Jump to content

Talk:Auren Hoffman

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

COI

[edit]

As cited previously by other editors, this article has serious problems regarding neutrality and COI relationships between the editors and subject. The subject has admitted to editing his own article, and the subject's most notable achievement, co-founding a company called RapLeaf over a decade ago, is riddled with ethical controversies and abuse too similar to disregard in light of the structure of this article. A pattern of highly selective and misrepresentative editing adds to these issues. Until they are resolved (peacocking, puffery and non-notable biographical information removed) removing this tag constitutes disruptive editing. Users engaging in edit warring should be reported and the article subject to administrator attention.Dives4587 (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2016 (UTC) After reviewing subject's company article with significant similar concerns, adding COI tag. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RapLeaf&action=history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.58.157.74 (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the COI tag. "Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning." Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:18, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Reinstating COI tag do not remove without neutral third-party administrator consensus. A COI discussion was clearly promptly started on this talk page above, in this very section. Ignoring it to remove the tag is a violation of Wikipedia Opinions from editors Jtbobwaysf, W Nowicki et al whose edits appear to be non-neutral and unrepresentative of the subject's notability (overstating positive information while suppressing significant negative information, as cited previously) are not appropriate here and reinforce the COI and NPOV issues.Dives4587 (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

[edit]

Apart from this article being extensively over-biographical and some general notability concerns, this article revision history contains multiple instances of inaccurate edit notes, particularly those concealing or removing negative information about the subject while reporting only other, minor changes. Examples: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auren_Hoffman&diff=580054009&oldid=580043046 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auren_Hoffman&diff=580059475&oldid=580057384 Edits by W Nowicki and others should be carefully reviewed for neutrality.

Given that the subject has confirmed editing his own Wikipedia entry in the past and his professional endeavors have come under related scrutiny RapLeaf, this article raises some serious concerns. Neutral editors please review before reverting any changes. JRBaumblo —Preceding undated comment added 20:16, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dont see any big deal with W Nowicki edits. Is there something you have a problem with in Nowicki's edit? Are you suggesting WP:POVPUSH? You mentioned this one https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auren_Hoffman&diff=580054009&oldid=580043046 . I only see some adding citations, changing tense, and changing use of verb "noted" to "accused." You also mentioned this edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auren_Hoffman&diff=580059475&oldid=580057384 . Is there something problematic in there? I just see improving citations, adding dates, and improving the overall article. Is there something specific you have a problem with in this article? You are required to note specific problems rather than just allege an NPOV problem. Notability was also addressed a long time ago as well. From my viewpoint it appears you are alleging that W Nowicki is NPOV pushing? Generally that type of claim in fowned upon unless there is really clear evidence. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please do review, the more editors' eyes the better. Also update and complete (in as neutral a tone as possible of course) if there is more material. Mostly I was just trying to rewrite into Wikipedia style instead of corporate bio style, but certainly could have let slip in my own bias. Did not intend to remove negative facts, but perhaps tried to use more neutral language only paraphrasing the sources. Thanks for any further attention. W Nowicki (talk) 18:41, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jtbobwaysf, taking these issues personally and knowingly disregarding Wikipedia guidelines suggests a close relationship or conflicting interest in the subject. Notability was "addressed" by W Nowicki and Jtbobwaysf and did not receive required review and discussion to resolve concerns. This article requires neutral editor review, and notability should be reviewed again, as many cited sources are primary, e.g. interviews with the subject or written or initiated by the subject for public relations purposes. Re: Wikipedia style, few other articles of living persons with such limited notability (and significant controversy) contain this much biographical information. Examples in this article: being a contributor to the Huffington Post website, maintaining a blog (the article describes the subject as an author, though he appears unpublished), an entire section on the subject spending less than one year in a job as a venture capitalist, starting an internet business, making numerous minor investments, the name and location of a wedding or parents' professions are not notable activities, even when combined together, and are considered puffery and should be removed. It is not clear how this subject is notable among thousands (tens or hundreds of thousands?) of entrepreneur or investor peers, and once removed, it is not clear the subject requires a standalone article.Dives4587 (talk) 23:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You can continue to imply that W Nowicki and I have a close personal relationship, however I am already on record saying I don't. I just like to defend the article because I created it. I dont think there is anything in wikipedia's guidelines that would censor my voice for being an article creator. Is there? Feel free to edit the article as you see fit, it is wikipedia after all. BTW, there are lots of entrepreneur articles in wikipedia these days, where the subject has no notability besides founding a company. I even nominated one for AfD and was speedily shut down for it. Oops...I guess you are aware that today just starting one startup (even sometimes minor) seems to be enough to gain notability. However, in this subject's case the subject was deemed notable enough for the New York times to cover his marriage (in addition to lots of other coverage). If he is notable for the NYT, I guess he is notable enough for wikipedia. It guess a notability claim is going to be a steep hill to climb if you seek to make that claim. Agree with you that the article needs some work, and the long list of investments seems unnecessary. Anyhow, just my opinion. Here is what was the result when I nominated two pages by Lyft founders for AfD (my nomination went nowhere). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Logan_Green It seems to be the thinking these days that founding a startup is notable in itself. I guess there must be some threshold of startup notability, but I am not aware of it. Anyhow, enough on notability as the subject of this seems to be NPOV and article quality. So I invite you to improve it, I have spent time working on it and welcome other editors input. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dont think there is anything in wikipedia's guidelines that would censor my voice for being an article creator. Is there?

