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This is an undisclosed paid editing case. A non-notable company is being promoted on Wikipedia. The article was accepted at AfC where the accepting reviewer doesn't seem to have noticed the Conflict of Interest. Now, considering the recent block due to concerns about OUTING I'm wondering how to go about it. Advice welcome. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 22:41, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
@ MSJapan: @ Widefox: @ Brianhe: @ Lemongirl942: I have a question about the COI tag. The behavior and edit history suggests that it is a throwaway sock account and appears to be a WP:DUCK COI/paid editing situation. I've only added COI tags when COI is disclosed. What is our practice in clear-cut, not denied, DUCK situations when COI is not disclosed? Coretheapple ( talk) 16:51, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Obvious username/article conflict. The user created the article, and their main user page is about the campground as well. The article is sourced, but still seems questionable as promotional. ‖ Ebyabe talk - Inspector General ‖ 18:13, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
This article has previously been edited by an individual who identifies as the wife of the subject ( User:Annevalentino). It has recently come under an increasing amount of attention from the individuals named above which while not leading to egregious spam seem to have introduced some questionable practices, including altering quotes so that they were no longer accurate. (I fixed two today: [1] - which required a bit further clarification, and [2]). An IP from New York also removed critical content from the article ( [3]) as "irrelevant." (I believe the source in that case is usable for reasons I explain at Talk:George Ranalli#Leave.)
The reason why I strongly suspect COI here - beyond fluffing up the article with positive language and altering quotes so that they seem more strongly positive of the subject than they are (they aren't at all bad as they are) and beyond seeming to attempt to restore the article more to the condition it was in after the subject's wife greatly expanded it is that an individual identifying as the subject uploaded images to Commons on July 10th. Less than an hour after somebody claiming to be Renalli uploaded a portrait of Renalli, Ddperks added it to the article. At 23:58, Ddperks added three more images - all of which had just been uploaded by the person claiming to be Renalli, one only 8 minutes prior.
At this writing, all of Gurulupina's edits are to this article or to articles that seem related. Ddperks, who has been here a few months longer, has more diversity but does focus heavily on a few favorite areas. I note that the top # of edits are to the article on Lisa Staiano-Coico - whose connection to Ranalli is attested here. Another major article of interest is Gregory H. Williams, the predecessor of Staiano-Coico. And Yolanda T. Moses - another predecessor of Staiano-Coico.
I don't have time to keep an eye on this one, but the history and the types of alterations do lead me to some concern that we have connected and possibly even undisclosed paid editing going on here. :/ I bring it here in case any of you have time to look into it more closely, for instance to make sure that new content is neutral and that other material hasn't been altered to be incorrect. This article has previously been through BLPN and ANI, which has led to it being examined by several people, including User:Justlettersandnumbers and User:Drmies.
I will, of course, notify the contributors. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:53, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Per comments that came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erika Tazawa: some undisclosed COI seems to be going around here, would like to see that sorted ASAP, while it may influence the results of the AfD. Francis Schonken ( talk) 13:13, 20 July 2016 (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.
5.120.252.218 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is repeatedly adding links to an unreviewed abstract to the article Navier-Stokes equations. Also, abusing multiple accounts: 5.120.209.8 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
SPA has created an article that consists almost entirely of a list of non-notable projects undertaken by this company and a list of awards, almost all unsourced. I tried to fix it but got reverted. Other than that I have no direct evidence of COI. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 02:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
The editor is also working on what is looking like a much better version in his sandbox. I think we can close this out. MSJapan ( talk) 18:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Editor User:Skyring who says he is a member of the School of Economic Science has been restoring material on that page which two other editors User:Roberthall7 and User:Fiddlersmouth argue is primarily promotional. The same editor is removing criticism. Accusations and counter accusations are being made. The following timeline may be helpful:
As a member of the School of Economic Science, User:Skyring an external relationship and therefore a conflict of interest. He self-assessed it was not necessary to declare it when he began to edit. The apparent COI lead to the discovery of the membership. The matter has been discussed on the talk page, but has lead to counter-accusations and disruptive editing.
User:Skyring claims that his COI is as weak as "scout leaders hav[ing] an input into the Boy Scouts material, servicemen writ[ing] on military topics" [22], however according to the website of the organisation, members are selected by the Board of Trustees who "progressed satisfactorily in the courses of instruction offered by the School, who have implemented them in practice, and who have acted in furtherance of the goals and activities of the School. There are presently 74 Members in the School." These members elect the Board of Trustees [23]. The comparison to scouting is misleading.
The editor's identity is not mentioned in any way on the school website and is not disclosed though this posting to the COI noticeboard. Editors mentioned above have been informed on their talk page.
The failure to declare COI; the apparent COI; the misleading description of the extent of COI; the accusations against other editors; the edit warring; the presence and defence of alleged promotional material in the edit history, and the inability to resolve differences in the talk pages, all form part of the basis for bringing this matter to the attention of this board. Travelmite ( talk) 19:59, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
No person has written that Pete/Skyring is a member of the New York Branch. The matter of taking information from New York Branch, or the Canberra branch is not relevant. The website provides information about the constitution of the organisation, the number, method of selection and duties of members in a branch organisation. Information about the Canberra branch may be found here [26], but has no details about membership. Furthermore, this notice has nothing to do with the the school itself. The most highly reputable organisations will respect the CoI requirements. Although Pete/Skyring says his interest in the school is limited, a strong apparent CoI (see policy page for definition) led to the discussion where Pete/Skyring said that he was a member. He also now says that he is "just a student". Pete/Skyring says that he holds no office or financial interest, however the test is whether the duty to the organisation is overriding the duty to Wikipedia. We should note that this is not a content dispute, but there are accusations, edit-warring and disruption over several years. Travelmite ( talk) 14:19, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
A point about confusing terminology and jargon. In the same way that it is more accurate to describe the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a university rather than an institute, and the United Kingdom as a democracy rather than a kingdom, it is more accurate to describe the School of Economic Science (a.k.a. The School of Philosophy a.k.a. The School of Practical Philosophy) as an 'organization' rather than a 'school'. Aside from a 'school' it has also been referred by sources as a 'church', a 'cult' and a 'new religious movement'; consensus on our article page has found that organization is the most non-pejorative, accurate and universally acceptable term. We should use it here. To differentiate, bare in mind that the generally understood institution of a school normally has a formal graduation procedure and provides qualifications and encourages attendees to eventually leave: apparently this organization does not, and one can be a member of it for life. By extension, the use of 'tutor' and 'student' here is also misleading. They are all participants in the organization, commonly referred to as 'members'. There may be a higher echelon of 'registered members', which I have not read about, and there is a highest echelon around the 'leader' (not a chancellor as in a university or headteacher as in a school). Members of the organization can be both tutors and students at the same time, depending on whether they are leading a meeting or attending a meeting, respectively. If you're member of one branch, you're a member of the worldwide organization, as our article says - the different territorial branch titles are misleading, but the organization itself states on its website that they are all part of the same organization. All this also helps to differentiate from the organization's primary and secondary schools for children, which are schools in the conventional sense of the word - with graduation, formal qualifications and departure. This is all in the sources we've used on the article, if one has the time or interest to look them up. I hope that helps. - Roberthall7 ( talk) 18:31, 14 July 2016 (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.
