Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 199

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John Anthony Castro

This duplicates a thread just started at WP:ANI. We clearly shouldn't discuss the same issues in two different places. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:05, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I wish to bring to the attention of the Wikipedia Community some unusual activities involving the Wikipedia administrator, Chetsford. My concerns center around potential Conflict of Interest (COI) issues related to this administrator's behavior on the following pages: John Anthony Castro and TaxProf Blog (now deleted following an Articles for Deletion (AfD) process initiated by myself):

Key Points:

1) On March 22, 2023, Chetsford transitioned the page from 2021 Texas's 6th congressional district special election to John Anthony Castro, as can be seen in the page history.

2) In April, I found several issues on the page, including potential policy violations and heavy reliance on primary sources. This page, overseen by an experienced administrator, was laden with negative content about the subject. Upon discovery, I alerted the BLP Noticeboard and the Talk page of Castro. Another editor, Morbidthoughts, took action and removed numerous sources. From the onset, Chetsford's responses to my concerns seemed confrontational, as illustrated in this Talk Page section:

MartinPict - I noticed that, in your short WP career, 90% (by byte-size) of the edits to article Talk pages you've made have been to this one Talk page, involving an exceptionally detailed request for removal of content. Please don't take this the wrong way but this editing pattern is so wildly atypical for 400 edit count users who began substantively using WP in the last month that it puts me in the awkward position in which I'm required to ask: can you indicate the usernames of other accounts you operate, or have operated in the past, if applicable? (If there are valid reasons you'd rather not tell me, that's completely fine, but I'd be derelict if I didn't inquire at this point.) Chetsford (talk) 05:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Or here:

"And since you've already checked the history of my edits, I hope you wouldn't mind if I do the same thing - after all Wikipedia is a very transparent database of records." Knock yourself out. Chetsford (talk) 16:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

(This can be interpreted in different ways)

3) On April 15, Morbidthoughts questioned the use of TaxProf Blog as a source on the RSN NoticeBoard. The consensus was to remove it entirely due to its "self-published" status, as seen here.

4) It seems that Chetsford created a page for the non-notable TaxProf Blog, which was then used for contentious claims about Castro. When I nominated this page for deletion, both Chetsford and TulsaPoliticsFab actively obstructed the nomination and interfered with the voting process. It appears that their intense efforts to maintain the page were not in good faith, as seen here.

5) On June 22, 2023, a message was posted on John Castro's page alleging that Chetsford had used unauthorized and unreliable sources to place negative information about Castro. The issue led to extensive editor discussion and the removal of the contentious source. See here for reference.

6) I believe that Chetsford retaliated against my actions by opening a sockpuppet investigation against me, as I was actively engaged on the pages they had created. This occurred just two days after the TaxProf Blog deletion and my post on Castro's Talk Page, seen here:

Hi, Ikvas. Thank you for this information and for declaring your conflict of interest on your user's profile. This is a very serious accusation and you shared a lot of information to process. I will make sure to verify your claim via an appropriate NoticeBoard as it deserves some attention. As to the removal of the PDF document, I'll leave it to other editors. MartinPict (talk) 19:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

7) Interestingly, Chetsford and TulsaPoliticsFan have frequently collaborated on matters related to John Castro directly or indirectly, seen in these instances, where they sometimes made active edits on the John Castro page mere hours apart:

A) [1] (An alleged back up on the use of the source)

B) [2] Vigorous defense of a non-notable website and similar statements

C) Defending Chetsford edits here on the Talk Page: [3]

D) And finally, active edits on John Castro page on June 7 - just 4 hours after edits done by Chetsford: [4] 

23:40, 2023 June 7‎ 2601:8c:b80:7ec0:206e:456:4bf9:dc07 talk‎ 17,232 bytes +72‎ No edit summary
23:32, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,160 bytes −125‎ work on WP:OVERCITE issue
21:08, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,285 bytes −1‎ Move from lede to body; info not in body shouldn't be in lede
21:08, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,286 bytes −5‎ update infobox per body of article; remove lede cite
21:05, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,291 bytes −41‎ →‎Electoral results: ce
21:03, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,332 bytes −274‎ move cite from infobox per MOS and add content to early life from the cite
20:55, 2023 June 7‎ TulsaPoliticsFan 17,606 bytes −166‎ Overcite/bad source

This pattern of activity raises significant COI concerns regarding Chetsford (possibly related to political views?), as well as the close and extensive collaboration between Chetsford and TulsaPoliticsFan on matters pertaining to John Anthony Castro and TaxProf Blog.

I urge the overseers of this NoticeBoard to carry out a thorough investigation into this matter. Additionally, I propose that both Chetsford and TulsaPoliticsFan be prohibited from making edits to John Anthony Castro's page or recreating the TaxProf Blog page, considering the potential political bias and indications of non-constructive behavior. Given Chetsford's administrative authority on Wikipedia, this recommendation seems particularly essential to ensure fair and unbiased content management.

MartinPict (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

'Political views' do not constitute a conflict of interest, everybody has them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:00, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
People post COIN stuff at AN/ANI a lot. I think in these cases, it's probably better to hat the AN/ANI thread and leave the COIN thread open, since those posts are a better fit for this board. That might be a good strategy going forward. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Shibbolethink

There is a clear consensus that Shibbolethink doesn't have a COI here. Any boomerangs will have to be discussed elsewhere, as there's no COI involved. – Joe (talk) 16:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The editor has made thousands of edits and contributions to the above subjects (and their respective talk pages), in which a large number of edits seem focused to promote NIAID via discrediting the COVID-19 lab leak theory as well as the origins of Covid 19. The User:Shibbolethink contains links to the editor's reddit page, which contains his real name, (first name redacted by starship.paint) xxxx, PhD (i have redacted the last name). The user also places his photos on his wikipedia page thus implying a willingness to be associated with his account, and the same photo can be found at his student profile here which bears his name. The same (first name redacted by starship.paint) is listed as being paid by NIAID in a grant in reference to "Framing the Response to Emerging Virus Infections (S2)". The NIAID funded bat research at the Wuhan lab, and it is widely noted in RS, for example this. It is the position of NIAID that the NIAID's paid gain of function research at the Wuhan lab did not result in a lab leak. This position is exactly the same position as this editor is arguing. The same editor also listed in this media opinion piece in his advocacy titled "HOW US MEDIA MISREPRESENT THE WUHAN INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY’S LABORATORIES AND SAFETY PROTOCOLS". I havent done much research beyond this to see if the editor has received any other payments from NIAID. Curious if this meets COI, I suspect there has been previous admin discussions relating to grant recipients, but it is sure is a WP:QUACK and quite a lot of WP:SOAP from what appears to be a COI... Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Wow, being paid a grant by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency of the US government=COI? Really? The grant was paid in 2018, over a year before the pandemic began. This is obviously a bad faith attempt to remove an opponent from the topic area. Having a strong opinion on a topic and writing about it outside of Wikipedia is not a conflict of interest. the position of NIAID that the NIAID's paid gain of function research at the Wuhan lab did not result in a lab leak yeah, well guess what this is also the mainstream scientific view, so I hardly see why this is relevant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
I want to strongly second this by Hemiauchenia. Also, I'm treating the identity allegation here as true, though I don't want to suggest that the identity is correct or that I have any knowledge as to its correctness—I don't.
Even if the grant given were directly related to the subject (which it's not), I have some doubt as to whether a NIAID grant would preclude editing on that subject on COI grounds. At best, I think it'd be a case-by-case issue. But, as Hemiauchenia points out, this isn't even that. This is a NIAID grant on a completely unrelated topic being given 5 years ago.
Also the "media opinion piece" (which was not authored, but rather apparently fact checked, by the person who you say is Shibbolethink) doesn't present any evidence of a COI. It's wholly irrelevant. As a complete side note, I think it's a little misleading for you to present the piece's title in all caps when the website itself uses sentence case.--Jerome Frank Disciple 13:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi, please remove my first name. Thanks. I believe it is my right to determine exactly how much of my personal info is placed on this site, and I purposefully (very intentionally) don't put my first name directly on Wiki. I regularly (to this day) receive harassment via wikimail and personal email telling me to "go drink a bowl of bat soup", calling me a shill for the Chinese government, Fauci, the globalists, etc. And I would very much like to not exacerbate that.
"Framing the Response to Emerging Virus Infections (S2)" was a one-time $1200 travel grant I was awarded based on the merits of my research (on TBEV and Andes virus) to give an oral presentation at a 2018 conference in Hong Kong. I honestly didn't even know the money came from NIAID. I applied to Keystone Symposia, but it doesn't surprise me, since NIAID funds lots of similar things to promote PhD students going to conferences. Receiving such awards is often a necessity for being able to actually attend. There were no conditions placed on the grant, other than that I attend and turn in airfare/hotel receipts. It covered maybe 1/3 of my expenses if I remember correctly. The rest was paid by my PhD institution.
I also received a similar grant to attend a conference in Santa Fe in 2016. I also received an NIH grant in 2017 (a T32) that (partially) covered my tuition that year. There were no conditions, other than that I conduct my regular research (not on coronaviruses, btw). To the best of my knowledge I have not (personally) received any other NIH money, although I certainly spent a lot of my boss's NIH money on reagents/experiments during my PhD. Research is expensive. I think one would be hard-pressed to find a single biomedical PhD in the US who hasn't received some NIH grant money.
It would be likewise impossible to find a PhD virologist in most countries in the world who has not, at one point or another, spent some of the NIAID's money. That's the point of the NIAID, to give infectious disease researchers money.
None of my research since my PhD has been in virology, it instead focuses on brain and spine tumors. I have not received a single cent from the NIAID since 2018. I did one project in 2020 using modified herpes viruses to try and shrink Glioblastoma in mice that hasn't been published, the results were unfortunately mixed. It was funded by a fellowship from my medical school.
All of my editing is based on applying the five pillars, with a particular interest in WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, and WP:RS, to scientific and medical topics. I edit many things aside from COVID and the lab leak, but it is an interest of mine. I find it interesting because the scientific/scholarly consensus is so different from the view of many in the public. My view of the topic is very much in line with the consensus of relevant experts, as can be seen in the many many high quality scholarly citations over at the lab leak theory page. I would be curious to see if OP or anyone can actually provide evidence that I have "covered up", "white-washed", etc. anything re: the NIAID. Because I am very much a fan of just saying what the RSes say, in WP:DUE proportional weight to the coverage in those RSes, regardless of whether it paints anybody in a positive or negative light. I consider my virology knowledge an asset, and I would disagree pretty heavily that it constitutes a conflict of interest.
This is akin to saying an artist or poet has a COI for the NEA. Or taht a Senator would have a conflict of interest in editing articles related to the US government, writ large. Or that a Medal of Honor or Purple Heart recipient would have a COI wrt the US Army. Or really, most accurately, that a former employee of Google's special projects division would have a COI wrt the Department of Defense. The money/awards in such instances intentionally come with no strings attached, is several steps removed, and many persons in such situations have a wide range of views about those institutions. I have quite mixed/negative views about how the NIAID and NIH works, wrt grant funding politics, a lack of support for early-mid-career researchers, etc. The grants I described above are awarded based on a committee of relevant academics, not anyone from the NIAID, and my actual connection to the NIAID is extremely tenuous at best. The NIH/NIAID intentionally do not require grant awardees to speak positively about them. But I personally don't have to care much about the NIAID anyway (even if it were a COI) since grants in the rest of my academic career will likely come from other places. I no longer work in virology.
Are we really going to say that we don't want people with topic-relevant PhDs editing the topics of their expertise on Wikipedia? — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
This is relatively minor but "This is akin to saying an an artist or poet has a COI for the NEA." is a terrible argument to make, the artist or poet absolutely does have a COI in that scenario. You clearly have a COI, I just disagree with the OP that is a COI about COVID writ large and not the NIAID alone. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:15, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
You clearly have a COI, I just disagree with the OP that is a COI about COVID writ large and not the NIAID alone.
What actual professional or personal or financial incentive do I have to paint the NIAID in a positive light? Based on a grant I didn't even know included some amount of funding from the NIAID?
Would you say that anyone who has ever received a grant from the NIAID has a COI? I don't believe we have consensus here or elsewhere on that conclusion.
It really bears repeating here that NIAID employees don't actually have authority over who gets grants from the NIAID. It's a panel of outside academics who make those decisions.
If an academic publishes an op-ed saying the NIAID is biased or corrupt (which btw many scientists funded by them or the NIH have ([5][6][7]), I fail to see how that would impact that academic's ability to get a panel of outside academics to fund them. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Shibbolethink here. A one-time grant or award does not, to me, constitute the kind of relationship that gives rise to conflict or the appearance thereof. There does not appear to be any sort of ongoing entanglement. As we are told How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. My common sense tells me this is not close enough, but reasonable minds can certainly differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. Extremist views of COI are poisoning Wikipedia in my not very humble opinion. Irony duly noted... Huggums537 (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Given the explanation above, and baring any new evidence, I am satisfied that there is no (or even charitably, no significant) COI. starship.paint (exalt) 14:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

