Are you talking about the lead section? I found a few areas like the following that could possibly be considered biased without proper citations like the following:
"catapulted thousands of dishwashers, waiters, and hotel housekeepers into the middle class, even though those are poverty-level jobs in many other cities." Despite Nevada's status as a "right-to-work" state, around 97% of bargaining units choose to join the Culinary Union and pay dues"
The phrase "poverty level jobs in many other cities" is definitely a generalization without sourcing--also probably a good idea to have what "poverty level" means ie: personal income versus cost of living expenses etc. This is definitely open ended and can be misconstrued. In addition "poverty level" in New York is different than poverty level in Cleveland or Pittsburgh and obviously different than Las Vegas where their headquarters in based.Agnieszka653 (talk)18:51, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Potential COI or Advocacy regarding Elliott Broidy
I'd like other's perspective on @Iljhgtn's edits in relation toElliott Broidy. They've made substantial edits to Elliot Broidy's article either removing or downplaying his role in scandals, including fully removing any mention of1MDB (the article now only mentioning "his work on behalf of a Malaysian individual")1234
They've also removed negative coverage/mention of Elliot Broidy from almost 2 dozen articles they've never edited before or since, with the following just being made this month(though I'll note this trend goes back at least to October):
Before bringing this here, Idiscussed this with Iljhgtn at their talk page, where they denied having a personal or financial relation to Elliot Broidy. When I asked why they made these specific edits then, they replied with "WP:UNDUE".
I was originally going to post this atWP:COIN, but when I checkedWP:COI, it said under "How to handle conflicts of interest" that"Whether an editor is engaged in advocacy should first be addressed at the user's talk page, then atWP:NPOVN, the neutral-point-of-view noticeboard."
This doesn't pertain to a single article, but a range of them. As such, it's best to have a centralized discussion at a noticeboard. I'm following procedure as outlined byWP:COI.
Also, I am assuming good faith. That's why I've presented a list of diffs & am asking for other's input on the matter, rather then immediately requesting any actions be taken.
I'd rather notify others of a potential issue & be wrong, then be right about an issue & tell no one.
If no one sees an issue with the listed edits & find my concerns unfounded, that's fine & I'll apologize, but I'd prefer to hear the perspectives of more experienced editors on the matter first.Butterscotch Beluga (talk)22:44, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed.Please do not modify it.
Where is the talk page discussion regarding the edits? I don't know who the article subject is but if the edits are a problem the talk page is the right place to start.Springee (talk)22:03, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
...Springee,this is similar behaviour for which you gotsanctioned by Arbcom recently, where you show up at every AE and ANI report to defend anyone with a right-wing POV. This is obviously not a good-faith dispute on a single page, buttendentious editing. I'd understand if Iljhgtn was removing polemics or BLP violations, but they're not.Kowal2701 (talk)22:14, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed.Please do not modify it.
Kowal2701, this is a NPOV discussion and there are concerns about the edits. However, the article talk page has no discussions. Based on your comment I've taken a look at the edit history, it appears the archive isn't working correctly since there are no archive links on the talk page[1]. However, those discussions appear to be from several months back. It would really be helpful if there was some level of talk page record (by anyone) explaining why the edits are needed or should be rejected.Springee (talk)22:56, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Provide the article titles so we don't have to waste time hunting them down, especially if you're alleging a "range of them". We need to see the disruption that was caused, and not just your opinion of what is or isn't NPOV.Atsme💬📧14:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I wasn't clear...I meant for you to provide the articles that actually have NPOV vios by ilhgtn (or whatever their user name). I'm not seeing anything even close to a NPOV issue in your collapsed list of diffs. The editor made grammar corrections. This is off the charts BS...I'm sorry, but this whole discussion is a time sink. I can't even find the words to describe it. Any admin worth their salt who looks at those diffs should issue a boomerang against the filer and those in support of the filer. This whole discussion is POV railroading, and after you actually investigate the provided diffs...I rest assured that ArbCom would laugh at the allegations. After reading the diffs a second and even a third time, I am appalled at the allegations against this new editor, and with clear conscience can say the allegations are so far off the charts it's the most ridiculous time sink I've seen in a decade.Atsme💬📧23:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have now investigated two of the edits in question and concluded that there is no reasonable justification for the removal of the article content. Perhaps it would be more productive if you were to respond to my evaluations than imply @Butterscotch Beluga should receive sanctions.
I am appalled at the allegations against this new editor Iljhgtn is not a new editor, they have 84,000 editors over 2+ years. Raising an inquiry is not the same as making an allegation and this was the proper procedure for raising suspicions of potential COI/advocacy editing. If you were to come across a pattern of edits that seemed aimed to remove negative information about one person in a manner not supported by policy, what would you do? Ignore it?Katzrockso (talk)23:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The editor made grammar corrections", I'm not sure how to reply to this as it's just a plainly inaccurate description of the listed edits, even if you agree with them. This whole comment is actually rather strange as I'm a newer editor then they are, so I have no idea what you're reading.
There are concerns on that page about COI editors[2], which raises the level of concern about widespread editing across a class of articles even further. As already noted, a talk page is an inappropriate place to discuss conduct that takes place across a number of different articles. We can certainly have a discussion in this forum about the relevant question, which is not unusual for forums like this.Katzrockso (talk)23:25, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for bringing upUser:DanikS88. They had a history of claiming COI and that was one reason they got blocked (as well as being a sock puppet ofUser:AlanRider78). That account was POV pushing and I was trying to fix some of those issues created by DanikS88 and factor for BLP DUE/UNDUE considerations.Iljhgtn (talk)02:43, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
DanikS88 wasn't the only user who agreed that there were COI considerations on that article, Veldsenk did as well. I don't have familiarity with that user, but the ban reason states it was from a VRT demonstrating UPE. Either way, this is all off-topic, which is the issue of COI editing aboutElliot Broidy. Can you explain why the information you removed from those articles wasWP:UNDUE @Iljhgtn?Katzrockso (talk)03:30, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After first seeing UPE editor DanikS88's large edits, each of mine were based on weight to the specific topic, both on this main page and each that is supposedly tangentially related to the figure. There seems to also be a lot of speculation in regard to this person and for a BLP, that is another consideration. In some cases it would just randomly be thrown in on a see also page that might not make sense.Iljhgtn (talk)04:55, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went to go look at one edit you made, since I don't have infinite time, on thePseudonyms used by Donald Trump article. I have never read any background material about this before, but I read the sources in question here and I don't see how "blp vio and tabloidy unproven claim, retained the rest and sourcing" justified the removal of the content.WP:RSPNEWYORK is considered a reliable publication and the information from that article was repeated in many otherWP:RS. The content aboutShera Bechard was retained in the article, but Elliott Brody's information was removed? That makes no sense: the whole story about Shera Bechard from what I can tell is that she was paid off by Michael Cohen on behalf of Elliott Brody.[3], this was reported in tons of outlets from Reuters toWP:WSJ. How is this a "tabloidy unproven claim" when it was reported by just about every major news source?
I want toWP:AGF here and read it as though you were unfamiliar with the story and it may have seemed like an unproven claim, but to remove information from numerous articles is what makes it more suspicious.Katzrockso (talk)06:47, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The source even says allegations. With details like that that remain unproven, for BLP type information, we should just tread lightly. I think we could restore content anywhere it is well sourced from numerous reliable sources and not just speculative or allegations too. Or if alleged, then we need to include that language. Often I was not seeing anything like that.Iljhgtn (talk)07:23, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The source I cited says allegations about impregnation, it does not qualify any of the statements about the arrangement of payments. Misrepresenting sources is not going to help you here.
Part of the sentence you removed states "sources identified "Dennison" as Republican fundraiser", which is a perfectly accurate claim verified by the sources cited[4] that does not violate BLP. What gives?Katzrockso (talk)07:47, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is the issue here? It looks like they were just cleaning up amessy article that was heavily coatracked with a bunch of scandals. Its basically a hit piece the way it was written. There were sections
Lobbying with George Nader
New York State Common Pension Fund conviction
First Trump administration era scandals
Controversies and lawsuits
Lobbying for Guo Wengui's extradition
Involvement with 1MDB, federal indictment, guilty plea, and pardon
Role of government informant
Its like someone wrote it up to be "this guy is an evil corrupt lobbyist", which isnt very encyclopedic, and is kinda conspiratorial. You cant seriously be defending the prior state of the article. I mean even the lede was a joke. Im sure some of this merits inclusion, but it was definitely due for cleanup and consolidation, especially as a BLP. Maybe IIjwhatever got carried away with some of it, but the intent seems fine. Its one thing to document scandals, but it should have proper weight in the article. Kinda reminds me ofBob Vylan where everyone kept trying to shove every controversy detail and it ended up over half the article. Im not a fan of their statements, but it was totally overweighted, and we cut it down and fixed it.
It looks like they were editing Brodys page, and found a whole slew of junk thrown on random articles to paint him poorly everywhere. Its one thing to mention it on his article and any other places where it was due, but a lot of these are irrelevant coatracking of a POV. ←Metallurgist (talk)08:22, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at only one article so far to evaluate the accusations, so if you're going to respond to me, please focus on the one article I was addressing.
his is SYNTH. The cite deleted doesnt mention Dennison. Also, there surely are better sources than Buzzfeed. Did you read the sources? This is a blatantly false claim, I linked the article above which mentions:
We should consider the strong possibility that the same tactic — i.e., shameless, baldfaced lying — may have played a role in the exposure of yet another Trump-related sex scandal. The Wall Street Journal published a story on April 13 revealing the existence of another nondisclosure agreement involving an affair between an adult entertainer and a client of Cohen’s. The NDA employed the pseudonyms David Dennison and Peggy Peterson — the same names used in the Stormy Daniels NDA — and was otherwise very similar to the Trump-Daniels agreement.
According to this newly revealed NDA, Dennison agreed to pay Peterson $1.6 million, in exchange for Peterson’s promise not to reveal the affair or her claim that Dennison had impregnated her. This NDA, like the Trump-Daniels document, was negotiated by attorneys Keith Davidson, on behalf of Peterson, and Michael Cohen, on behalf of Dennison. Payments were also delivered through Essential Consultants LLC, the same LLC created by Cohen to facilitate payments in the Stormy Daniels deal.
And so on. Buzzfeed News is considered a reliable sourceWP:BUZZFEEDNEWS. The information on Broidy wasWP:DUE in that article, it was reliably sourcedand the information was removed from that article on false pretenses.
If we are writing an article on psuedonyms used by Trump, the fact that this psuedonym was used by another person is very relevant! Like read the section before and after the removal and please explain why the removed information makes the section any better.
I am responding to Butterscotch more than you, but this seemed the best subthread for it. The nature of the format of these discussions precludes an easy flow. However, I could move my comment if you think that would be better. ←Metallurgist (talk)21:43, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, I didnt say Buzzfeed was bad, just that there are better sources surely. Also, Buzzfeed does have some reservations about it noted on RSPS. Secondly, I said removing that source was valid because it is SYNTH. If the other sources mention the connection, then it might merit inclusion or a brief mention, but as I said it looks like someone was trying to insert snipes at the guy in various articles, some of which at least likely deserved to be removed. Others may be DUE. ←Metallurgist (talk)21:50, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain how there isWP:SYNTH. As far as I can tell, every sentence in the original text before it was wrongly removed was factually supported by the sources. "If you want to revert something on the grounds that it's SYNTH, you should be able to explain what new thesis is being introduced and why it's not verified by the sources" (WP:SYNTHNOTPRESUMED)
as I said it looks like someone was trying to insert snipes at the guy in various articles How? The context of that section was about the pseudonym "Dennison" and its use by Donald Trump. That it is used by another individual is highly pertinent information that I would expect to be in a Wikipedia article about the use of pseudonyms by an individual. Indeed, to remove the paragraph about how the payoff of Shera Bechard was directed by Elliot Broidy, the text falsely implied that Donald Trump was the one who directed said payoff. The version with all text correctly notes that Broidy was the one identified by sources as "Dennison", and points to some commentators who speculated that Broidy might be the fall guy. This is allWP:DUE, noWP:SYNTH involved.Katzrockso (talk)23:01, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I made a discussion on that page, butWP:SYNTH "If one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources." which is what was done there. And that article is about use by Trump, not use by Broidy. It doesnt belong there, but I suppose you could link his page to the Dennison section. And as I said, the fall guy speculation is probably all that is DUE on that page. ←Metallurgist (talk)00:19, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, here's the rub. It is warranted/DUE/belongs in that article. There is enough material to create a standalone article on the pseudonym "Dennison" and that would include the use of the name by Brody. However because most coverage of this pseudonym is in the context of Donald Trump's use of the name, editors astutelyWP:PAGEDECIDEd to cover the topic atPseudonyms of Donald Trump. You can think of the headingPseudonyms used by Donald Trump#"David Dennison" (2016) as a mini-article on 'David Dennison', which has been organized and collated with other pseudonyms used by Donald Trump. Obviously the use of the pseudonym by Elliot Brody would be DUE/warranted/belongs in/on a standalone article about "David Dennison", so it is DUE/warranted/belongs in that article.Katzrockso (talk)00:24, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I highly doubyDavid Dennison would pass GNG and would beWP:TRUMPCRUFT. I did say some brief mention is due, but not two paragraphs. The section is about DD as used by Trump, not by Brody, so its not for all uses of the name. If I went around calling myself David Dennison and derived notability, would that deserve mention there? Doubtful ←Metallurgist (talk)00:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It can, but we could end up with articles for every pseudonym he used, which would be excessive, when they could be merged under a common theme as they are. ←Metallurgist (talk)05:44, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm also seeing are borderline violations ofWP:NOTSCANDAL
Scandalmongering, promoting things "heard through the grapevine" orgossiping. Articles and content about living people are required to meet an especially high standard, as they may otherwise be libellous or infringe the subjects' right to privacy.Articles must not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person.
The entire Stormy Daniels and other scandalmongering, regardless of the biased New York court decisions, which are still being investigated (and we all know there are innocent people serving time in prison), our job as encyclopedists is to respect the privacy of individuals. While we don't want to adopt the UK's censorship program, we sure don't want to become theDaily Mail. Brief mention with an objectively cited explanation is appropriate but using it as a political weapon obviously stemming from hatred for Trump while protecting Biden is unacceptable, and clearly not encyclopedic.Just curious... is there a WP article aboutBiden's use of pseudonyms?Atsme💬📧16:45, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Once again you are injecting a narrative of politicization into this that is entirely unproductive. Wikipedia does not make claims about supposedly "biased New York court decisions" without evidence, it reports what reliable sources report about a subject. Reliable sources have reported that there was a contract between Devesi and Broidy, reliable sources reported an investigation into their relationship, reliable sources reported that Devesi and Broidy both plead guilty to wrongdoing. You are more than welcome to personally believe that the prosecution was a sham prosecution, but there are no reliable sources to support such a claim and any inclusion of that or weighing that belief in evaluation of including article content is a total violation ofWP:NPOV.Katzrockso (talk)20:09, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't explain the edits to the other articles listed because, as far as I can tell, neither DanikS88, nor AlanRider78 ever interacted with those pages.
Also, if your edits to Elliott Broidy's article were made to revert POV pushing, why did you 1) not mention this to begin with & 2) remove so much content that DanikS88 had never modified, like entirely removing mention of 1MDB, or categories like "People pardoned by Donald Trump" & "American lobbyists"?