Review or enforcement of Wikipedia guidelines is not "censoring your voice." This is a strawman, and an irrelevant one at that.

However, in this subject's case the subject was deemed notable enough for the New York times to cover his marriage (in addition to lots of other coverage). If he is notable for the NYT, I guess he is notable enough for wikipedia.

Yes, my oldest sister's marriage was also covered by the New York Times, just like the unions of over a dozen couples per week (over a thousand people a year) are covered by the New York Times. All you have to do is submit your own photo and pre-written biography (see: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/fashion/weddings/howtosubmitwedding.html) and hope to be chosen. For this reason, wedding announcements are routine, non-newsworthy, non-notable coverage, and of course, usually self-promotional primary sources inappropriate for Wikipedia reference. Perhaps if this subject's notability or credibility were more defensible, there would be a standalone article or coverage for the companies TowerData or LiveRamp, rather than one for RapLeaf, now defunct, with serious problems... not to mention anything else the article subject, an 'entrepreneur' has created himself, or published, if the subject is to be considered an author. Why not create those pages instead? Dives4587 (talk) 19:56, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the NYT must have a vetting process for how they choose who to publish weddings. Anyhow, you seem to be implying the subject of this article is not notable. I am already on record of a 'keep' vote regarding this article on a previous AfD nomination, so I don't see the point to address it in this discussion. Next, I certainly am not going to get drawn into a discussion of your family members (Re: your mention of your sister's wedding), wow totally outside the scope of wikipedia. RE: you state "Rapleaf is defunct with serious problems." When I do a websearch for Rapleaf I just get the towerdata website. I dont have any knowledge of Rapleaf's and/or towerdata's business situation. Maybe you do? Sometimes a company's bankruptcy can make it even more notable, such as Enron. RE: You asking me about why I created the article and not one for towerdata. I don't need to justify my motivations for creating or editing articles. In closing, i'm having a little trouble understanding all this discussion about this article, your discussion of the previous editors of the article (implying some of us have COI), and no effort on your part to fix the article quality. Fix the article if you have a problem with it. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to chime in on this one because it seems this is all stemming from something the subject did 9 years ago. I see this is more as a Refimprove then the COI tag. If it is because of contributions from Jtbobwaysf then that is not justified. An obvious COI is creating a handle to contribute to one page only, like Dives4587 has done. This appears to be a vendetta.--WatchingContent (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dives4587 writes like an experienced editor who knows the rules of wikipedia, but mysteriously this account has never edited anything besides this page in question. It does seem to be a Wikipedia:SPA with a vendetta towards the subject. Any suggestions on further edits to remove these tags? Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lines like this "Hoffman is called an expert networker, and described by one author as a "catalyst", because he often "maps" people to see how they fit into his social network" are self-serving and she be removed. No doubt they are Wikipedia:SPA. Take another pass and then I'll remove the tags.--WatchingContent (talk) 23:36, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi WatchingContent, I have re-written some of the sentences including that one you mentioned and also merged a number of sections that other editors noted as problems below. Any other suggestions to remove the tags? Thank you! 18:23, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work Jtbobwaysf, looks good.--WatchingContent (talk) 22:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking over this Talk page and then reading Jtbobwaysf's edits (and very cleverly selective edit summaries) it appears as though the controversy perhaps for which this individual is most notable, has been concealed in a style suspiciously similar to what has already been edited out! I undid the edit removing the "Controversy" section (RapLeaf's article has a long one too I see) and tried to just scratch the surface with a dozen or so secondary sources. Someone with more knowledge of the individual will have to add the rest and untangle this character. The fact that what Jtbobwaysf merely glossed over as ". . .Gawker mentioned a controversy surrounding privacy practices at Rapleaf.