User NNicholaou created the article Nick B. Nicholaou, he has admitted to being the same person. In addition he has admitted that he is canvassing off wiki for help with editing with these two edits [ [32]] [ [33]]. He has been told about COI policies and continues to edit his own page. VViking Talk Edits 20:37, 19 July 2016 (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.
This prolific farm, discovered today are not only the same person but clearly a paid shill, usual MO—fully formed articles (mostly for start-ups and products) with multiple perfectly formatted "references", infobox, logo, image, etc. as the first edit. Below are the articles they have created which all need to be checked. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it myself:
Voceditenore ( talk) 16:56, 20 July 2016 (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.
Article could use some work to comply with wp standards. Maybe w/o bashing the COI editor over there and be nice for a change? Just a thought :) --TMCk ( talk) 19:04, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I am a freelance science writer. I was hired to write a Wikipedia page about solid acid fuel cells by a company that produces solid acid fuel cells. While I am not writing directly about the company, I want to make sure that this potential conflict of interest is as transparent as possible.
I would like to add a section to this page: /info/en/?search=Fuel_cell#Types_of_fuel_cells.3B_design as well as create a separate page explaining what solid acid fuel cells are.
Should I post what I have written (including all references, which are mostly published journal articles) ? Ldajose ( talk) 20:02, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Wouldn't the first step here be to make the required full disclosure? - Wikipedia:Paid-contribution_disclosure. That policy says: "Users must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contribution to Wikipedia." There isn't a way to know if the article uses an neutral point of view without having the information that is required by that policy. LaMona ( talk) 00:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
Has disclosed paid edits to the Daniel Amen article (and from their contribution history has likely made many other paid contributions) but claims they cannot make a declaration per WP:PAID beyond stating their employer is "Rachel Grand". Would appreciate it if somebody better versed in this area could look at this. Alexbrn ( talk) 01:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
More eyes on this would be welcome. It appears to be a methodology promoted by a single organization. The article has structural problems: 1) sections titled "The FAIR Book" etc. 2) three of four references are to the same org 3) excessive list of see-alsos 4) SPA editor contributions are of concern. - Brianhe ( talk) 23:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Would anyone care to take a look? IP editor has asked for a review of my possible conflict of interest (which of course I don't have). I'm travelling, no time to respond in detail. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 06:53, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
SravaniChalla is an undeclared shill. Creating promotional articles for non notable entities. duffbeerforme ( talk) 10:32, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
An old stale one. Jb3141 is a single purpose account dedicated to promoting Pell Research. Outside of creatin that article all contributions are to refspam Pell's research. duffbeerforme ( talk) 12:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Morrow, or someone connected with his campaign or office, appears to be editing his Wikipedia article. FiredanceThroughTheNight ( talk) 01:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
From the name, this user works for Ubiquiti: http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jamie-Higley/2058314275
They have only edited Ubiquiti-related articles, and have blanked the "Security" section, presumably because it contains negative information about the company. Orthogonal1 ( talk) 10:13, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Editor Special:Contributions/Anthropocene2015 appears to be the main contributor on the above article about a gallery. The editor is also editing the articles listed in the section of the artists:
Exhibited artists include: [1]
References
Some of them may be genuinely notable, but some appear to be not notable. I'm concerned about the appearance of link spam or potential promotional nature of this editing. The editor started editing soon after the account affiliated with the gallery was blocked due to its promotional nature; pls see User_talk:Meessen_De_Clercq#July_2016.
The editor has been notified here. K.e.coffman ( talk) 18:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to make of this. I have had a few run ins with this topic and I am unable to figure out the notability. Certain edits like this make me wonder if this is some kind of promotional campaign. Would appreciate others who can have a look. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 07:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Macular telangiectasia ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
@ Ozzie10aaaa: This looks like a content dispute, and the editor has stopped editing. What exactly is the conflict of interest here? Simply the addition of the clinical trial link? I've copyedited the article, so some of the material may have been removed as a matter of course. MSJapan ( talk) 06:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 10:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
User focus is articles on Barracuda products (there's another in User:Sorisen/sandbox) and uploaded a file to Commons as explicitly licensed to the creators of the product. The live article has been nommed for CSD, but the sandbox article clearly shows it's a larger problem. MSJapan ( talk) 06:58, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Reverting the close - SharkSSL is still active, and I have discovered that User:Sorisen left a barnstar for User:Wilfrednilsen, another editor who was apparently pretty much associated with Real Time Logic through his edits and hadn't edited in almost a year at the point where the barnstar was placed. So how did Wilfrednilsen "review the article", and how did Sorisen know who he was?An explanation is required, and if an explanation is not forthcoming, I will be requesting that the user be banned for clear sockpuppetry. MSJapan ( talk) 01:41, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
There is a paid editor that has been promoting UC Berkeley since 2012. This seems like a major conflict of interest. Mikeditka231 ( talk) 07:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
The wikipedia article itself is not neutral in tone. What should be done about this? He seems like a well intentioned user. The article overall reads like a UC Berkeley promotion.
"Hired by UCB Public Affairs!
Hey all!
I'm checking in to say that I have been hired by the UC Berkeley Office of Public Affairs as an independent contractor to work on the UCB Wikipedia article. Story of how this happens follows. Skip to next paragraph if more interested in the ethics of paid editorship. While doing the above edits I found my underemployed self thinking "hah! They should HIRE me to do this!" Then I thought "well, maybe they COULD hire me to do this". Long story short, a job proposal and interview later the PA Office hired me to do a little editing. I'm doing an initial 10 hours as they test me out and see how many hours they should allot me. I had an ethical crisis while considering pursuing a job proposal, and decided it would be wise to consult a couple friends of mine who are regular editors and who have volunteered with Wikimedia outside of their editing. A recommendation I heard from all, and which I am taking in writing this talk item to y'all, is to be transparent with you about my position as a contractor for UCB and with my intentions. I want you to know that while my edits on this page will now be edits I do as a contractor, my heart lies with the free knowledge movement, and my intention is not to promote UC Berkeley from a marketing standpoint, but to promote the expansion of knowledge on the university. Also, for your information, I am editing from my regular (and only) account, which I've had since 2010. This all said, if you find any biases in my editing that favor the university, or information that requires an expert verification, please point these out to me. My first edit will be an expansion of information on student financial aid and scholarships. Most of my information will come from information found through the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, and the UC Controller's Office. I appreciate any constructive criticism and any knowledge resources you think would help me to create a non-biased view and a rich and full article. I am not an expert in these issues, and would warmly appreciate the contribution of editors who are.