I hope Iljhgtn is getting paid for those edits. In any case, I checked three edits at random and all the cited sources mention Elliot Broidy by name, so I don't see how mentioning him could be UNDUE.TurboSuperA+[talk]05:54, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I don't believe Iljhgtn has any external relationship withElliott Broidy, and Ihad simply assumed they tend to remove negative content because they interpret NPOV as requiring us to take a middle ground regardless of sources (which of course isnot the case) but more recent edits do have me questioning this a little.Alpha3031 (t •c)09:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's not COI, it's having a disruptive effect on the encyclopedia by removing reliably sourced information on false or mistaken pretenses.Katzrockso (talk)10:02, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I have previously mostly interacted with the editor on one specific page, but I am concerned that the issue is in both directions and much more widespread than I had previously assumed, to the point where I'm fairly sure at least a logged warning is appropriate (though, qualifying my assessment by the fact that I do not typically make reports of conduct). I'm not sure I'd be able to handle the workload of putting together an AE (or ANI) report though, especially considering I'm also trying to work through an AFD caseload right now. Might need to put that off again :/. If there were a way to split the work that would help.Alpha3031 (t •c)03:42, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be dropping this from the list of things I expect to keep looking at because while I think there is some evidence of a double standard applied (i.e., forIsrael Frey, their insistence on labelling Frey far-left and an activist, and their most recent edits toAmerican Institute for Economic Research, such as labellingNiskanen Centerleft-leaning for whatever reason, are by themselves innocuous but troubling when contrasted with their typical practice of resisting similar things when applied elsewhere) I don't think any of the more recent edits of what I have seen are egregious enough to be obviously actionable, and I do not want to spend any more days reviewing this at this point.Alpha3031 (t •c)12:05, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Came across this ‘’out of process discussion’’ after reading the Grokipdia discussion and decided to respond toI'd like other's perspective on @Iljhgtn's edits in relation toElliott Broidy. You’re in the wrong forum, which another editor explained above. The procedure is to discuss at the article TP FIRST. Next you hold an RfC about the specific issue. What is or isn’t NPOV is subjective so if you want different perspectives here, why don’t you want them in articles? The latter is how you accomplish neutrality, not by accusing others of not being neutral based on your biased perspective. Just because opinions are published in what a biased perspective considers reliable doesn’t make the opinion magically become fact. Opinions can also be speculative, as we’ve seen many times in theRussia gate conspiracy. And that’s why we discuss issues on the article talk pages first. NPOVN is for determining whether or not an article reflects a NPOV, not an editor. If you don’t like an editor’s POV, that is your issue to deal with, not ours. This discussion should be closed and hatted.Atsme💬📧21:34, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Several of these from the list are literally just removals of unnecessary and often extraneous "See also" list links.DarkMatter Group andSignals Intelligence Agency for example. In both of these I just said "Cut SA" for my edit summary which is what I did. Also, I did not cut just the bulleted link for Broidy, but cut several other links in the See also segment on the above which seemed to be just tossed on a list without much consideration for their appropriate inclusion on the article.Iljhgtn (talk)03:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It appears as if this is a content dispute more than anything. While I want to assume good faith and not cast aspirations there are also apparent personal attacks being made over what appear to be POV/UNDUE/BLP BALANCE/BALANCE content disputes on how to edit pages citing a controversial political figure. On BLP pages in particular we are supposed to be as careful as possible with the sources used because people have sued Wikipedia over this very issue. It's always better to be careful when making claims (even those "alleged" in secondary sources) than posting them as fact for this reason.Agnieszka653 (talk)21:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I note Atsme's advice and normally I'd agree except that we're talking about a whole set of articles, not one. Parallel discussions on all of them is impractical; a centralized discussion affecting many is better held on a noticeboard (perWP:COI, probably this one right here) instead of on a single talk page. That's particularly the case when the edits are all aimed in the same direction--reducing the coverage of Broidy's role in the politics of the last decade.Mackensen(talk)21:47, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Mackensen. We can certainly agree to disagree regarding the purpose of this board and lack of diffs substantiating the allegations being made. Removal of content is not necessarily driven by bias and may actually be a case of caution when it comes to biographies, whereas adding derogatory information that's based on journalistic speculation or political opinion is obvious bias. My concern is that with the number of editors we have on Wikipedia, which is designed to accommodate different perspectives, why does WP have a rather notable systemic bias? What we're witnessing here along with the line-up at perennial sources, it's quite clear that NPOV is a systemic issue. We are/have been publishing biographies in a way that aligns with WP's systemic bias against conservatives, a significant number of which are sourced to opinions &/or speculation that is sometimes stated in Wikivoice, rather than providing factual information supported by objectively chosen reliable sources that provide varying perspectives. Let the readers decide. We should all support the removal of derogatory speculation by politically biased opponents, regardless of what side of the aisle they sit. That's my nickel's worth, and I bid you well. Happy editing!Atsme💬📧01:49, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the bio and the allegations? Why is this person identified as Jewish? Considering the antisemitism issues WP is under investigation over, it’s an immediate red flag for NPOV. I haven’t read the entire article but based on what I did read, it comes off as a political hit piece rather than a biography.Atsme💬📧08:25, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The content removed from articles did not all mention he is Jewish. This is completely off-topic and irrelevant to the content removed, I genuinely don't understand if you looked at any of the edits in question.Katzrockso (talk)08:35, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it matters, and to think otherwise suggests a much needed review of our WP:PAGs relative to red flag, coat rack, BLP, POV, etc. Furthermore, why weren’t those particular diffs discussed on the article talk pages when made? I know full well whatWP:POV railroad looks like, and this discussion fits it well.Atsme💬📧08:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, for example, the edit I highlighted analyzed above on the pagePseudonyms of Donald Trump did not mention he is Jewish.
Furthermore, why weren’t those particular diffs discussed on the article talk pages when made. Have you read any of the discussion here? You keep on asking questions that other editors have already answered.Katzrockso (talk)11:51, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In response to your question about me reading this discussion, yes, I have for the most part. What do you believe was the best response that actually answered the question, "why weren’t those particular diffs discussed on the article talk pages when made?" Perhaps I've overlooked it. There were none as far as I can tell, so please provide links to those discussions. Did this editor edit war the reverts, or cause disruption over the edits they made. What I'm seeing now is a handful of editors, all of the same opinion, who may actually be the ones violating BLP, NPOV, and RedFlag on a bio while projecting what they're doing onto another editor, falsely accusing him of a COI because you simplyWP|don't like it, and want to keep the rumors, opinions, speculation and other dirt in this bio. Just my guess/opinion, but I'm certainly open-minded to be proven wrong. Until proven otherwise with concrete answers, this case still looks exactly like POV railroad.Atsme💬📧14:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean,Atsme, you didn't click on the collapsed list and were under the impression it was just one article for your early comments and initial judgement. Literally none of the editors you're accusing of a POV railroad regularly edit AMPOL (including myself), perhaps you could look at people's contribs before making such broad ABF characterisations? It's common for people to rework an individual's biography, and we do have a big issue with hit pieces on Republican politicians, but very rare for someone in good-faith to comb through the encyclopedia and remove any unflattering info about said individual. That sort of thing is indicative of a COI. Butno-one needs to satisfy youKowal2701 (talk)18:29, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed.Please do not modify it.
Something thatmight be an issue here is subconscious bias. I'm going into the realm of speculation here to please be kind if you don't agree or feel it doesn't apply in this case. As you say, we do have a lot of articles that look like, lacking a better term, hit pieces on people in various areas (US Politics right in this case but I suspect we would see similar results in other contested topics). When you see enough of that it's sometimes hard to objectively see when something is balanced negativity vs excessive negativity. At the same time those who may be on the other side of that issue may see enough excessive removal of the negative that eventually they intuitively wonder about whitewashing when any negative material is removed. The correct balance is probably in the middle. Editors who make good faith efforts to tone things down may over do it while editors who see too much whitewashing may fail to recognize a good faith and potential legitimate efforts to restore neutrality. Where this can get especially dangerous is if a lot of work in an area is trying to clean up articles on similar topics. What is a good faith efforts may be seen as just removing negative stuff from negative people. I don't have a great suggestion on how one decides what is good faith cleanup vs POV pushing. For that matter, for those who add this sort of content, what is good faith adding balance vs what is just trying to blackwash subjects?Springee (talk)19:28, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I checked another edit,Andrew Hevesi. The edit by Iljhgtn removed information that was directly pointed out in the sources. FromThe New York Times article,Some of Andrew Hevesi’s contributors lived thousands of miles from his Assembly district, including Elliott Broidy, the Los Angeles-based chairman of Markstone. He donated $3,400 in 2005. andDonations from investment firms that manage state pension fund assets, or their executives, make up more than 10 percent of the campaign contributions that Andrew Hevesi has received. If anything, I found more to support that the information isWP:DUE through a quick Google search. See[5],[6][7][8]. This seems like the type of drive-by removal of information that paints Broidy in a negative light that does not take into account whether the information isWP:DUE, whether it is accurate and relevant. That does raise a serious question of either 1) competency or 2) COI. Perhaps another explanation but I can't think of one.Katzrockso (talk)23:23, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Really? What makes a passing mention in an article about Hevesi due there? Do we always specify one contributor to a campaign? Thesource that was removed mentions "Mezzacappa Management LLC" and "Damon Mezzacappa", and interestingly it was not mentioned on that article. And the other sources you pulled up mention numerous other outfits that were involved, but the main focus is Hevesi. So why is Broidy DUE but the other people and firms not DUE? And then if we were to add all of them, at what point is the article too loaded with tangential people? Thats my concern here. ←Metallurgist (talk)00:41, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If anything, the coverage warrants a significant expansion of the connection between Hevesi and Broidy, since the donations from Broidy to Hevesi were the subject of a criminal investigation that led to a prosecution, and said prosecution has received significant coverage over a sustained period of time (it gets coverage every year in reliable sources, from my searches). Is this connection between Broidy and Hevesi not something covered in reliable sources to some extent?
I can't speak to the motives of why the editor (Sfeldman in this edit[9], by the way) who added that information didn't add the information about the other organizations. But from my evaluation of the information, there has been no coverage of the connections between Damon Mezzacappa and Andrew Hevesi after 2010. From what I can tell, there was never a criminal prosecution of Damon Mezzacappa or his LLC. In contrast, there was a criminal investigation and prosecution with regards to the Broidy and Hevesi's connections. How is this not a textbook case of DUE information and non-DUE information?Katzrockso (talk)01:09, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First, use common sense. Who cares? How is it encyclopedic information? Wikipedia accepts HUGE donations from ... well, you look it up. Are these donations the reason Wikipedia's systemic bias leans left? What you're doing when you add material that is simply "guilt by association" is a violation of WP:BLP. Look it up in past ArbCom decisions. It's there. And FYI, such information is NOT DUE as a result.Atsme💬📧16:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please stay on topic and try not to castWP:ASPERSIONS on other editors by reference to donations. Where is there any "guilt by association" other thanyour references to donations? Including factual information reported by reliable sources about the prosecutions of Hevesi and Broidy is not "guilt by association".Katzrockso (talk)20:11, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed this myself and reverted a few egregiously strange edits that crossed my watchlist, but I hadn't noticed the scale of it. One that I haven't seen mentioned isthis edit onLee S. Wolosky, where they removed a mention of Broidy saying that the connection wastrivial; the cited source isentirely about Broidy, mentioning him in the first sentence and using his name twenty times throughout. Likewise, inthis edit onRex Tillerson, they removed a mention of Broidy (and modified a quotation in an extremely weird way) with the edit summary ofEdited to best summ. reference(s) - Broidy is mentioned 40 timesin the source and is, again, a major focus of it. I don't see how that could be reasonably characterized as more accurately summarizing the source; they removed a key focus of the source from the summary and omitted part of the quote. I'm particularly bothered by the latter summary because it's clear from the context presented here that what they objected to was naming Broidy, but they declined to state as much in their edit summary, which gives the impression of trying to avoid scrutiny. --Aquillion (talk)22:58, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I foundthis while searching the subject on google, which may be of interest, and explain the provenance ofsome of these edits. It was the first result for me.
On Sept 1, 2025,Calcalist published a story asserting, among other things, that the former vice chair of President Trump's campaign, Elliott Broidy, was a "partner" in an Israeli firm called KOIOS, which the story claimed had been involved in a PR campaign for Qatar, from which it could be incorrectly understood that Mr. Broidy was involved in the alleged campaign. After re-examination, it was found that there is no basis for this story, as there is no evidence that Mr. Broidy had any involvement in any PR campaigns and was simply a passive investor, not a “partner,” in KOIOS. We have retracted the story in its entirety, and we deeply regret any harm and damage our story inflicted upon Mr. Broidy.
Given this, perhaps IIj was attempting to fix what they felt was overly negative coverage. I would rather AGF and try to work with someone than lay into them over being too zealous. From what I have seen so far, it does seem that earlier edits, before they did this, were sniping in targeted negative information, which in some cases may have been UNDUE. I think we should focus on looking thru these and figuring out which ones were fine and which were not. This whole thing strikes me as a bit personal, as I do recall the op and the questioned editor bickering a lot on Gaza genocide talk or somewhere, I cant remember. And really there are NPOV questions as to how negative some of the treatment was. Brody does seem to have been involved in a few tar pits, but they need to be properly contextualized and not exaggerated. Half his article was scandals, looking at thediffs, which I dont think is appropriate for BLP and that isnt his primary notability. ←Metallurgist (talk)06:13, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While this noticeboard is the appropriate place to report neutrality issues for related edits across multiple articles, this noticeboard is primarily content-focused and is not well-suited for resolving conduct disputes. To file a conduct report for this issue, any editor can gather the relevant diffs and submit them in a new report on thearbitration enforcement noticeboard. — Newslingertalk09:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Newslinger As noted above,WP:COI#Advocacy, noticeboards states "Whether an editor is engaged in advocacy should first be addressed at the user's talk page, then at WP:NPOVN, the neutral-point-of-view noticeboard". Is that inaccurate advice? Nothing on that page suggests that AE is the proper forum, andnone of the very limited list of valid reasons to use AE seem to be met here (violation of CTOP/ArbCom-imposed restriction, requesting CTOP restrictions, requesting page restrictions for CTOP articles, appealing AE actions). That this noticeboard isn't supposed to handle conduct disputes is described nowhere in PAG as far as I can tell, and while most use cases may not involve that, there is no P&G reasons for conduct-related issues to be prohibited here (indeed,WP:COI suggests the opposite).Katzrockso (talk)10:16, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be meaningful if the filer of this NPOVN post definitively thought that sanctions were the correct outcome here. Obviously @Butterscotch Beluga wasn't sure what the community might think of this pattern of edits and filing a frivolous AE case on uncertain grounds is not the right decision by any means.Katzrockso (talk)11:19, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The word "restrictions" might be confusing things — especially since it describespage restrictions in the next point but doesn't say what restrictions applied to an editor are — but thecontentious topic restrictions that can be applied to aneditor who engages in misconduct in a topic area designated as a contentious topic, include logged warnings, revert restrictions, blocks and bans. So restrictions in theWikipedia:Editing restrictions sense, which are perfectly applicable if someone's behaviour is bad enough.On the other hand, while this place ultimately isn't able to take any enforcement actions (unless an admin does so unilaterally), I do agree that it's still a valid place to discuss things, if, like Beluga, we are unsure if any action should be taken but wish to raise things in a more centralised venue. A conversation over here might simply look like
A: Hey, I'm a little concerned about these edits due to X, Y and Z. Can someone look over them to see if I'm overreacting? * B: Hmm, yeah, that does look a little concerning. Did you have any reason other than what you put in the edit summary to do W, C? * * C: I still think U and V are valid reasons to do W, but I also think T. [... etc, etc ...]
Which would probably be a lot more pleasant for all involved than something at AE or ANI... if it worked, which it doesn't always, for example, if editor C is encouraged to think by people supporting their edits this is all politically motivated nonsense, so to speak. Engagement here was probably worth a try though, it may still be productive at this point.Alpha3031 (t •c)10:55, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the first half of you reply here is supposed to mean/apply to what I said, I apologize for misunderstanding anything.
However, I agree with the general thrust of the 2nd half of your comment. I think that the imaginary scenario you proposed is not too different than what really happened here, though derailed by some off-topic commentary as noted.