First name removed by me. starship.paint (exalt) 05:56, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

It looks like an awful lot of Jtbobwaysf's edits to COVID-related articles are focused on promoting and/or defending fringe ideas and the people known for pushing them. The lab leak theory in particular appears to be a focus going back years, as well as e.g. the use of "Wuhan virus". I'm looking at the history of COVID-19 pandemic, JP Sears, SARS-CoV-2, etc., and especially their talk pages. And now here this looks like an attempt at intimidation or otherwise an effort to remove an opponent based on no real evidence at all. No, we're not going to topic ban someone because they got a travel grant from a government agency years ago, or because they're writing about an area of expertise. IMO this probably isn't quite WP:OUTING, but it comes off as creepy and desperate. Combined with years-long POV pushing, I suspect there's a good case for WP:AE (alerted in 2021) or WP:ANI. This isn't an area I'm particularly active in, so I don't plan on doing so myself, but this report was a red flag that led me to dig into the dispute a little (and it didn't take much digging). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:59, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:Boomerang? -- SVTCobra 18:38, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Pro-fringe editors who are in conflict with mainstream anti-fringe editors, should not be rewarded here. In fact, research shows that when such editors are met with firm resistance, Wikipedia's credibility immediately increases as they leave Wikipedia. OTOH, if they stop their resistance to mainstream sources and POV, they can still work as wiki gnomes and do some good work here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I have no comment on the complaint but Jtbobwaysf's concerns are plausible and not related to any specific disputes with Jtbobwaysf (no diffs provided). So a boomerang should be categorically opposed here--concerns regarding Jtbobwaysf should be brought to a noticeboard independently(why haven't they been, if they exist?). Unless editors think Jtbobwaysf has a COI given that this is the COI noticeboard. Assessments of possible COI should never result in a boomerang. SmolBrane (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

A boomerang might be in order since there is a distinguishable difference between "plausible", and "provable" concerns. There is a huge problem on Wikipedia with editors presenting "concerns" that aren't even provable just because they have the slightest possibility of existing in their very vivid imaginations, and this borders on being the equivalent of nothing more than a personal attack or WP:casting aspersions [since it requires a lot of bad faith assumptions to address imaginary concerns without any evidence proving they are more than "plausible"]. Huggums537 (talk) 02:01, 30 June 2023 (UTC) Updated on 02:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
They provided evidence, you may not agree with the conclusions they draw from that evidence but an evidence backed post on the appropriate noticeboard is the opposite of casting aspersions. It doesn't have to be provable either, it really does just need to be plausible which this is. The community is perfectly capable of thanking Jtbobwaysf for bringing this to our attention and then dismissing the complaint after examination. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:21, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanking editors for providing bad faith anecdotal material that doesn't even really qualify as circumstantial evidence just because it "might" be plausible by some stretch of imagination is the most horrible idea I can think of, and the vast majority of editors here have agreed on that fact. Huggums537 (talk) 15:36, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Are you planning to back up those aspersions of bad faith editing with evidence? And would you consider those claims plausible or provable? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:45, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Wait a minute. You're suggesting I need to prove that they didn't have enough proof to bring a report here after it has already been proven [in this very discussion]? And, you are also asking me if what has been proven here in this discussion is evidence of bad faith? Then, the answer is yes. Huggums537 (talk) 16:09, 30 June 2023 (UTC) Updated on 16:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I do not regard boomerang as necessarily the same as the complaint which was brought. In my view, boomerang just means you are exposing yourself by complaining about somebody else. Simply reporting Jtbobwaysf to the appropriate noticeboard would be more than enough of a boomerang effect for me. I am in no way alleging Jtbobwaysf has COI. It's more along the lines of POV-pushing. Cheers, SVTCobra 02:59, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree with that view, but I also side with Rhododendrites, that it won't be me making the report since I detest bringing editors to drama boards, or trying to get other editors blocked or topic banned unless it is absolutely necessary. Huggums537 (talk) 03:15, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, this is pretty much an attempt to remove a content 'opponent' with twisted opposition research and a some outing. Linking to personally identifying information off-site is a no-no and should attract a site ban. The fringe POV-pushing baked into this stunt only makes it worse. Bon courage (talk) 12:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I was asked to look at this thread from an OS perspective - Shibbolethink provides links to their real-life identity on their userpage, so while the "here's their real name" bits which were redacted were a bit distasteful, they are not strictly outing. Primefac (talk) 14:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Concurring with several above that WP:BOOMERANG applies here. You don't out people on Wikipedia just because you disagree with their edits.Simonm223 (talk) 14:06, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Primefac that revealing a first name anybody else could look up doesn't strictly qualify as outing [though it was bad judgement], and a suggested siteban is pretty severe. I think this user probably gets the point now if they didn't before, but maybe we should wait to see how they respond to these suggestions first. Huggums537 (talk) 14:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC) Updated on 14:13, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, but nobody was outed here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that this report merits a site ban of the reporter. It is not strictly outing, as Primefac said. If there are issues with other edits of the reporter, take it to another noticeboard. starship.paint (exalt) 14:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Not buying the argument that a COI vis-a-vis NIAID means they have a COI in regards to COVID writ large. The key for me is that the evidence presented doesn't get "promote NIAID via discrediting the COVID-19 lab leak theory as well as the origins of Covid 19." over the AGF bar because there are other plausible reasons for Shibbolethink to be taking those positions other than promoting NIAID (in all likelihood their position would be the same if they hadn't gotten the grant). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Kiruna Stamell

There's also Maiaberliner's LinkedIn, which blatantly advertises the connection between the above user and article. I've mostly reverted to the version before their edits, but would appreciate further review. Graham87 10:34, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Also worth noting that the surname (Berliner) is that of Stamell's husband's, so both financial and likely a relation. – Meena • 12:34, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Every single edit of theirs is to the same article, that’s an WP:SPA kinda yikes.
Their edits are only on 12th Dec 2022, and 2nd Jan 2023. What, edited, then took Christmas off? [sarcasm]
Numbers / time suggest that they won’t be coming back (been about 5 / 6 months since they edited) but that doesn’t mean they won’t randomly remember the article down the line. Mind you, that’s if it’s direct members to the article subject, and not a paid stooge (lacking a better word here. If there’s AGF / NPA concerns, let me know a better word, and I’ll recind / strikethrough), if it’s not someone who meets WP:MEAT, in a sense, then I see no qualification for the ‘Preventative’ clause of the Block policy, on this one. MM (Give me info.) (Victories) 13:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Yeah I'd forgotten to mention the possible relationship angle ... and I noticed that all their edits were to this one article but didn't realise they were all over two days (due to time zone differences) ... just wow! I'm an admin but I didn't think to block this user because of the time since their last edit and also that their ... blatantness seems to indicate that they don't realise how ostracised this sort of behaviour is here. I've taken the liberty of making your link to this user's contributions more generic, so it doesn't take me to the mobile site; hope you don't mind. Graham87 15:34, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Blocks are preventative, not punitive, yadda yadda yadda. :P Any modification of a Mobile link to a desktop one, is always welcome, too. Makes it easier on editor view time. Good call. MM (Give me info.) (Victories) 19:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

MJR Digital Cinemas

A new user, who judging by their username has a (paid?) a connection with the company insists on reintroducing unsourced promotional materials. I have provided two WP:PAID warnings, to no avail. Kleuske (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

User has since posted a {{paid}} disclosure on their userpage. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 23:36, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

User: Joaquin Flowers

Indicative of promotional editing. User profile text appears to be just there to avoid scrutiny by not appearing red. The edit pattern is definitely not indicative of someone just starting out. The articles appear to be pre-crafted and account was specifically created for promotional purpose. They've been here less than a month and have already had about half a dozen articles, all having to do with musical people/bands that were CSD'd. Graywalls (talk) 21:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I've blocked the user as a sock and deleted the articles per WP:G5.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Del Water Gap

The editor they said they're not editing for compensation. User_talk:Deer876#July_2023. They have considerable number of edits going back to November 2021 and almost all, if not all of their edits are made up of editing on Del Water Gap page, or adding a link to him on other pages. They explained they're independently been working on an oral history of the music scene that came up around NYU in the late 2010 and just coincidentally noticed Del Water Gap didn't have an article.