Thanks! Please follow me and my edits! Eekiv (talk) 01:18, 11 April 2012 (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.
It is difficult to keep track of all this. User:Majesticfish is being paid by User:Vipul to create articles [46]. The articles edited by User:Majesticfish so far are (the U.S. Tax Forms) Form 1120 [47], which this person created as has been editing [48] and Form 1040 [49], [50], [51].
I wish to point out the above link within this blurb about this editior's link to the description of this person's self-disclosed Wikipedia sponsored editing, which is located at an off Wiki site - for clarity I will place it here [52]. The page discusses detailed paid editing and analysis of its impact via page views:"For more on my Wikipedia editing, see my site page about Wikipedia, my site page about sponsored Wikipedia editing, and the list of all pages I have created, with pageviews across the years".
I am quoting a small blurb here:
There is more on this page that should be read. This also continues into 2016..."In April 2015, as part of an Experimental Content Creation Grant (ECCG) to (a person), I included reimbursement for Wikipedia page creation. The scheme was as follows: for the period from April 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, I’d pay (a person):
$1 for every 1000 pageviews of pages he had created before 2015. $1 for every 500 pageviews of pages he created in 2015. If the pages he created were specific ones that I had requested him to create or approved the creation of, and the page as created by him met my standard for quality and completeness, then I’d add a one-time payment for each such page. The one-time payment would be determined per page, but the standard would be $25.
(There is some fine print that caps the total amount I need to pay (a person), but that’s not relevant here since Wikipedia pageviews don’t contribute enough to the overall ECCG to trigger that fine print). (A person) is User:Simfish on Wikipedia. You can also access his contribution history" (link provided on off wiki web page).
There is more under "2016" that should be read. Personally, I am taken aback....I renewed my content creation grant for 2016 with (a person), with some changes to the rules surrounding payments. I would pay (a person):
$1 for every 2000 pageviews of pages he had created before 2015, or $0.50 per 1000 pageviews. $1 for every 800 pageviews of pages he created in 2015, or $1.25 per 1000 pageviews. $1 for every 500 pageviews of pages he created in 2016, or $2 per 1000 pageviews.
My goal was that, while (a person) could still make money of pageviews of pages he created of his own accord, the focus of his work should shift more in the direction of creating pages I wanted him to create, with a fixed pay from me..."
However, all this may pale in significance to the page linked from the above quoted page [53]. This page outlines the whole of User Vipul's paid editing operation for (or aimed at) Wikipedia: List of contributors, Money spent this month, Impact (of efforts I suppose) based on Page veiws and anecdotal evidence. The section on "Total Money Spent This Month" is particularly amazing. (Someone else) is a recruiter (recruits paid editors for Wikipedia, apparently from high schools and colleges). (A person), mentioned in the first sentence in "2015" is the paymaster. And most of the others do "piece work".
Sorry for the wall of text - in this instance I felt it was needed for clarity. Hopefully this is so. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 04:27, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
The George Ranalli article has a new editor, who, on their first day of editing, undid about 12K worth of deletions by several regular editors. [56] No edits to any other articles. Usual COI warnings given. John Nagle ( talk) 05:52, 31 July 2016 (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 need more eyes on this. The article is about a non-notable author and there seems to be some sort of offline canvassing going on (possibly paid jobs for !voting). SPAs have constantly used this article for promoting the subject and are now swarming on the second AfD. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 06:34, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
So in the interest of full disclosure, I do occasional work on Fiverr to help people with Wikipedia, trying to help them create content that's withing Wikipedia guidelines. So as part of that work I some times get asked to do something that I have to turn down as it's not within guidelines. This is why I am here, in regards to article Frederick Achom and edits done by Awais Azad - The wording of a lot of the edits on the article and talk page of the article are so similar or identical to the request I received that it cannot be a coincidence - so either Awais Azad is paid for it, or they are the same person who approached me on Fiverr - Note: I will not divulge the Fiverr user name to avoid any issues in that regard. So listed below are various edits I was asked to make and then the diffs showing Awais Azad's edits to illustrate the overlap. I have not seen a declaration of COI from the user, I have also notified them that I am aware of the nature of the edits - user still made more edits afterwards to the Achom article without disclosing anything.
So I will present my case and leave it in your hands to decide, I make no judgement on anyone else involved in this, I just cannot sit by when I suspect undisclosed paid editing
I studied the whole case, and I found that the heading of the section about the fraud scam was not right and some of the editors were trying to intermix intentionally or unintentionally. So I corrected the information after studying the references. Then I made more changes to add information about His childhood and business, it was all because of principles to spread right information. Now I am being blamed to make those edits and I am watching the page is being under attack by editors to make it biased and use it against Mr. Achom. I believe being Wikipedian we should be very careful in addition of wrong information as it can cost a lot to someone. It can destroy careers and lives. So we should stick to our policies of being neutral not biased or payed. Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. Awais Azad ( talk) 08:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Hi Awais Azad. Before commenting on the content issues, I would like to clarify the COI and paid editing issue. Paid editing is not forbidden on Wikipedia, but editors need to comply with our Terms of use and provide a Paid-contribution disclosure. The first step is a disclosure notice. As a step forward, would you please disclose if you have been paid to edit any article? -- Lemongirl942 ( talk) 13:01, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Greetings! First of all, at first level I am really really thankful to you, because I was not aware of all these conflicts that you brought to my notice. I confess what I have done wrong. I was asked on fiverr to make some specific changes, about the Legal issues of Mr. Fredrick Achom, I was not aware of the conflict at that time and I took the project just for 40$, I had to change the heading and some data in that category. I researched, and found that my client has some legitimate claims, so I made the edit. But later, I got interested in the page, as it is my nature I get interested in things I do, (like you can see my contributions, I have made edits to a single article many times to make it better) and I was not even paid for that. I added the information after studying the references. It was just because of my curious nature, I was not paid a single penny after the first change. But I was not aware of the severity of controversial case. Second I also accept that, I have voted to keep the RJ Tolson page, because I was paid 5$ and I did it after studying the case, I thought he is a renowned personality so there is no harm to vote to keep, and I gave my point of view on that. These are two edits I was paid for, I was not paid before and not after these two. But You can see my contributions and you would know that I love Wikipedia as it has been my source of knowledge and I love to spread knowledge. I apologies for my immature behavior, as I was not aware of such policies and conflicts, I request you to forgive my mistakes. I was trying to make some living out of my skills but I think I still have to learn many things, So I request to forgive these mistake because I love Wikipedia and I love knowledge and spread of Knowledge and I think I would be a valuable contribution to Wikipedia? and I promise I would never ever do anything like that again.So be kind and ignore my these two mistake you would never see such immature behavior from me again. Awais Azad ( talk) 08:42, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
This article has a clouded history as having been created by now-indeffed sockmaster Reuvengrish and visited by at least one of his socks. I did some cleanup of most obvious WP:PROMO in June 2015 starting with this, but left it as more or less hopeless yet not worth more attention. - Brianhe ( talk) 00:08, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I am in an edit war with the subject of this article who is using different ips who insists on adding unrefenced material, I've explained coi and warned him but he takes no notice.Thanks Atlantic306 ( talk) 02:42, 2 August 2016 (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.
