discussion on their talk page to give them the opportunity to make sense of what they did -- it is possible that they are not being paid, but something needs to explain the methodical and systematic promotional editing. And that something has not been forthcoming.
 * In light of that lack, the most likely explanation for their self-presentation is that it is a manipulative distraction. This in particular, and the references to cyber-bullying and suicide too.  That this person would be a teacher and not be a) self-aware of the systematic approach they took to promoting both topics; b) not be able to respond directly to questions about that, further discredits the narrative.
 * There is of course the chance that what they write is authentic but I cannot get there.
 * I don't see much of a path here other than an indefinite block. Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

How does it further the narrative to attack my reputation as a teacher? It so happens I am regarded as an excellent teacher at a top university. I do think these exchanges constitute cyber-bullying. I've not been paid-- that's a fact. Here is what I said about the editing: when I created the Selling LA page, I looked at the Selling NY page as my guide. When I worked on the Shery Argov page, I looked at "He's Just not into you" and the author named Greg Behrent. If you look at those two pages I used as my model or guide, you would probably say the original pages sound promotional and I would agree. I thought the "monkey see, monkey do" approach was a good place to start to learn. I transferred content from the author page to the book pages because the book pages were "stub" pages. You are attacking me or updating pages that invited content and references. I maybe did it wrong, but the pages were five years old and no one had added any references. I then added content from the author page that no other editor had flagged as inappropriate. During this whole process, I was focused on coding-- for heads, boxes, hyperlinks, bolding, italics, how to link to another page--whether the text is blue or red--its daunting. I should have been focused on the tone .... you are right. I was never told my tone was improper. I was told that I was focusing on real estate shows too much. After that, I stayed away from real estate. On the subject of cyber bullying, its easy to be cruel, when hiding behind a computer screen and when you cannot look the person in the eye and see the pain you are causing them. If you would like to completely remove the pages I worked on and wipe them off your site, and block me, I have no objection. I am not attached to any of the contributions I made or any of the pages I wrote. Life is too short to engage in hostile exchanges with anonymous people on the internet.Mbarywiki (talk) 17:04, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nothing you have written explains a) the methodical focus across several different articles, nor b) the explicitly promotional content and bad sourcing. That focus does not match with the kind of casual engagement you have described. And I have a hard time believing that a college teacher would find this kind of crassly commercial editing to be appropriate for an encyclopedia.  Likewise  this edit, adding a promotional section referring to the firm, and a bunch of spammy external links to the firm's website.   This is primarily about your editing; it is becoming personal to the extent that you are putting forth a narrative that makes no sense.  The more you insist on that narrative with stuff like your comments above, the less I find what you write to be credible. This isn't cyber-bullying and there is nothing vicious here.  What you say just doesn't match what you have done.  Jytdog (talk) 17:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * To point a there... Uh, sounds pretty teacher like to me actually. Learning to wikipedia edit for the purposes of teaching it to others would require a systematic approach that would seem unnatural. Nazzy (talk) 21:43, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well Hi Nazzy. We have never met.  I clearly don't agree, and this matter is about to wrapped up. Jytdog (talk) 08:30, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nazzy (talk) Thank you. I appreciate your kind reply. Much appreciated. I'm assuming you are a teacher and you understand that making a lesson plan is not always linear and is always a work in progress.
 * Jytdog (talk  I read yesterday in the link you provided that "all decisions are made by a consensus on Wikipedia." But  you wrote "this matter is about to be wrapped up" after another editor said something that could be construed as supportive. Does it matter if you know Nazzy? Is this a requirement? I thought this was a decision by consensus? Or is this is a decision by you, Doc James and the powerful few? On the subject of Doc James, what about the notability requirement?? Doc James has his own lengthy Wikipedia page. There are millions of doctors. Why is an ER physician be considered "notable" enough to have his own Wikipedia page? Do you see any double standard?  This is not only a contradiction, its evidence of nepotism and politics. Wikipedia is a large forum, but its not the only forum for spreading information and if I am wrongfully blocked when I received no compensation, I will personally pen an article which will go out to all our associated teaching institutions about how I have been treated and the bullying problem that Wikipedia doesn't want to acknowledge. It takes a lot for me to be disgusted. I am really disgusted right now.Mbarywiki (talk) 22:51, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * We need to focus on content, not people or motive. Your teaching plans should be discussed elsewhere-- I refer you for help to Education program/Educators--I will just mention that if you intend to do that, it is much more important to understand our basic policies than to learn the details of editing our text. The problem is not the manner in which you work on multiple articles--I do the same, sometimes in one area, sometimes in several.  The problem is the content you have been adding to the articles.  To take one specific example linked to above, you need to explain edits such as writing an article on Dustin Cummings and then  adding "Celebrity realtor Dustin Cumming has made appearances on the show. Cummings, Beisel and Partners specialize in finding homes for professional athletes and high profile clientele who require privacy and anonymity. " to the article on Million Dollar Listing supported by a group of references mostly from the unreliable source prnewswire, and calling it in the edit summary just  "add references" ; and adding exactly the same content with the same misleading edit summary, to the article on Holmby Hills, Los Angeles. This is exactly the editing pattern typical of someone adding promotional content for the firm.  DGG ( talk ) 18:32, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Paid editing experiment