I feel there is coordination between the editor and Del Water Gap or his staff in what may amount to COI even if there is no payment being exchanged. For example. I don't think someone just casually interested would come across a very trivial mention of "Del Water Gap" in a video, which was added here. Talk:Del_Water_Gap#A_Commons_file_used_on_this_page_or_its_Wikidata_item_has_been_nominated_for_speedy_deletion_3 this looks like there is communication happening with a professional photographer that took Del Water Gap's photo, which isn't typical for casual wiki editors. They've added quite a bit of links to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and such sources over time. Graywalls (talk) 06:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Bob Nouri

Group 1:

Group 2:

Unknown which group, but involved in this:


The article Draft:Bob Nouri appears to have the involvement of multiple unique sockfarms based off of checkuser investigations. The first version of this draft was previously was created by TurnKey Marketing (which appears to be a marketing firm) in April and was moved from the draftspace to the mainspace by Love740, who has since been blocked for using Wikipedia for advertising. A second draft of the article was created by GRiven12, who has since been blocked as a sock of SAMEBREED, who was blocked as a sock of TRucut, who was blocked for UPE. After the second draft was created, Butch Flarida (who is confirmed on Commons to TurnKey Marketing contributed to the draft.

My understanding of the CU analysis on this is that there's two distinct groups here (though I'm not a CU, so I haven't actually seen or been told the nitty-gritty of the data), but this does look like some sort of organized COI editing here. I'm unsure where Love740 goes here, but I figured bringing it to this board might be the right place to see if there are more related accounts that I've missed. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:05, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Hannah.hill747 unresponsive to paid editing concerns

Hannah.hill747 asked another editor on June 6 is it necessary to give disclosure for paid contributions? if yes, can you help me how to do it without getting blocked?

They were given an unrelated paid editing warning on June 16 and a You still have not adequately responded or taken action to the inquiry regarding your appearance as an undisclosed paid editor. If you make any additional edits without complying, you may be blocked from editing. follow-up on June 26.

They continued to avoid answering this question at Talk:Talking_Rain#New_Addition, and have made further promotional edits to company articles. Belbury (talk) 08:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I have blocked. 331dot (talk) 09:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Looking at Draft:Costway which they created, it was already created once before by a blocked UPE/sock SotueRR. That leads down a trail of socks to KONASAR and finally the massive sock farm BrookeCook. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 18:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Mahmudul Hasan Azhari

There is news media associated with Wikipedia editors trying to create https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudul_Hasan_Azhari Context for why there is a COI is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mahmudul_Hasan_Azhari Chamaemelum (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

UNESCO issues (again)

Not for the first time (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 196#Continuing UNESCO COI issues, we have someone at UNESCO adding UNESCO's POV to an article - e.g. here, where "it is crucial that questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity are handled with utmost care" has been added in Wikipedia's voice, without attribution of the POV. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how this unobjectionable statement, coupled with a lack of discussion with the editor who added it or discussion in the article's Talk page, rises to the level of this noticeboard. If you feel so strongly about adding attribution then you're welcome to do so. ElKevbo (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Because this happens every time a new UNESCO paid editor starts editing Wikipedia - they fail to attribute POV when adding UNESCO's opinions to articles, then when the issue is raised, we get promises that better guidance will be provided to UNESCO employees and interns, but nothing changes. Please have a read of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 196#Continuing UNESCO COI issues if you're not convinced this is a major issue. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
A UNESCO report is a reliable source for something like this, no? And in this case there's not really another side saying sexual orientation and gender identity shouldn't be handled with care/sensitively, right? In fact, it's something so straightforward it could be verified in a range of reliable sources. So why would we need to attribute them? I think the issue that may be raising red flags for you is the writing style. Language like "crucial that [X is] handled with utmost care" is a little prescriptive rather than descriptive, but that can be handled with editing. Yes, there is a COI; no, this isn't evidence of that COI doing harm, but perhaps someone could help TomRichomme with some WP:TONE pointers. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:27, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Well, another perspective would be that LGBT+ people are normal and we shouldn't tip-toe around issues of sexuality. In any case, I'm not blaming TomRichomme here. The issue is with the training that UNESCO say they're providing, but clearly aren't delivering on. It's alright to say that I should fix the attribution problems (I've tried to in this case), but this problem exists across hundreds of articles and each time a new UNESCO editor pops up, more unattributed UNESCO POV gets added. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
LGBT+ people are normal is most definitely not a different perspective. we shouldn't tip-toe around issues of sexuality - In an enlightened world where some people aren't bullied, harassed, assaulted, shunned, and otherwise stigmatized by peers, parents, and lawmakers just for being who they are, you might find some reliable sources which support the idea that "handling with care and sensitivity" = unnecessary "tip-toeing around", but for now, no, that's not remotely the consensus view. Regarding the training that UNESCO say they're providing, but clearly aren't delivering on - WP:TONE is something that is often missing from new user training, and also something that clicks more quickly for some people than others. That's not an excuse, but any widescale training exercise that follows best practices for training still nonetheless produces some newbies who still make newbie mistakes. This particular diff isn't IMO all that worrying, but if there were lots of other diffs from this person and other people showing a pattern (sorry if those are in the other thread -- I haven't looked at it yet), that's certainly worth talking about. Is John Cummings still heading up their Wikipedia program? Probably worth a ping here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:22, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Of course, no training will work perfectly and I'm not expecting that. Here, though, the training is failing at the first hurdle. The issue we encounter every time in this case (as documented in previous threads) is that UNESCO editors fail to make the mandatory paid-editing disclosure (in this instance, TomRichomme was apparently unaware of it and it was left to me to explain it - again, no blame on TomRichomme but why wasn't this explained to them by UNESCO?) and persist in adding UNESCO's prescriptions and broader POV to articles without sufficient attribution of that. Repeated reassurances have been made that these issues will be addressed, but the same keeps happening again and again.
More fundamentally, I don't think people working for UNESCO should be adding large chunks of UNESCO material to Wikipedia articles. It's at odds with the best practice set out at WP:COIEDIT. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:09, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
This particular diff isn't IMO all that worrying, but if there were lots of other diffs from this person and other people showing a pattern.... It was perhaps not the best example. For others, see this, which added "Looking to the future, adult learning needs to extend beyond labor market needs, connecting career change and reskilling to broader educational reforms. Lifelong learning should be reconceptualized as transformative and responsive to societal changes. It is crucial to address the participation and inclusion of vulnerable groups, appreciate informal learning, embrace digital means of participation, and promote scientific literacy while combating misinformation"; or this, which added "It is thus important that education takes a humanistic approach, especially when considering the rise of digital technologies". Cordless Larry (talk) 09:13, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
That kind of material shouldn't be sourced to a UNESCO report AT ALL. Drmies (talk) 21:59, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Do you mean that kind of material isn't appropriate for an article, or do you mean [it] shouldn't be sourced to a UNESCO report (i.e. some other source for the same content would be better)? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:53, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi all, sorry for missing this before, I'm taking a very long break from Wikipedia work save for a few personal interests due to long covid. I've asked a few other people to take a look UNESCO's new interns work and offer some support. If anyone has any suggestions for improving documentation especially the tone section on Help:Adding open license text to Wikipedia I can integrate it, it should help in this case and for anyone else wanting to add open license text to Wikipedia (this should help avoid some of these issues happening multiple times). Please don't feel offended by a delayed replying. Thanks, John Cummings (talk) 17:21, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't really have any suggestions for that, John Cummings (and thanks for your previous adjustments to that page). The issue seems to be more that UNESCO editors aren't taking on board the advice given on that page. Is Eric Luth (WMSE) one of the people who's been asked to support these new interns? He was involved in the last discussion here. Has there been any progress, Eric? Cordless Larry (talk) 14:35, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi @Cordless Larry. Apologies for the slow reply, I was away all last week. Yes, I am one of the people, and currently working with UNESCO on how to tailor the support so it reaches the right audience across all its sectors. Happy to get input if there is existing documentation, such as John refers to above, that needs to be approved or amended. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 06:17, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Not to worry, Eric Luth (WMSE). I think a good first step would be to ensure that the people you're working with have read and understood the help page that John Cummings linked to above, before they start editing. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Laxmaiah Manchikanti

Laxmaiah Manchikanti

User:Raymondelane I believe there is a large scale conflict of interest regarding pain management pages and a PR campaign of those involved. Particularly, the figure Laxmaiah Manchikanti and his associated "organizations" that he or enlisted staff have edited on wikipedia to provide a aura of legitimacy to a sketchy corner of medicinal practices. His organizations seem to exist in a territory that isn't particularly well regulated by the US government, or not not confer any additional regulatory or licensing qualifications beyond the official boards that are much more prominent such as the American Board of Anesthesiology or American Medical Association. I found his organization's other websites that seek to promote a somewhat not recognized institutions beyond. A number of other weirdly unrecognized an oddly named / oddly acronymed organizations that seek to pass as something more than what they are also exist and are connected to these figures.

I don't oppose the existences of the articles for the organizations, but a better POV is definitely necessary on them. The articles for the individual figures however should be disputed as their existence is questionably neccessary.