this user has been creating an article about himself again and again and every time he uses a slightly different name like RBK Sharad, rbksharad, Rbksharad, RBKsharad, RBKSharad etc. He has been warned and the page been deleted at least 5times as per his talk page. The page is currently also existing under some heading. I'll clarify in a minute. Someone ought to block him. I am gonna seek salting also as suggested by Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. Thanks. Varun FEB2003 I am Online 13:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
User appears to be a corporate account, possibly shared by multiple employees. User has only edited their organization page. Multiple warnings have been given; all were ignored. The edits they have made are not necessarily bad (I haven't checked), but an independent editor would need to make these changes, not an employee of the organization itself. Username has also been reported to Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention. — Eric Herboso 03:45, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
User has self-identified in his edits ( [57] & [58]) as being the representative of Fred Lynn and is actively changing his page. When I reverted his changes, he left multiple messages on my talk page ( [59] & [60]). Even stating that if needed he would sign up for multiple accounts to make sure his edits stuck. -- Zackmann08 ( Talk to me/ What I been doing) 17:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
A number of articles with suspected undisclosed paid editing by creator. Creator said he has done "a few" articles for hire [61] but (so far) has declined to specify which and he/she does not appear to be in compliance with ToS disclosure at all. Brianhe ( talk) 00:03, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
SPA on the above articles, was blocked for socking in 2014 regarding the Deccan article, and has suddenly shown up (after two years with no editing) to SPA on a company in New Jersey that was already CSDed once. Editor is clearly from India, where we have been having extensive paid article and sock issues. MSJapan ( talk) 19:19, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
A Google search shows that a person named "Andrew Luckie" works for Isobar. User:AndrewLuckie is an WP:SPA keen to add empty marketing speak to the Isobar article, such as how the company "drives digital transformation" and can "transform businesses and brands by creatively solving clients’ business challenges in the digital age". They've ignored two talk page warnings to follow WP:COI and are continuing to edit the article directly. McGeddon ( talk) 17:13, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
This article had a number of COI/SPA editors majorly contribute to it by the time I first discovered it. My main actions were to remove the overly promotional stance and neutralise it a little. I also added BLP sources tag, CN tags and COI. Following that, an interested and determined new editor Rampage45 showed up to the party. They haven't been particularly interested in any other part of the wiki project, but have taken genuine interest in this article. ( 62 edits, all on this article or its talk page, their talk page, and 3 on educational institutions linked to subject making edits regarding the subject) Since I first started editing/watching this article, I have added COI tags 5 times and each time they've been removed by this person. I have posted on article talk page and user's talk page to check COI policy, to not remove tags without justification. Reviewing my comments, I may have not specifically stated that removal should be a consensus including arm's length editors, but I think this was implied. Anyway, this issue is going round in ever decreasing circles. I do not believe this user should be editing this article at all because to me there is a clear COI issue, and I don't think they're going to be very co-operative with anything they disagree with (such as COI tags) Rayman60 ( talk) 16:00, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
So not sure how to go about this, but I figured if this is not the place someone can tell me. I was hired by Julius Dein to address some problems in the article on him - it made false claims and had an overly negative representation of what were people's opinions. I stepped in, brought the article in line with guidelines but made sure I did not just clean out anything negative if it was supported by reliable sources. And yes I declared my paid status etc. Well he kept insisting I take out the last bit of negative information, I explained it to him 2-3 times but kept insisting as it was "hurting his reputation". At that point I gave him a refund on the gig and decided to separate myself from this as he was asking for something that was not NPOV in my mind. Considering how insistent he was over this having to go I would not be surprised if he hired someone else to remove the negative comments under the "Reception" section. So I guess this is a potential Conflict of Interest - especially if he hires someone who does not declare it. Not sure what to do, is there perhaps someone who could watch the page or something? MPJ -DK 02:25, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
This editor has been very active on this article. SPA. I wasn't a fan of its content so I edited it to make it more suitable. My efforts are constantly resisted. The name indicates a link to subject and when I highlighted this, this statement was posted on an edit summary I'm Management for STREETRUNNER and I personally update STREETRUNNER's wikipedia page. I have reached out on their talk page with links to the COI policy. I then went to great lengths to advise how to proceed, including requesting not to revery my edits as per 3RR. Within a matter of minutes (100 to be precise), this was ignored and overruled with no valid explanation. Rayman60 ( talk) 19:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Motion for block of Srthetruth: as the editor appears to be here only to promote StreetRunner. Toddst1 ( talk) 20:15, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
What can we share and how? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
The above are a few of the recent draft articles that were accepted by Zpeopleheart, and generally I find them to be lacking. I have done some editing on the Ashante P.T. Stokes article, but the actions of the editor, User:Hamilton ford (see User talk:Hamilton ford) could be interpreted as indicating COI, and a COI notice was given but never answered. I suspect that Zpeopleheart has left behind a long tail of articles needing attention. I hope it isn't a breach of etiquette for me to bring them here - I didn't know of a better forum. LaMona ( talk) 16:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The vast majority of this user's surviving edits are to Christopher Holcroft, which was recently been deleted via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher Holcroft as non-notable, but has been userfied at User:7Lawrence/Christopher Holcroft. The only purpose of this page appears to be promotional. The user has also previous created articles and drafts about Holcroft's individual self-published books (see their talk page). The user signs their edits "Christopher". Previous requests to declare their COI have been ignored. Cordless Larry ( talk) 22:14, 10 August 2016 (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.