Carolineneil indeffed for some kind of paid editing experiment related to an educational program. Details at ANI. Their talk page has over 100 (presumed) related problem articles. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:08, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Quick update: The ANI thread is closed and the editor remains indeffed, though from the looks of it, that could change if they appealed. There was quite a bit of discussion about whether un-reviewed scientific research constitutes paid editing (it was a column, not a formal research paper, which makes a difference). Also, at least implied questions about whether these experiments on Wikipedia editors/readers are ethical, and whether they should be allowed to continue or policy/guideline changes are required.
 * I've also invited the initiator of the ANI thread to add his or her thoughts here. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It is a working paper that was written to be submitted to a (or various if first rejected) peer-reviewed journal(s). As one of the authors writes on his webpage, high profile media have already reported: Nature, The Next Web, Metro US. I am concerned about the article Mesembrine for which they wrote a part and that nearly exclusively uses citations of journals of the publisher Elsevier who was associated with the study - did they fund it? I did not find further such articles but do not have the time to look at all of them. Is it allowed to create accounts to be used by various individuals? It is paid editing because the researchers did not edit themselves but paid groups of PhD students from chemistry and econometrics. I particularly find offensive that they never bothered to even answer any of the numerous volunteers who tried to give them advice on how to improve their citations styles or use of lemmas. This is how their interests conflict with the interests of Wikipedia, they just did it for the money and not to share knowledge. Most of the drafts created never made it to the main space because once they had their results they did not bother to bring them into an acceptable form - a point they obviously don't mention in their paper. Given that the media reports about this I think we should protest the violations of our policies to the ethics committees of the institutions the researchers are based at. And give our view on the findings - they and the media downplay the fact that half of their findings do not match their hypothesis, and if most of the articles never make it to Wikipedia they are certainly not a good control group. And this whole project is certainly not a great way to pass on the knowledge of top scientists to the general public or developing country scientists as they try to put it. Antimanipulator (talk) 08:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't see anything for this noticeboard, because ultimately there was no COI - the authors were writing on chemistry topics without being asked to write from any particular perspective or to do anything promotional. The research project only required that gaps in the coverage of chemistry topics were filled with worthwhile articles, and while there is room to debate whether or not this happened, that's a separate concern. - Bilby (talk) 09:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not so sure myself, there are too many elements reminiscent of Vipul's paid enterprise for me to dismiss it easily. And the ethical questions deserve airing somewhere. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't see any significant ethical concerns. Unlike Vipul, this has no possibility of being connected to paid advocacy or promotion. - Bilby (talk) 14:31, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Significant concerns in roughly descending order of importance: 1) this appears to be psychological research on uninformed experimentees and 2) undisclosed, yearslong research projects on Wikipedia concerning introduction of material in and of itself could undermine confidence in Wikipedia content 3) we don't know what the arrangement between Thompson and Hanley and their staff was; was it coerced? paid? cooperative? This is important 4) was the material introduced through one account, as appears to be the case? if so this is a violation of no role account policy. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:55, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In response - 1) It's not. It wasn't studying or interested in responses of people on Wikipedia. 2) The material had to be good quality for the project to work - the introduction of good quality material is not going to undermine confidence in Wikipedia. 3) They described the relationship. 4) The account only appears to have been used by one person, and represented only the one person. With that said, if you have concerns regarding ethics, that's probably something for the village pump, rather than here, if only because you won't get the breadth of opinions needed for such a discussion at COIN. - Bilby (talk) 15:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Following up on point 1 above. I consider this a flat-out psychology experiment regardless of its billing as being conducted by a economics department or whatever. The paper itself describes Wikipedian behavior for pages and pages, and describes a behavioral experiment aimed at the intersection of the scientific community and Wikipedia. The description of the experiment is "we ran an experiment to ascertain the causal impact of Wikipedia on academic science".
 * The APA guideline states When done properly, the consent process ensures that individuals are voluntarily participating in the research with full knowledge of relevant risks and benefits. "The federal standard is that the person must have all of the information that might reasonably influence their willingness to participate in a form that they can understand and comprehend". This means us and our readers, and we were not informed and I believe Wikipedia did suffer risk at the perception of being manipulated which we should have at least had an opportunity to consider before participating.
 * Another concern I'll label 5) concerns copyright attribution and Creative Commons licensing since the paper explicitly states that "PhD students drafted articles", which is related to issue 4 on role accounts but an additional legal-ethical violation. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Studying the impact of Wikipedia articles on a field is not the same as studying the psychological responses of individual people. They weren't studying us - they were studying how articles on Wikipedia influence academic study. To be honest if there is evidence of a Conflict of Interest then this is the right place to discuss it. But if your interest is in ethics in general, there are better forums. - Bilby (talk) 15:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

We have the fact that was blocked for UPE, so we may have to revisit this here at some point. But I propose closing this discussion so that things can continue at Village Pump:Misc with wider participation, and wider consideration of concerns beyond conflict of interest. Since I opened it, could someone else add the archive top and archive bottom tags? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * To be entirely precise, they were studying whether adding obscure scientific terms to Wikipedia would make them appear mainstream and thus appear in subsequent academic work. They concluded this did infact happen, and that adding words to Wikipedia does make them more likely to be used in mainstream writing.
 * It was not relevant to this study what they actually wrote, as long as they were including the words they needed to for the study, therefore the actual content is probably relatively unbiased (although not necessarily accurate). Indeed the main issue is the large pile of what are effectively fringe definitions that were added, and that no-one noticed. Its a bit late now, it's happened and these PHD irritants have moved on. Dysklyver  19:59, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikicology
is trying to return to Wikipedia after being site-banned 1.5 years ago. I've opened a thread about it on ANI: WP:Administrators%27 noticeboard/Incidents. -- Softlavender (talk) 21:38, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thread closed; his appeal was declined. Softlavender (talk) 04:11, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Matthias Manasi

 * copyvio blocked
 * spam blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked
 * CU blocked

Autobiographical self-promotional article written entirely by SPAs (who are all clearly socks/meats of each other). has gamely given it a massive cleanup, but it still doesn't have any notability, even with her searching for more info. Fails WP:GNG and WP:MUSICBIO; the only significant coverage seems to be five sentences here:, which is the event blurb on the website of the orchestra for whom he was conducting part of a concert. (The Nickel City bio is not at all reliable or independent.) I believe the article should be AfDed; does anyone agree? See discussion here: WT:WikiProject Opera. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: now at AfD: WP:Articles for deletion/Matthias Manasi. -- Softlavender (talk) 12:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * NOTE TO ADMINISTRATORS: The sock farm has now created a duplicate article at Matthias Daniel Manasi. -- Softlavender (talk) 07:44, 30 September 2017 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: Now at SPI: WP:Sockpuppet investigations/ArtistForum. -- Softlavender (talk) 09:17, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * update: CU confirmed socking by ArtistForum, no surprise there. As the article and its echoes were deleted already, I will archive this case if here are no objections. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:49, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

UPE sockfarm cleanup
From this SPI:

Accounts: Articles:
 * Cazza PRODded by Bri
 * Fernando De Los Rios
 * Chris Kelsey (businessman)
 * Jorge M. Pérez
 * Nima Behnoud PRODded by Bri
 * Palm Bay International G5/G11 speedy deletion requested by Bri
 * Draft:Alex Cubis G5/G11 speedy deletion requested by Bri
 * Draft:Just Clear G5/G11 speedy deletion requested by Bri
 * User:Sonuep/sandboc MfD by Bri; draft for Cavit, an Italian wine brand
 * User:Tahtsan/sandbox MfD by Bri; draft for Bidsketch software

Would appreciate an evaluation of notability for the above articles. Thanks. jcc (tea and biscuits) 11:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Perez is probably notable, but not so much that there is reason to rewrite the article rather than do what we normally do with paid editing sock farms. Cazza just might be in the future if its projects work out. The others would be appropriate for deletion no matter who wrote them.  DGG ( talk ) 00:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * My takes:
 * Cazza looks like the business equivalent of a BLP1E for their 3D printed building, which is actually a plan to do a building, in other words excellent PR.
 * De Los Rios looks like a run-of-the-mill business bio, no need for it in an encyclopedia
 * Chris Kelsey his business partner, more of the same
 * Jorge M. Pérez: not sure, but his large art collection may emanate a penumbra of notability
 * Nima Behnoud "known for being the first fashion designer who implemented Persian calligraphy in a form of clothing"citation needed: mmmm, no
 * Palm Bay International looks like another BLP1E for introducing a certain wine variety not much else of enduring interest to an encyclopedia
 * So, am with DGG on this one, treat it like any other sockfarm material. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:28, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I cleaned up Cazza a bit. Lots of repeated references, a classic notability-inflating technique. Seems borderline. Perez is definitely notable, since excellent refs exist in good pubs on both real estate and art topics. Here's a CNN profile, for example. Nima Behnood is def not notable. Major puffery there. 96.127.243.112 (talk) 07:03, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * In the SPI an editor stated "I'm interested to see if we can identify who the master behind Yaplipa is so we can G5 the creations, but multiple sock farms use this tactic." However, my interpretation of growing consensus is that it is not necessary to identify exactly which sockfarm or LTA is behind a UPE actor to nominate g5. The mere fact that they came here with this kind of editing (the master's first edit) on this kind of article is a telltale that they had a prior, presumed blocked, account. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I am in agreement with the approach suggested as the consensus: We can assume that anyone doing undeclared paid  editing is a sockpuppet, even though we do not know the master. Given that they are also in clear violation of the terms of use no injustice can be done by summarily deleting the articles. There is very little possibility of it being good faith editing.  We've used the Duck test for many years in dealing with puppetry, and situations like these are exceptionally clear.  This is also a simple way to usually avoid the necessity of investigations that might compromise anonymity. The only question is, if someone adopts the article.  I'm still reluctant to delete in a situation like that , but I increasingly think it might be necessary, in order to deny the UPEs their source of revenue, and to help make it clear to potential employers that hiring them  will not work.  We need not change written guidelines, because what we consistently decide to do is an effective guideline. Consensus here is sufficient.  DGG ( talk ) 22:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Some people still don't seem to agree. Wish that this G5 process was "stickier". See Talk:Cazza. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:24, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I had a good run at Jorge M. Pérez and brought it up to snuff. I added a half dozen solid references and checked it over for puffery, dupe refs etc. I removed the UPE tag as it does not seem to have any content problems. Other eyes welcome.96.127.243.112 (talk) 00:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing signs that this is a continuation of Sockpuppet_investigations/Stoubora/Archive in which case G5 will definitely apply. Don't really want to go into the details in public. SmartSE (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * There are actuallu two very convincing strands of evidence so I will G5 away. SmartSE (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Jonathan Shepherd
edited Jonathan Shepherd about two weeks ago, adding a ton of content with the edit summary "On behalf of JPS" (Shepherd's middle initial is P, so this is clearly referring to Shepherd himself). This edit was soon undone as a COI issue and because it removed a lot of sources and replaced them w/incorrectly formatted ones. However, now even more content (mostly properly sourced this time, it seems) has been added to the same page, this time by an IP. Would like other editors' views as to whether any WP:COI-related guidelines are being violated here. Everymorning (talk) 23:32, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Ralum23


Another editor raised the point at Brabble AfD that Brabble is probable undisclosed paid editing. I looked and found some more stuff that's almost certain. Apparently they call themselves "Bramble" on some Wikimedia project(s). , you to block this account upon more promotion, how about now? ☆ Bri (talk) 04:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * ...and Brabble was just WP:SNOW deleted by . As for paid editing, there's an OTRS ticket mentioned in User talk:Sphilbrick. In that ticket, the user discloses a COI, but claims he isn't being paid. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:09, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Arishfa khan pathan


This user is constantly creating autobiographies about himself despite many warnings. Pkbwcgs (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Nick Bougas


Claims to be the subject of the article and demonstrating clear WP:NPA and WP:OWN issues. Home Lander (talk) 20:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I left a note to (I hope) de-escalate and get him to acknowledge we have some processes to follow. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately that has not calmed his histrionic rage. He has repeatedly deleted   rightly-placed maintenance tags and ignored the uw-own1 message I placed on this talk page. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Sadly as he has not responded to me there or here, and continues disruption/non-collegial behavior, I think it's time for escalation to the admin volunteers. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:01, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This has been escalated to WP:AN3. I doubt that there's anything more to do here now. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * See WP:ANI.Same problems are recurring. Winged Blades of Godric On leave 11:19, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * User is now indef'd. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 06:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Steven D. Wexner

 * says they are a marketing person but does not disclose who paid for the article they are writing. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:24, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * As I have previously answered, my work on Wikipedia is voluntary, not paid. While believes that is suspect, I work with many healthcare organizations in South Florida on patient education programs. I have only created pages for individuals who I believe merit inclusion in Wikipedia because of their contributions to their field. Two are physicians and one is a journalist. In addition to these pages, I regularly work to improve Wikipedia. My writing is not "spammy" as he has claimed. Hilda in South Florida (talk) 15:46, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Regardless of whether or not you work for the subjects in question, the content generated has been deemed to be ad like by three very experienced Wikipedians now. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:31, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * CSDed User:Hilda S Mitrani due to 1. looks like an advert, 2. combined with their promo/undisclosed COI edit history 2.1. writing is "spammy" per WP standards. The fact that they have a connection with at least one subject (their neighbour) is a connection not disclosed per WP:COISELF / WP:COI anyhow. Suggest they fully disclose all connections, read WP:COITALK, WP:LISTEN and recognise that their combination of factors is text book WP:NOTPROMO even if they are in fact not paid (but following WP:DISCLOSE would help reassure). Widefox ; talk 13:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Gray Kunz