[32]. . ." revealed over two dozen high quality secondary sources covering this in great detail (does no one use Google anymore?) makes me very skeptical and a bit concerned about his neutrality and COI. PS I am also using a throwaway username because, to be honest, all that data collection and 'privacy practices' stuff does creep me out. Cheers! Rs819 (talk) 09:04, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Rs819:, cc@WatchingContent: cc@Snow Rise: cc@KrakatoaKatie: cc@Wikidemon:, The purpose behind section pruning was well documented on this talk page and was the result of previous discussion. I think many of these changes you made violate the guidelines for WP:BLP, specifically you admit to creating a WP:SPA and implement a bunch of changes with a very negative tone, essentially disparaging the article's subject. That approach was previously addressed in the talk above. Some of these changes belong on the Rapleaf article, why did you not put them there or participate in the talk page discussion here? Your research relating to the company Hoffman was CEO of a few years ago (Rapleaf) is worthwhile, and I have added it to the Rapleaf page. Would you like to go there and work on that page, that page hasn't changed since late last year (prior to my adding your content)... And your suggestion of renaming a section previously called Author to Blogging to encompass writing published articles doesn't make any sense to me. I have notified the people who were party to the previous discussion and we can discuss some more. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:52, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Jtbobwaysf:, cc@WatchingContent: cc@Snow Rise: cc@KrakatoaKatie:, I agree that this information should be added to a RapLeaf page (and LiveRamp and TowerData should at minimum redirect there). I'm very troubled that almost TWENTY credible, secondary non-self-sourced/PR articles from leading publications (Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, TechCrunch, CNet, etc etc) covering this individual can be summarily removed in one revision... yet meaningless, non-notable trivia like "Hoffman contributed to Council on Foreign Relations papers in 2004.[26]" persist. On that paper, Auren Hoffman's name appears only once in this source, 3rd in a list of 18 people. That just isn't right. All of those high-quality sources I added (most of which are only about the subject himself and at minimum discuss him personally and his companies RapLeaf/LiveRamp/TowerData, which are arguably his best case for general notability) can't be ignored. It's not my fault that they largely fall under what could be optimistically described as controversial. Vandalism on Wikipedia Wikipedia:VANDAL refers to negative low-quality, speculative malicious content. This is just higher-quality content on this individual that you don't happen to like. Deleting a dozen articles about the subject because you don't like the way they make the subject look is the vandalism, not adding them in the first place. You're quibbling that Auren Hoffman should be considered an "Author" not a "blogger" but look at the evidence you put forth in this article. He hasn't contributed to the Huffington Post blog in over 5 years, and there are already thousands of active HuffPo bloggers. Why not improve the quality of the article with better sources instead of shuffling around positive or meaningless sentences and defending them in spite of their low-quality? I spent fifteen minutes trying to find sources that he is indeed an actual published author and not a "contributor" or writer of a personal newsletter and guest posts for industry blogs. I wanted to like this guy! This is perhaps more information that is needed, but I've been inaccurately accused of being a "vandal" with a "vendetta." I disclosed that I was using a throwaway username because the subject's expertise in identifying personal information and real names of internet users (and use of that information) makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons that have nothing to do with who I am. Clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way. Last week I didn't know who Auren Hoffman was. I was online researching how my data and personal information gets sold to advertisers. His name and companies kept coming up. So many newspapers, tech publications and media outlets saying the same thing--about the subject, not just the company. I Googled him, and this Wikipedia article came up, and it looked like a PR puff piece. That was before this other guy came in or the other criticisms on this page a few years ago, but I did read them and agree that something is fishy here. In my opinion this article was a failure of Wikipedia oversight and neutrality, because there are dozens of much higher-quality, secondary, subject-specific sources that are being ignored in favor of what I've described above. The subject of this article is an expert in online reputation management, but Wikipedia is supposed to be the unbiased source of balanced information about any subject. This is not that. None of you are doing your jobs as Wikipedia editors and improving the article with higher-quality sources, cycling out trivia and adding in substance. I don't think this is right. I hope that explains my position. I've wasted enough of my time here and Jtbobwaysf , your editing history indicates you're willing to defend this subject for years, and I am just one guy wanting Wikipedia to be more accurate and neutral about an indisputably controversial person. So yes, to some extend in this case, making Wikipedia better means making the subject look worse. For Wikipedia's sake, I hope this article finds its way to Wikipedia editors sharing that same goal. Rs819 (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Puffery