I find it quite concerning that at least 3 different separate forums have been suggested for this conversation (AE, ANI and article talk pages) by several editors, instead of engaging in substantive engagement with the actual issues arisen by the post [and it's worth noting that per the guidelines, thisis the right forum and no editor has produced any PAG to suggest otherwise]. It seems like informal bureaucracy by appeals to process is getting in the way of meaningful discourse or addressing actual problems.Katzrockso (talk)11:27, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Katzrockso, to clarify, Butterscotch Beluga was correct to initiate the current discussion on this noticeboard, and the content dispute (i.e. what to do about the edits across multiple articles) should continue to be discussed here. The conduct issue (i.e. whether sanctions should be applied to the editor who made these edits), however, is unlikely to be resolved on this noticeboard, based on the outcomes of past discussions here. The subjectElliott Broidy is covered under two contentious topics (WP:CT/AP andWP:CT/BLP), so a conduct report against the editor regarding this issue would be appropriate atWP:AE, which has an efficient format for presenting multiple diffs as evidence.WP:ANI is not ideal for this conduct dispute, as it is poorly suited for handling large amounts of evidence and extended back-and-forth discussions. I posted a reminder aboutWP:AE because of the conduct-related comments in this discussion (includingyour comment about the edits having a"disruptive effect", andBuidhe's comment that the conduct"Looks sanctionable"). — Newslingertalk11:53, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree that sanctions cannotresult from a discussion here, but whether or not the editing here is in violation of policies that editors believe may arise to the level of being sanctionable is completely valid commentary to discuss here, as it provides reason/motivation for an editor to file a case at a forum that can levy sanctions/restrictions. That is the entire basis ofWP:COI pointing to this forum, as it directly mentions the question of whether a pattern of editing constitutes advocacy - something that is a violation of Wikipedia policies. That is to say that the entire point of a discussion at this forum about advocacy would be to determine whether theconduct by a user constitutes advocacy. Editors should be perfectly free to opine whether or not sanctions arewarranted (something I have not done yet), with the understanding that this is not a formal discussion that canimpose sanctions.Katzrockso (talk)12:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Newslinger, consider this when piling on this editor at AE/NPOVN: this is classic POV railroading dressed up as "policy enforcement." Multiple 2025 hit pieces accusing Broidy of secretly working for Qatar have now blown up in the faces of outlets that ran them:
Calcalist did the honorable thing and fully retracted on Nov 11, 2025, admitting "no concrete evidence."
Haaretz still hasn't corrected their identical garbage story, so Broidy had to sue them for libel in October 2025.
Yet somehow the editor who took the initiative to remove or challenge the now-discredited crap is the one facing sanctions? Talk about upside-down!! WP:BLP says remove poorly-sourced contentious material immediately, especially when the sources themselves later admit it was a nothing-burger. Punishing an editor for following BLP to the letter because a handful of editors who are suspicious of his motives is the real policy violation here. Let's talk about the elephant in the room few want to visit: Qatar has been openly buying influence – Dems and Repubs – for years! $100M+ in lobbying (look at FARA filings), Menendez indicted for Qatar bribes, Lindsey Graham flipping after the money hit his PACs, Nick Muzin/Joey Allaham paid millions to pimp Qatar to conservatives, tens of millions dumped into Brookings, and so forth. But the second someone consistently calls Qatar out (like Broidy), suddenly every retracted smear and pardoned 15-year-old misdemeanor gets dragged out endlessly, while the actual pay-to-play recipients skate away unscathed. That's not neutrality, folks; that's letting Qatar's influence machine write the article by proxy. No RfC, no real talk-page consensus at those articles, just a rush to AE because the editor wouldn't keep libelous, since-retracted claims in the article. Better safe than sorry only applies when it protects the "right" people, apparently. This isn't about BLP policy. It's targeted harassment of an editor who refuses to carry water for Doha-funded narratives. Sad. The community should be ashamed if this sanction stands. Here are some diffs to consider:Calcalis, andMother Jones, and[10] There's more, but I don't have time to do the research for you. My position is that it's always better to be safe than sorry.Atsme💬📧20:55, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Atsme I don't think any of us would have any issue if the edits in question were only removing that Calcalist story. But they were removing dozens of other pieces of reliably sourced content that was reported in dozens of outlets. That's the issue and one you seem to refuse to address.Katzrockso (talk)22:12, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current discussion has become convoluted and difficult to follow, so I split the conduct portion of the dispute toWP:AE § Iljhgtn to give everyone a chance to refocus on the content issues here (ideally in a new subsection). The result of the AE discussion will be highly dependent on the quality of Iljhgtn's response. If you believe any of the diffs presented at AE are mitigated by retractions, then you are welcome to specifically point them out at AE. — Newslingertalk10:32, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ive been taking a deeper look at the edits Butterscotch referenced. Some of the edits I feel were justified. Many were indeed undue BLP attacks, and of the 21 edits on 20 articles I looked at the origins of, 7 were done by 3 accounts and 1 IP, who were subsequently indeffed. Some for inserting baseless BLP edits that were never reverted until now, and I wonder what is still extant. One had a total of 20 blocks over the years, which is wild. 3 further edits were done by accounts who were blocked at least once, but are not currently.
The following I felt were justifiable (13):
DarkMatter Group andSignals Intelligence Agency - See alsos added by same IP, later blocked for 3 years for "Persistent disruptive editing: violations of WP:BLP, non-communicative, adding unsourced content with irrelevant references". Latter might be AFD-worthy.
João Lourenço - The same IP added this, there is some case for the NYT cite, but I find it weak, there are 5 mentions of Lourenco, but I think its more due on Brodys page. The intercept link doesn't mention Lourenco.
Yurii Karmazin - The creator of this page was also blocked, and would be G5-able, but has been edited since. The cited source is in Russian and didn't seem to support a mention.
Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump - This one was inserted by two editors, one has been blocked 8 times, mostly for 3RR. I actually think more should have been removed here, as noted on that TP discussion.
Andrew Hevesi - The cite only had one mention, so I think its weak to put it here.
Liviu Dragnea - Another from our blocked IP friend, who inserted the same NYT and Intercept articles. Intercept has no mention of Dragnea. NYT does, but as above, its a few mentions. The focus is on Broidy. Given the provenance, I am skeptical of it being here. However, it does meet DUEness for Broidys article.
Abuse of power - This is from the NYP, which is GUNREL. It does have 18 mentions, but I am skeptical of this being DUE. Brody wasn't in power. Also, the IP resolves to Spain, which is curious, and only has 3 edits.
List of Playboy Playmates of 2010 - This hosted the redirect for Shere Bechard until that became an article. It never should have mentioned the scandal. One of the three editors originating the text removed was later indeffed.
Fox News controversies - This is more focused on Hannity. HuffPo mentions Broidy 1 and Fox 8 times. NYTimes mentions him 4 times and Fox 7 times. By contrast, Hannity is mentioned 37 times in the NYT. Reuters and the Observer mention him zero times. The information was inserted by an editor who has been blocked a cool 20 times! (if I counted correctly)
Dave Wedge - This ref by an IP was improperly formatted and doesn't mention Brody.
First inauguration of Donald Trump - This is based on a NY Times infographic with limited information, but its own section. DUEness is shaky, but maybe. The editor who introduced it was blocked at one point.
Joey Allaham - This only removed one sentence, which is odd, but it does still mention Brody.
The following had a case, but went too far (3):
Eric Branstad - This one is a bit difficult. The NYT cite has 45 mentions of Broidy and 3 of Branstad. The Intercept article has 1 mention of Broidy and 120 mentions of Branstad. I suppose thats enough. The creator of the article (who initated this information) was blocked twice for edit warring.
Keith Davidson - This involved three BLPs and probably should have been condensed. Do we really need profiles on each of his clients?
Shera Bechard - This was the focus of a major scandal for him, so it is certainly DUE, but should have been rewritten. It was copied from the List of playmates above.
Louis DeJoy - Epithet not in the source. Broidy and Cohen may not even deserve mention here tbh.
There has been a dispute primarily between myself and @Binksternet regarding the HP Way article. It is my view that the tone in some sections does not represent a neutral point of view. Overall, the tone is often inappropriate for an encyclopedia. At one point, Binksternet described his style of writing as “prose”:
By contrast, I emphasized the importance of language that aligns with Wikipedia’s standards, though I do not believe Binksternet’s edits were in bad faith. I do not take neutrality on Wikipedia lightly, and would not raise this issue unless I believed it to be significant.
Examples:
"Most other companies in the 1940scared little for their employees, customers or society. For instance, Stanford business management professor Paul Eugene Holden asserted in 1942 that a corporation should be concerned only about its shareholders. He was speaking at a conference of company leaders, with Packard in attendance.Packard stood up to say, "I think you’re absolutely wrong. Management has a responsibility to its employees, it has a responsibility to its customers, it has a responsibility to the community at large." Packard recalled later that his peers "almost laughed me out of the room."[ He said, "I was surprised and shocked that not a single person at that meeting agreed with me. While they were reasonably polite in their disagreement, it was quite evident they firmly believed I was not one of them, and obviously not qualified to manage an important enterprise."
This paragraph demonstrates a theme in other sections the article –tangentially relevant, unverifiable information. It appears to support the HP Way business philosophy in a way that is not especially informative or neutral.
Other examples:
In the section entitled "Decline"
As CEO of HP, Fiorina "paid lip service to the HP Way", according to the Los Angeles Times. She did not practice management by wandering around, nor did she maintain an open door policy. She pushed HP to modernize its corporate policies, importing the profit-seeking style of Lucent Technologies from which she had come.[6] She wrote her own version of the HP Way titled "Rules of the garage". Fiorina battled the HP board, especially the Hewlett and Packard families
The usage of the quote in this opening sentence gives factual weight to an subjective remark. When I attempted to address this, my revision was removed entirely instead of being discussed.
Carly Fiorina worked against the HP Way (used as a caption under her photo)
Other observers point to the 2002 firing of 15,000 HP employees as the end of the HP Way. These workers would have been offered new training and new roles under the HP Way.
This is another example of WP:NPOV. The claim that they "would've been offered new roles" is unverifiable, and it is unclear as to how it relates to the rest of the passage. This remark seems to serve to support a subjective viewpoint rather than an objective fact.
While there are several other examples I've attempted to address in my edits, I've included these as particularly relevant to my criticism.
Concessions -
It would be unfair and dishonest to ignore that there there were times where I was not always editing or conversing appropriately. While it was not my intention to "stain" the article, I will do my best to recognize these criticisms and will avoid future mistakes to the fullest extent possible. In the spirit of full disclosure, I attempt to accurately address my behavior in this section.
Accuracy, relevance to sources:
Some information, likemy additions regarding the dot-com bubble, may not have been accurately reflected in the source.
Overall ettiqute:
I must emphasize it is my intention to be transparent and admit to errors or transgressions. In the spirit of good faith and relevance, I sincerely wish not to criticize other users unnecessarily.
However, I still find it necessary to provide context to understand the full scope of the dispute ---
At no point (that I recognize) were my specific revisions sufficiently given detail for me to work off of and reach consensus. In fact, I encouraged Binksternet to specifically address revisions he reverted in a couple of edit summaries. For example, I wrote in an edit summary ("Clean up/copyedit. tone, detail. . . lets talk on the talk page before you revert, please"), which he subsequently reverted and failed to sufficiently provide the clarification I requested.
With that being said, my comments were also often too brief, and not given enough detail or context for edits I made. Likely, it would have made the dispute process easier if I specifically addressed my own modifications as well.
While this is not an excuse, at the time, I did not feel particularly obligated to discuss specific details of revisions - authored by myself or Binksternet - because I instead felt a burden to address his other criticisms, which I found to be unnecessarily broad in scope, long, and occasionally transgressive.
I will avoid these mistakes in the future to ensure clarity.
Additionally, my initial revisions were overly incremental with not enough detail in edit summaries to justify the edits.
Finally, some of my remarks during conversation expressed a passive-aggressive tone that is inappropriate. These remarks were obviously not made in good faith andI sincerely apologize for my behavior.
It may interest Faketuxedo to note that my reference to "engaging prose" is supported by the requirements for FA status:Wikipedia:Featured article criteria says that the FA candidate page should be "well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard." I emphatically do not wish to see a dull, rote delivery of facts replace engaging prose.
I'm not such a shitty writer. I have taken four articles to FA status, three of which I started from scratch.
Faketuxedo, if you had suggestions for how to make the pagemore engaging to the reader I would have responded positively. Instead, you started out by accusing me of having a conflict of interest, which you couldn't prove, and is ridiculous. I am a freelance audio engineer working mainly with corporate events in the Silicon Valley tech hub. I don't have any formal business relationship with HP. I owned an HP calculator in the mid-80s, and I used an HP Inkjet printer in the mid-90s, but that doesn't constitute a conflict. I have definitely been inside the HP campus in Palo Alto a dozen times while working on corporate events in the 2010s and 2020s, but I was hired by various production companies who are not faithful just to HP. I have also worked for HP competitors, and I have been inside competitors' buildings, so it's a wash. I don't have any respect for the modern HP Inc after seeing the underhanded way they do business with their vendors. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the old HP of the '40s through the '80s (which I never experienced first hand) because so many Silicon Valley oldtimers have related stories about how good it was.
I started the HP Way page after thinking for a year about the topic. I read David Packard's bookThe HP Way on airline flights last summer. I looked through national and local news coverage about the topic. I searched through HP alumni writings, and tech magazine pieces. I know the topic now better than I ever have.
It is very hard for me to believe that Faketuxedo has the reader's best interests in mind. Faketuxedo appears bent on removals rather than expansion of the topic, despite the large amount of description that could yet be added to the topic, drawn from the extensive writings on the topic. The fact that the sources are almost universally positive about the topic is why my summary of the sources is so positive.Binksternet (talk)05:38, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't follow all the edit-warring edits, but I did read both of your above comments: I think this "...visionary for its time.[15] Most other companies in the 1940s cared little for their employees, customers or society. For instance," should be removed because it IMPLIES that the HP way started a new business culture that is widely adopted today; sadly, I think that is not true, and that most of today's companies don't care about their employees anymore than the companies of the 1940's. Yes Kickstarter re-incorporated asbenefit corporation, but this is rare overall. If a source talks about the HP way as predecessor to that type of incorporation, than I suppose the statement can be sourced and included, or if the source says that the HP Way kickstartedworkplace democracy, than it can be included.
(I'm a stickler for not claiming facts or results that have not been proven.) I read this whole article back in September, and glancing through again now, overall, while the article does sound like lots of glowing reviews of this business philosophy, I didn't see any claims (other than employee retention) that were claimed to be PROVEN RESULTS of following this method. It seems like a business philosophy that would be well-liked, but whether that translates into better outcomes would be hard to measure. If we could find a business professors' case-studies on the HP Way that would be really helpful.---Avatar317(talk)06:32, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your suggestions – that's very helpful.
As you mentioned, I think shifting the tone from "glowing reviews" to "proven results" is a reasonable way to resolve this conflict. If there's any quantitative evidence or academic case studies to support the efficacy of the HP Way, we could keep more of the claims Binksternet included, contingent on them being supported by more verifiable sources (and written in an appropriate tone). I also agree with your proposed omission.
@Binksternet you've mentioned a few times that you have prior knowledge and access to several sources on this topic. Would you be interested in researching if there's a way we can reasonably support the claims in the article with specific data/case studies?
The suggestion that the article could incorporate more quantifiable results is a fine one, if at all possible. I haven't seen hard business analysis in the sources but maybe it exists somewhere. The absence of quantifiable results is not a POV problem, though. I'm not misrepresenting the sources that are cited, nor am I misrepresenting the field of sources readily available. The POV tag should be removed; it's a stain on the page.
Note that the HP Way is considered the source of Silicon Valley's people-oriented culture in its early, foundational days. That makes it a very influential business philosophy for its time.Binksternet (talk)16:27, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The absence of quantifiable results is not a POV problem
That's correct, the absence of quantifiable resultsalone is not a POV problem. Representing subjective opinions (even if they are popular and mainstream), however, as factual evidence of the HP Way's efficacyis a POV problem because it violates the tenant of maintaining an impartial tone:
"The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view . . . summarize and present the arguments in an impartial, formal tone."
Your writing comes off as anendorsement, not adescription of an endorsement.
An excellent example of impartiality can be found inThe Beatles article. It very consistently refers to the band as almost universally acclaimed and highly influential – the article itself, however, does not attempt to present this viewpoint as its own. It gives due weight to the acclaim without presenting it as an objective fact (it doesn't state The Beatles are "the best," for instance), and it describes minority viewpoints with due weight to their mainstream acceptance (for example with critics of the White Album).
Similarly, I don't have a problem, as you imply, with describing the HP Way as being a "very influential business philosophy." However, in the examples in my original post, you endorse pointed opinions as facts – for example, regarding Carly Fiornia's role in changing the business philosophy as "lip service", speculation on the mass-layoffs in 2001, and the description of the HP Way as contrasting the companies which you described as caring "little for their employees, customers or society," which is not framed as an opinion but a fact.