Stumbled across Gray Kunz as it was linked to an article I'd started. This editor usually writes just about Burmese subjects, so new article creations of an American chef and British violinists seem odd, especially as both are of questionable notability. COI and copyvio concerns have been previously been raised by others on the editor's talkpage. Thoughts? Edwardx (talk) 10:19, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Edwardx Hi! I am an American citizen as well as a culinary arts graduate. I was looking over some of my cookbooks today and realized that one of the chefs (Gray Kunz) who is extremely famous but whom I have never met nor will have the honor to meet is not on Wikipedia. I fully intend to write tons of articles in the future to expand my experience. Some will be about Myanmar, some will be about violinists, some will be about purple-headed platypuses if it fancies me. If I come across a subject that I think is Wiki worthy, I will write about it. Is someone who was repeatedly in the NY Times not noteworthy? Please check the citations! Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. What article or yours was it linked to? I couldn't find anything about him on Wiki. Not a single word in the article is adverty at all or would even hint at being a COI. He's been around for years, and it's a very matter of fact piece. As for Yasmine, she is coming to my town (Yangon) in three days and I wanted an article about her since I just learned who she was. I'm a new low key fan and wrote an article about her coming to town for a local magazine. She doesn't even know the article is up. None are paid, none are aware that their articles are up. They are both globally known and noteworthy.Brittney Tun (talk) 13:23, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * To address the COI and copyvio- yes, I made some mistakes. I am a new user, (which is why I have not established much of a writing 'pattern' other than Myanmar topics) but very intent on not making the same mistakes again.  The COI was about a dead person whom I had never met (an old monk) and about a company in Yangon (my first article- it sounded too 'adverty').  No way to possibly have a CIO on that one.   After discussion, the person who placed it deleted the tag himself.  The copyvio was an honest mistake about what a proper quote/citation amounted to.  I thought that I had sufficiently credited the page I cited from, but I was wrong and corrected it within hours of being notified.  Since you thoroughly checked my user history, I am disappointed that you missed that communication.Brittney Tun (talk) 13:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Brittney Tun for you prompt and fulsome response. Apologies for not checking everything as thoroughly as I might. To answer your question, Gray Kunz contains a link to Baur au Lac - that is the article I created. I see one NYT article about him, and based on the other coverage, I accept that he is notable enough for our purposes. As for "adverty" phrasing, how about "a career that has spanned three continents", "the highest-paid chef in the city at the St. Regis Hotel, where he was allowed freedom of creativity and budget to attract crowds from Concorde", "he created a special spoon used by the chefs in his kitchen, which was later cited at the favorite kitchen tool for many chefs", "Kunz mentored many future celebrity chefs", and "Kunz's dishes reflect his travel and educational experience. They marry classic French technique with Pan-Asian flavors and ingredients". Not really the WP:NPOV wording one would hope for, and suggestive of a possible COI. Which is why I asked others for their thoughts. I was not accusing you of anything, simply raising a question. Edwardx (talk) 16:05, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * @Edwardx Hello again before I sign out (it's quite late here in Yangon). I tried to model the page's style after that of the Thomas Keller and Gordon Ramsay pages, one which had a 'cuisine' section. Thus the description of his cuisine profile and style.  As for the people he has mentored, how is that an issue of being 'adverty'? That's fact. Was it simply poorly worded? He invented a spoon that is a best seller. Cool beans- he's an inventor! I just learned that tonight but it seems like an awfully good spoon, to be honest. You can use it for saucing and it grips better than a regular one.  Oh, well.  Scrape the mention of the spoon invention if you want to.  "He worked in Asia, Europe, and North America." Does that seem more academic to you for the article lead than mentioning a career that 'spans three continents'?   I'll be happy to take down or re-word anything if consensus is reached. Or, hey, edit the page yourself to your own liking.  I don't do edit wars, so feel free. It's a democracy.  Of course I am partial and vote  in favor of my original article.  It was my understanding that one should discuss on the page's talk page first before nominating a page for a COI. Correct?  I never received a ping from you on the talk page before you tagged the page to this lovely forum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brittney Tun (talk • contribs) 17:22, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion - Kari Kimmel


The article Kari Kimmel largely consists of peacock terms added by its subject, User:KariKimmelHaskell. While I have no doubt that the subject is notable (many of the songs are notable and have been used in major productions), these need to be discussed as no COI template has been added on the talk page. However, I highly doubt that this editing is paid and it may be in good faith. One Of Seven Billion (talk) 18:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Update: Fixed by User:JJMC89. No COI content now exists on the page. One Of Seven Billion (talk) 12:57, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Justincalderon


This account doesn't seem to do anything other than add links to a Spanish registered nn website, the-businessreport.com. It's clear from easy off-wiki evidence that this is an employee. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * They have been warned. If they add more let me know and I will block if they have not disclosed.
 * Whats peoples thoughts on this as an RS http://www.the-businessreport.com Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * "The Business Report is a media agency that produces business, investment and political news" I read this as meaning "A fancy PR operation". see, e.g.  Smallbones( smalltalk ) 00:02, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Or this big ol' plug for Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency, "setting the stage to become a logistics, energy, shipping and tourism node at the nook of three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa. Few nations can boast such a strategic location". Gah. What I've seen from this website (I won't call it a news source) is largely indistinguishable from PR for various entities. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:07, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Hofmann GmbH




Hofmann GmbH was created by User:Einfach machen Hamburg and mostly edited by User:Atomiccocktail. It is the English translation of de:Hofmann GmbH, which was written by Peter Wuttke, de:Benutzer:einfach machen Hamburg. Wuttke also edits as User:Einfach machen Hamburg and User:Atomiccocktail on enwiki and de:Benutzer:Atomiccocktail on dewiki and meta:User:Atomiccocktail on meta. He discloses that he is Peter Wuttke here and here.