Following some early spam edits promoting his own book, editor has been a WP:SPA on this article he created, on which they have a COI (let me know who I should email evidence to.) Editor has been been using promotional info referenced to subject's and subject's companies' websites, and has been inserting into the intro and elsewhere subject's recent, unnotable self-published book with an Amazon sales link as reference. Following being COI templated on his talk page, user continued to reinsert the book into the page, and to reinsert boastful claims sourced to subject's companies. Editor has never involved himself on the article Talk page, despite my having started multiple (intended) conversations over several years. Nat Gertler ( talk) 05:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
My impression is that Michael has been taking great care to follow the rules, but given the appearance of identical last names, the COI question needs to be addressed. —jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 08:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
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This is an undisclosed paid editing case. A non-notable company is being promoted on Wikipedia. The article was accepted at AfC where the accepting reviewer doesn't seem to have noticed the Conflict of Interest. Now, considering the recent block due to concerns about OUTING I'm wondering how to go about it. Advice welcome. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 22:41, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
@ MSJapan: @ Widefox: @ Brianhe: @ Lemongirl942: I have a question about the COI tag. The behavior and edit history suggests that it is a throwaway sock account and appears to be a WP:DUCK COI/paid editing situation. I've only added COI tags when COI is disclosed. What is our practice in clear-cut, not denied, DUCK situations when COI is not disclosed? Coretheapple ( talk) 16:51, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Obvious username/article conflict. The user created the article, and their main user page is about the campground as well. The article is sourced, but still seems questionable as promotional. ‖ Ebyabe talk - Inspector General ‖ 18:13, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
This article has previously been edited by an individual who identifies as the wife of the subject ( User:Annevalentino). It has recently come under an increasing amount of attention from the individuals named above which while not leading to egregious spam seem to have introduced some questionable practices, including altering quotes so that they were no longer accurate. (I fixed two today: [1] - which required a bit further clarification, and [2]). An IP from New York also removed critical content from the article ( [3]) as "irrelevant." (I believe the source in that case is usable for reasons I explain at Talk:George Ranalli#Leave.)
The reason why I strongly suspect COI here - beyond fluffing up the article with positive language and altering quotes so that they seem more strongly positive of the subject than they are (they aren't at all bad as they are) and beyond seeming to attempt to restore the article more to the condition it was in after the subject's wife greatly expanded it is that an individual identifying as the subject uploaded images to Commons on July 10th. Less than an hour after somebody claiming to be Renalli uploaded a portrait of Renalli, Ddperks added it to the article. At 23:58, Ddperks added three more images - all of which had just been uploaded by the person claiming to be Renalli, one only 8 minutes prior.
At this writing, all of Gurulupina's edits are to this article or to articles that seem related. Ddperks, who has been here a few months longer, has more diversity but does focus heavily on a few favorite areas. I note that the top # of edits are to the article on Lisa Staiano-Coico - whose connection to Ranalli is attested here. Another major article of interest is Gregory H. Williams, the predecessor of Staiano-Coico. And Yolanda T. Moses - another predecessor of Staiano-Coico.
I don't have time to keep an eye on this one, but the history and the types of alterations do lead me to some concern that we have connected and possibly even undisclosed paid editing going on here. :/ I bring it here in case any of you have time to look into it more closely, for instance to make sure that new content is neutral and that other material hasn't been altered to be incorrect. This article has previously been through BLPN and ANI, which has led to it being examined by several people, including User:Justlettersandnumbers and User:Drmies.
I will, of course, notify the contributors. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:53, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Per comments that came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erika Tazawa: some undisclosed COI seems to be going around here, would like to see that sorted ASAP, while it may influence the results of the AfD. Francis Schonken ( talk) 13:13, 20 July 2016 (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.
5.120.252.218 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is repeatedly adding links to an unreviewed abstract to the article Navier-Stokes equations. Also, abusing multiple accounts: 5.120.209.8 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
SPA has created an article that consists almost entirely of a list of non-notable projects undertaken by this company and a list of awards, almost all unsourced. I tried to fix it but got reverted. Other than that I have no direct evidence of COI. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 02:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
The editor is also working on what is looking like a much better version in his sandbox. I think we can close this out. MSJapan ( talk) 18:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Editor User:Skyring who says he is a member of the School of Economic Science has been restoring material on that page which two other editors User:Roberthall7 and User:Fiddlersmouth argue is primarily promotional. The same editor is removing criticism. Accusations and counter accusations are being made. The following timeline may be helpful:
As a member of the School of Economic Science, User:Skyring an external relationship and therefore a conflict of interest. He self-assessed it was not necessary to declare it when he began to edit. The apparent COI lead to the discovery of the membership. The matter has been discussed on the talk page, but has lead to counter-accusations and disruptive editing.
User:Skyring claims that his COI is as weak as "scout leaders hav[ing] an input into the Boy Scouts material, servicemen writ[ing] on military topics" [22], however according to the website of the organisation, members are selected by the Board of Trustees who "progressed satisfactorily in the courses of instruction offered by the School, who have implemented them in practice, and who have acted in furtherance of the goals and activities of the School. There are presently 74 Members in the School." These members elect the Board of Trustees [23]. The comparison to scouting is misleading.
The editor's identity is not mentioned in any way on the school website and is not disclosed though this posting to the COI noticeboard. Editors mentioned above have been informed on their talk page.
The failure to declare COI; the apparent COI; the misleading description of the extent of COI; the accusations against other editors; the edit warring; the presence and defence of alleged promotional material in the edit history, and the inability to resolve differences in the talk pages, all form part of the basis for bringing this matter to the attention of this board. Travelmite ( talk) 19:59, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
No person has written that Pete/Skyring is a member of the New York Branch. The matter of taking information from New York Branch, or the Canberra branch is not relevant. The website provides information about the constitution of the organisation, the number, method of selection and duties of members in a branch organisation. Information about the Canberra branch may be found here [26], but has no details about membership. Furthermore, this notice has nothing to do with the the school itself. The most highly reputable organisations will respect the CoI requirements. Although Pete/Skyring says his interest in the school is limited, a strong apparent CoI (see policy page for definition) led to the discussion where Pete/Skyring said that he was a member. He also now says that he is "just a student". Pete/Skyring says that he holds no office or financial interest, however the test is whether the duty to the organisation is overriding the duty to Wikipedia. We should note that this is not a content dispute, but there are accusations, edit-warring and disruption over several years. Travelmite ( talk) 14:19, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
A point about confusing terminology and jargon. In the same way that it is more accurate to describe the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a university rather than an institute, and the United Kingdom as a democracy rather than a kingdom, it is more accurate to describe the School of Economic Science (a.k.a. The School of Philosophy a.k.a. The School of Practical Philosophy) as an 'organization' rather than a 'school'. Aside from a 'school' it has also been referred by sources as a 'church', a 'cult' and a 'new religious movement'; consensus on our article page has found that organization is the most non-pejorative, accurate and universally acceptable term. We should use it here. To differentiate, bare in mind that the generally understood institution of a school normally has a formal graduation procedure and provides qualifications and encourages attendees to eventually leave: apparently this organization does not, and one can be a member of it for life. By extension, the use of 'tutor' and 'student' here is also misleading. They are all participants in the organization, commonly referred to as 'members'. There may be a higher echelon of 'registered members', which I have not read about, and there is a highest echelon around the 'leader' (not a chancellor as in a university or headteacher as in a school). Members of the organization can be both tutors and students at the same time, depending on whether they are leading a meeting or attending a meeting, respectively. If you're member of one branch, you're a member of the worldwide organization, as our article says - the different territorial branch titles are misleading, but the organization itself states on its website that they are all part of the same organization. All this also helps to differentiate from the organization's primary and secondary schools for children, which are schools in the conventional sense of the word - with graduation, formal qualifications and departure. This is all in the sources we've used on the article, if one has the time or interest to look them up. I hope that helps. - Roberthall7 ( talk) 18:31, 14 July 2016 (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.