It seems that the user User:Raymondelane edited many such articles so I included him on this post. In addition, please see the history of disputes regarding the user Saidul123 his conflicts of interest in the same article that I am referenceing


- AH (talk) 03:41, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you mean User:Saidul123 for the user you mention at the end . -- Pemilligan (talk) 03:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes Thanks,
I want to also say the there are years of discussion connected to the user regarding COI problems and repeated creations of deleted articles.
- AH (talk) 04:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
User:Raymondeugenelane is a new, similarly-named account participating in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laxmaiah Manchikanti. It would be good to clear up any potential COI at this point. I have no knowledge on this, just know this has been raised. —siroχo 21:45, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Suspected COI by User:Yae4 on Article:Libreboot

Yae4 has been indeffed by @ToBeFree: Star Mississippi 01:29, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I suspect the user Yae4 has a strong conflict of interest, that the user did *not* declare while working on the Libreboot recently.

There has recently been a massive content dispute at the Libreboot article, and it boils down to: should libreboot.org (original and ongoing project, with good sourcing for wikipedia) or libreboot.at (proposed fork, currently defunct and with poor sourcing) be the main topic of the article? Editor consensus reached the verdict that, at this time, only Libreboot.org should be present in the article. What's important is that the Libreboot.AT domain name is owned by the FSF (see whois and host command, host command reveals same IPv4 subnet as gnu.org).

It is on this basis that I believe user "Yae4" had a conflict of interest, while working on very aggressive and disruptive edits on the article, seemingly in bias favouring the .AT domain.

I also wrote this on the ANI entry, where Yae4 has been reported: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_editing_by_Yae4 - i believe it's useful on the talk page too, since the ANI entry will disappear at some point.

I've accused Yae4 of being biased in favour of libreboot.at, but I now believe he may in fact have a Conflict of Interest; I believe Yae4 is actually working on behalf of the FSF, without having disclosed such fact.

My evidence is thus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Yae4/Hundred_Rabbits&oldid=1161284056 - draft article by Yae4. Hundred Rabbits isn't well-known, but put into context: Hundred Rabbits was the keynote speaker at FSF's "LibrePlanet" conference of 2022. This on its own doesn't mean anything, but consider Yae4's aggressive editing in favour of libreboot.at on Libreboot, edits that have now been largely removed per editor consensus

Now, more items:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Free_Software_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1159761316 - on its own, a trivial change, just adding info to the FSF page

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_Software_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1158799817 - more FSF edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Free_Software_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1159762149 - again

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Free_Software_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1159761316 - ditto

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=FSF_Free_Software_Awards&diff=prev&oldid=1158988792 - pertaining to FSF Free Software Awards which are held at LibrePlanet conference.

LibrePlanet is a relatively obscure conference. It only has a couple hundred people who view it and doesn't really reach much news online, very much an internal FSF thing that members get involved in. FSF relies a lot upon intern/volunteer labour, and, well:

Yae4 has been editing the Libreboot article since about 26 May 2023, almost a month now, and has warred with multiple people (his actions qualify as edit warring, he was constantly reverting people's changes often without giving any reason).

Even if Yae4 isn't in league with the FSF, these diffs show a pattern of preference towards the FSF, and thus it could be argued that Yae4 had bias (non-neutral point of view) while editing the Libreboot article. Yae4 has also made numerous edits on articles like GNU Taler and GNU LibreJS, all positive edits.

(GNU is closely associated with the FSF, who provides hosting infrastructure and funding for it)

Here is the talk that Hundred Rabbits gave at LibrePlanet 2022, hosted by the FSF: https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/software-doldrums/

one part i forgot to mention earlier, look at this diff from Yae4: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ALibreboot&diff=1161276868&oldid=1161273531 - regardless of the merit behind the argument (merit rejected by other editors on that talk page, per consensus agreement:

pay attention: Yae4 refers to "distroboot". distroboot.org was only online for about *2 hours*, and not widely publicized, I mainly only mentioned it on Libreboot IRC (private chat room); i used another name instead (osboot) that same day, and it stuck for a while. distroboot.org is owned by me. (EDIT: to be clear distroboot/osboot refer to the same software, which is now part of Libreboot on libreboot.org, which is the subject of the Libreboot article)

this, combined with the recent crusade by Yae4 against Libreboot, suggests that Yae4 is definitely someone inclined to watch closely what the Libreboot project gets up to, far closer than most people would inspect it; it could suggest that Yae had a vendetta on behalf of the FSF. I think Yae4 works for the FSF.

the last, and arguably most damning bit of evidence against Yae4, is in diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Libreboot&diff=prev&oldid=1157433496 <-- yae4 makes reference to links that are *not public* - how would Yae4 know about these, unless he was intimately involved with the project? I sense that Yae4 likely had an undisclosed conflict of interest the entire time while working on the Libreboot article

Now, FSF relies a lot on intern/volunteer labour. Whether or not Yae4 is a *paid* editor is unknown to me, though Yae4 *did* spend almost a solid month editing the article sometimes all day, which would imply that he might be paid, but I don't have enough evidence of *paid* editing on his part. Besides the above diffs used as evidence, there may be more that I missed, and the overall pattern of Yae4's edits do at least suggest bias, if not conflict of interest.

PS: I myself also have a COI for the article in question, *but* I've declared this in my user page, and admin ToBeFree expressed satisfaction with this on the linked ANI thread.

Libreleah (talk) 07:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Yae4 response

  • Interrupting my summer vacation to respond, with respect to the admins that be.
  • Advice to Libreleah: Advice another editor gave to me: "The guidance in WP:AGF, WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:DROPTHESTICK can save us from ourselves (and if we have enemies, from them too)."
  • Summary of response: Something I said elsewhere: "Believe it or not, some unaffiliated, unrequested people add stuff to WP Just for Fun." I have no conflict of interest and no close connection with the Free Software Foundation or any of its activities or entities. I observed the Libreboot article has for years been a biased advertisement masquerading as an article, and expanded the summaries of cites. Libreleah, with a financial interest in the article, feels threatened and is lashing out like a cornered animal.
Some details
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

nnn.ng

A website called nnn.ng seems to have a small WP media-blitz going on, [8][9][10]. One quote:

"In this article, we will dive deep into the concept of buying Wikipedia backlinks, exploring the pros, cons, and best practices for harnessing their potential."

For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Davide Lo Surdo, etc.

There seems to be a remarkably aggressive cross-wiki campaign to get Davide Lo Surdo mentioned on Wikipedia at all costs. The article is a little better now but when I nomninated it for deletion it looked like this. In addition to the links above, see this comment of mine on its AFD and, just as an example, these global contributions. I blocked Enrico Manni due to their disruption to pad their edit count but any uninvolved admin is free to undo/modify my block if they feel the desire to do so. As I said in the above-linked comment, the museum article was also created in Spanish by Enrico Manni. I think I'm out of my depth here so I would very much appreciate review/backup. Graham87 06:56, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

See Johnmarrys's ... interesting ... response. Graham87 08:39, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
As already answered kindly to Graham, I follow guitar, music and I play guitar since two years. I found out Lo Surdo on a famous video with more than 400k views he did with Steve Terreberry known as Stevie T (Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KuRykQPWRw) and searching online, I saw he was not on wikipedia so I decided to contribute on it Johnmarrys (talk) 08:52, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
Also see the response from Enrico Manni. Graham87 16:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
I've unblocked Enrico. This seems to be a case of newer (and perhaps younger) editors taking the hype about him at face value ... nothing more nefarious than that. Unfortunately there don't appear to be any reliable sources that analyse his claims seriously. Graham87 18:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Australian Cattle Dog