In a response to my request to refrain from editing articles where he has a COI, Wuttke replies that "Peer review is just a proposal, not mandatory". When I pointed out that his choice to ignore the community concensus on coi editing was duly noted, he replied in a follow-up, that I do not "ignore the community concensus on coi editing". This is only your personal interpretation of my answer. I'd be interested to know if the community also thinks that this is only my personal interpretation. My interpretation of consensus is that editing affected articles directly is strongly discouraged, that he may propose changes on talk pages, that he should put new articles through AfC. He has done neither of those, so my interpretation of his behavior is that he is ignoring concensus, despite his assertions to the contrary. Mduvekot (talk) 13:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I've taken a look and it appears as if Atomiccocktail is doing everything by the book. You are right that what they are doing is strongly discouraged, but they are also right that peer review prior to editing mainspace is not mandatory. The use of two accounts that are not publicly linked here on enwiki though is not satisfactory. Having had a brief look at the articles though, there is a distinct PR-tang to them though and the notability of them also needs evaluating. SmartSE (talk) 15:56, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added a list of all articles created/expanded substantially. SmartSE (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit disappointed to hear that not following the strong suggestions of the community is not 'ignoring consensus', but whatever. So he can wikilawyer his way out of doing things the way majority of editors have expressed a clear preference for. Now, as for doing everything by the book, I'm not so sure about that . Einfach machen Hamburg creates ROSEN Group, then Atomiccocktail edits it. Einfach machen Hamburg creates Lottoland, then Atomiccocktail edits it. Einfach machen Hamburg creates Sonnen GmbH, then Atomiccocktail edits it. Perhaps worth looking at Editor Interaction Analyser in abit more detail? Mduvekot (talk) 16:48, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * If have linked here my account on meta. There everyone can see that the accounts Atomiccocktail and Einfach Machen Hamburg belong together. It is stated in which cases edits are paid and in which not. Everything is disclosed. Atomiccocktail (talk) 17:22, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I followed the links and unfortunately do not understand. Is it your assertion that on English Wikipedia, Atomiccocktail and Einfach machen Hamburg are both your accounts? And that edits by Einfach machen Hamburg are unpaid and edits by Atomiccocktail to the very same article are paid? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:59, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Edits of Einfach machen Hamburg are paid if articles in German are edited. Edits of Atomiccocktail are paid, if articles in EN are concerned. As far as I know it is not allowed here in EN to use an account (Einfach machen) which uses a name or part of the name of a company (this is mine.). This is the reason why I do paid edits in EN via Atomiccocktail. Atomiccocktail (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2017 (UTC) These edits are edits in German. They are now part of en.wikipedia because they have been imported due to licence reasons. Atomiccocktail (talk) 20:06, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see any disclosure on the User:Einfach machen Hamburg page or its talk page, Mduvekot (talk) 22:53, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't quite see how this edit complies with our requirements to disclose paid editing. Rosen Group is created by Einfach machen Hamburg, then edited by Atomiccocktail immediately followed by Einfach machen Hamburg again, this time without mentioning that the edit is paid for. Looking forward to an explanation. Mduvekot (talk) 23:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

This still makes absolutely no sense to me. Forgive me for bluntness but I don't think this community should need some if/then flowchart to determine which edits are paid. Please state plainly which accounts have ever made paid edits on English Wikipedia. Then please state plainly why you are putting German language articles like here on English Wikipedia. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:57, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The revisions of were imported from dewiki. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 03:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)


 * All edits of Einfach machen Hamburg are imported after request from de.wikipedia.org. The language of these edits is Germam. They are, as I said, imported due to licence reasons. Atomiccocktail (talk) 04:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Let me explain a little further: 1/when you translate, copy, or paraphrase  an article from another Wikipedia, or use it in any way as the basis for an article here, you must place a note saying so on the talk page of the enWP article, and also indicate this in the edit summary. it should indicate precisely which edit of the original is being translated or otherwise used.  2/The rules for conflict of interest are different in the enWP from the deWP--we are considerably more restrictive about COI and especially about  paid editing, and interpret this particularly strictly when  when the conflict of interest involves a commercial organization. People with ordinary conflict of interest other than paid editing are  are not absolutely requires to use the WP:AFC process (which is not quite the same as peer review--it is better seen as a preliminary screen, and does not  guarantee that the article will actually be accepted here), but if they avoid it and enter the article directly into mainspace, they do so at your own risk, because the article will be even more closely examined.  When it is actually paid editing, it is very risky indeed to enter the article directly, and if there is any trace of promotionalism in the edits here from a paid editor, the article is very likely to be deleted and the editor banned. Furthermore, any deficiency in directly entered articles make it very likely that we will soon modify our rule s and always require it in AfC without exception.  Entering it via AfC gives both you and the encycopedia some protection against the insertion of material that will be considered promotional, or will be on a subject which is not considered here to be suitable for an article.  I would never advise a paid editor to bypass AfC. Please use it in the future.  DGG ( talk ) 06:06, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I understand the point. I can also understand that the community is skeptical about paid editing. (There are many paid editors who want to whitewash topics. I do not.) If the possibilities of a previous check by AFC help all, it's ok for me. I do not fear such checks. I will have a closer look at WP:AFC. Atomiccocktail (talk) 07:02, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Patrick Sweeney (entrepreneur)