User NNicholaou created the article Nick B. Nicholaou, he has admitted to being the same person. In addition he has admitted that he is canvassing off wiki for help with editing with these two edits [ [32]] [ [33]]. He has been told about COI policies and continues to edit his own page. VViking Talk Edits 20:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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This prolific farm, discovered today are not only the same person but clearly a paid shill, usual MO—fully formed articles (mostly for start-ups and products) with multiple perfectly formatted "references", infobox, logo, image, etc. as the first edit. Below are the articles they have created which all need to be checked. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it myself:
Voceditenore ( talk) 16:56, 20 July 2016 (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.
Article could use some work to comply with wp standards. Maybe w/o bashing the COI editor over there and be nice for a change? Just a thought :) --TMCk ( talk) 19:04, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I am a freelance science writer. I was hired to write a Wikipedia page about solid acid fuel cells by a company that produces solid acid fuel cells. While I am not writing directly about the company, I want to make sure that this potential conflict of interest is as transparent as possible.
I would like to add a section to this page: /info/en/?search=Fuel_cell#Types_of_fuel_cells.3B_design as well as create a separate page explaining what solid acid fuel cells are.
Should I post what I have written (including all references, which are mostly published journal articles) ? Ldajose ( talk) 20:02, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Wouldn't the first step here be to make the required full disclosure? - Wikipedia:Paid-contribution_disclosure. That policy says: "Users must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contribution to Wikipedia." There isn't a way to know if the article uses an neutral point of view without having the information that is required by that policy. LaMona ( talk) 00:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
Has disclosed paid edits to the Daniel Amen article (and from their contribution history has likely made many other paid contributions) but claims they cannot make a declaration per WP:PAID beyond stating their employer is "Rachel Grand". Would appreciate it if somebody better versed in this area could look at this. Alexbrn ( talk) 01:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
More eyes on this would be welcome. It appears to be a methodology promoted by a single organization. The article has structural problems: 1) sections titled "The FAIR Book" etc. 2) three of four references are to the same org 3) excessive list of see-alsos 4) SPA editor contributions are of concern. - Brianhe ( talk) 23:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Would anyone care to take a look? IP editor has asked for a review of my possible conflict of interest (which of course I don't have). I'm travelling, no time to respond in detail. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 06:53, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
SravaniChalla is an undeclared shill. Creating promotional articles for non notable entities. duffbeerforme ( talk) 10:32, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
An old stale one. Jb3141 is a single purpose account dedicated to promoting Pell Research. Outside of creatin that article all contributions are to refspam Pell's research. duffbeerforme ( talk) 12:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Morrow, or someone connected with his campaign or office, appears to be editing his Wikipedia article. FiredanceThroughTheNight ( talk) 01:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
From the name, this user works for Ubiquiti: http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jamie-Higley/2058314275
They have only edited Ubiquiti-related articles, and have blanked the "Security" section, presumably because it contains negative information about the company. Orthogonal1 ( talk) 10:13, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Editor Special:Contributions/Anthropocene2015 appears to be the main contributor on the above article about a gallery. The editor is also editing the articles listed in the section of the artists:
Exhibited artists include: [1]
References
Some of them may be genuinely notable, but some appear to be not notable. I'm concerned about the appearance of link spam or potential promotional nature of this editing. The editor started editing soon after the account affiliated with the gallery was blocked due to its promotional nature; pls see User_talk:Meessen_De_Clercq#July_2016.
The editor has been notified here. K.e.coffman ( talk) 18:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to make of this. I have had a few run ins with this topic and I am unable to figure out the notability. Certain edits like this make me wonder if this is some kind of promotional campaign. Would appreciate others who can have a look. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 07:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Macular telangiectasia ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
@ Ozzie10aaaa: This looks like a content dispute, and the editor has stopped editing. What exactly is the conflict of interest here? Simply the addition of the clinical trial link? I've copyedited the article, so some of the material may have been removed as a matter of course. MSJapan ( talk) 06:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 10:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
User focus is articles on Barracuda products (there's another in User:Sorisen/sandbox) and uploaded a file to Commons as explicitly licensed to the creators of the product. The live article has been nommed for CSD, but the sandbox article clearly shows it's a larger problem. MSJapan ( talk) 06:58, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Reverting the close - SharkSSL is still active, and I have discovered that User:Sorisen left a barnstar for User:Wilfrednilsen, another editor who was apparently pretty much associated with Real Time Logic through his edits and hadn't edited in almost a year at the point where the barnstar was placed. So how did Wilfrednilsen "review the article", and how did Sorisen know who he was?An explanation is required, and if an explanation is not forthcoming, I will be requesting that the user be banned for clear sockpuppetry. MSJapan ( talk) 01:41, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
There is a paid editor that has been promoting UC Berkeley since 2012. This seems like a major conflict of interest. Mikeditka231 ( talk) 07:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
The wikipedia article itself is not neutral in tone. What should be done about this? He seems like a well intentioned user. The article overall reads like a UC Berkeley promotion.
"Hired by UCB Public Affairs!
Hey all!
I'm checking in to say that I have been hired by the UC Berkeley Office of Public Affairs as an independent contractor to work on the UCB Wikipedia article. Story of how this happens follows. Skip to next paragraph if more interested in the ethics of paid editorship. While doing the above edits I found my underemployed self thinking "hah! They should HIRE me to do this!" Then I thought "well, maybe they COULD hire me to do this". Long story short, a job proposal and interview later the PA Office hired me to do a little editing. I'm doing an initial 10 hours as they test me out and see how many hours they should allot me. I had an ethical crisis while considering pursuing a job proposal, and decided it would be wise to consult a couple friends of mine who are regular editors and who have volunteered with Wikimedia outside of their editing. A recommendation I heard from all, and which I am taking in writing this talk item to y'all, is to be transparent with you about my position as a contractor for UCB and with my intentions. I want you to know that while my edits on this page will now be edits I do as a contractor, my heart lies with the free knowledge movement, and my intention is not to promote UC Berkeley from a marketing standpoint, but to promote the expansion of knowledge on the university. Also, for your information, I am editing from my regular (and only) account, which I've had since 2010. This all said, if you find any biases in my editing that favor the university, or information that requires an expert verification, please point these out to me. My first edit will be an expansion of information on student financial aid and scholarships. Most of my information will come from information found through the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, and the UC Controller's Office. I appreciate any constructive criticism and any knowledge resources you think would help me to create a non-biased view and a rich and full article. I am not an expert in these issues, and would warmly appreciate the contribution of editors who are.