Seems to be the author of books used as references. See edit summaries and talk page. - FlightTime (open channel) 01:14, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Good catch. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:17, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Aside from the COI issue, Inspiring Publishers appears to be a self-publishing outfit, so A Dog For The Job probably isn't a reliable source according to Wikipedia's criteria. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:13, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure if and how Nrc999 is related to NoreenClark, but the account has been used in the past to make similar claims and edit requests. M.Bitton (talk) 08:33, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
information Note: despite having been asked multiple times to refrain from editing the article and to engage in this discussion, NoreenClark has ignored both and is now edit warring. M.Bitton (talk) 09:51, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Just looked at Robert Kaleski. Clark has been cited since the first version of the article, 12 years ago (cited by an experienced Wikipedian, to be clear). The books are self-published, but we do sometimes use self-published material when the author has expertise in the subject and/or it contains useful, uncontroversial primary material. Noreen appears to have a niche historical interest and published some primary source material from Kaleski. If the material is challenged, then yes, secondary independent sources win out, but for a niche historical subject this isn't obviously detrimental. e.g. This is the most recent reverted edit. It looks updating from a pre-existing set of citations to Clark's older work (which, again, she didn't add) to a newer work that is perhaps more relevant and is based on relevant primary sources. It adds page numbers and more specific citations. In what way is that harmful to the article? It looks like users have been reverting just based on COI, templating, and not even engaging on the substance of the edits. I do not get the impression that Noreen is trying to promote herself here, but contributing information that she is unique able to provide.
Friendly reminder that editing with a COI is not prohibited on Wikipedia, and having a COI isn't itself a valid reason to revert, contrary to edit summaries I see from e.g. M.Bitton. Also this declined edit request -- what we want people with a COI to do -- just because of a COI is extraordinarily counter-productive. COI is discouraged because it's really hard to edit neutrally with a COI, and we revert when the material isn't neutral. I see no argument at all that these contributions aren't neutral. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:25, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I have already explained why the request was declined. M.Bitton (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
So a user with a COI uses the talk page to request a change and you declined it because they used the wrong template... and didn't tell them it was because they used the wrong template? That's rather classic WP:BITE. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:38, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I think its an interesting argument that in context someone with that significant a COI is capable of contributing neutrally and not in a way which is self promotional (remember promotion *is* banned). Promotion is the "core crime" if you will, its never COI itself. How would it be possible to cite your own book in a way which was not self promoting besides doing it as an edit request (and even then it would still almost always be promotional, its almost impossible to do in a way which is not promotional either of yourself or of the subject, both are which are prohibited)? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
How would it be possible to cite your own book in a way which was not self promoting besides doing it as an edit request - The same way anyone else would cite your book without making it promotional. If the source is used properly, and the article is better off for it, that's what matters. Content, not intention. The problem is that promotional intent often leads to promotional content. Lots of people come on here and cite their own book in ways that don't actually help the article, like by tacking it onto a list of references without using it, or prioritizing it over better sources. I'm certainly not going to fault anyone for questioning whether we should include a self-published book on RS grounds, but the edits themselves don't appear promotional. They appear to be a good faith attempt to improve coverage of an article by one of a relatively small number of people with some knowledge on the subject. IMO that matters too -- inserting a self-cite in a big article with a ton of sourcing available (and lots of uninvolved editors who can select the best sources) should raise eyebrows more than a niche historian adding information about their niche (because if they don't, who will). Certainly agree using the talk page is better, but when this person did that they still got shut down for COI (with no other reason provided until, apparently, "you used the wrong template"). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:38, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
The only used the ER for semi protected articles that they couldn't edit. Not using the proper template hides the fact that they have a COI and would also result in them jumping a massive queue (there are tons of of editors with a COI who are waiting for their requests to be reviewed). M.Bitton (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
The logic "because if they don't, who will" has been repeatedly rejected by the community, thats one of the reasons we have WP:COI in the first place. If nobody else was going to add their book wouldn't it be undue promotion of their book? The only way to get out of the promotion trap is to argue that their book is so foundational to the field that it being added in the capacity that it was is a pure inevitability (I've seen that argument made and I've accepted it, but it clearly doesn't apply here). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:51, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Many of the scenarios mentioned here, I was on the fence with, hence bringing it here. Thanx, - FlightTime (open channel) 15:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
The logic "because if they don't, who will" has been repeatedly rejected by the community - links? that would be an odd thing to have an rfc about. Note I'm not arguing for modifying WP:RS/WP:COI, but for going by what it currently says (paraphrasing: that if a book should be cited in an article, our policies do not prohibit the author of the book from doing so, although using the talk page would probably avoid a lot of hassle). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:17, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
The problem coming from establishing that the book should be cited in the article. If it wasn't going to be cited without the author citing it how is that not giving undue focus to the author's viewpoints (in effect promoting them)? And if it was going to be cited then what is the point of having the author do it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
if it was going to be cited then what is the point of having the author do it? - Because that assumes that everything that should be included would be included? We have ... a lot ... of very low quality articles. Obviously they're not all lousy quality because there aren't any good sources for them, but because nobody has found the good sources and comprehensively summarized them. If someone wants to add one of a small number of decent sources that could be added about a subject, who cares who the editor was? Why is sticking to some hard rule about COI more important than the quality of the encyclopedia? That's part of why COI isn't a prohibition -- because the content matters more than who writes it. We are not obliged to treat niche subject-matter experts the same way we do a billion dollar company's PR department trying to whitewash an article about the company. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:50, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
IMO the niche expert is significantly more harmful because its less likely to be caught when disruptive, I'd also note the propensity of niche experts editing their books/articles into wikipedia to hold minority and fringe views. One would also presume that an expert in a field could present a wide overview of the existing views in the field without any reference at all to their own work, they are after all an expert due to their knowledge of the field not their knowledge of their own publishing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
It now seems that, because I researched and published on a topic, I may not contribute to Wiki? I notice that references to my book are annotated "self-published source". However, I have been under the impression that Wiki articles are supposed to be anonymous? This annotation destroys my anonymity - unless, of course, any self-published resource must be similarly annotated? Please advise. I have cited other self-published resources in both the articles under discussion. One does not self-publish from choice. The response I got from publishers agents (most publishers insist on being contacted via agents, only) was that my book "A Dog for the Job" was not a "doggy book". That is, anything that begins to look scholarly has no popular appeal. And, yes. My book is more a documented colonial history than "doggy". Te annotation "self-published source" is discriminatory and prejudicial. I can reduce the number of references to my books and replace them with a large number of primary references but would prefer not to be labelled, almost with a sneer, as "self published". NoreenClark (talk) 18:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Your citations are being rejected because (with limited excepttions that do not apply in this case) Wikipedia should not use any self published sources, it is nothing specific to you. If someone else added the same book it would be just as problematic from the standpoint of Wikipedia's policy. This is because we consider the additional vetting and editing carried out by a traditional publisher to be of great importance. COI only comes into the discussion because COI editors very often ignore these sourcing requirements. MrOllie (talk) 18:33, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
From this I understand that all will be well, provided that I do not cite my own work but cite only the primary sources that lead to various conclusions. This raises problems. Any of my citations to "Warner(ed) Over-Halling the Colony" are to a self-published source. When I look at revising the article "Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog", I will need to cite "pers. comm." and unpublished documents. No choice. I am forced to conclude that Wiki is opposed to presenting the results of original work. NoreenClark (talk) 08:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, Wikipedia's policies are very much opposed to that I'm afraid, NoreenClark. Please see Wikipedia:No original research. Citing personal communications and unpublished documents isn't allowed. Please familiarise yourself with WP:SOURCES to get a better sense of what sorts of sources are acceptable on Wikipedia. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:46, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Wiki seems to place faith in peer review. but see:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2022/peer-review-in-science-the-pains-and-problems/
Monograph publishers rarely (if ever) review content beyond checking for copyright infringement or anything else actionable. (I can produce a recent example.)
As I have said before, I object to some of my citations in the Australian Cattle Dog article being annotated as "self published source". It is discriminatory, prejudicial and misleading. Should I annotate all the other self published sources similarly? And also non-peer reviewed journal articles? NoreenClark (talk) 23:18, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
No. See WP:POINT. MrOllie (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Samantha.jackson5678 undisclosed paid/sock

User was given an "asked to cease editing until" paid warning at 7am, and made a lengthy promotional edit to the Talking Rain article an hour later. They also ignored a general COI warning and a direct question in the reviewer feedback on Draft:Lectron EV, at the start of June.

Their most recent two edits restored elements of promotional edits to two articles that paid editor User:Hannah.hill747 had made last week (before being blocked for failing to respond to a paid warning), so this may be block evasion or a paid editing organisation trading work between editors. Belbury (talk) 08:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Belbury: Talking Rain has a history of edits from the Pathofkarma sock farm. I have also mentioned in the "User:Hannah.hill747 unresponsive to paid editing concerns" section a possible link between Hannah.hill747 and the BrookeCook sock farm. You should consider filing an SPI report if you believe it has merit. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 14:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Samantha.jackson5678 still looks directly blockable for undisclosed paid activity, if I understand correctly. In a talk page edit at [11] they say As a paid contributor, I am requesting the following..., but have still yet to formally declare a specific employer or client. Belbury (talk) 14:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Werner Hegemann

Wmdarrow has been indef blocked from namespace per discussion at WP:ANI for repeatedly adding original research and unsourced content on articles for years. Psychologist Guy (talk) 10:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There are some issues on the Werner Hegemann article. A user "Wmdarrow" claiming to be Hegemann's grandson [12] has been editing the article for the last 8 years. This is a low-traffic article and nobody has been checking their editing. Unfortunately almost every edit they have made to the article is unsourced. The same user has received warnings in the past for adding unsourced original research onto other articles. They seem to be using the Werner Hegemann to do their own historical research about their grandfather. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

After I protested to psychologist guy his heavy editing of the Werner Hegemann page, including deleting alot of my work and adding weakly sourced text as to marginal points, this follows. Hegemann was a well-known Weimar Republic writer and his life's trajectory is well-established in two books about his life, both cited on his page, and in the more extensive German wiki. As his grandson (a retired lawyer) I keep an eye on his page. I am not "using" the Hegemann page to do historical research -- there is plenty of writing about him and his life, including the two biographies noted above as well as an unpublished history written by his spouse, Ida Belle (Guthe) Hegemann, my grandmother (or which I have a copy). The wiki page is a condensed summary of his life. It was entirely accurate prior to psychologist guy's deletions and insertions (and now attack on me). Wmdarrow (talk) 15:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
You have not added any sources. All you do is add original research to the article, like you have done on other articles. You seem to misunderstand the nature of this website. When you add content, it needs to be sourced to reliable secondary sources. Please read WP:OR. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Christiane Crasemann Collins, Werner Hegemann and the Search for Universal Urbanism is a reliable source. If you added pages from that biography there would be no objections but you are adding large chunks of text to the article that are entirely unsourced. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:38, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Based on the editing history of the article you started editing it in 2015 adding non-sourced content (this was your first edit) [13]. This was your last version of the article in 2023 [14]. As we can all see the content in your version of the article is unsourced. If we go back to 2015 before you started editing the article, it looked like this [15] with the content sourced. You have been slowly editing the article for 8 years adding unsourced material. This isn't good editing. On your talk-page and elsewhere you are now accusing me of attacking you and gaslighting, this is not the case. I am interested in improving Wikipedia articles with reliable sources. There is conflict of interest here as Werner Hegemann was your grandfather and you are using his Wikipedia article to do your own historical research about him. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Your claim that I am conflicted due to my relation to Hegemann is baseless. First, you offer no evidence whatsoever for your speculation that I am "using" the page to do my own "historical research." Further, that claim is inconsistent with your broader claim, that I am inserting material without proper sourcing. Which is it? Am I getting info from the page or am I contributing info to the page (allegedly without sourcing properly)? Second, why is it a problematic "conflict" if I were doing historical research by reviewing the page? How is that an improper conflict? Third, as I mention above, Hegemann is a rich topic addressed in far more detail in books written about him and his German wiki page. The English wiki page is summary in form -- someone interested in doing research on his life (as you protest I have done), would go to those more in-depth sources and Hegemann's own books (as in fact I have done).