I'm kinda busy for a couple of days, just posting this in case someone else can take a look...the first sentence is "Patrick J. Sweeney, II is a US adventurer, fear guru, motivational speaker and founder of tech companies ServerVault, ODIN technologies and DwinQ, author of two books on RFID technology, professional athlete, on-air talent, broadcaster and active angel investor." ☆ Bri (talk) 23:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The freelancer made a PAID disclosure after you posted this, but only for this one article. The Upwork ad for Patrick Sweeney points to their profile, which lists a number of other jobs, which match roughly all of the editor's recent creations. I am not sure about their contributions to the medical articles. Many look OK, some look promotional. Rentier (talk) 10:07, 26 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The article he is writing on himself on Sweeney is filled with a remarkable degree of -expressed pride in his athletic achievements. Adler is advertising for a non-notable lawyer, Becker is not a BLP and is notable, tho there's a good deal on unencyclopedic detail, Peer is advertising for a nutritionist. Harbinger apparently does not give the entire plot but seems notable, SPLAT is promotional but might be notable -- I need to check the Russian refs to see if they are press releases, Reach needs similar checking, Sodium citrate/sodium lauryl sulfoacetate/glycerol ‎overemphasizes the brand name, but I'm working on it. it is quite possible that these  last 3 articles, were not paid editing, but  I would be rather surprised if there were not articles under other usernames, and I have difficulty seeing Peer as other than COI editing.  DGG ( talk ) 19:37, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Proposed deletion of Reach (brand) as blatant advertising. John Nagle (talk) 19:54, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Patrick Sweeney (entrepreneur) needs heavy fact-checking. "Soon (Odin Technologies) became the dominant player in RFID technology.[24]" No, it didn't. Not even in the top 10. Cite is to an interview with, who else, Patrick Sweeney. Trim heavily, or send to AfD? John Nagle (talk) 19:54, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Carl Fredrick Becker - deceased, notable in the small world of violin repair. Could use some cleanup, but seems generally OK. John Nagle (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Harbinger (2016 film) is in IMDB, but not Box Office Mojo. Unreleased?  May not pass notability for movies. John Nagle (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Rentier thanks again for the warning. DGG paid entries have been disclosed. I am willing to answer all your questions. From what I see now, you tend to act too fast, not paying attention to the value provide. Also most of the articles in the list above are not paid entries. -- Bbarmadillo (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I could defend Reach--it is a major brand. If Peer wasn't   paid advertising, it was a close imitation. I think the community is very likely to agree with me and  about the worth of most these articles. If I move quickly,it's because I've seen so many. You might not have been so easily spotted, had you not tried to write one about yourself. That is almost unprecedented among paid editors.  DGG ( talk ) 21:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * isn't Patrick Sweeney (entrepreneur). I can see my reply to Bri could be read as implying that -- not what I meant. Bbarmadillo is the freelancer, Sweeney is a client. Rentier (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

UTC)
 * Thanks for correcting me. I've struck out that part. DGG ( talk ) 03:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making the disclosure (though you should have done that without prompting). I removed the "undisclosed paid" template from Harbinger (2016 film). Can you explain why your Upwork profile shows up more Wikipedia-related jobs than the three articles you disclosed? Rentier (talk) 21:40, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Not all of them are Wikipedia articles, some are just articles. -- Bbarmadillo (talk) 03:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I have removed the undisclosed paid templates. Rentier (talk) 23:04, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I also asked the nomitator to recover Marisa Peer article and nominate it for slow (normal) deletion. She appeared in the UK and US TV shows and authored 4 books. The deletion of this article should be carefully weighted by the community. I will disclose COI for this article (it has been deleted too fast, so I didn't have time to do it). -- Bbarmadillo (talk) 07:40, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * , if you are going to do paid editing here you owe it to your customers to write articles that do not need extensive revision by others. I've revised some of your work & more is needed; the problems are excessive use of the brand name, ("the firm")  or "it" are better equivalents; the use of people's first name alone to refer to them,  which is usually inappropriate except for performers;use of timeline instead of prose writing--a timeline is necessary only for particularly complicated situations; the use of adjectives of praise or quality or importance; the inclusion of "trivia" or "interesting facts" sections; inclusion of   social media  sites in external links; and, as a matter of style, the use of dashes for punctuation.  It is unfair to us volunteers to expect us to do for free work for which you are being paid. The increasingly common reaction to excessively spammy articles by paid editors is to delete them, not fix them, even if they are in principle fixable.  DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

HomeAdvisor


It's very likely that Lhogan2 is being paid to edit these two articles. This user's only contributions only relate to these articles, and all contributions are being made to paint the subjects of these articles in a positive light. Seems quite likely that this is a major company paying to have its reputation cleaned/agenda advanced. Brian-armstrong (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * After some social media checking, it is a reasonable assumption that this person was previously employed by the business in question. However, their present relationship is less clear. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Their only edits are to these two pages. Given the past relationship, and that the edits seem to be just painting these subjects in a positive light, it seems very suspicious Brian-armstrong (talk) 21:52, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, this interaction feels even more suspicious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jo-Jo_Eumerus#Deletion_of_page_HomeAdvisor_CEO_Chris_Terrill Brian-armstrong (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I just extensively revised both articles to decrease the promotional style and format. I still like revising articles if there's sufficient notability, even tho it would probably be more suitable to just delete these articles  DGG ( talk ) 16:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

One Belt One Road Initiative
There is a matter at Neutral point of view/Noticeboard that verges on conflict of interest, but I chose to file it there. Much copyvio, WP:OWN and POV at this article. More eyes would be welcome, as requested by at its talkpage. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Sammy Sosa


User:DominicanResponse has been repeatedly removing information about Sosa's father's family, claiming it is "false biographical info". The user has also held himself out as Sosa's attorney. Can I get some more eyes on the situation and determine how best to proceed? —C.Fred (talk) 01:47, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * IMHO we should steer clear of attorneys and let WMF handle this one ☆ Bri (talk) 00:37, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

UBEAM


It strikes me that the Ubeam article has been santized a couple of times recently. There was one version that talked about possible dangers of ultrasound. That version has been replaced by the two SPAs above with versions that essentially say hey, no worries here. I think both versions are a bit less than neutral. Bringing it here as it would seem that the two above users are possibly with the company. 96.127.243.112 (talk) 06:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Dar Al-Arkan Real Estate Development Company


Persistent mass addition of very promotional content by ips and a confirmed user SPA who are all almost certainly from the company, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 16:12, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

AbridgedPause


This username got reported at WP:UAA. I declined to instantly block because the account has been around for a while and the user has edited constructively, and also because the username doesn't necessarily imply shared use (nowadays a record label is often just one person). I think this COI article needs to be discussed here though. As one would expect with a COI article it reads a bit like a promotional bio and relies heavily on self-published sources which leaves me questioning the band's notability. – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6;  08:44, 27 September 2017 (UTC)