Thanks! Please follow me and my edits! Eekiv (talk) 01:18, 11 April 2012 (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.
It is difficult to keep track of all this. User:Majesticfish is being paid by User:Vipul to create articles [46]. The articles edited by User:Majesticfish so far are (the U.S. Tax Forms) Form 1120 [47], which this person created as has been editing [48] and Form 1040 [49], [50], [51].
I wish to point out the above link within this blurb about this editior's link to the description of this person's self-disclosed Wikipedia sponsored editing, which is located at an off Wiki site - for clarity I will place it here [52]. The page discusses detailed paid editing and analysis of its impact via page views:"For more on my Wikipedia editing, see my site page about Wikipedia, my site page about sponsored Wikipedia editing, and the list of all pages I have created, with pageviews across the years".
I am quoting a small blurb here:
There is more on this page that should be read. This also continues into 2016..."In April 2015, as part of an Experimental Content Creation Grant (ECCG) to (a person), I included reimbursement for Wikipedia page creation. The scheme was as follows: for the period from April 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, I’d pay (a person):
$1 for every 1000 pageviews of pages he had created before 2015. $1 for every 500 pageviews of pages he created in 2015. If the pages he created were specific ones that I had requested him to create or approved the creation of, and the page as created by him met my standard for quality and completeness, then I’d add a one-time payment for each such page. The one-time payment would be determined per page, but the standard would be $25.
(There is some fine print that caps the total amount I need to pay (a person), but that’s not relevant here since Wikipedia pageviews don’t contribute enough to the overall ECCG to trigger that fine print). (A person) is User:Simfish on Wikipedia. You can also access his contribution history" (link provided on off wiki web page).
There is more under "2016" that should be read. Personally, I am taken aback....I renewed my content creation grant for 2016 with (a person), with some changes to the rules surrounding payments. I would pay (a person):
$1 for every 2000 pageviews of pages he had created before 2015, or $0.50 per 1000 pageviews. $1 for every 800 pageviews of pages he created in 2015, or $1.25 per 1000 pageviews. $1 for every 500 pageviews of pages he created in 2016, or $2 per 1000 pageviews.
My goal was that, while (a person) could still make money of pageviews of pages he created of his own accord, the focus of his work should shift more in the direction of creating pages I wanted him to create, with a fixed pay from me..."
However, all this may pale in significance to the page linked from the above quoted page [53]. This page outlines the whole of User Vipul's paid editing operation for (or aimed at) Wikipedia: List of contributors, Money spent this month, Impact (of efforts I suppose) based on Page veiws and anecdotal evidence. The section on "Total Money Spent This Month" is particularly amazing. (Someone else) is a recruiter (recruits paid editors for Wikipedia, apparently from high schools and colleges). (A person), mentioned in the first sentence in "2015" is the paymaster. And most of the others do "piece work".
Sorry for the wall of text - in this instance I felt it was needed for clarity. Hopefully this is so. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 04:27, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
The George Ranalli article has a new editor, who, on their first day of editing, undid about 12K worth of deletions by several regular editors. [56] No edits to any other articles. Usual COI warnings given. John Nagle ( talk) 05:52, 31 July 2016 (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 need more eyes on this. The article is about a non-notable author and there seems to be some sort of offline canvassing going on (possibly paid jobs for !voting). SPAs have constantly used this article for promoting the subject and are now swarming on the second AfD. Lemongirl942 ( talk) 06:34, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
So in the interest of full disclosure, I do occasional work on Fiverr to help people with Wikipedia, trying to help them create content that's withing Wikipedia guidelines. So as part of that work I some times get asked to do something that I have to turn down as it's not within guidelines. This is why I am here, in regards to article Frederick Achom and edits done by Awais Azad - The wording of a lot of the edits on the article and talk page of the article are so similar or identical to the request I received that it cannot be a coincidence - so either Awais Azad is paid for it, or they are the same person who approached me on Fiverr - Note: I will not divulge the Fiverr user name to avoid any issues in that regard. So listed below are various edits I was asked to make and then the diffs showing Awais Azad's edits to illustrate the overlap. I have not seen a declaration of COI from the user, I have also notified them that I am aware of the nature of the edits - user still made more edits afterwards to the Achom article without disclosing anything.
So I will present my case and leave it in your hands to decide, I make no judgement on anyone else involved in this, I just cannot sit by when I suspect undisclosed paid editing
I studied the whole case, and I found that the heading of the section about the fraud scam was not right and some of the editors were trying to intermix intentionally or unintentionally. So I corrected the information after studying the references. Then I made more changes to add information about His childhood and business, it was all because of principles to spread right information. Now I am being blamed to make those edits and I am watching the page is being under attack by editors to make it biased and use it against Mr. Achom. I believe being Wikipedian we should be very careful in addition of wrong information as it can cost a lot to someone. It can destroy careers and lives. So we should stick to our policies of being neutral not biased or payed. Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. Awais Azad ( talk) 08:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Hi Awais Azad. Before commenting on the content issues, I would like to clarify the COI and paid editing issue. Paid editing is not forbidden on Wikipedia, but editors need to comply with our Terms of use and provide a Paid-contribution disclosure. The first step is a disclosure notice. As a step forward, would you please disclose if you have been paid to edit any article? -- Lemongirl942 ( talk) 13:01, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Greetings! First of all, at first level I am really really thankful to you, because I was not aware of all these conflicts that you brought to my notice. I confess what I have done wrong. I was asked on fiverr to make some specific changes, about the Legal issues of Mr. Fredrick Achom, I was not aware of the conflict at that time and I took the project just for 40$, I had to change the heading and some data in that category. I researched, and found that my client has some legitimate claims, so I made the edit. But later, I got interested in the page, as it is my nature I get interested in things I do, (like you can see my contributions, I have made edits to a single article many times to make it better) and I was not even paid for that. I added the information after studying the references. It was just because of my curious nature, I was not paid a single penny after the first change. But I was not aware of the severity of controversial case. Second I also accept that, I have voted to keep the RJ Tolson page, because I was paid 5$ and I did it after studying the case, I thought he is a renowned personality so there is no harm to vote to keep, and I gave my point of view on that. These are two edits I was paid for, I was not paid before and not after these two. But You can see my contributions and you would know that I love Wikipedia as it has been my source of knowledge and I love to spread knowledge. I apologies for my immature behavior, as I was not aware of such policies and conflicts, I request you to forgive my mistakes. I was trying to make some living out of my skills but I think I still have to learn many things, So I request to forgive these mistake because I love Wikipedia and I love knowledge and spread of Knowledge and I think I would be a valuable contribution to Wikipedia? and I promise I would never ever do anything like that again.So be kind and ignore my these two mistake you would never see such immature behavior from me again. Awais Azad ( talk) 08:42, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
This article has a clouded history as having been created by now-indeffed sockmaster Reuvengrish and visited by at least one of his socks. I did some cleanup of most obvious WP:PROMO in June 2015 starting with this, but left it as more or less hopeless yet not worth more attention. - Brianhe ( talk) 00:08, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I am in an edit war with the subject of this article who is using different ips who insists on adding unrefenced material, I've explained coi and warned him but he takes no notice.Thanks Atlantic306 ( talk) 02:42, 2 August 2016 (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.