In all of these examples, the neutrality is lacking not due to a conflict of interest (as I had erroneously tagged and have since apologized for), but in the use of language serves to endorse a viewpoint rather than present it.
Here are two examples of how these could be implemented (that were reverted either as a correction from a different revision or as a correction from the current revision):
"As CEO of HP, Fiorina "paid lip service to the HP Way", according to the Los Angeles Times. " -:> "This change was controversial, with the Los Angeles Times describing her business philosophy as "lip service to the HP Way"
This goes from presenting the quote as evidence of a fact, to presenting the quote as an example of an opinion in the media.
"It was a form of management by objectives, which focused on teamwork, innovation, fiscal responsibility, and morality ("obligations to society")." -> "According to Hewlett-Packard, the HP Way focused on teamwork, innovation, fiscal responsibility, anticipating future needs and morality"
This edit presents the objectives as corporate goals described by HP, whereas the original presents the objectives as successful outcomes.
I appreciate the small revisions that you have made to your writing based on my suggestions. However, I've made my case as clearly as I can. Unless you're committed to at least meeting me halfway here – all I'm requesting is to back up the claims in the article with data or case studies, and improving the tone where needed – then I'm going to leave this up to the other editors to help us come to a consensus and return when more input has been made.
Other editors – I would really appreciate it I can come back here to find a least a couple agreeable third-party suggestions that myself and Binksternet can implement without edit warring. I'd like to contribute more but I'm quite busy and don't have time to get into the nitty-gritty anymore than I can.
The POV tag should be removed from the article as it was placed in error. The tag is reserved for cases in which the sources are not represented neutrally. The POV tag page says:
An unbalanced or non-neutral article is one that does not fairly represent the balance of perspectives of high-quality, reliable secondary sources. A balanced article presents mainstream views as being mainstream, and minority views as being minority views. The personal views of Wikipedia editors or the public are irrelevant.
The described problem does not exist atthe HP Way page. The sources are drawn from a wide swath of the literature, and each source is represented appropriately and in balance. I did not insert any "personal views".
Faketuxedo is trying to smear the page for some reason. Faketuxedo's first-ever action at the page was to place a COI tag,[11] which was completely unmerited. Faketuxedo said that the tag was placed for"heavy and persistent use of promotional language" which is not the same as having a conflict of interest. A month later, Faketuxedo placed two more tags:Template:Tone andTemplate:Peacock.[12] At this point, Faketuxedo had not elaborated about the perceived problems on the page, nor had Faketuxedo made any textual contributions to the page. People here generally call that behavior "drive-by tagging". The placement of four different tags by Faketuxedo (COI, Tone, Peacock, POV) appears to me to beWP:Tendentious editing, a violation ofWP:Responsible tagging. Faketuxedo should be warned against this.Binksternet (talk)17:52, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the NPOV tag is appropriate. Some guides to read areWP:NOTADVERT andMOS:FLOWERY, and just theWP:NPOV page in general. I don't see how the inclusion "Corporate management author James C. Collins described the HP Way as "visionary" for its time" could be seen as neutral even though it's attributed, it comes across as corporate puff-piece talk. The only thing it tells us is "this person said this new thing is good".Denaar (talk)17:47, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about the Tendentious editing and don't understand the motivation. I also think maybe a third party look might clean up faketuxedo's problems? Or at least reach consensus on if they are actually problems at all. I personally thought their edits were not really needed and the tagging not really logical but I do think other editors might be useful? Could an RFC in the talk page maybe be a good idea?IndrasBet (talk)16:30, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the 1940s, it was not common for a company to care for its employees, customers or society, as was illustrated by Stanford business management professor Paul Eugene Holden, who asserted at a conference in 1942 that a corporation should be concerned only about its shareholders.
These sentences have aWP:TONE issue, if not aWP:NPOV issue, as it looks like the type of claims that one would make to praise HP shortly after. The "components" section definitely looks unencyclopedically appreciative. SeeWP:MISSION.Kvinnen (talk)11:44, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same-Sex attracted section of Terminology of Homosexuality
Both of the users that redirectedSame-sex attracted toTerminology of homosexuality have been blocked indefinitely. I was asked to build "consensus" to update this page, so I am asking for assistance.
WebMD gives us a pretty neutral definition of the term Homosexual: "Homosexuality refers to attraction between people who are the same sex. It comes from the Greek word homos, meaning “the same.”[13]. Variations on the term "Same-sex Attraction" have been used by researchers since at least the 1970's:. "Tested the hypothesis that similarity-dissimilarity of sexually relevant attitudes has a greater effect on opposite-sex than same-sex attraction."[14]. I can pull many citations just like this.
Even today, APA uses same-sex attraction in a neutral way.[15]
However, it would be original research for me to write in an article "same-sex attraction is a term used in psychology research since the 1970's" using the above source; I would need a secondary source that actually says that, otherwise, it's original research to use the above citations and describe what is in them. We need a secondary source that analyses those sources.
GLAAD does warn about "unwanted same-sex attraction", but also gives a whole list of words to watch for which aren't included.[16]
Unfortunately, that style of citation is currently being used to argue that "same-sex attracted" originates in the 2000/2010s ex-Gay movement and that it didn't begin as a scientific term, and specifically stresses the "religious" nature of the term. Then the term was being added to the articles of Psychologists who are not affiliated with the "ex Gay movement" to bring people to this page.
People who practice "reparative" or "ex gay" therapy, of course, use scientific terminology in order to make themselves look professional. But that's another obvious statement that is hard to source because it's so obvious no one actually writes it out.
If you actually read through the sources carefully, you'll see the sentences on the page aren't firmly sourced; it's mostly Original Research and Synthesis. I would say the entire topic fails to be notable, precisely because no one has written anything in depth about it, but it's a "sub page" to dance around being notable.
I think this subsection of the page isn't notable, is original research, and doesn't meetWP:Due orWP:Balance because it makes up about 1/5 of the article.
I think a "Terms used by the Ex-gay movement" section might be reasonable; but we actually already have one linked right at the top of the page that discusses terminology used on that page, so a short summary and a link to the other page seems most appropriate to me.Denaar (talk)20:37, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Giving a glance at the article and the talk page, it seems like the same sex attraction section serves largely to discuss the marketing of "ex-gay" and conversion therapy movements, with the term SSA (same sex attraction) as an aside and common theme, but not something most of the sources address as a central topic or thesis.
Clinical terminology is not given enough weight. However, I really do think it has a patently ex-gay association in pop culture even though it retains its clinical definition academically and in research. This is mentioned in two or three sources, though maybe with the evidence used now its use in anti-gay is not enough to keep as more than a brief note. If possible though, its worth looking into as something to go into a bit of depth on. I think this is too nuanced to dismiss reducing just to a footnote or removing entirely.
Just to give a few options on next steps:
- If there is a way to find sources without synthesizing them together, I think it's worth including as a shortened version, otherwise remove all together.
- The section is way too long. The largest it should be is two or three short paragraphs.
- The sources could be salvaged for citations in the ex-gay movement article, or it could be used as a backbone to create a new section about the modern marketing and terminology of the ex-gay movement article with SSA as a central theme. If the latter ends up happening your suggestion with summary/wikilink is good.
- The claims about the term originating primarily from the 2010s are not reasonable and should've been removed a while ago.
think this is too nuanced to dismiss reducing just to a footnote or removing entirely. - I meant to add "without looking into it deeply." Those are both possibilities in the longer runFaketuxedo (talk)21:27, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean, there's plenty of stuff written by sociologists and others about how religious people avoid terms like gay, etc and promote "same-sex attracted". See[17] for specific application to Mormons.Katzrockso (talk)01:13, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would think you could directly state that SSA terminology was used in such and such paper(s) and publications in the 1970s: to establish a professional timeline. You might not be able to make a first claim but you could establish the earliest paper up until current papers in this way to set a logical framework which would show the term was used before the Ex-Gay movement without outright making that claim if sources don’t say so. People will see the dates and make the connection. Just stating such and such paper published in this year said this and directly citing the paper isn’t OR. Best.4meter4 (talk)11:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to ask for advice from experienced editors on how to proceed in a situation where reliably sourced content and a sourced category addition are repeatedly rejected, and normal dispute-resolution steps have not been successful.
In the articleEkaterina Kotrikadze, I attempted to add information about her legal status in Russia, supported by multiple reliable sources, and to restore the categoryPeople listed in Russia as foreign agents, which had previously been removed due to lack of sourcing. After providing the necessary sources, the edit and the category were again reverted.
I opened a discussionon the article’s talk page, but other editors stated that they consider the matter closed and declined further participation. I then submitted a requestto DRN, but it was closed because no other editor chose to participate.
At this point, I am unsure how to proceed. I do not want to edit war, and normal dispute-resolution steps have been exhausted without any engagement from the opposing editors. I would appreciate guidance on how best to handle situations where sourced content is repeatedly rejected, but other involved editors decline dispute resolution.
PS: I am a beginner on enWiki and therefore may not yet know all the specifics of the rules and regulations. If I made a mistake with the choice of the forum, please indicate where my current question can be sent to resolve the situation.AlexeyKhrulev (talk)09:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Responded at the talk - I think that the persecution she faces is indeed notable.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I notified the @TylerBurden on his personal page. Unfortunately, I didn't know that I needed to be notified additionally on the article's talk page.
In the end, what should I do? Can I return my edit to the article, or do I need to wait for someone else's approval? Unfortunately, the only one who was against it does not consider it necessary to take part in the discussion.
@AlexeyKhrulev You were shut down forWP:BLUDGEONING already but evidently there is no end to your constant efforts and it feels like I'm receiving a ping from you every other day as you go around different venues seeking for editors to insert your content. I haven't used rollback a single time in these disputes, all reverts have been made either to prevent your edit warring, which has included you declaring fake consensus for a dispute you were directly involved in. What should you do? I would suggest start following Wikipedia policy, as eager as you are to stress how much of a beginner you are, you are equally eager to edit war and generally overstep your boundaries in aWP:CTOP.TylerBurden (talk)18:38, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to clarify that I only add material that is supported by reliable sources, and nothing I proposed was unsourced or speculative. Another editor has nowreturned edit that I previously tried to include, and it has not been reverted by youbefore. This suggests that the issue was not the content itself, but the dispute with you.
My intention has never been to "bludgeon" or to edit war, but simply to ensure that reliably sourced information is represented in a neutral, attributed manner. I have followed the dispute-resolution steps (talk page, DRN, etc.), and I am fully open to adjustments for tone or weight when needed. My only concern is how you evaluate the source material and prevent it from being included.AlexeyKhrulev (talk)19:23, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You did all these things, you edit warred, declared a consensus yourself (of course in support of your edit) after an actually uninvolved editor intervened, closing the discussion saying you were bludgeoning. Hopefully you're aware that all these things are listed in the history of the articles and I'm not sure why instead of taking responsibility you're pretending to be a careful beginner.TylerBurden (talk)20:15, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot agree with your statement. At that moment, I offered a new version of the my previous edit for consideration, but you ignored it. I had to ping you a few times, but you still didn't respond. Due to the fact that you were the only participant in that discussion and did not disagree (your silence is interpreted as agreement here), I have every right to make an edited version of the edit (according to the consensus rule).AlexeyKhrulev (talk)07:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If Alaexis (who doesn't have a spotless record themselves when it comes to pushingWP:UNDUE Russian narratives) wants to insert a section into aWP:BLP titled "Political position" and make it almost exclusively about how the Russian state is putting the individual on various lists, they'll be following the same poor biographical writing that you initially did on the article brought up here first, which even you eventually admitted was inappropriate, then we'll have to cross that bridge.
I explained at the talk that the political persecution she faced has been reported by RS such as Meduza and therefore should be mentioned in the article. The section is calledPolitical persecution and notPolitical position as you wrote. If you have policy-based arguments I'm happy to continue the discussion at the talk page of the article.
Can editors who know about US politics look at this article and see if it is sufficiently neutral. I am not even sure if the topic is standalone notable. Sourcing is very weak.BobFromBrockley (talk)23:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't about Groypers. This a well-documented controversy about The FBI memo targeted Catholics at Latin Mass. There's a DOJ IG report, congressional hearings, testimony from Wray and Garland, and responses from Catholic organizations. That's what the article covers.
I'm not evading any ban. This is my only account. Per WP:BRD, concerns about the article should have been raised on the article talk page or my user talk page first.
Which parts of the article violate NPOV? The article includes FBI's defense, IG findings, congressional criticism, and Catholic responses. Happy to address specific concerns.Bladerunner24 (talk)05:28, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, user~2025-36251-63 (account created today) just reverted my edits to J. Kirk Wiebe with no explanation. Timing seems coordinated with these accusations. I posted on that article's talk page asking for explanation.Bladerunner24 (talk)05:56, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Another new account@2025-36344-18: reverted my edit on FBI Richmond Catholic memo, saying it's "disingenuous to say it's unrelated" regarding Nick Fuentes. That's now two different new accounts reverting my work on two different articles within hours of these accusations being posted.Bladerunner24 (talk)17:54, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On notability, reporting on the memo spans the two years since it was distributed, there are a handful of GREL sources spanning that time period covering it (NYT, WaPo, CNN, Axios), a few MREL sources (Washington Times, Newsweek), a lot of niche outlets which focus on Catholic news have covered it, a handful of GUNREL have also covered it. Then there are multiple official websites of agencies, government employees, and elected politicians which cover and discuss it. --Cdjp1 (talk)14:33, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any issue with the latest version. I think it isWP:DUE because the presence of foreign personnel in any country's military is interesting and noteworthy in general, and the recruitment of foreigners to the Russian military has clearly been covered widely in RSes, including the methods of recruitment. The latest version has also been attributed. Can you elaborate on what issues you still see in the latest version?
I also don't see any issue with including a summary of the allegations that you object tohere, as these allegations have been widely reported in RSes, as long as they are attributed to whoever is making the allegations (either soldiers themselves, soldiers' families, soldiers' home countries' governments, or Ukraine).Helpful Cat {talk}04:12, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My issue is not with theArmed Forces of Ukraine article, I was simply bringing it up for comparison. The articleForeign fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian war already covers both Ukraine and Russia, so if we're going to duplicate content for one of them, then we should similarly duplicate content for the other. That's what neutrality demands.
I don't appreciate you bringing upWP:POINT. Are we unable to have a content dispute in the RUSUKR area without speculating on the motivations of editors? And we're not even disputing whether the content should be included in Wikipedia, because it already is. This is about whether the content should be duplicated and how it should be presented. And if we have two sides engaged in a conflict, then how we treat the articles of the two sides is a neutrality issue.TurboSuperA+[talk]05:37, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've asked twice if you could elaborate on what issues you have with the current version of theRussian Armed Forces article; both times, you haven't answered, but pointed to a different article instead. If you want to avoid the appearance ofWP:POINT, you might want to explain the actual problem you're raising, and why you find the current version problematic (for example, why is it notWP:DUE, or why is the attribution insufficient?)Helpful Cat {talk}06:10, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ve asked twice if you could elaborate on what issues you have with the current version of the Russian Armed Forces article
I've explained it on the article's talk page, but I can repeat it here. And it's not about the whole article, but the addition linked in the opening post of this thread. Also, note thatI have not reverted the latest edit, it is still live.
First of all, the addition is a duplicate of what is already present in theForeign fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian war article. Do we need two full paragraphs in an already long article?
Second, there areweasel words in the latest addition:several sources have reported andAccording to experts. That is not sufficient attribution. Which sources, which experts?
Third, the the edit says:charging them with luring young men to Russia with thepromise of lucrative employment or university admissions only to force them to fight in Ukraine. But reading the article, there are important differences in the details. It says the human traffickers promised university admissions and lucrative employment, while the Indian soldiers say they were promised non-combatant roles in the Russian military. So they knew they were joining the Russian military, they just expected different roles within it. The edit makes it sound like they filled out university admission applications in Russia but were sent to the front line. Militaries promising roles to recruits only to pull the rug from under them is standard procedure in pretty much all the world's militaries. Here's the US as an example:[20][21][22][23]TurboSuperA+[talk]06:40, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that explanation, which is a lot clearer.
