Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Manhattan Life Insurance Company

Manhattan Life Insurance Company

 * Editors involved in this dispute
 * 1) – filing party


 * Articles affected by this dispute


 * Other attempts at resolving this dispute that you have attempted
 * Talk:Manhattan Life Insurance Company

Issues to be mediated

 * Primary issues (added by the filing party)
 * 1) Essentially, a representative of Manhattan Life Insurance emailed me threatening to sue me, the WMF, and 'administrators' (so, me again?) due to the information in the third paragraph of the article. After I ignored their threats, they then came back onto Wikipedia and removed the information they disliked (all of it), claiming that one of the references showed the information to be false.


 * 1) I've stuck up the relevant quotes from both sources in the third paragraph. I've asked them to please talk to me before making any more changes, but given that they've threatened to sue me, I thought mediation would be playing it safe.


 * Additional issues (added by other parties)
 * Attempting to remove untrue information that is misleading.

Parties' agreement to mediation

 * 1) Agree. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 19:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 2) Agree. 64.124.222.18 2:24, 8 January 2015 (CST)
 * 3) Agree. Yabllib 2:25, 8 January 2015 (CST)

Coments by 64.124.222.18 aka Yabllib
I am commenting on activity concerning Manhattan Life's Wikipedia posting. At the outset, I want you to know I revised the previous write up to correct incorrect statements about Manhattan Life where I work in the IT department, but was told to do it by our owner and Chairman of the company. My write up was removed and the previous incorrect write up was reinstated.

Our concern is the statement: In 2002 Manhattan Life Insurance Company were defendants in a trial brought by Richard Barber, who was a former deputy executive director of the NAACP. He brought the lawsuit which demanded reparations for profits made by insurance companies during the slave trade.[6]

This statement is not true so I edited your posting to remove this reference. Manhattan Life was never a defendant in any litigation involving slave trade. I have purchased the article cited by the author, Andrew Quinn, which says the defendants in the lawsuit was New York Life, not Manhattan Life, along with 2 other companies. The text was included in the latest comments on my latest post.

I apologize, if I went about editing the article in the wrong way. My intention was not to "white wash." I am an inexperienced wiki editor and I will be sure to pay closer attention to all Wikipedia guidelines and principles going forward. I also apologize if you thought my previous email was too strong. The owners were upset to see false information about the company, and take untrue statements seriously. I also did a fair amount of research on the topic to make sure my edit was factual and had good references. So, I was upset when it was removed. I now understand that as an interest party, I should have alerted an administrator about my concerns instead of editing the posting myself but I didn't know protocol.

I'm sure these comments are not correct and would appreciate an edit assist if not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yabllib (talk • contribs) 20:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I didn't see where or how to talk to Panyd before making changes until today. I'm completely new and am just today learning how wikipedia works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yabllib (talk • contribs) 20:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Decision of the Mediation Committee

 * Reject. Fails to satisfy prerequisite to mediation #4, "The parties must have first engaged in extensive discussion of the matter in dispute at the article talk page and discussion only through edit summaries will not suffice." (Emphasis added.) For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 21:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC) (chairperson)