this user has been creating an article about himself again and again and every time he uses a slightly different name like RBK Sharad, rbksharad, Rbksharad, RBKsharad, RBKSharad etc. He has been warned and the page been deleted at least 5times as per his talk page. The page is currently also existing under some heading. I'll clarify in a minute. Someone ought to block him. I am gonna seek salting also as suggested by Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. Thanks. Varun FEB2003 I am Online 13:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
User appears to be a corporate account, possibly shared by multiple employees. User has only edited their organization page. Multiple warnings have been given; all were ignored. The edits they have made are not necessarily bad (I haven't checked), but an independent editor would need to make these changes, not an employee of the organization itself. Username has also been reported to Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention. — Eric Herboso 03:45, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
User has self-identified in his edits ( [57] & [58]) as being the representative of Fred Lynn and is actively changing his page. When I reverted his changes, he left multiple messages on my talk page ( [59] & [60]). Even stating that if needed he would sign up for multiple accounts to make sure his edits stuck. -- Zackmann08 ( Talk to me/ What I been doing) 17:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
A number of articles with suspected undisclosed paid editing by creator. Creator said he has done "a few" articles for hire [61] but (so far) has declined to specify which and he/she does not appear to be in compliance with ToS disclosure at all. Brianhe ( talk) 00:03, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
SPA on the above articles, was blocked for socking in 2014 regarding the Deccan article, and has suddenly shown up (after two years with no editing) to SPA on a company in New Jersey that was already CSDed once. Editor is clearly from India, where we have been having extensive paid article and sock issues. MSJapan ( talk) 19:19, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
A Google search shows that a person named "Andrew Luckie" works for Isobar. User:AndrewLuckie is an WP:SPA keen to add empty marketing speak to the Isobar article, such as how the company "drives digital transformation" and can "transform businesses and brands by creatively solving clients’ business challenges in the digital age". They've ignored two talk page warnings to follow WP:COI and are continuing to edit the article directly. McGeddon ( talk) 17:13, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
This article had a number of COI/SPA editors majorly contribute to it by the time I first discovered it. My main actions were to remove the overly promotional stance and neutralise it a little. I also added BLP sources tag, CN tags and COI. Following that, an interested and determined new editor Rampage45 showed up to the party. They haven't been particularly interested in any other part of the wiki project, but have taken genuine interest in this article. ( 62 edits, all on this article or its talk page, their talk page, and 3 on educational institutions linked to subject making edits regarding the subject) Since I first started editing/watching this article, I have added COI tags 5 times and each time they've been removed by this person. I have posted on article talk page and user's talk page to check COI policy, to not remove tags without justification. Reviewing my comments, I may have not specifically stated that removal should be a consensus including arm's length editors, but I think this was implied. Anyway, this issue is going round in ever decreasing circles. I do not believe this user should be editing this article at all because to me there is a clear COI issue, and I don't think they're going to be very co-operative with anything they disagree with (such as COI tags) Rayman60 ( talk) 16:00, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
So not sure how to go about this, but I figured if this is not the place someone can tell me. I was hired by Julius Dein to address some problems in the article on him - it made false claims and had an overly negative representation of what were people's opinions. I stepped in, brought the article in line with guidelines but made sure I did not just clean out anything negative if it was supported by reliable sources. And yes I declared my paid status etc. Well he kept insisting I take out the last bit of negative information, I explained it to him 2-3 times but kept insisting as it was "hurting his reputation". At that point I gave him a refund on the gig and decided to separate myself from this as he was asking for something that was not NPOV in my mind. Considering how insistent he was over this having to go I would not be surprised if he hired someone else to remove the negative comments under the "Reception" section. So I guess this is a potential Conflict of Interest - especially if he hires someone who does not declare it. Not sure what to do, is there perhaps someone who could watch the page or something? MPJ -DK 02:25, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
This editor has been very active on this article. SPA. I wasn't a fan of its content so I edited it to make it more suitable. My efforts are constantly resisted. The name indicates a link to subject and when I highlighted this, this statement was posted on an edit summary I'm Management for STREETRUNNER and I personally update STREETRUNNER's wikipedia page. I have reached out on their talk page with links to the COI policy. I then went to great lengths to advise how to proceed, including requesting not to revery my edits as per 3RR. Within a matter of minutes (100 to be precise), this was ignored and overruled with no valid explanation. Rayman60 ( talk) 19:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Motion for block of Srthetruth: as the editor appears to be here only to promote StreetRunner. Toddst1 ( talk) 20:15, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
What can we share and how? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
The above are a few of the recent draft articles that were accepted by Zpeopleheart, and generally I find them to be lacking. I have done some editing on the Ashante P.T. Stokes article, but the actions of the editor, User:Hamilton ford (see User talk:Hamilton ford) could be interpreted as indicating COI, and a COI notice was given but never answered. I suspect that Zpeopleheart has left behind a long tail of articles needing attention. I hope it isn't a breach of etiquette for me to bring them here - I didn't know of a better forum. LaMona ( talk) 16:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The vast majority of this user's surviving edits are to Christopher Holcroft, which was recently been deleted via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher Holcroft as non-notable, but has been userfied at User:7Lawrence/Christopher Holcroft. The only purpose of this page appears to be promotional. The user has also previous created articles and drafts about Holcroft's individual self-published books (see their talk page). The user signs their edits "Christopher". Previous requests to declare their COI have been ignored. Cordless Larry ( talk) 22:14, 10 August 2016 (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.
Following some early spam edits promoting his own book, editor has been a WP:SPA on this article he created, on which they have a COI (let me know who I should email evidence to.) Editor has been been using promotional info referenced to subject's and subject's companies' websites, and has been inserting into the intro and elsewhere subject's recent, unnotable self-published book with an Amazon sales link as reference. Following being COI templated on his talk page, user continued to reinsert the book into the page, and to reinsert boastful claims sourced to subject's companies. Editor has never involved himself on the article Talk page, despite my having started multiple (intended) conversations over several years. Nat Gertler ( talk) 05:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
My impression is that Michael has been taking great care to follow the rules, but given the appearance of identical last names, the COI question needs to be addressed. —jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 08:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)