[edit]

This is all a puff piece and should be deleted.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Phalsall

The subject of this article (i.e. Auren Hoffman) was previously deleted/banned from Wikipedia for editing his own article, using a pseudonymous account[1]. That's maybe not dispositive, but it sure lends credence to your suggestion, [[User:Phalsall|Phalsall}}. Rather a number of online articles about Mr. Hoffman tend to support this viewpoint (i.e. a proclivity to self-promotion, sometimes sub-rosa) as well. While many statements are, technically, 'sourced', (a) that doesn't mean they're not cherry-picked, and (b) that they're not puffery.

I.e.: this is not NPOV.

(Frankly, the notability issue might ought to be raised as well.) Apologies, I don't have time to track down & cite all the (rather numerous) sources at the moment - hoping someone else will (before someone else jumps all over this). A Doon (talk) 19:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well he does appear to be notable. The press really loves someone who sells off several companies before they need to be profitable, and then talks investors into parting with more of their cash. :-) Seriously, someone who seems to be a professional self-promoter is probably going to need to have their article carefully screened for promotional language. I spent some time trying to rework from a corporate blurb into a biography (e.g. put in dates rather than say "before ... he was ..." etc.). Also I noticed User:Auren which seems an instance from circa 2003, and it appears another was deleted before this one was created in 2011. W Nowicki (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Notability of of this entry is well established and cited. If I remember correctly, I created this article and for the record I am not the subject of it. The subject's previous record of editing his own page is documented in the entry, and is not a criteria for evaluating notability. I would guess most BLP's have instances where the subject can't resist editing his/her page. Agree with W Nowicki, I suppose many people who eventually become notable, are masters of self promotion. I am sure we would not consider excluding Oprah, Madonna, or Mick Jagger for self promotion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ [1]

Question for administrator

[edit]