"First of all, the addition is a duplicate of what is already present in theForeign fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian war article. Do we need two full paragraphs in an already long article?" - I don't think this is an argument in itself, because many other sections in this article are condensed versions of separate main articles (e.g. history, budget, nuclear weapons), and this is also the case for other military articles such asUnited States Armed Forces.
Weasel words:"several sources have reported" seems to be a summary of all the sources this section is citing, i.e. CNN, the Atlantic Council, the LA Times, Telegraph India, France 24, and Al Jazeera. I'm not sure how else we would group the attribution together, andWP:WEASEL does say"The examples aboveare not automatically weasel words. They may legitimately be used in thelead section of an article or in atopic sentence of a paragraph when the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution." As for"according to experts", that is taken from the subheading of theFrance 24 article that sentence cites. It might be better and more specific to quote the researcher Yohann Michel from further down in the article about foreign soldiers being used expendably to reveal Ukrainian positions.
Al Jazeera article: I do agree that this article is not the best. It's unclear whether the soldiers interviewed in the article (or whose families were interviewed) who were promised non-combatant roles are supposed to be the same people who were promised"lucrative jobs or university admissions", or if they are just other examples of Indians who fought for Russia in general. (Being promised a non-combatant military role and then being sent to the front line is still a form of deception no matter how common it is, but I agree that it's different from being promised a civilian job or university offer and then forced into the military). I suggest adding these other sources:
another Al Jazeera article - promised a job as a security guard, but then forced into the Russian military
The Guardian article - two more "security guard" cases; tourists being detained and forced to join the military; two cases of men trying to take jobs in Germany or Dubai but being picked up and sent to the military in Russia; one case of a student trying to study medicine in Russia but discovering on arrival that he had been deceived into joining the military
SCMP article - two cases of men trying to work in the Middle East, but being tricked or forced into joining the Russian military (one of them was also mentioned in the Guardian article)
The Wire article - promised jobs as construction workers but forced into the military
There are sufficient examples of these allegations from various RSes to justify the quote you object to, even if the Al Jazeera article is unclear by itself. Clearly, there is a spectrum where some foreign fighters were aware that they were joining the military but believed they would not see combat, while others were deceived under the pretence of civilian jobs or study.Helpful Cat {talk}08:01, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Coercion and deception
The claims of coercion and outright deception the articles do qualify with "said", "claims", "told"; for exampleIf we refused, they said we would be killed,” he claimed. (TheWire.in),a video circulated on social media of seven Indians from Punjab who claimed they had travelled to Russia as tourists (The Guardian),where their families claim they have been forced to fight in the Ukraine war (SCMP) So I don't think the coercion can be said in WikiVoice, since the cited RSs choose to attribute the statements.
The term "security guard" is not explained much. Is the claim that some Random Security Company is advertising jobs but it is actually a front for the Russian army? Seems unlikely. From the Guardian:In India, several cited a YouTube channel, Baba Vlogs, which is run by Faisal Khan – an Indian recruiter operating out of Dubai – as the platform that had duped them. Khan posted a series of videos to his 300,000 followers from the streets of St Petersburgpromoting jobs in Russia as military helpers, categorically stating that they would be safe and not sent to the frontlines, andAn Indian man working as a translator for the Russian ministry of defence ... said many who arrived from India and Nepal had no clue they were there to work in the conflict zone. From the SCMP:In one video shared on YouTube by Faisal Khan, who runs Baba Vlogs, he can be seen strolling down a street in St Petersburg,inviting viewers to join the Russian army for a monthly salary of US$3,600. Khan explains the job would include clearing demolished buildings and caring for armouries without need for combat duty. What most of these cases seem to have in common is that these people signed up for and were promised non-combatant jobs within the Russian military (security/guarding facilities, clearing demolished buildings, and so on). I agree with you, this is still deception, just not as egregious as being an unwitting tourist or hopeful student and then being carted off to the front line.
What if the Wikipedia article said something like:There have been cases of Indian and Nepalese nationals who were promised non-combatant roles far from the front line, but ended up serving in combat units along the line of contact. ?
Manpower shortage
Reading over the edit again, I saw this in the beginning:Facing manpower shortages amidst casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian war and a lack of Russian recruits Is that even true? United24Media, a decidedly pro-Ukraine source reports the opposite:Russia maintains a high level of personnel availability for its armed forces, with operational reserves and ongoing recruitment efforts supported by financial incentives. This assessment was shared by Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, Deputy Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, in an interview with Suspilne on August 12. ... "The figures mentioned—30–35,000 people per month, depending on the intensity of hostilities—are used to replenish losses in Russian Armed Forces units.” Here is the Kyiv Independentechoing the same report. So I don't think we can state in WikiVoice that Russia is facing a manpower shortage.TurboSuperA+[talk]09:54, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Coercion and deception: I agree that the various allegations should be attributed. Re: "security guard", I think it would beWP:OR to assume that that's a military security guard rather than a civilian one.
You are right to quote sections showing that many people intended to join non-combatant military roles. However, there are also enough examples in the articles where non-military jobs were promised (jobs outside Russia, or jobs as construction workers, domestic workers, or kitchen cleaners) or where employment was not involved (tourists, the medical student) to show that as I mentioned above, foreign soldiers exist on a spectrum of willingness.
Your proposed sentence only mentions one end of the spectrum. How about something like:"In May 2024, the IndianCentral Bureau of Investigation said it had arrested four people linked to a human trafficking network that sent men to fight for the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.Al JazeeraReuters Some Indian and Nepaleseand other men and their families have said that they were promised non-combat "helper" roles in the military, but were sent to the front line; others allege that they were promised civilian employment or were in Russia as tourists or students, but were deceived and coerced into joining the military. [all the refs above]"
(I included "other" because there's also an allegation by aKenyan man, for example) - on second thought, I struck this and removed "other" because the Kenyan man is saying he was a tourist, not that he was a non-combat military helper, so it wouldn't be correct to include him in the first part of the sentence as I did originally. I edited my comment 11:19, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
Manpower shortage: I agree that that is unclear, as there are conflicting reports from RSes. Rather than saying in wikivoice that Russia has a manpower shortage, I think we can just say that they are trying to increase manpower:"Media has reported that to increase manpower amid casualties in theRusso-Ukrainian war, the Russian Armed Forces has increasingly turned to foreign recruits..."Helpful Cat {talk}11:12, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first suggestion is good, I have no remarks. The second one is also good, except the word "increasingly". I checked the sources you linked and none of them say that Russia is "increasingly turning to foreign recruits", so that part isWP:OR. Thanks fir taking the time to write it.TurboSuperA+[talk]19:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, thanks for the reply. I don't think "increasingly" is OR as it's supported by theAtlantic Council article and particularly theCNN article the section currently cites:
"As Russia continues to struggle to recruit its own people to fight in Ukraine, it is increasingly turning to foreigners to bolster its military."
"The rise in the number of foreigners found fighting in Ukraine has recently prompted several countries to issue strongly worded appeals to Russia to stop recruiting their citizens."
"The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence told CNN the number of foreigners found on the front lines in Ukraine has been growing year-on-year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022 but has increased significantly this year. The number of foreigners taken prisoner by Ukrainian troops in the first nine months of this year was double that of the whole of last year, which was itself five times the 2023 figure, according to Kyiv."
If you want, we can substantiate the increase more specifically and attribute it:"According to the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, nearly 200 foreigners from 37 countries who had fought for Russia were being held as prisoners of war by Ukraine in October 2025. Ukrainian Defense Intelligence said that five times as many non-Russian soldiers were captured by Ukraine in 2024 than in 2023, and twice as many as in 2024 had been captured by September 2025."Helpful Cat {talk}04:55, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Russia continues to struggle to recruit its own people to fight in Ukraine,
This is directly contradicted by the United24Media and Kyiv Independent reports on the statement by Ukraine's intelligence services. And just because the number of foreigners increased, that doesn't necessarily mean Russia is "increasingly turning to foreign recruits", it could very well be that more foreigners are joining for their own reasons. The article isn't clear. The recruiters mentioned in the articles, Baba Vlog and those arrested, are
I've already said that we can leave out claims about Russia lacking manpower in the military - the point is that the increase is substantiated by sources.
"And just because the number of foreigners increased, that doesn't necessarily mean Russia is "increasingly turning to foreign recruits", it could very well be that more foreigners are joining for their own reasons." - this would just be OR, because RSes clearly do report that Russia is recruiting foreigners to increase manpower (again, we don't have to state that Russia has a shortage of manpower in the military - by whatever metric would objectively constitute a shortage - to state that they are trying toincrease manpower).
The section of theCNN article about manpower needs
"The revelations come against a backdrop of burgeoning economic cooperation between the two global powerhouses. The Russian economy faces labour shortages because of its ageing population and the significant losses incurred during its war in Ukraine. The youth of the Indian subcontinent are an easy target to make up for this shortfall: Despite rapid economic progress, unemployment in India remains high and prospects are limited. Seeking better lives, young men look for work in Russia – only to find themselves on the battlefield.
And those who fall into the clutches of the Russian military are often quickly sacrificed on the front line.
Foreign soldiers “are used to move forward and to help the Russian army solidify its position”, Michel explained. “They move in groups of one to three people. They infiltrate themselves and reveal the positions of Ukrainians simply by getting shot [at].”
“They are often killed, but it’s still a gain [for the Russians],” he said."
again, all the examples above from various sources where foreigners allege that they were coerced or deceived into joining and therefore didn't "join for their own reasons"
RSes clearly draw the link that Russia is intentionally recruiting foreigners, and that the purpose of this is to increase their manpower. This is not mutually exclusive with some foreigners joining for reasons such as citizenship or payment, because Russia attracting those foreigners with those benefits is still an intentional Russian tactic.
To ignore this because "what if they spontaneously joined for their own reasons without Russia intending to attract them at all?" would be OR on our part.Helpful Cat {talk}06:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seeking better lives, young men look for work in Russia
It's not OR. Your source says that they are going to Russia to look for work. The CNN article bases a lot of it on the premise that Russia is facing a lack of recruits, when they are actually gaining 30-35.000 new ones every month.
The way you're saying it makes it sound like Russia is sending people to India and Nepal to recruit people, when actually people from those places are wanting to go to Russia to seek employment. That's not OR, that's what most of the articles you posted say.
It was the dream of a new start that made Prince and his fishermen cousins, Vineeth Silva and Tinu Paniadiam, all in their early 20s, decide to migrate to Russia in January. (AlJazeera)
When Hemil Mangukiya left his small village in the Indian state of Gujarat last December, he told his family he was off to Russia to make a better living than was possible at home in India. (The Guardian)
Reaching out to Baba Vlogs, a renowned employment agency based in Dubai, Aazad thought he was closer to his dream of providing his loved ones financial security when he received a job offer in the Middle Eastern city. (SCMP)TurboSuperA+[talk]06:38, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The way you're saying it makes it sound like Russia is sending people to India and Nepal to recruit people, when actually people from those places are wanting to go to Russia to seek employment" - you are assuming that recruiters cannot work across borders. Not only is that OR, it's frankly not very logical. Of course people can be recruited for jobs in different countries.
Let's look at the examples you're citing where people went to Russia voluntarily:
"The offer of a job as a security guard in Russia, which came through a recruiter, proved irresistible for Prince and his cousins. In freezing January, they arrived in Moscow after each paying $8,000 to the recruiter, only to be separated on landing by the recruiter’s Indian representative in Moscow.
Prince was taken away to an apartment, where he was confined for four days. He got food, but no answers to the gnawing doubts that were growing by the hour: What was going on?
“Finally, the truth emerged – we weren’t there for the advertised position; we were expected to join the Russian army as helpers,” Prince said.
The recruiter, whom the cousins had already paid in full, was no longer reachable. “We had no choice but to follow the representative’s orders,” Prince added."
Hmmm, does he sound like he joined the Russian military for his own reasons?
"When Hemil Mangukiya left his small village in the Indian state of Gujarat last December, he told his family he was off to Russia to make a better living than was possible at home in India.
Lured by a recruitment video he had seen on YouTube, the 23-year-old had thought he was going for a secure security job far from the war in Ukraine. But in strained phone calls home from Russia, he told his family he was instead sent to a month-long military training camp and then taken to the frontlines, where he was made to dig trenches, carry ammunition and operate rifles and machine guns. Then, in late February, his calls abruptly stopped."
Nope, this one doesn't sound like he signed up to fight for his own reasons either.
"Reaching out to Baba Vlogs, a renowned employment agency based in Dubai, Aazad thought he was closer to his dream of providing his loved ones financial security when he received a job offer in the Middle Eastern city.
Arriving in Dubai in December, however, he was told there were no jobs and sent to work as a kitchen cleaner in Russia – where his family claims he was forcibly brought to the border to fight for Moscow in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
“The agent charged him 300,000 rupees (US$3,600) to arrange the job. But when Aazad reached Moscow, his phone and passport were taken away,” said his brother, Sajad Yousuf Kumar. “We are worried he will be sent to the front line.”"
Wait, this guy wasn't even trying to go to Russia at all. And when he did go to Russia, he thought he would be a kitchen cleaner. Does it sound like he joined the Russian military for his own reasons?
You're suggesting that these people don't have agency and can't make decisions. If I write an ad offering $100 to dig a hole and someone shows up, digs a hole and I pay him $20. Did I force him to dig the hole? No. There was deception, a scam, sure, but notcoercion. It's different than if I grabbed a random person off the street, put a gun to their head and told them to dig a hole.
you are assuming that recruiters cannot work across borders. Not only is that OR, it's frankly not very logical.
According to the sources, they were deceived by third-party and Indian recruiters. If you want to say these are Russian military recruiters, then you'll need a source for that.
A group of seven men who had travelled to Moscow on study and business visas said they were deceived by a third-party agent (TheWire.in)
after it was estimated that thousands had ended up in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Some went voluntarily, but others say they have been trapped.Many of the Nepali were from impoverished villages where employment is scarce, and travelled under the false promises of high-earning jobs (The Guardian)
Reaching out to Baba Vlogs, a renowned employment agency based in Dubai (SCMP)
There is nothing in the sources that suggests these recruiting agencies are operated by the Russian military. The sources do not say it is the Russian military in India who are coercing people to go.
An Indian man working as a translator for the Russian ministry of defence, who is posted in aMoscow facility that recruits foreign fighters, said many who arrived from India and Nepal had no clue they were there to work in the conflict zone.“The agents persuade them that no harm will come to them. Given that these people come from poor backgrounds and spend a lot of money to reach Russia, they sign the contracts,” he said, requesting anonymity. “After that, they can’t back out.” (The Guardian)
Again, they were deceived by "agents" with false promises, and then travelled to the recruiting officein Moscow. The Russian militaty doesn't have its own recruiters in India actively forcing them to go to Russia.
Indian security officials, who, in recent weeks, have made arrests and conducted raids against recruiters accused of luring people to Russia on false pretexts. (AlJazeera)
Nothing suggesting these recruiters are part of the Russian military. In fact, these scammers aren't only recruiting people for Russia:But the pattern of vulnerable Indians finding themselves trapped in job scams overseas is not limited to Russia’s war in Ukraine, experts say. (AlJazeera)TurboSuperA+[talk]07:35, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"You're suggesting that these people don't have agency and can't make decisions. If I write an ad offering $100 to dig a hole and someone shows up, digs a hole and I pay him $20. Did I force him to dig the hole? No. There was deception, a scam, sure, but not coercion. It's different than if I grabbed a random person off the street, put a gun to their head and told them to dig a hole."
This is ridiculous and irrelevant. Your example is about underpayment. If I offer someone $100 to dig a hole, physically confine them when they show up and force them onto the front line instead,yes, I am taking away their agency. Deception and coercion are exactly how human trafficking works. All you are doing here is second-guessing the allegations reported in RSes based on your own POV, and that is unconstructive, disruptive, and blatant OR.
Anyway, no one has ever said thatall foreigners fighting for Russia were forced into doing so. As I have said twice, they exist on a spectrum of willingness. What you are denying now is that Russia is recruiting them at all, consensually or otherwise, and that is clearly indisputable.