A stronger claim of conflict may arise from your seemingly compelling and peculiar interest in undermining my work on the Hegemann page. You have deleted carefully sourced info that I inserted, including the discussion of Hegemann's two books - Napoleon and Fredericus - that he wrote as the Nazi's came to power. Those books contributed to the Nazis denouncing him as a "historical forger" and burning his books. I purchased both those books, and quoted from them by page number, to ensure accuracy and sourcing in my contribution to the wiki page on Hegemann. Yet you deleted my work. A reasonable inference is that sourcing is not the problem. You have gone back years to review and quibble about my edits and contributions. Again, Why? You also deleted my section summarizing Hegemann's lecture tour in the US during 1912-15. Another important part of his life and work. Today I replaced that section, adding a footnote citing the specific pages of the Craseman Collins book on Hegemann where that tour is described in 30 pages of text and illustrations. All of these aggressive, one-sided and contradictory acts on your part followed in the wake of my challenge to your own brief mention of Hegemann's "Der Gerettete Christus," a minor work that has no known place in his life trajectory and seems to have had little impact on his time (Weimar and the rise of Hitler). And you do not quote from the book - did you buy it and read it as I did with the Napoleon and Fredericus? Yet you delete accurate summaries of those two books that contributed to the book burnings and his flight from Germany? Could it be that you have the conflict - animosity because you were challenged? Let's get back to accurate and meaningful work on wikipedia - trying to improve articles, rather than hacking at them and attacking contributors. Wmdarrow (talk) 22:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You are not being honest with your claims, the whole issue here is about lack of sourcing. You are again adding unsourced information. Many of your edits still violate WP:OR. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
"You have deleted carefully sourced info that I inserted, including the discussion of Hegemann's two books - Napoleon and Fredericus". You did not add any reliable secondary sources for that information. See the talk-page [16] Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:27, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
So far in 8 years, these are the only two secondary sources that you have added, "The lecture tour is described in "Werner Hegemann And The Search For Universal Urbanism," by Craseman Collins, pp. 85-115" and "Christiane Crasemann Collins, Werner Hegemann and the Search for Universal Urbanism, New York: Norton, 2005, ISBN 0-393-73156-1", this is not good editing as we need specific page numbers. I have added the correct page number for the divorce date. Unfortunately again today all we have is the same unsourced content that you have restored. You are using the article to dump your own historical research. If you honestly cared about the article you would stop adding unsourced content. I think an admin needs to get involved here because you keep restoring the same unsourced material which is against policy. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:42, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Mikelee444

This user was recently created (17:08Z) and has been continuously editing only one article. The edits are of seemingly good quality, with mostly good sources. That said, the article seems to be progressively turning into a puff piece for the company. I'm assuming good faith, especially because the edits are mostly of good quality, it's just the potential warped POV and WP:PUFFERY makes me wonder. I've left a warning and a follow-up with norReponses. The user has made multiple edits after placing the notice, and still nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't a COI, however I don't have the tools to verify and the lack of a response is troubling. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 18:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The user has replied on the talk page, revealing the conflict (but not seeming to get the point). I added Template:Uw-coi to the talk page to offer some COI guidance. -- Pemilligan (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Joan Bennett Playboy edits.

ScoobieDoobie999 has been indeffed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:45, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@ScoobieDoobie999 has made edits to various Playboy related articles to remove the name of playmate Joan Bennett. One of their recent edits descriptions (Please respect the privacy and wishes of the person's information) [17] suggest possible conflict of interest editing. Jaydoggmarco (talk) 00:21, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The user has ignored this and continues to make problematic edits without disclosing his connection to the subject. Jaydoggmarco (talk) 17:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
As someone who's a regular at WP:BLPN, I really don't see how this is a legitimate privacy issue. If it was, then the entire list should be deleted, but I somehow doubt that an AfD to delete the list would pass. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
It's not a legitimate issue. It's possible that she's has become religious and has hired someone to scrub the internet of her Playboy past. Given that the user refuses to respond to me here or disclose their connection i guess we will never know. Jaydoggmarco (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
I've made a post at BLPN to get more input. One of the regulars there works in the adult industry, so they may be able to provide a nuanced take. In searching around the issue, it seems that she has had her official playboy website entry taken down. I also saw a short thread from 2020 on a pornography forum which was discussing contemporary images of her, so I can understand her concern, though I don't see how removing it from the Wikipedia entry will help her privacy when the information is easily accessible elsewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
User is still making problematic edits and hasn't responded. Ban them and lock the articles. Jaydoggmarco (talk) 21:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Drumspleasefab

I'm aware the COIN guideline says "a specific article" and this is more about a specific user across several articles, but I can't find anywhere else suitable to raise these concerns. Feel free to point me in the right direction and close if this is an issue.

Drumspleasefab made their first edit on June 3rd 2020, adding content from an interview with music blog "The Forty-Five". Between then and July 2022, they made 30 edits - of these, twenty-three (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) have been additions of The Forty-Five as a source - of the other seven, four were just copyedits to pages they had added this source to, two were additions of a source for EasyJet's travel magazine and one was an edit to its own talk page.

That means 27/30 (90%) were additions of this one source. As if this statistic doesn't speak for itself, many of these additions have been on the exact same DAY that the Forty Five articles in question have been published, leading me to believe there's a big COI issue here. Furthermore, some of these edits (for example, example 1, example 2, example 3) have removed existing music sites such as the well established Sputnik and NME to prioritise their own, and some edits have been bordering on fancruft to the level that it's hard to see it as anything bar WP:REFSPAM - this edit adds this (otherwise unnotable) blog's opinion of a band's best song.

In July, I left a comment on their talk page asking them to clarify any connection they may have, and they did not respond. The account then stopped editing until December, when they again added an article from The Forty-Five as a source, on the same day this article had been published. Since that, they have made seven more edits - three of these (1, 2 3) were additions of The Forty-Five as sources again, one of these was a copyedit to the last edit and now three (1 (reverted for not being encyclopedic), 2 and 3) have been to add sources from Cinemablend - one of these was added the same day the article had been published, with the other being a few days later, worsening my COI concerns.

Having tried to engage with the user to ascertain any potential connection to the website only to be ignored, I am left with no choice but to come to COIN about this. Given the sheer amount of WP:REFSPAM this account has engaged in, it seems increasingly obvious the account is WP:NOTHERE for anything bar refspam self promotion. — ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 17:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this is problematic and given their lack of communication, I don't think there is much option but to block them. It would also be worth checking the other citations to the site to see whether there are other users consistently citing it. COIBot has run on it before but couldn't resolve the users for some reason. I'll try to get it run again.
thefortyfive.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
SmartSE (talk) 19:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the block, SmartSE. I've removed their additions of The Forty-Five to the articles there to cut that list down a bit. I'll have a look at the citations left to see if there's any other accounts in on this - I've definitely seen a few added which are good faith editions by regular music editors. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 21:36, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Sander van der Linden continued

Five years on from Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_129#Sander_van_der_Linden and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Maasuni/Archive and a decade since it started, we are still getting numerous SPAs around this topic and nothing has really changed, except that they've gotten better at not getting caught.

Altogether, I think this demonstrates a continued effort to promote themselves here and if there is a consensus that these are all linked to the previous accounts, we should be removing their contributions per WP:BANREVERT and deleting the created articles per G5. SmartSE (talk) 11:38, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I've only recently become aware of the backstory to this, and I entirely agree with SmartSE's analysis and conclusions. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for notifying me SmartSE's. I just want to be clear here: I did not initially write a "glowing biography" of van der Linden at all in my entry, but was asked to add background information on van der Linden by Jimfbleak as to why he is an authority on the subject or why people should care about his opinions - so that's what I did. Jim was very kind and helpful and I worked with him over the course of a few months to turn this into hopefully a good article. It's not promotional, includes plenty of criticism of van der Linden's ideas and gives a balanced account. The image I uploaded is readily available on the internet, I literally took it from here https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/foolproof-why-we-fall-for-misinformation-and-how-to-build-immunity-sander-van-der-linden?variant=39973011980366. I'm not familiar with the above COI case but some of it strikes me as conjecture? Someone contributed an entry for a new journal two weeks before an article was published there? So what? It seems like a lot of this can just be explained by random coincidence, including the "unknown" details you refer to (these seem easily found online with a bit of googling). I'm no expert nor administrator so won't get involved and have no skin in the game re these other articles. Feel free to check my account, I have no COI and no relation to the AntiMusk account. Thanks. Booklover 2023 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
@Booklover 2023: I literally took it from here is bullshit though isn't it? Even after adjusting the image URL at that link to increase the size, the image resolution is 500 x 769 not 1500 x 2300 like the version you uploaded. It is indeed a remarkable "random coincidence" that you had access to an image that nobody else has isn't it? There is other evidence that I've shared with Jim, which also reinforces that you started writing the article before this account was even created. As for a "balanced account" the BBC didn't call it one of their best books of the year did they? And you omitted this very thorough negative review and called this balanced review in the FT "positive". SmartSE (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
No it's not bullshit. But maybe I uploaded the Amazon versions (I have the e-book) - I did save multiple versions from different websites to see which was better as contrary to your rude/accusatory claims, I don't have access to any version other than what's publicly available on the internet. https://www.amazon.co.uk/foolproof-why-we-fall-for-misinformation-and-how-to-build-immunity/dp/0008466718. As to BBC, I had to double check that, it says "most anticipated books of 2023", happy to change that (seemed similar to the other lists I included) and re FT, my reading was positive but balanced also sounds good. I initially had the critique from FT included but Jim preferred the Times piece. I wasn't aware of the new review, but the core argument seems to substantially overlap with the WaPo critique I already discuss (both are similar philosophical objections about the viral analogy but WaPo is clearly higher profile). Not sure what you are talking about re drafting an article before the account was created, why does that matter? I have various other drafts in-progress while I'm not logged in but yes this was my first article. Booklover 2023 (talk) Booklover 2023 (talk) 20:22, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
p.s. FWIW the new review you linked to here calls the FT review "glowing" so apparently it's not just me. I think you're reading into things too much. Very happy to make changes to the page (or leave to others) as my aim is simply to make it informative. Booklover 2023 (talk) 20:28, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Just to correct the record here SmartSE and Jimfbleak. I just checked and the photo dimension SmartSE mentions as evidence (1500 * 2300) is entirely explained by a simple error: I indeed took the image from Amazon instead of the HarperCollins site (I probably got the website confused), if you look at the images available here, you'll see it has the exact 1500 * 2,300 resolution. https://www.amazon.co.uk/foolproof-why-we-fall-for-misinformation-and-how-to-build-immunity/dp/0008466718 - the bot already reduced the image quality for the article I see. So there's no "secret" image nobody has access to (I do apologize for the error) but as I said before, I was looking at multiple sources and I think most of this can be explained by innocent errors. You guys decide what you want but please leave my integrity out of it Booklover 2023 (talk)
@Booklover 2023: So now after stating twice that the image came from the publisher, you now say it came from Amazon, but that's still incorrect since the full sized image there has a height of 1500 not 2300 like the version you uploaded. SmartSE (talk) 08:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
SmartSE yes do apologize for the confusion, I think what happened is that the form asked me for the copyright so I thought it would be better to link to the publisher site (who retains the copyright) even though I used an image from Amazon (I think I got confused and didn't realize the images have different dimensions or whether that mattered). The Amazon image here has the exact 1500 * 2307 height I uploaded https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71SQUaAkSOL.jpg Booklover 2023 (talk) 10:08, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

COI: Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair and the company he chairs Mashreq (bank)

Hi,

I believe that these users have a COI with Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, two of them are obvious since they have Ghurair in their usernames.