I request help in removing the COI and NPOV tags. Dives4587 flagged these pages with NPOV and COI and doesnt want to get into any discussion about removing them. I removed them once (as he hasn't stated that I am the COI), and he got quite angry, so I thought best if a 3rd party could take a look and advise what if any cleanup work is necessary. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:18, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Jtbobwaysf, the issue I see remaining is the laundry list of Investments. This isn't a resume so that needs to be greatly trimmed down to ones that are notable but preferably with a reference to back it. I'm still combing through the rest.--WatchingContent (talk) 22:40, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi WatchingContent (talk), I did a bit of trimming that investments section. Not really sure if this whole list is truly useful (i'm on the fence about it), or maybe just summarize the section and say 'the article subject has made numerous investments in private companies and some of those have been acquired by major companies such as google, etc' (leaving the citations). Or do you think the revised list is useful? Comments Thank you! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is useful because it give the reader a sense of his notable investments. I'm perfectly fine with your trim down which is on par with many others of Auren's stature on Wikipedia.--WatchingContent (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see no issue with the present items being listed at length, but the section does need some actual prose to contextualize it. A header with a non-grammatical list of items without any manner of discssion is not very encyclopedic, nor consistent with MoS. Indeed, organizationally, this article needs some work. I'm going to lift your language above to augment (not replace) the list, but I urge the section being fleshed out more, or else that the various subsection be integrated into 2-3 larger prose paragraphs. An article doesn't need nine separate sections if seven of those sections are exactly one sentence long and the eight is two sentences. Snow let's rap 00:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have integrated into a few larger prose sections and merged some sections to meet that goal. Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:36, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good work; the article looks much tighter as a result. I should say, so as to address the actual issue which raised this thread in the first place, that there don't seem to be any glaring neutrality issues in the way the information is presented to me (but then, I'm not super familiar with the topic). However, I will say that some extra secondary sources would be useful here; currently many of the claims, and the general notability, seem to hang to heavily upon primary sources, some of which are not really high quality, if WP:RS at all. A couple of extra high quality secondary sources, if they can be found, would help proof the article against the perception/accusation that it is a COI publicizing piece. Snow let's rap 23:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any real need for admin help here, as this is a content issue. If that changes, let us know. :-) Katietalk 21:52, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Katie, I posted the administrator question to get feedback on if there was indeed a COI/NPOV problem, which it seems to be there is consensus the problem is instead article content issues. I have re-worked the content and merged some sections. I have also proposed that User:WatchingContent the NPOV/COI tags. Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, @WatchingContent: @Snow Rise: @KrakatoaKatie: cc @Rs819: An WP:SPA (admits to being an SPA for privacy reasons) is back to attack the article's subject, maybe the same one with a different user account. Any suggestions? I answered the SPAs issues above in the NPOV section. I thought this was finished, but apparently not. I didn't revert any changes yet, as I thought I would allow a discussion to start rather than starting a revert back and forth with UserRs819. Please advise suggestions. Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:03, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Those tags should be removed, and the article kept in good shape. Any COI issue is water under the bridge by now, and if the article has NPOV problems these should be, and probably have been, fixed rather than arguing over an NPOV tag. I have gone ahead and removed the extended controversy section, which is mostly about Rapleaf, not Hoffman, and is undue and a serious WP:BLP concern. I think it might be worth a passing mention when discussing his role in the company, though, if that can be proposed. Mentioning his apparent COI editing of his own article is also undue and a WP:BLP violation. If anybody else wrote his life story, they would probably not mention this; adding it here as a permanent badge of shame on his biography smacks of WP:NAVEL retribution. It is not relevant to his notability. - Wikidemon (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is probably safe to say Dives4587 and Rs819 are connected. Unfortunately, vandals like these are prominent and think they have some sort of cleverness creating new hit and run handles. If it persists we can lock the page which would force them to contribute to Wikipedia before renewing this less than reputable activity.