"The sources do not say it is the Russian military in India who are coercing people to go."
"The Russian militaty doesn't have its own recruiters in India actively forcing them to go to Russia."
I have already said that it is possible to recruit people for jobs across borders. Of course the Russian military is not in India.
Where do the sources say that the Russian military is directly involved (apart from the obvious fact that these recruiters are recruiting peopleinto the Russian military, and doing so without the Russian military's involvement or awareness would be fairlyWP:EXTRAORDINARY)? Let's see:
(and yes, some of these examples are of people who chose to join the military voluntarily. Again, foreign fighters exist on a spectrum)
"But days after signing a 17-page army contract that Hammad couldn’t read — he was denied a Russian translator and wasn’t given access to WiFi to translate using his phone, according to his wife — he found himself bunkered in a drone-stalked forward position somewhere in Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine." Hmm, who provided the army contract? Maybe the army?
"“She told us it was a Russian government site. We fell for the promise of high salaries. We all come from humble backgrounds and felt that moving out of Moscow for better money was a good idea,” he said. But upon arrival, they were taken straight to a Russian Army camp and given 15 days of basic training. Then they were dispatched to the frontline. “Officials threatened us with pistols and forced us to sign contracts in Russian. If we refused, they said we would be killed,” he claimed." Hmm, do you think the Russian army might have been involved in this?
"Delhi has acknowledged some Indian nationals have been recruited by Russia for military support roles, such as military helpers and loaders, and stationed in Ukrainian territory now under Russian control."
"“Finally, the truth emerged – we weren’t there for the advertised position; we were expected to join the Russian army as helpers,” Prince said. The recruiter, whom the cousins had already paid in full, was no longer reachable. “We had no choice but to follow the representative’s orders,” Prince added. A Russian official took Prince to an army camp in Rostov, the southern Russian city that is the headquarters of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. The officers spoke to Prince in English, but he had to sign several documents in Russian – which he couldn’t understand. “I realised we had been cheated. But I had no other option but to obey the barking orders of the Russian commanders. I braced myself to adjust,” Prince said." Do you sense any Russian involvement?
"This week, a video circulated on social media of seven Indians from Punjab who claimed they had travelled to Russia as tourists for New Year but had been taken by an agent to Belarus and detained. “The police handed us over to Russian authorities, who made us sign documents,” said one of the men in the video, identified as Gagandeep Singh. “Now they are forcing us to fight in the war against Ukraine.”" Do you think maybe Russian authorities were involved in this? (These people weren't even seeking employment - so much for agency)
Once again: being recruited and choosing to join for benefits are not mutually exclusive. Any employer may try to recruit staff by promising benefits, and staff probably take the job for their own reasons, but that doesn't mean the employer wasn't trying to recruit them. And there is a spectrum of cases where some foreign fighters chose to join the military for benefits, while others were deceived or coerced; all these cases fall under recruitment, which RSes clearly show Russia is doing.Helpful Cat {talk}08:21, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None of the paragraphs you quoted suggest coercion. Deception, yes, but not coercion.
Hmm, who provided the army contract?
Where was the contract provided, on the astral plane? He had to have traveled to the recruitment office to sign the contract. The article doesn't say he was taken there a prisoner, so the logical assumption here is that he traveled there willingly. They didn't go to a bakery posing as a front for a Russian recruiting office, like in a cartoon, ordered bread and were then sent to fight. These people went to the Russian military recruitment office, in Russia, willingly. Or are you disputing that? I don't know why you're so dead set on thete being forceful coercion. Is deception not bad enough?TurboSuperA+[talk]08:58, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's good that you have at least stopped disputing Russian involvement.
Regarding coercion: I don't know how many times I have to say that there is a spectrum of cases, and not all foreign fighters were coerced. This is approachingWP:IDHT levels.
Some foreigners intended to join non-combat roles in the Russian military, and therefore travelled freely to recruitment offices, only to be sent to the front line. The example you are highlighting from theLA Times article falls into this category.
Some foreigners intended to take civilian jobs in Russia, but these jobs were pretences, and they were deceived into joining the military instead. Sometimes this was purely deception; sometimes it involved coercive tactics such asphysical confinement,removal of passports, orbeing forced at gunpoint to sign contracts in Russian; hopefully, you admit that at least the last point is coercion.
Some foreigners travelled to Russia for non-employment reasons, only to be deceived or coerced into joining the military.For example: a student who intended to study medicine in Russia finding on arrival that he had been tricked into joining the military; a group of tourists who were detained by police and handed over to Russian authorities, who forced them to sign military contracts.
I have no idea what you are disputing at this point, because the wording I suggested above already covered this full spectrum, and you alreadyaccepted my suggestion:"In May 2024, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation said it had arrested four people linked to a human trafficking network that sent men to fight for the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. Some Indian and Nepalese men and their families have said that they were promised non-combat "helper" roles in the military, but were sent to the front line; others allege that they were promised civilian employment or were in Russia as tourists or students, but were deceived and coerced into joining the military." Please try to maintain a clear and consistent stance, as it is very difficult to hold constructive discussions otherwise.Helpful Cat {talk}09:21, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's good that you have at least stopped disputing Russian involvement.
I have never disputed it.
This is approaching WP:IDHT levels.
In a two person discussion? I don't think you canWP:CRYIDHT to "win" an argument, or at least shouldn't.
Speaking from an army hospital somewhere in Russia, Nandaram Pun...,On February 7, Prince woke to the sterile confines of a hospital room. Doctors, their faces etched with haunted concern, extracted a bullet lodged in his skull. ... In all, he spent 10 days in five hospitals, starting in Luhansk and ending in Rostov. Finally, he was released and ordered to return to Luhansk for his commander’s signature on his injury leave request. Prince, defying orders to remain at his camp in Luhansk, returned to Moscow. He fabricated a story about visiting relatives in Moscow for a day and, remarkably, secured permission.,they were coerced into signing contracts written in Russian (which have been viewed by the Guardian)
So these coerced, "expendable" recruits forced to fight are treated in hospitals, their leave requests are approved, and they're allowed to talk to journalists from The Guardian and even show them their military contracts. Seems legit.
were in Russia as tourists or students, but were deceived and coerced into joining the military.
Re: medicine student
Dhakal, a committed student, had travelled to Russia to study medicine, but found on his arrival that he had been tricked and that his only option was to join the military. “He is our only one son, our only hope,” sobbed his father, Biru Dhakal. “Please bring him home.”
How does that make sense? How was his only option to join the military? He couldn't fly back home? We don't need to include it just because The Guardian quoted him.WP:NOTEVERYTHING:An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements should be treated with appropriate weight.
Their statements are not verifiable. Of course a father who wishes to get his son home is going to say whatever it takes to accomplish that. Do people just go to countries to "study medicine" without letters of admission? Which university did he apply to? Why hasn't the university said "Hey, where is our student?! He didn't show up for admission day." Because the story is an obvious lie. I don't think suchextraordinary claims belong in the article:Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest.
You can include your edit as is. Perhaps more editors will give their opinion. I am tired of this discussion and want to focus on other things for a while.TurboSuperA+[talk]10:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"I have never disputed it."
Yes, you did, and it's bizarre that you retcon your own statements within three hours (and unconstructive and disruptive).
"So these coerced, "expendable" recruits forced to fight are treated in hospitals, their leave requests are approved, and they're allowed to talk to journalists from The Guardian and even show them their military contracts. Seems legit."
This is ridiculous moving of the goalposts. Just because someone is coerced or trafficked does not mean they will be denied all medical treatment, or that traffickers are always successful in cutting off victims' access to the outside world.
"How does that make sense? How was his only option to join the military? He couldn't fly back home?" ... "Do people just go to countries to "study medicine" without letters of admission? Which university did he apply to? Why hasn't the university said "Hey, where is our student?! He didn't show up for admission day.""
This is OR on your part. For example, you are assuming the university and/or letter of admission was real. There are ways to stop people from flying home; I have cited many cases above where people's passports were confiscated. Without more information on this case, it is purely your POV that this is an"obvious lie", and it is not an extraordinary claim.
"Their statements are not verifiable. Of course a father who wishes to get his son home is going to say whatever it takes to accomplish that."
That is why the allegations should be attributed, as we have agreed from the start.
The presence of foreign fighters is notable and should be mentioned. I agree with comments by @Helpful Cat and @TurboSuperA+ that it should be attributed. We shouldn't use an offhand remark about manpower shortage to state it in wikivoice.
We should also be mindful of the bias of our sources. The captured soldiers have every reason to claim that they were deceived and actually didn't plan to fight.Alaexis¿question?12:41, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The captured soldiers have every reason to claim that they were deceived and actually didn't plan to fight." True - this is a good reason to attribute the allegations.Helpful Cat {talk}13:02, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a discussion (after lots of reverts) about the article about the MormonBook of Mosiah. I want to mention the author, others think that is not necessary. The article has in the lead things like " The title refers to Mosiah II, a king of the Nephites at Zarahemla. The book covers the time period between c. 130 BC and 91 BC, except for when the book has a flashback into the Record of Zeniff, which starts at c. 200 BC, according to footnotes. " without making it clear in any way that this is fictional or completely unscientific pseudohistory or whatever you want to call it. Counterargument is that authorship isn't given in many other articles about religious books or chapters either. All input is welcome atTalk:Book of Mosiah#Authorship in the lead section.Fram (talk)14:28, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Disagreement is aboutSpecial:Diff/1325362350 where the other major contributor repeatedly adds what I believe is excessively detailed about the point of legal battle the organization is launching, citing the organization's own website. I believe lending that much voice to their actions, citing the group's own website is non-neutral.Graywalls (talk)18:19, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm the other editor here. My position is that details of the case like what the plaintiffs (DULF) are challenging the crown on are not "excessive details", but essential for the reader to get the gist of what the court case is about.In fact, the court case and the subsequent precident it may set is one of the most notable things about DULF. I am ok with trimming out POV, like including sections from a DULF communique was probably not the most neutral inclusion on my part. But we've already trimmed that out. I have added a second source (The Tyee) on the sections that the DULF founders are challenging Canadian laws on.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)18:34, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there were disputes over the inclusion of the spectroscopic techniques used by DULF to characterize the substances (mass spectroscopy,HPLC,NMR,FT-IR. I believe this may be of interest to a niche audience. For example, I am a third year chemistry student and we use the same techniques in our labs. I believe that this can be included in the article if it is kept short so it does not distract readers who do not care about this stuff, however the other editor repeatedly removes this information.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)18:42, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I first try to engage with you, you did not participate in discussion, yet continued restoring your preferred addition without discussing let alone achieve consensus which goes againstWP:ONUS despite concerns about DUE and NPOV, which is why I brought this here. I'm of opinion that specific analytical methods citing DULF or their founder affiliated sources is undue and excess minutiae. Wikipedia articles isn't intended to be textbook or scientific journal and the scientific details on analytical method is too tangential on the page about the organization articleGraywalls (talk)18:47, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible to make a second article regarding this then--I know from experience that event PhD scientists look at Wikipedia for references like a scientific textbook from time to time--it is actually a very important resource for this purpose.Agnieszka653 (talk)19:04, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean these general methods are probably already discussed in appropriate places. You can find various methods of nutritional testing. As an example,The Hershey Company wouldn't be the appropriate article to detail out the industry standard specific analytical method used in the nutritional lab, or the standards used for testing chocolates simply because the tested item was their product. In the DULF article, I think it's especially POV and conferring excess importande to what DULF wants to say if it cites Nyx & Kalcium authored essay, especially ScienceDirectWP:RSP on that.Graywalls (talk)19:11, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I personally would like to know more about their testing methods after looking at the article in question--specifically when it comes to this statement:
"DULF's first public drug distribution was in June 2020. On April 14th, 2021, activists associated with DULF gave out boxes of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine that had been tested and labelled with information about their composition."
I think even a sentence about the methods used matter--I have written investigative stuff about Fentanyl in the past and harm reduction and testing methods can vary and so considering the scrutiny this group is under I think even having a sentence (in a neutral tone of course) about methods--even if it's just linking toNMR orHPLC may be useful?Agnieszka653 (talk)19:23, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm ok with inclusion... as long as it's not dependent upon DULF.CA; or the Nyx & Kalicum authored article. The specifics were from the Nyx/Kalicum (which is POV) I think that simply mentioning it's tested at a university lab, citing independent mainstream source is sufficient. Listing out various test methods citing their own source in stills an air of arrogance with hint of their products being superior, because of the test method they use. Like citing the distillery's website their vodka is purified through 10x distillation or using some fancy filtration media on a brand/product page.Graywalls (talk)19:31, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. My only caveat with having the POV sources would be as a comparison with how testing is normally done--as in if they are deviating from standard protocols or standard operating procedures in their testing methods I do think that is notable--BUT that would still require using secondary sources that aren't tied to their orgs to back up any primary sourcing used and a flat/neutral tone in the writing.Agnieszka653 (talk)19:35, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Assay is an example of page which we can wikilink to within the article. Methods related to quality testing (which is done to test imported pharmaceuticals and such) can be added there if necessary, but using less inferior, less partisan source than Nyx & Kalicum essay from ScienceDirect or DULF website that passes the scientific rigor in the field of analytical chemistry or forensic chemistry.Graywalls (talk)23:52, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the concern now after looking into Nyx and Kalicum via this CBC source: [[24]] I thinkAssay is quite frankly too broad of a category--I mean its definitely something they do but all labs from environmental testing to genetics etc use Assays. Let me see what else I can find on the testing methods that may be more neutral.Agnieszka653 (talk)00:14, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I found this: [[25]] Not a study but something that may balance out the page. And I did find one source that is scholarly that mentions DULF but is not a primary source: [[26]]Agnieszka653 (talk)00:31, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually...you know what would make more sense and looking through the ScienceDirect piece I get your concerns regarding citing it @Graywalls but i do understand why @DERPALERT would want to keep it on the page. @DERPALERT are there any other scholarly articles that Nyx and Kalicum based their project on? Or people that mentored them that can be cited? In addition have there been any scientific studies/scholarly sources that specifically critiqued their work?Agnieszka653 (talk)00:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok so looking through the paper it looks like it outsourced it's testing to something called the Vancouver Island Drug Checking project--which does have papers regarding their processes.https://substance.uvic.ca/ I was looking for papers like this:Analytical Chemistry
I am not sure what that would accomplish. Wikipedia pages can not cite anything that is notreliablypublished as a source, hard stop. This ensures people don't just interview each other, put the video up on YouTube in order to push advocacy editing. Similarly, someone posting email correspondence on a blog or a website would fail the reliable publication aspect.Graywalls (talk)16:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since we are apparently speculating that DULF never tested their drugs, the mainstream sources say they are and if we dig deeperthey also seem to be. Like the other user was speculating that there was no wet lab they were working with so they couldn't have tested the drugs. I'm trying to find the wet lab involved.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)17:42, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok bear with me I am pulling things directly from the Nyx and Kalicum paper but in the first line they state:
"In 2022, the Drug User Liberation Front opened an unsanctioned compassion club in Vancouver where members could purchase illicit drugs thathad been rigorously tested to ensure quality and a lack of potentially fatal contaminants. We sought to evaluate the impact of access to this novel safer supply intervention on nonfatal overdose."
Stating this in a study requires you divulge what your testing methods are--or if they are outsourced, to whom.
"All substances were tested via paper spray mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography prior to sale to ensure quality and a lack of potentially fatal contaminants, and labeled so that participants were aware of the contents"
This is very broad--I get this is more of a qualitative study but still if you are stating that your drugs were tested and then list these methods you usually still need to give PARAMETERS ie in ppm or ppb(s) (parts per million and parts per billion) which is generally how "contaminates" are measured I get it's Canada and not the US but there are still regulations and naming the methods without naming whom is testing your materials is interesting.
The following above quotes were pulled from this paper: [[27]]
per another paper also authored by them:
"Starting in December of 2021, while awaiting a response from Health Canada and aiming to maintain pressure on provincial and federal governments, DULF initiated a crowd-sourced sustainer donor campaign. This campaign allocated raised funds to consistently provide a tested and labelled supply of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to drug user groups in Vancouver whenever the BC Coroners Service released data on illicit drug toxicity deaths."
But they still don't state after crowd sourcing funds what lab the drugs were sent to.