 * to be the same person; their 2010 article on Vision Éternel was deleted. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * So Vision Éternel is essentially an autobiography or self promotion. Tacky. ☆ Bri (talk) 12:32, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There first edit was to make a redirect. There second edit was to make an entire article. Appears not to be their first account. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

So, what shall we do about this? Does Vision Éternel meet WP:GNG? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure. I'm hoping (who hasn't edited since before this post) will confirm for us that this account is only being used by one person and whether that is the same person as . I suggest taking the article to AfD if you think the band is non-notable. I suspect it probably does pass WP:BAND, but that the article needs to be trimmed down a lot. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  &#xF0F6;  08:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

ResDiary

 * in AFD

User 'Clairemurrayresdiary' is maintaining page 'ResDiary', including removal of 'Advert' notice, with content that reads like advertising. The user, as indicated in the username, appears to be editing on behalf of the company.
 * this article is for the owner of Resdiary also in AFD.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 11:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Alberto Broggi & VisLab


Possible SPA/SPI issue (previously posted on Teahouse)

The pages Alberto Broggi & VisLab have clearly been created by a close contributor, however when examining the edit history it appears the articles have been built especially to look correct but are not.

Alberto Broggi has a long reference list, but all the sources are offline primary sources published by the subject, or sources that do not backup any information in the article.

Both articles have been edited by several accounts who only edited these articles, and a set of IP's, it is fairly obvious this is the same person creating an edit history artificially.

please check this out. Dysklyver 09:57, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks like VisLab hasn't been substantially edited since 2013. Broggi just had a big cleanup (by the editor who filed). can you do your academic magic and see if you think Alberto Broggi passes muster as WP:NACADEMIC? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Monarch Holidays


There's definitely some COI editing at Monarch Holidays, but I imagine it to be some of the 100,000+ stranded passengers from the bankrupt Monarch Airlines sitting around in airports with nothing else to do - so please no lectures or blocking these folks. I don't know why I had Monarch Holidays on my watchlist, but I suspect it came about from something I noticed on this page or perhaps related to Cosmos Holidays a different, but formerly related company.

I can only suggest that folks keep an eye on these articles. There's no need for 3 articles on a small, now bankrupt company, so I'll likely redirect all the Monarch articles to Monarch Airlines. I do believe that there was likely some paid editing involved, so this might give somebody a topic to write up some of the effects of paid editing. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 15:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Which raises an interesting question, do (all) disgruntled customers have a disability wrt Wikipedia COI editing? ☆ Bri (talk) 23:27, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think not, per WP:COINOTBIAS it would appear this is merely a POV bias, not a COI. However, as most these disgruntled customers will have NPOV issues, it could still be an issue. I can't seem to find a specific guideline to cover angry mobs of disgruntled customers, but there may be an essay on it somewhere. Dysklyver  00:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

AbridgedPause


This username got reported at WP:UAA. I declined to instantly block because the account has been around for a while and the user has edited constructively, and also because the username doesn't necessarily imply shared use (nowadays a record label is often just one person). I think this COI article needs to be discussed here though. As one would expect with a COI article it reads a bit like a promotional bio and relies heavily on self-published sources which leaves me questioning the band's notability. – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6;  08:44, 27 September 2017 (UTC)


 * to be the same person; their 2010 article on Vision Éternel was deleted. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * So Vision Éternel is essentially an autobiography or self promotion. Tacky. ☆ Bri (talk) 12:32, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There first edit was to make a redirect. There second edit was to make an entire article. Appears not to be their first account. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

So, what shall we do about this? Does Vision Éternel meet WP:GNG? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure. I'm hoping (who hasn't edited since before this post) will confirm for us that this account is only being used by one person and whether that is the same person as . I suggest taking the article to AfD if you think the band is non-notable. I suspect it probably does pass WP:BAND, but that the article needs to be trimmed down a lot. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  &#xF0F6;  08:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Nikki10038


We have some fairly new accounts voting in the RfD of some of these. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:44, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Kelvinsage1


There are several indicators in these article of undisclosed paid editig - namely the inclusion of unsourced dates of birth and PR photographs that are claimed as their own work. See also c:User_talk:Kelvinsage1. SmartSE (talk) 19:31, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Sherry Shahan


I noticed this user create the above linked article- while the author may be notable enough to merit one, the creator did not initially include any independent RS. Upon examining their user talk page, I saw that they had previously been requested to declare what seems to be a paid editing relationship and/or COI but has yet to do so. Other posters to the article like seem to have seen evidence of this relationship(though I'm not sure exactly where). I've added an additional request for them to declare a paid relationship, but they do not seem to be acknowledging their user talk page. 331dot (talk) 17:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Just for information, that was posted on a now-deleted talk page. Blythwood (talk) 18:45, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment - the COI on this and multiple other articles created by Nicolitta1 looks pretty obvious to me. Deb (talk) 15:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The user has made a formal declaration of their remuneration on their user page. The talk pages of their contributed articles also have connected contributor (paid) in them. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:19, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Saty,bakshi
Inserting references to own papers in various articles (history shows this is the editor's main activity). — Paleo Neonate  – 00:48, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * They have now been well warned. If they continue a block will be warranted. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:57, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Konrad Mizzi


Please observe that the article of Konrad Mizzi is edited by people connected to the subject, by unregistered editors and an editor with a misleading name. I believe the article should be deleted entirely or keep a stub. Most of the article is a political propaganda and future ambitions, original research, and not neutral. Several cited information was removed by the unregistered editors.Continentaleurope (talk) 01:25, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Loel Guinness

 * Good Morning, I receive a message of conflict of interest, regarding a change on the page of Loel Guinness, we have proceed to do that because Mr. Loel Guinness is not a notable personality and he would like to be anonymous.



Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. 85.218.23.165 (talk) 10:00, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Can we assume that you are the same editor, under some different identities, who has been removing the same paragraph from this article? If  so, the COI noticeboard isn't really the best place to start, as having such an agenda is broadly against WP's policies. Your case would be better made under WP:BLP.