User:Saad Hakim 182546458 "I am his officail Communication Manager. The changes I made was updating his bio"

User:Ghurairpublicist 263634834 "His Children are minors and would prefer to remain unnamed."

User:Salghurair Special:Contributions/Salghurair

User:Lebaneze - especially 1131286946, Mashreq (bank): 1136205238 Vyvagaba (talk) 14:18, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vyvagaba: While I believe that you are correct about the accounts Saad Hakim and Ghurairpublicist, there has been no activity from them for 15 and 14 years, respectively. These accounts are now stale, so sanctioning them now all these years later is rather pointless.
Lebaneze appears to be a single-purpose account, so they should explain their connection to these topics. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 21:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Karl Deeter

I suspect that 5.59.21.198 is the subject of the article, Karl Deeter. They have made a number of large edits to the article which are self-promotional (WP:PROMOTION) in nature. The IP editor has used the article to list off the highlights of the subject's CV (Resumé).

In "real life", the subject of the article is a mid-level Irish media personality whose main topic is finance. Because of the nature of their topic, I being it's unlikely a "fan" would be behind this. Additionally, the IP editor added details to the article about the subject's father which don't seem to appear in any online reliable secondary sources and are likely only really known to the subject of the article themselves.

I previously left a Template:uw-coi notice on their talk page, but they did not respond to it and continued to edit the article. They are also in the habit of using either no sources, or primary sources to state their claims, rather than reliable secondary sources, and this has been pointed out to them in the edit history section. CeltBrowne (talk) 09:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Zalaris

Continued promotional editing after multiple warnings, with editor unresponsive to questions about undisclosed paid editing (a google search shows a fairly clear connection). Melcous (talk) 13:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Reported to WP:AIV, blocked by JBW. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 21:35, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Editor user:Julie11094 has stated here: [20] that it our company, but even after two coi warning asking the editor to declare they are still editing and help to edit the article. scope_creepTalk 15:19, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

HiResolutionEdits and 6 Dogs

HiResolutionEdits (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

I came across this user via RCP. I noticed them just undoing a bunch of good faith edits without any warning. I left a disruption1 template. They then undid my revert with again, no explanation, and I left a disruption2 template. I then checked their talk page, and they said that they were friends with 6 Dog's producer [21], to which I suggested that they not edit the article due to COI. They then said "Yoshi, my friend Chase (6 Dogs) has passed and would not like Tommy Ice to be promoted on his wikipedia. I would like no more problems. Thank you." [22] To which they now say 6 Dogs is their friend. I then left a COI notice on their talk page, to which after their most recent reply, they have ignored it, and continued adding edits, most of which seem unsourced.

Apologies, as this is my first time here, I'm just not sure what to do. Any help is appreciated. Thank you. Ping me when replying, please. Yoshi24517 (Chat) (Very Busy) 23:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Yoshi24517, there is an invalid promotion of Tommy Ice on 6 Dog's wikipedia page. It is not pertinent to his career and violates promotion rules on wikipedia. If we continue to have problems: I will escalate. HiResolutionEdits (talk) 05:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
Yoshi24517 is claiming I have a conflict of interest with 6 Dog's for knowing someone affiliated with 6 Dogs. Instead, Yoshi24517 is promoting his client Tommy Ice-a non pertinent character in 6 Dog's career and wikipedia page-to artificially perpetuate and promote interest for Tommy Ice. HiResolutionEdits (talk) 05:36, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not affiliated to anybody. I highly recommend you strike out that statement. Your edits are also unsourced as well, as I've told you, you need reliable sources for your edits. Yoshi24517 (mobile) (talk) (Very Busy) 05:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Rekha Pande

This editor removed maintenance templates (Copy edit, External links, BLP sources and COI) from the article, as shown in this diff. On being warned, the editor wrote "that's aunt page and she didn't know how to remove this tags so she ask me to help" diff). The editor then removed the Copy edit template again and, following that, I placed a CoI notice on their Talk page. After the editor edited the article again, I followed up the CoI notice with a further note. Editor has since edited the article again. Tacyarg (talk) 22:36, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Umakcorpcomm

Corporate communication of University of Makati. Single purpose account making promotional edits. COI is obvious, undisclosed paid editing more than likely. Kleuske (talk) 09:19, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I've made a report to WP:UAA about the promo username. The edits don't look particularly promotional. Certainly the name is an indication of coi. scope_creepTalk 09:34, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
Softblocked by Cabayi. To their credit, they did disclose as a paid editor. Still, that doesn't ameliorate their apparent motives. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 00:39, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Telling on myself


My name is Erik Anderson. About three years ago, I was pretty invested in updating pages about memorials being changed in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. During that time I started a Change.org petition to rename the Andrew Jackson Post Office near where I live in San Diego. I did not expect it to work, but it made the news multiple times and earlier this month there was a ceremony to rename the post office after Susan Davis. I should have declared the COI then, obviously, but I did not and now it has begun to snowball. Please review. All of my edits have been well sourced and no one has ever objected to them. I'm not paid by anyone, but I did start the petition and my name is in several of the citations. I'd like to have two more articles about the ceremony added to the two pages listed above and at least two others: Rolando, San Diego and El Cajon Boulevard. I believe they are noteworthy, encyclopedic and add value to those pages. I don't want to create a controversy by declaring a COI in the talk page and then having someone object there be a conflict and come here, so I'm coming directly to the source. Me culpa. I'm sorry. What is the next step? Kire1975 (talk) 01:57, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Seeing no response here in over two days, I have submitted the relevant sources and declared the COI on the relevant talk pages. We'll see if anyone objects. Kire1975 (talk) 06:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Wallenberg family

MOVED
Resubmitted to WP:ANI. Jay D. Easy (t) 06:34, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not entirely sure if this constitutes a conflict of interest or if it's just the work a well-intentioned but misguided user. I do feel like there is an issue that needs to be addressed here, but if it's not COI, please point me in the right direction.

Ever since 16 December 2020 the article about the Wallenberg family has grown exponentially, to the point where it's now mostly a collection of MOS violations. Without going into too much detail, it's become an exhaustive collection of statistics, embedded lists, minutiae, overlinking, and images (including a gallery). Also: quotes. Lots of blockquotes. Something about its neutrality feels off. It's like an attempt to showcase as many of the family's accomplishments as possible.

Almost all of this seems to be the work of a single-purpose user who has had a free rein over a period of three-and-a-half years to bloat the article to its current size – using multiple user accounts as well as dozens of IPs. The accounts listed above have contributed most (the one at the top in particular), but there are more. The vast majority of their edits are to the aforementioned article. Other edits—few and far between—are still mostly within the Wallenberg sphere. To individual Wallenbergs' articles for example. Next to some of the usernames being obviously similar, there's an easily discernable pattern in editing style as well as behavior. None of them ever leave an edit summary, for example. I do want to clarify that apart from a handful of minor instances these user accounts never appear to have been used concurrently. Also: most of their edits appear to be properly sourced. Excessively sourced, even. Nearly all of the IP edits since late 2020 exhibit a similar pattern and it also seems like all of them can be geolocated to the same general region.

This user lashed out the moment I tagged the article by engaging in contentious edit warring by constantly removing the maintenance templates ([23], [24], [25], [26]), about which I repeatedly warned them on their user page. This they eventually responded to by calling me a fascist dictator, which, not being the issue at hand here, I can live with. This panicked response of theirs has got me thinking that perhaps I'm not too far off in sensing a conflict of interest, because the other maintenance tags they ignore (though keep removing) yet they hone in on the COI tag. Jay D. Easy (t) 21:47, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

The article certainly has serious issues. The lack of edit summaries and the aggressive response are problems, too. Whether or not it is COI or just enthusiasm is another question. Even if it is not COI there are still WP:NPOV issues, in particular WP:DUE. Regarding the many accounts you could request a WP:sockpuppet investigation. The template removal may warrant a trip to the WP:edit warring noticeboard. But given the sheer amount of issues I tend to recommend to take the whole thing to WP:ANI instead of going after each problem separately. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
I think you're right. How do I go about this? I'd like to prevent starting a seperate discussion regarding the same issue elsewhere. Am I allowed to delete this thread after I resubmit it to WP:ANI? Jay D. Easy (t) 03:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
The easiest thing would be to just copy it over then delete it here (but don't forget to notify the involved accounts of the move). Given that there has been no discussion of the issues so far I don't see a problem with doing it (if you want you can move the discussion on where to address it along with your post, but I don't think it is necessary). Alternatively, after copying it over, you could WP:close the discussion here instead of deleting it. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:46, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Patricia Goldman

Resolved
 – AfC reviewer has moved the article to mainspace. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 13:49, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm hoping to nominate for Recent deaths an article that I've just begun as a draft (going cautiously through AfC, as the subject was a relative of mine). She served on the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board in the 1980s; significant coverage of her career includes a profile in the Baltimore Sun and a bio/feature interview in the Los Angeles Times. I've of course disclosed my conflict of interest on the talk page. I'm hoping it's possible to get some eyes to review the draft (mostly for notability and NPOV) in a timely manner, to be able to nominate this at ITN/RD. Point no. 10 of WP:PLAINANDSIMPLECOI § Advice (though some other links there are outdated) suggests asking here. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 03:03, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 03:08, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Immanuel Ness

Immanuel Ness: I found an autobiography/paid job that need attention. Oluwatoniyi (talk) 15:04, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

XPO, Inc.

I dunno. Somebody else can take a crack at it. I can't countenance "profiling employees" as a euphemism for making employees miscarry at work. GMGtalk 19:58, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Prasiddha Acharya

Blocked indef by PhilKnight. Lavalizard101 (talk) 15:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The user keeps refspamming their website https://prasiddhaacharya.com.np/neb/www.prasiddhaacharya.com.np on this article a WP:UAA report was made as the name of the website is the same as the account but given its a real name was denied and told to go to COIN. Lavalizard101 (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Visakhapatnam Port

Hi there, the user Chakravarthy76 has been continually editing the article to add a lot of content that is very promotional in tone, e.g.