But here (bolded) is who they cite for testing their product finally:
"Once initially logged into the vault, but before the packaging and final labelling stages, DULF initiated a crucial quality control and testing process. This testing process unfolded in two stages: first, through paper spray ionization mass spectrometry (PS-MS) testing, followed by confirmatory testing using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry. Initially, samples were couriered to theVancouver Island Drug Checking Project for PS-MS"
"Once the PS-MS results were received, indicating a substance was free of fentanyl and benzodiazepines, and its potency was known, a label with the test date, number, and result was affixed over the initial “untested” label. Simultaneously, samples were sent for secondary confirmatory testing at the University of British Columbia via UPLC-MS (Drug and Alcohol Testing Association of Canada, 2023) and NMR (Evans Ogden, 2023). Once results were received from the University of British Columbia, they were also added to the new label. While secondary confirmatory testing took additional time, it played a crucial role in allowing DULF to build confidence in the accuracy of the results obtained."Agnieszka653 (talk)18:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Once the PS-MS results were received, indicating a substance was free of fentanyl and benzodiazepines, and its potency was known, a label with the test date, number, and result was affixed over the initial “untested” label. Simultaneously, samples were sent for secondary confirmatory testing at the University of British Columbia via UPLC-MS (Drug and Alcohol Testing Association of Canada, 2023) and NMR (Evans Ogden, 2023). Once results were received from the University of British Columbia, they were also added to the new label. While secondary confirmatory testing took additional time, it played a crucial role in allowing DULF to build confidence in the accuracy of the results obtained."
Ok, I looked at theHein Lab website and I couldn't find anything related to DULF, not in the publications or the news sections. I could still email Jason Hein but I don't think that could work as a proper source. IdkᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)07:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like including the fact that these drugs were tested at UVic/UBC probably does more to sell the drugs than just geeking out about lab equiptment being used in the real world. Idk.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)22:54, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We could just omit laboratory services providers names too but simply state they're tested for composition/purity; as directly verifiable in reliable, independent non Nyx, Kalcium or DULF authorship involved references.Graywalls (talk)00:55, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we could--interesting, the more I research the more it actually becomes apparent to me they don't do any testing it seems they bought "pre tested drugs" off the dark web...oy. So they throw around words like "acetone washed" and "tested with spectroscopy" but it appears there was no "wet lab" or analytical chemistry lab at UBC collaborating with them. I think that's actually really notable (if I am correct) but I need more secondary sources to verify this.Agnieszka653 (talk)01:12, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Crown counsel also pointed to small flaws in the study DULF produced that found its compassion club reduced harms, crime and death related to the unregulated drug supply.Nyx told the court that this was the first academic study she’d ever written. She said she thought the peer review process would have flagged those small flaws. Nyx said she is in the process of completing a master of science at the University of British Columbia and is learning more about how to write academic papers.
So, in addition to the authors being extremely partisan pro "harm reduction" which makes it a POV issue, this suggests they're science rookies, which makes itWP:QS even if it was used for things not associated with Nyx, Kalicum or DULF.Graywalls (talk)03:52, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed additional problems with the so called "peer reviewed" journal on ScienceDirect.
When you look at the authorship. Nyx and Kalcum were the two that everything from writing, editing to reviewing. and when you look at citations within the article, there's a whole lot of circular referencing where they cite plenty of their own work as well as DULF. It has the "scholarly journal" formatting. It's more like a group paper/essay that's a tad classier than blogs. Some of the claims like health outcomes requireWP:MEDRS which this source most definitely is not.
CRediT authorship contribution statement Eris Nyx: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Data curation, Conceptualization. Jeremy Kalicum: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Data curation
@Graywalls the CRediT bit forWriting – review & editing just means that they made revisions to the draft they originally submitted/wrote, typically in response to reviewer comments. Haven't read the article itself and not familiar with the journal so I can't say if it's a good source, but the CRediT isn't a red flagCambrianCrab (talk)pleaseping me in replies!01:44, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@CambrianCrab: How about the very liberal citations to things they have authored? I've lost track of how many times Nyx and Kalicum cited their own papers within that paper. I think that's an indisputable fail for "independent source" which is a concern of relevance for NPOV even if it could be ok on factual reliability for what they say.Graywalls (talk)07:46, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If Kalicum, Nyx and the DULF or those associated with them are the only ones who care enough to talk about it, it should remain omitted, because the article should not consider mention worthy based on what the pair considers important. If it is important, surely it will be discussed in an independent source. Until then, it should remain omitted.Graywalls (talk)22:02, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hersheys is known for being the chocolate-making/selling company while DULF is known for being the drug-testing organization. If I were to write an article about how a government agency overseeing water quality, I might think it'd be appropriate to include the specific tests they use as well. Besides, every food company is expected to test their food using whatever obscure lab techniques whereas that expectation does not exist for DULF. At the end of the day, this article shouldn't be like a Hersheys ad but selling people drugs from DULF instead of chocolate. I don't think it came off like that but who am I to say.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)22:51, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be equally opposed to rattling off specific analytical test methods used in individual water department pages, particularly if it's using the department or the city's own website or items authored by them. This is because they're likely to emphasize what they want to highlight while de-emphasizing what they do not, rather than impartial unbiased coverage. When it is a contentious topic, this is even more relevant. I would also say the same if a page about coffee purveyor/shop/restaurant talks about ethically sourced, third wave and whatever but the mention is only supported by things authored by involved parties. Companies will of course talk about and emphasize what they think is important, which is not the same as what's important.Graywalls (talk)00:12, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a chemistry degree as well and have actually worked with everything you mentioned above--I would definitely be the niche audience you are referring to here.Agnieszka653 (talk)19:03, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat similar discussion I've taken part of before is the inclusion of arduous details about various rail cars and train machinery in rail related articles of only interest to rail fans sourced to rail fanning sources. For example, how Union Pacific engine car 4847897815 was taken out of service and had the engine rebuilt.. such and such. Just because something is true doesn't mean the inclusion isWP:DUE and this is what we're trying to balance out here.Graywalls (talk)00:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@DERPALERT:, You created this article, then brought this into article space yourself without going through AFC process. You have a fair level of experience with Wikipedia, yet kept re-inserting primary sources and weren't responsive to comments until this noticeboard thread was opened up. Additionally, the comment you madehere,I'm not saying unregulated safe supply is good policy (my personal opinion is that the Portuguese model of harm reduction that is tied with manditory psychological help is the best model but that has nothing to do with the article) but thepeople involved with DULF are good people and they believe in what they believe in. If you keep doing immature shit I will invoke WP:AN3 inshallah. suggests that you explicitly hold a non-neutral view. I would like toWP:AGF but are you trying to cast them in a positive light, or are you trying to create a dispassionate informative page?Graywalls (talk)22:29, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should let the information about this case speak for itself. I don't think anything about this case points Nyx/Kalicum as having ill intent but it should be up to the reader to decode that for themselves. I've been as responsive to comments as I can be, both on the article talk page and here. Sometimes you edit really agressively. Before we had this discussion here, I had no idea why you kept repeatedly trying to remove sourced information, both about the spectroscopic techniques used to characterize the substances and the specific sections in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that DULF was trying to challenge the crown on.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)00:36, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the original article before you started editing, I had included both DULF's stated aim of reducing overdoses and Health Canada's concerns about street diversion of drugs handed out by DULF, as well as the fact that DULF had ordered off the dark web. I feel like those are the main points of contention about DULF as a phenomenon in the public consciousness. You kept writing stuff about how "DULF" was ordering from people they don't know (which is a moot point anyway because everything anyone buys is from people they don't know because that is how the economy works), that they were ordering from a canadian supplier to avoid international drug trafficking charges came off as trying to subconsciously imply that DULF was "dark"/"shadowy" or whatever. There are legitimate reasons to disapprove of buying stuff on the dark web like if you're concerned about money winding up in the hands of organized crime or whatever. But to me it seemed a bit excessive.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)00:47, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The seller's identity being anonymous was a specific issue mentioned by health ministry rejecting their selling activity and something the author of the Economist article chose to discuss, which confers more importance than being talked about only in DULF's page (or their critic's blog). Here's the snippet of relevant part.One justification for the compassion club’s model is that it would take money away from organised crime rings by selling medical-grade products from legitimate sources. Buying drugs on the dark web from an anonymous entity undermined that argument, as the health ministry noted in its letter rejecting the pair’s shop. But lacking the necessary permits, DULF would struggle to find a pharmaceutical alternative. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Eris said of their vendor’s identity. Wikipedia articles are supposed to accurately summarize what reliable sources say, without tainting it with our own thoughts.@DERPALERT:, you still have not answered my reasonable question and that is if you've taken the time to read the entire text ofThe Economist article on DULF. Your concerncame off as trying to subconsciously imply that DULF was "dark"/"shadowy" or whatever. is reasonable if I was adding them usingWP:QS blogs, primary sources and such. However, the economist is an well established, mainstream source and it has been deemed to be a reliable source with Wikipediacommunity consensus and they're clearly a non-invovled, non-partisan source. That can't be said about some of your sources of choice like Nyx & Kalicum papers and DULF documents.Graywalls (talk)08:30, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As for the primary sources, I feel like my original use of them adhered toWP:ABOUTSELF. The claim that they were getting the substances tested at UVic/UBC came from a news outlet. The details of which spectroscopic techniques they specifically (PS-MS, UHPLC, NMR) used came from DULF. It's not an extraordinary claim to go from "DULF tested their drugs at UBC" to "DULF tested their drugs at UBC with UHPLC since UBC has UHPLC machines). Also using DULF's communiques as a source on their stated aim and the specific sections they were legally challenging the crown on were also seems to me to be in-line withWP:ABOUTSELF. I guess using Nyx and Kalicum's paper as a source for DULF's specific internal structure could be self-serving because they obviously have an incentive to present themselves as cleanly and professionally to the outside audience. I'd be fine with doing without that section that was based on the paper, at least until a neutral third party can do an objective analysis for how DULF functioned. As for due weight, I think relocating Justice Murray's comment of "they were trying to save lives" to the constitutional challenge section while also adding her other comment about how DULF was clearly operating outside the exemptions given to them helped balance the article out. As for the communique, quoting it directly in the article body probably wasn't the best inclusion on my part. That being said, the fact that their early actions were coordinated with communiques is an important detail about how DULF's activism worked so I propose something like "At the same time, DULF released their first communique" or something.ᗞᗴᖇᑭᗅᒪᗴᖇᎢ (talk)01:29, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I was trying to say is that asWP:SPSif the information in question is suitable for inclusion,someone else will likely have published it in independent, reliable sources. (I added the emphasis). If their early actions being coordinated with communiques is deemed important, mainstream reliable source would have likely talked about it. Embellishing certain test methods can be a form image building for brand development purpose like body shop commercial talking about their shop having computerized laser wheel alignment or computerized high tech test equipment to get customers to perceive that they'll get better quality work due to those technology.
"All Jonas Tire Shop switched to state of the art laser guided alignment" citing their press release doesn't raise question about the factual accuracy, but likely undue.
Citing CNN article to say that "Union leaders accuse Jonas tire shops converted to computerized equipment, which provides the same production with half the labor to lower labor cost" would be much more due for inclusion.
So, I remain opposed to listing out specific equipment used unless reliable secondary sources discuss them.
@Grayfell:, Would you have a position on this? I'm seeking your input, because there's not many participants here and I see your past participation about due weight and original research atTalk:Insite, an organization that works with VANDU, which is closely associated with DULF. Thank youGraywalls (talk)21:45, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
DERPALERT makes comments suggesting I'm making POV edits likeYou kept writing stuff about how "DULF" was ordering from people they don't know which was based on directly verified contents from Economist. I've straight upasked them 2-3 times if they read the entirety of the reliable source, but I've not gotten a straight forward answer despite them continuing to make edits on the article.Graywalls (talk)02:30, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@DERPALERT:, I'm not sure why you're drawing it out long and making it more confusing than needed when all that was needed was a simple, concise response such as "yes, I've read it all", or "I didn't read it all, but made assumptions".Graywalls (talk)18:44, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So i just want more opinions on the neutrality of Pedro II's article. I saw this article listed on Featured Picture and read the article for a bit and I genuinely think this is one of, if not, the most supportive and hyped up article about an individual that I've ever seen on this entire website. Even the featured picture blurb shows what I'm talking about. However, I've seen many people dispute the idea that the article contains neutrality issues. Such as recently when I tried to add a neutrality concern warning to the top of the article only for it to be removed around an hour later. So I don't know if I might be wrong on this. The initial talk page complaint isTalk:Pedro II of Brazil#Neutrality Concerns? for some background.Onegreatjoke (talk)02:37, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. I see what you mean. Particularly this line:
Pedro II was seen nationwide as a legitimate source of authority, whose position placed him above partisanship and petty disputes. He was, however, still no more than a boy, and a shy, insecure, and immature one. His nature resulted from his broken childhood, when he experienced abandonment, intrigue, and betrayal.
That to me reads with a literary flair-flowery language etc. It is a very compelling paragraph and I commend who wrote these sentences for that. But it is not neutral. Neutral unfortunately also normally means a flatter more "boring" writing style.Agnieszka653 (talk)00:55, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is something that I've noticed when reading the article as well. The article feels as though it was written for a story book and not a wikipedia article.Onegreatjoke (talk)03:00, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Issues of neutrality were discussed at the time this article was nominated for FA status and resolved. That it has been raised since is irrelevant. Most of the subsequent objections turned out to be with the "tone" of the article lead, which does sum up the article accurately. That is not the place to "tone down" the consensus of historians which is reflected in the body of the article. Pedro II is unanimously regarded in favorable, even glowing, terms by every well-regarded scholarly source of which I'm aware. That was also the conclusion of uninvolved editors who bothered to look at sources and/or consult with academics who are familiar with the subject. While Wikipedia requires that editors abstain from inserting their own voice and POV, it also requires that articles reflect the sources used. The article does that, and unless reliable sources are introduced that paint Pedro II in a much more negative light, then changing the language to reflect any editor's conception of neutrality is unwarranted. • Astynaxtalk20:29, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So I have a disagreement with the persistence with the rumor surrounding Jochi's alleged paternity. I think it's important to agree upon that social and official paternity should take note as well as biological paternity, with Jochi's case it remains unclear about who was Jochi's biological father, but the primary sources and most historians on the subject can agree that Genghis Khan was widely regarded as Jochi's official father regardless of biological paternity, and I think elevating two individuals to both being Jochi's "father" or it was either between them can obfuscate well-documented history. I have already included the neutral wording to Jochi's father as Genghis Khan (officially) Chilger-Bökö (allegedly) which explains his unique situation more clearly.TheChosenOne26 (talk)23:41, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
We're going to need some help here enforcing neutrality. Danny continues to manipulate the article by deleting legitimate revisions intended to provide the reader with unbiased, neutral coverage. Its turned into an edit war. Please see article's talk page.
Some editors have attempted to add relevant sections to the article which address the subject's journalistic style, clarify the subject's association with the New York Times, clarify the subject's commercial activities, and note other instances where the subject has investigated alleged scams that turned out to be legitimate enterprises. All contributions cite high quality sources and adhere to Wikipedia policies, with extensive compliance explanations on the article's talk page. Within several minutes of creating such edits, another user (anonymous or Danny De Hek) will undo the changes, claiming 'vandalism' or similar. The subject is intentionally censoring the article to ensure it is favorably biased, omitting important info and essentially serving as a piece of sponsored content. The subject, who throws stones for a living, appears to live in a glass house, and is unwilling to accept anything except glowing praise and admiration. We feel that this is a gross misinterpretation of Wikipedia's purpose, and an attempt to manipulate online presence and unfairly leverage the platform for personal gain. Please see article edit history/talk page to review submissions by other editors. See this article written by the subject, titled "Danny de Hek's Wikipedia Recognition: A Milestone Moment" -https://www.dehek.com/general/scam-fraud-investigations/inside-my-wikipedia-page-how-it-works-why-it-matters-and-the-reality-of-being-a-scam-buster/~2025-37124-57 (talk)10:43, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So Danny himeslf is going on the page and deleting things? Have you posted this in on the WP:BLP Noticeboard page? This sounds like a BLP dispute.Agnieszka653 (talk)00:44, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Multiple persistent promotional & uncited edits regarding Vegan Camp Out festival under both the International section and the UK section. (NB the page for Vegan Camp Out itself has suffered persistent promotional vandalism by "volunteers" working for the festival before receiving long term protection). Quite likely a sock puppet of one of those accounts.