There are two issues here: Is the subject notable for an article at all? Is the coverage on one issue, proportionate and adequately sourced? See sources below. I agree that any subject of such an article would not want it visible, but WP doesn't censor on request when content is already out into the public domain.
 * http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1999-02-11/news/9902100790_1_polo-magazine-palm-beach-aids
 * http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/guinness-suit-dropped-charges-remain-tap-article-1.719818

Andy Dingley (talk) 10:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I can find nothing else referring to this person Mimi Lambert whether it be in connexion with Guinness, Lacoste, AIDS or anything else apart from this source where it claims she is telling friends she is OK. These 3 sources (including the Daily Mail) do not look like WP:RS to me and without other sources I would tempted to say that this section doesn't have its place on the page. Domdeparis (talk) 10:48, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I've posted on the user in question's new talk page about their username again; they don't seem to be Mr. Guinness but have changed their username to his. They will need to change it again. 331dot (talk) 10:50, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've also found this book which mentions the affair but doesn't seem anymore reliable. Domdeparis (talk) 10:56, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Special guy from Antarctica socks
See Sockpuppet_investigations/Special_guy_from_Antarctica.

Articles affected:



These are obviously not new accounts either, so we may decide G5 applies. SmartSE (talk) 10:33, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, unless we can tie them to previously blocked accounts, we can't just G5. AFD would probably be a better route. GABgab 15:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)


 * There's an emerging consensus here that that isn't necessarily the case. Quite when G5 can be used is still not exactly settled, but in cases like this where the editors are clearly experienced and are editing from behind proxies, we can be pretty much certain that they have already been blocked. I'm not going to act unilaterally though, hence why I said that we might decide. SmartSE (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Gotcha - I'm glad to hear that. GABgab 18:41, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * on these I would prefer PROD or AfD to G5. G11 is also a possibility, though I haven't reviewed them enough to see if they qualify for that. The rule of thumb I go off of is that if there are more that 5 socks, the justification for G5 goes up with every sock. Here you only have 4, which is a bit small for me to call it a large UPE sock farm and given the recent G14 failure, I think we should be conservative. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:52, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Some of this got removed accidentally so apologies if you get pinged again unneccessarily. There is a relevant discussion ongoing at Wikipedia_talk:Sockpuppet_investigations. I hear you, but my point (and the one I'll be making at WT:SPI later) is that if they are using proxies, we know that they are already blocked as they are trying to circumvent CU. This is distinct from the G14 proposal which would have deleted any articles created by UPEs. SmartSE (talk) 12:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * good point there on the proxies. I'll tag as G5 since it was borderline being what'd I'd consider large, and the use of proxies is convincing behavioral evidence of prior blocked accounts. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Amr Shady

 * Sockpuppet investigations/Commanderofthescript
 * Sockpuppet investigations/Commanderofthescript
 * Sockpuppet investigations/Commanderofthescript

A small sockfarm promoting topics related to Egyptian businessperson Amr Shady was discovered recently, and several articles that they created have been deleted (such as MegaKheir, ميجاخير, ميجا_خير - all MegaKheir in different languages), and significant editing at TA Telecom, Shady's company. After a recreation of Amr Shady was deleted on 10 October, Erin93 recreated the article on 14 October with much of the same content, particularly some of the same meaningless peacock compound phrases you'd expect to appear in promotional copy. This suggests they are either part of the same paid editing operation, or an independent user hired separately by whatever entity is trying to push these articles onto Wikipedia. However, as far as I can tell this is the user's only interaction with this subject. The user has been warned about apparent COI edits before but has denied any conflict or paid editing, including most recently with their article Woz U. Thanks for taking a look. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)


 * That user is obviously not telling the truth e.g. !voting here to keep another UPE article. I will block them accordingly. They're also WP:PROXYING so the Shady article can be G5d. SmartSE (talk) 10:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Possible paid editing ring



 * ("Mansour Karam is an American entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Apstra...")
 * ("AltheaDx is a San Diego, California based molecular diagnostics company...")
 * ("Eden Chen is an American serial entrepreneur...")
 * ("Bambu is a business-to-business (b2b) robo-advisor platform...")
 * ("MyDx is a San Diego, California based, science and technology company...")

These accounts are editing from behind a variety of proxies and are behaviorally identical. This looks like paid editing to me. ~ Rob 13 Talk 16:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * All blocked and their drafts have been deleted. SmartSE (talk) 12:47, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Ricardo Baca


I'm not happy to have to bring this up here; it's an article I created for the WP:420 collab. Because I am the creator I'm not going to join in any direct editing at this time due to strong desire not to WP:OWN this. However there's a lot of weird editing lately that introduced a) inline ELs and b) a photo of the subject by a new user c) 'updated career info'; all of which are frequently tipoffs. More eyes-on are welcome. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and restored an earlier version of the article to eliminate all the newly introduced unsourced content. I invite others to take a look. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 22:52, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * After AB's cleanup, new  today of a section "Awards & Appearances" and other stuff like his pets' names. Like I said before, hallmarks of trouble. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:54, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I reverted again. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:03, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Seth Godin


Seth Godin is biography about a marketer. The article has a long history of SPA-editing, and past discussions have brought up suspicions of COI violations. The article relies heavily on promotional, usually primary, sources.

Davykamanzi has disclosed he's working for Godin.

Davykamanzi contacted me on my talk page, User_talk:Ronz, after he reworked his editing to the article, addressing my edit summary COI - promotion - please make smaller edits and work from independent sources when I reverted his first major edit to the article. I've reverted much of his subsequent edits  as further WP:SOAP problems that rely on poor sources.

As I said on my talk page, I think Davykamanzi should be working from edit requests given his FCOI and desire to use promotional, primary sources in his editing even after these problems are brought up. --Ronz (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no more edits I wish to make on the article as it appears a compromise has been reached in terms of my edits to the article. I'll leave any subsequent edits up to other editors without a COI. Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 19:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand. I believe you need to doing your FCOI editing through edit requests. --Ronz (talk) 21:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand that, but I'm making it clear that I won't be doing any more editing to the article. If I want to make any more edits I will float them through edit requests on the talk page as you have said. Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 05:37, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * All I'm asking is that you follow COI very closely from here on for all articles. I'm not clear that you are agreeing with your repeated focus on this one article. --Ronz (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2017 (UTC)