Integrated PCS – POS and PCS – ICEGATE for seamless fast track transaction platform - Full-fledged ERP system with e-payment module – under implementation - Implementation of E-Office system - Fully automated container terminal - Container Scanner to identify radioactive material - Gate automation through RFID is taken up for implementation - 24 × 7 Electronic Surveillance through CCTV cameras - Digitisation of office records.

The user has been warned multiple times on their user talk page about adding promotional content to the article, and I also dropped a uw-coi notice. However, the user has continued to restore the problematic promotional-sounding version of the article afterwards, and they haven't responded to the notices on their talk page (especially the one about COI). I do suspect COI, but I'm not fully sure here.

It does seem like a good-faith attempt to expand the "Modernisation" section of the article. Just a bit too overly-detailed and sounding like an advertisement in its current form. The information also looks like it's been copy-and-pasted from another source, but I haven't been able to find a source using google.

Perhaps could anyone give advice on what to do? This is quite a large amount of content to work through and clean up, remove excessive detail. — AP 499D25 (talk) 09:52, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I have added Gr.vizag to this discussion, given that user's persistence in trying to upload improperly licensed images to use as the logo of this entity. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:18, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Elvish Yadav

They can be seen editing these three articles and few other related articles, their edits are mainly around films and professionals in the film industry only. They have been seen edit warring on the same pages and have been canvasing other editors to take part in the deletion debates too. QueerEcofeminist🌈 03:44, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello sir/mam. I love writing or editing articles related to the film industry or people I admire.I don't know much about Wikipedia's rules. That's why I have debate or discussion with other editors. I want to give my 100% contribution to my favorite person or whoever I write articles for. The sources that I use in the articles are covered by the news websites from my side. But even then the editors find it wrong, that's why I have discussions or debates with them. Maybe you felt that I have some connection with all these articles. So you are wrong sir. I have tried to keep my point. I hope you have understood. Thank you –– 𝚅𝚁𝙹𝙱𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚑𝚞 01:55, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Teleperformance

The page is a mess, and it's getting even worse with a WP:SPA who is obviously closely connected to the company. Not sure how I came across it but again, it's a mess. tedder (talk) 16:33, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Raimo Olavi Toivonen

Just take a look at the article, the sources are a collection of Google Scholar search links and to the subject's own papers. It is simply not properly sourced, but seems to be done by someone intimately familiar with the subject's work. Also, check the user page of the linked user: he has 2 other accounts disclosed, BUT it appears they have all worked on the same articles to evade detection. Skyerise (talk) 13:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I noticed this user as they were deleting every reference to the Praat page from multiple articles (apparently competing software). Then I find these users they had created both Intelligent Speech Analyser and the article for its creator, Raimo Olavi Toivonen. When I found it, there was no description of the software, just a giant promotional list of academic papers it had been mentioned in.

They also seem to have spammed Commons as well to promote themself. [27] [28] Skyerise (talk) 13:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

And doing the same on Finnish, German, and Swedish Wikipedia. Skyerise (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

After looking into this further, I've also opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/R.o.t. All four users have been blocked as abusing multiple accounts on Wikimedia Commons. Skyerise (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

All four users have now been confirmed as abusing multiple accounts and have been blocked, so this report can be closed. Skyerise (talk) 18:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Paul James Houghton ‎and associated drafts

Looks to be a WP:SPA, editing on behalf of Mr. Houghton and his endeavors. This explanation doesn't help [29]. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 04:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

This is disappointing to read - clearly we will need to abandon Wikipedia for documenting facts. We feel the submitted contributions are unbiased and simply factual. We will not continue to work on submissions. Thank you - Ron RonaldCooper (talk) 04:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
In the exchange below, on RonaldCooper's Talk page, RC denies a paid or personal connection:
Hello David, thanks for the message. There is no conflict of interest and payment is not being received. The page is being formed to primarily build a presence and spread the word about the work Mr. Houghton is doing relative to suicide, bullying and cyber-bullying awareness in his films and work. All other information and facts are to highlight the person is a real living person. Thank you. Ronald RonaldCooper (talk) 14:19, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
"The page is being formed to primarily build a presence and spread the word about the work Mr. Houghton is doing..." This section suggests to me that you have a personal connection of some type with Houghton. Please be specific in clarifying. David notMD (talk) 03:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello David notMD. Thank you for the message. There is no personal connection. The contribution began with a serious interest in the anti-bullying film, the true story it is based on and then the source of the film. Which lead to the the filmmaker. Thank you - Ron RonaldCooper (talk) 04:16, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
RonaldCooper Even if true, I then recommend discontinuing the drafts about Dreamotion Studios and Paul Jame Houghton, and continueing only with the draft about the anti-bullying film. David notMD (talk) 13:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
After consulting with our advisers regarding the Wikipedia process, as we have now been flagged as a COI 'sock-puppet', this would make our overall journey more difficult. Continuing (spelled correctly) would be under scrutiny. We remain disappointed in the overall process here and will focus our energy, time and strategy for anti-bullying and our objectives elsewhere. Again, we contributed nothing but unbiased facts for good reason and to create a complete vision and connected composition of information, which were met by a negative and inaccurate perspective. The focus and efforts should be on whether or not the cited references support the facts rather than finding ways to negate the contributions. Especially when they are positive facts highlighting good. Thank you honestly for this important lesson regarding Wikipedia and how it ultimately works. We have taken this overall experience as a lesson-learned. Best - Ron Cooper. Not a sock puppet. RonaldCooper (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

My description above is moot, as it appears that all three drafts have been deleted by an Administrator at the request of RolandCooper. David notMD (talk) 13:24, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  • I believe each article contained the description "award winning"--not a sin for an inexperienced editor, but often a tip-off. If they were still active, it would be appropriate to ask who are the "we" they refer to above. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 15:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
    'Award-winning' was applied to accentuate the quality and importance of the suicide and anti-bullying/bullying awareness film at the center of the factual composition of information submitted, and to illustrate it had received significant merit and was worthy of informative attention. 'We' represent the suicide awareness and anti-bullying organization and messaging attempting to help those who are impacted by this growing trend. As you likely know via your volunteer work on Wikipedia, cyber-bullying is significantly on the rise and in a new chapter. It is clear after a swift review by our advisers, who visited the reference new links, the contributions were completely factual and supporting the overall objectives. Which was to create a complete vision and support the data for all the relevant facts, including those behind the film. Which would have continued on to highlight the producers, backers, foundation and so on. The story was in its infancy and being constructed. Again, we fault no-one here - it is a process and we have learned much during our short-lived experience with Wikipedia. Thank you - Ron. RonaldCooper (talk) 19:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

So I am employed by the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), but it's not my job to make wiki edits. It's not even in my job description. I have made updates throughout the past few years on ASA pages since I noticed them, but I just learned today that I guess I shouldn't have been doing that. I've added the paid employee notice to my profile and added the COI notice on the pages listed above. My main question is, do I need the paid employer notice even though I'm not paid to make edits specifically or is the COI notice sufficient? Relatedly, should my requests for edits now only be made through the talk pages? Is there anything else I'm missing? Thanks and sorry for my ignorance! Citizenofooo (talk) 16:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not the boss around here but it looks like you're doing all the right things.
--A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 17:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Citizenofooo In general, if a person is making edits related to their employment in any way, they should declare as a paid editor in order to be as open/transparent as possible about their conflict of interest. It is true that the letter of the paid editing policy is that an employee of an article subject need only be involved in marketing/publicity efforts- even if they were not specifically paid to edit- to have to declare, but we don't know what your employer instructs you to do or what your job is. (I'm not asking you to reveal that) I think this is a case where the spirit of a rule is more important than the letter of the rule. Technically, you don't need to declare, but I think it would be better if you did. 331dot (talk) 17:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. I don't think the spirit of our policies and practices is that every person employed in any capacity by an organization or individual should declare that they're a paid editor. Citizenofooo, I think that declaring a COI without saying that you're a paid editor is completely appropriate in the situation as you've described it. I think that being very cautious in making edits to those articles and related ones is very much advisable. If it were me - and this is what I do with respect to my own employer - I would avoid making any but the most clearly uncontroversial edits (e.g., simple updates to information already in the article, corrections of typos) to those articles with all others being requests and suggestions in Talk pages. ElKevbo (talk) 17:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that openness and transparency is a good thing. The thing is that we don't know what employers ask or don't ask their employees to do. 331dot (talk) 18:07, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for all discussion and feedback. I'll keep all the notifications on my profile as they are and moving forward, will only make uncontroversial edits as @ElKevbo suggested. Any thoughts about simply stating employment, but leaving out the clause about being paid to edit, ie; This user, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, discloses that they are employed by <employer name>. This might be inconsequential, but I suspect a lot of people would fall under this umbrella. Citizenofooo (talk) 19:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
That message is a template message that would be difficult to alter. You are welcome to state on your user page that you are employed by the subject of your edits and leave it at that, in order to be more accurate. That would just accurately describe the nature of your conflict of interest. 331dot (talk) 19:25, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

NATO School

IP resolves to mail.natoschool.nato.int; user(s) apparently editing article(s) related to the same institution, NATO School. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Are you talking about the edits by that IP to that article in 2017 and 2009? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
They did that, yes, but it was really the edit today [30] that popped up on my radar. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:29, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hunter Lovins

Some COI concerns were raised at User talk:SolaSands#July 2023 byDavid Gerard and the SolaSands was encouraged to try and use the article talk page to propose edits be made. This, however, doesn't seem to be what has been happening and quite a lot of unsourced promotional content (at least in my opinion) continues to be added to the article so that it's now starting to have a CV feel. Perhaps some others can take a look at things and see help figure out whether this is just a case of well-meaning editor just not too familiar with Wikipedia or whether there's a real COI here. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

blocked as walking and quacking like a UPE duck after warning - David Gerard (talk) 09:08, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Vermont Information Processing

IP 208.103.173.105 is registered to Vermont Information Processing and should not be editing the article directly.   –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Mayor Rial

As per https://www.dicksoncountytn.gov/mayor.html, this individual appears to be Dickson County's mayor & edited its respective page twice. MeilingHong (talk) 23:33, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

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