The page concerning Connecticut State RepresentativeTony Scott seems to be littered with language in support of him (most notably "As a freshman, Scott helped introduce two bills that will directly help constituents in his district"). It seems to have been edited by supporters of his campaign.RabinoWIN (talk)22:24, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went to theTony Scott talk page and noticed there doesn't seem to be a discussion over there about these issues. I would post your concerns there first and try to get other editors who work on the page to agree to a writing style that is more neutral in nature.Agnieszka653 (talk)03:31, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RabinoWIN, I removed some of the promotional content, and I left aWP:COI notice for the person who added it. For other articles like this, you can add{{Promotional}} to the top of the article so it's flagged to anyone visiting the page that they can fix it. This will also group it inCategory:All articles with a promotional tone. You're welcome to go through that category and rewrite or remove promotional content in those articles if you're looking for something to edit. There's certainly enough for you to find some in a topic you're interested in!Thebiguglyalien (talk)🛸03:02, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In 2024, Carlos Watson was convicted of fraud related to the bankruptOzy Media, which is most famous for having someone on their C-suite impersonate a YouTube executive during a conference call with Goldman Sachs. In March 2025, Watson was pardoned by Donald Trump. Over the past month a single editor hascompletely rewritten the articles on Watson and Ozy. I invite readers of this noticeboard to check out the changes and confirm if they are NPOV.NotBartEhrman (talk)23:54, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mind you I glanced over it: But I think it sounds better? The arrest and Ozy Media incident are still in the lead (as they should be) but I think this has a much better neutral tone than the previous version.Agnieszka653 (talk)01:23, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My concern comes from the rewrittenOzy Media article. It appears neutral but it does not accurately reflect how major national media such as NYT, WSJ, Axios reported on the incidents which made Ozy infamous. If you look over the major news articles about it, it's known for manufacturing subscribers, inflating YouTube view counts forThe Carlos Watson Show (which was falsely advertised to guests as an A&E cable network show), and eventually for the fraud which caused all its journalists to lose their jobs. I think the "Reception" section of its article, at least, should reflect this, but instead information has been either deleted or moved down to a section called "Allegations," which was later changed to "Allegations of fraud" (I think a conviction is more than allegations).
The account which rewrote the Ozy article made several large edits in a row this evening, repeatedly doing large rewrites to the article in a short span of time. The account went to the talk page to suggest that the Ozy article needs to resemble the pages of corporations "such as Uber, Vice Media, BuzzFeed, WeWork, Theranos," jumbling some rather different subjects, which were covered inWP:RS in rather different ways, without apparent irony. I wonder whether reputation management firms have developed a method of sophisticated AI-supported rewrites, using something like the engine that created Grokpedia.
I can't prove that, but regardless I am posting this here because I am not sure if I have the energy to litigate the article with someone who has the time to write very long talk page messages and do massive rewrites.NotBartEhrman (talk)01:56, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ha I see what you are saying--and with re-writes the quickly it definitely sounds plausible that an LLM was used. I wouldn't be surprised if editors with questionable motivations are on these pages like you said. I think though Ozy being described and compared to WeWork and Theranos is apt though. Both of those companies are rightly dumpster fires due to lying inflating numbers and corporate scandal which seems to fit with Ozy (given what I have peripherally read).Agnieszka653 (talk)03:29, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moscow Financial and Industrial University "Synergy"
The articleMoscow Financial and Industrial University requires urgent administrator attention due to severe COI/NPOV issues that appears to be befacilitating ongoing fraud:
Ongoing harm:
Recent investigative reporting (Brian Krebs, December 2025) documents allegations of systematic visa fraud targeting students from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan, Nepal, and India
Students report paying thousands of dollars in non-refundable advance fees for study visas that are then denied
The Wikipedia article's promotional tone (reading like an advertisement) may be lending credibility to these alleged fraudulent operations
Students from the Global South searching for information about this university may encounter this Wikipedia article and be misled by its promotional content
Evidence of COI/promotional editing:
~25% of article devoted to "Protection of reputation in court" section
Defensive tone throughout, especially regarding controversies
Extensive positive statistics, awards, and rankings with minimal critical coverage from garbage sources
The article buries serious allegations under promotional content
Urgent action needed:
This article may be actively contributing to international fraud targeting vulnerable students
Requires immediate{{advert}} and{{COI}} tags at minimum
Should be considered for semi-protection given the potential real-world harm to students from poor nations
Needs comprehensive NPOV rewrite prioritizing the serious allegations over promotional content
The promotional nature of this article isn't just a Wikipedia policy violation - it is likely facilitating ongoing financial harm to students from developing nations who rely on Wikipedia for credible information.
I’m drafting a new article in my sandbox and would like input on neutrality/balance/objectivity before submission. I work for the company that this article is about, but have tried to draft the article in a completely neutral voice and cited all sources appropriately.
I'm sorry, but I don't think this article is close to ready. Most sources are database entries, sourced from Swogo, non-notable awards, or information on funding rounds which explicitly cannot provide notability underWP:NCORP. You also may get better feedback on draft creation atWP:AFC orWP:TEAHOUSE.CoffeeCrumbs (talk)16:06, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I welcome as many neutral eyes on this whole debacle as possible. I encourage all to read around all of the links that my interlocutor is sending and editorializing around here, and make your own conclusions.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)14:52, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am by no means a perfect editor, I have about one tenth of the edits of this person, and obviously I can and do make mistakes. But they seem completely incapable of having a real discussion in the talk pages (and make some really low-quality and questionable edits which they hail as improvements), and I believe that any neutral and diligent observer will see that.
No sources brought to the discussions (accept for sources which I showed were either irrelevant or supported my points, which they never addressed).
Misrepresented sources.
Unacceptable use of Wiki Voice.
Constantly casting aspersions then gaslighting about it.
I've never encountered anything like this in my time on Wikipedia before.
I'm too tired to add links to all of this right now, but honestly just follow the links they are providing and then read a little bit around them, as I mentioned.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)15:03, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is just so depressing and silly. This was a really fun hobby until now with mostly reasonable people, even when topics were pretty controversial. This one person just seems hell-bent on avoiding any factual and logical discussion with me and then goes over here and tries lynching me. Whatever.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)15:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Cinaroot lmao I just looked through your edit history and saw you begging for your life to a bunch of mods or admins or whatever about some arbitration case against you. I wonder what they'd think of this entire stupid situation.
I'm fing done for now maybe in a couple days I'll have it in me to look at this again. I hope to have my faith in this site being a place for actual intellectual discussion and truth-seeking restored.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)15:31, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I better disengage. I tried to apologize twice now on their talk and mine to clam them down. Multiple editors have told them about the issues with their edits. But they cant seem to accept it. I posted this notice so that i can take this out of my hand.Cinaroot💬18:25, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To add more context on this particular proposal - highlighted is their proposal tolede
is officially a private media conglomerate vs is a private-media conglomerate
the Founder" (i.e. the emir) ultimate power to approve the annual budget, appoint the board, assign it tasks and more
but still biased on issues important to the royal family and Qatari foreign policy
is seen by many as mostly editorially independent vs Al Jazeera English is seen as editorially independent
mentioning organisation structure change in lede opening para
Originally founded in 1996 by then-emir of Qatar Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani as a state-funded "independent public corporation", in 2011 it was changed by law into a "private foundation for public benefit". The articles of association of the new foundation, posted as part an Emiri Decision, give "the Founder" (i.e. the emir) ultimate power to approve the annual budget, appoint the board, assign it tasks and moreCinaroot💬19:07, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to have a discussion about the content, extensively, and Cinaroot kept avoiding the content discussion and casting aspersions of bias and agenda.
They proceeded to ignore all of my points, say things are "inappropriate" or "not needed" without good explanation, and said "You are trying to cast doubt to its editorial independence - which is not appropriate. We report based on reliable sources. We do not try to influence editors judgment. Please revert it."
Despite the uncalled for aspersions, I self reverted to try and have a discussion of content, which is what I wanted to begin with. They thentagged 2 editors they chose out of the recent editors in the article. I'll let you decide how they picked who to ping and who not to.
I gave a verydetailedlist explaining my positions.
They chose to only reply to very little of my arguments. Of course, replete with obvious untruths and misrepresentations, such as: "We don't typically mention who founded a network. SeeCNNBBC etc" (see CNN second sentence "Founded on June 1, 1980, by Americanmedia proprietorTed Turner andReese Schonfeld"); the attempt to equate with BBC, and more.
Ifully debunked their arguments, which they fully ignored.
(Meanwhile one of the people they tagged was constantly trying to poke holes into me [and I thanked them and corrected myself where appropriate initially] while completely laying off Cinaroot, as detailedhere.)
They laterrepeated the same nonsense point about the BBC which I already debunked, accusing me again of editing with an agenda, and also adding the CBC into it. Irepeated my debunking of the BBC point.
They fully ignored my arguments on the BBC, pivoting instead to CBC, and adding some other points without really making arguments for them.
Ishowed in detail why their points about BBC and CBC are false and misleading. No response.
They made ridiculous edits to a well-sourced section I wrote, as detailedhere.
They reverted me again,accusing me of being "disruptive" for updating an essentially unsourced text with several well-sourced citations, claiming that the unsourced text is "consensus by default" since it is "long standing".I argued against that. Theyrefused to engage, instead making this thread on this page with several concentrated attacks against me editorialized and out of context. Presumably calling their long time buddies to weigh in, if I had to guess.
P.S.
This is only a sampling of the stuff I can think of right now. I believe that the more you read around all of these messages, the more you'll see that they consistently refused to engage in an actual content discussion; that they were casting aspersions for a while before I decided I had to start addressing that; etc.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)08:08, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, note how another user, presumably a buddy of Cinaroot,tried to delete my comment here, then Cinarootasked them to only delete one comment (presumably meaning mine?), because "I still need eyes on those discussion", which their buddy immediately did. Looking through their history you can easily find that they do indeed know each other and have been on the same side in previous discussions.
This after this buddy "weighed in" on the content discussion by saying: "i support the current lede and phrasing as well. that sentence was well supported by a few sources." The sentence, in fact, only had one citation on it, which, as clearly mentioned, is from 2001 and doesn't and cannot support the claim it makes about AJE, which was founded in 2006.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)09:25, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that as part of my work onWikiProject Qatar I've unwittingly stumbled into some Israel-Palestine warfront, and my edits on Al Jazeera were perceived as some attack on that front, which is crazy because I'm pro-Palestine, and setting things straight on Al Jazeera and its relation to the Al Thani government is not meant as some attack against Palestine. But it looks like instead of trying to have a real discussion both sides are just throwing things out there, including those that kinda weighed in on my side at the beginning there, who didn't engage in a continued meaningful discussion either. Pretty depressing. A part of me now wants to just stay away from any possible intersection between WP Qatar and I/P to avoid this madness. As mentioned, my experience before this was mostly great despite working on some contentious stuff. But it's just depressing to think that I have to stop my truth-seeking and setting records straight if it risks upsetting some Zionist or anti-Zionist. idk, I guess we'll see where it goes. Maybe what I need to do is just be way more patient even when the other side is being unreasonable, trying to block everything and refusing to have a real discussion. That's probably what I should do going forward.User:غوّاص العلم (Ghawwas) (talk)09:37, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Inthis edit they add the wordsome - which sources do not use. They also addedand provides only sparse and uncritical coverage of domestic Qatari affairs - but in later para it is already mentioned, It has been alleged that in its domestic Arabic-language coverage, criticism of the ruling Qatari regime is censored.Cinaroot💬14:50, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, Ghawwas is neither contextualizing the sources he uses nor paying attention to the existing text of the article, but simply rewriting freely according to his own personal opinion. It's a NPOV issue but also a total disregard for consensus, while making personal attacks on the many people disagreeing. I cannot find anyone on the talk page agreeing with the opinions of Ghawwas. The one nice thing I can say about him is that he sometimes self-reverts while he "discusses towards consensus."NotBartEhrman (talk)01:26, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate you pointing to where I'm "not contextualizing sources", "not paying attention to the existing text", etc. Genuinely. I'm not saying my edits are perfect, they've been improved by many people since I've started here. But wherever I edited in this article, it was generally where there was already bad sourcing, bad phrasing, inappropriate use of Wiki Voice, lacking crucial info, etc. Wherever I edited, I added sources, which I tried to make sure were acceptable and of high quality. I have no issue contextualizing them if requested.
Regarding "total disregard for consensus": what exactly are you referring to here?This bit of unsourced info which is supposedly consensus because it is long standing? Or other edits I made, which were all with good sources? I would have happily self reverted anything where requested and had a genuine content discussion. But you can easily see that all my attempts of content discussion arrive at a dead end where Cinaroot refuses to actually address the issues, as detailed partiallyhere.
I would also appreciate receipts on "while making personal attacks on the many people disagreeing". I started responding to Cinaroot's personal attacks long after they started attacking me. When it comes to Todd1, I initially thanked them for corrections, then pointed out that they were only poking holes into me while ignoring Cinaroot's conduct, giving them an opportunity to do so (which they did not take), and eventually I lost my civility when they joined the gaslighting efforts telling me "no one is attacking" me while Cinaroot was clearly attacking me. I would appreciate you pointing to the "many people disagreeing" with me and how I made unjustified "personal attacks" against them.
غوّاص العلم, please note thatother editors are not obligated to address all of the points you bring in a discussion, especially when you have already posted 28 comments onTalk:Al Jazeera Media Network. Editors are allowed to support or oppose a proposed edit based on their own rationales. This noticeboard is not the ideal location to resolve conduct disputes that are not directly related to article neutrality, such as a complaint about the proportion of your comments that Cinaroot is responding to. Despite this, I have to address a couple of conduct issues that have been raised.Cinaroot, please avoidmaking negative comments about what you perceive غوّاص العلم's motivations to be. غوّاص العلم, your commentSpecial:Diff/1327480805 pinged three editors who supported a sanction against Cinaroot at arbitration enforcement (me, another administrator, and an editor who was in another content dispute with Cinaroot); this isimproper canvassing and should not have been done.Because resolving this content dispute will require evaluating a considerable number of sources, including academic sources, غوّاص العلم, I recommend focusing on one specific change at a time that you would like to propose for the article. Discuss that change on the article talk page in its own discussion section, wait for other editors to respond, and if the consensus is unclear, then start a properly formulatedrequest for comment. Posting multiple comments in a row that form awall of text (e.g. inTalk:Al Jazeera Media Network § Selective use of sources) only discourages others from examining your concerns and responding to all of them. — Newslingertalk14:33, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to clearly give the details regarding these things. In any other article, I would just make the edits to correct this obviously bad encyclopedia work, but it seems that there is a strong presence dedicated to defending it.
Should I make one topic addressing one of very many issues each time, wait until the person who would revert me responds and refuses to have a real discussion, then go to 3O of RfC?It would take a year. Should I just start making the edits to rectify the issues I pointed to inthat topic one by one, and if someone wants me to self-revert and have a discussion on any of them do so?
I recall that there's some policy which says that mistakes don't have to be rectified quickly, but I feel like these at least are so obviously misrepresentations of sources that I should be able to just rectify them, and if someone wants to return to how it is like now they just need to show that the source does actually support what it's supposed to, and why the other things it contains should not be used.
TheBOLD, revert, discuss cycle (WP:BRD) would be the most effective way to implement the changes you would like to make. Please ensure that your changes are broken down to edits of appropriate size, and that each edit is supplemented by a descriptive edit summary to make it easier for others to review. If another editor objects to one or more of your edits, they will revert them, and you can then proceed to discuss the edits that were objected to on the talk page. You do not need to discuss any of your edits that are not disputed (by reversion or discussion), which reduces the number of discussions you need to take part in. Before making any edits, please check the talk page for any discussions that are relevant to the content of your edit. — Newslingertalk15:47, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just curious... is there a WP article aboutBiden's use of pseudonyms?Atsme💬📧16:45, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]