--WatchingContent (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not familiar enough with the past discussion here to assume any party is an SPA/COI editor, nor a vandal, but I will say that if there are concerns about sock-puppetry and anyone feels the WP:DUCK test applies, SPI would be the place to take the issue. Snow let's rap 02:39, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SPI is where you end up on BLP / socking concerns, not where you start off. It usually takes about a month for anybody to get around to doing anything over there if at all. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:50, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that SPI runs a little slow of late (like all administrative areas) is not an argument for throwing process out the window. That is to say, there is no policy-consistent alternative course of action here. One can't just point to someone on the other side of a content dispute and say "he's a sockpuppet! I know it!" and expect that to win the argument or lead to sanction. A checkuser is the only way you can confirm the sock with certainty and, even with delays at SPI, its the quickest way to deal with an SPA puppeteer.
In the alternative, a consensus to the alleged BLP issues can be formed and then if the supposed SPA violates that consensus, you can take them to ANI/3RR or otherwise seek administrative action, but if you're hope is to avoid slow/potentially ineffectual processes, that's hardly a step in the right direction. I think your projected "month" at SPI (not sure if that was meant literally or just as emphatic) is an exaggeration; probably you are looking at a week, assuming the CU is accepted, but that would still make it your most expedient route, in my opinion. It's hardly the only process or forum you might consider here, but I'd bet you apples to oranges that you spin your wheels more on another approach!
Edit: Ahh, I just saw the contemplation of page protection above, and reviewed the total contributions of the editor in question. Yeah, that's a possibility too, but only a temporary fix, and also one which would preclude all good-faith IPs from contributing (not that they seem to be lining up to edit on this obscure topic, though). In any event, all said, I still recommend SPI above other approaches, especially as I'm not even certain we could get even semi-protection at this stage. Snow let's rap 06:13, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, yes, it is. We do not follow broken processes around here. A little slow would be that it takes a few days to respond, not that a report of present trouble languishes for a month, long after the damage is done. "Take it to SPI" becomes a shorthand for "get lost". The course of action for DUCK cases of bad faith, disruptive editing, vandalism, serious BLP violations, etc., is to go ahead and revert, remove, delete, and get rid of them, as any administrator should if they are worth their salt and paying attention. The administrator process is a little broken too, but not as much as SPI. For practical purposes, if detractors using sockpuppet accounts insist on adding pointless disparagement against businesspeople they have a grudge against, it may or may not be useful to file a sockpuppet investigation, but in the meanwhile that content shoul be removed on sight, their actions undone, and if that escalates to an AN/I or EW, or emailing somebody, so be it. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That approach seems to me to put the cart before the horse. Many obvious problems arise in ignoring community procedure when we have assertion of bad-faith behaviour connected to a content dispute; in situations of suspected socking, the problem takes the form of the fact that different editors have different subjective standards as to what "obvious socking" is. In this instance, you and I may idiosyncratically agree that Rs819 looks like a pretty obvious sock of Dives4587 (and I think we do). But what happens if in another case editor C decides that another contributor is a sock and you and I don't see it? Is C entitled to "revert, remove, delete" at their own discretion? Checkuser and other administrative processes exist to create a bullwark against a cycle of edit warring based on subjective assumptions of bad-faith behaviour.
Your assertion is that those processes can be ignored because they are too stilted and slow at present and they allow too much disruption to occur in the interregnum; my experience tells me that much more disruption is likely if people engage in revert wars with others who are "obviously" breaking this or that rule, rather than taking the time to establish their case and seek community input and aid. This is usually (but not always) the case in particular instances, but certainly true in the aggregate. So my approach to the issues with present administrative slouch is not "ignore undermanned processes" but rather "let's fix the work shortage in these areas". For example, I notice you are a contributor in good standing with many years experience on the project; shouldn't we have put a mop in your hands by now? ;)
Anyway, this isn't really the forum for us to be thrashing these things out. I don't think anyone here cares enough about this issue to force the matter over an obvious sock and you should use whatever process you think best. I nonetheless think you're going to end up having to prove the sock's bad faith one way or another eventually, so I continue to recommend SPI as the best of limited options vis-a-vis speed. Snow let's rap 08:00, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think his parting post in the NPOV talk settled this exchange.--WatchingContent (talk) 20:56, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Auren Hoffman. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:51, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Auren Hoffman. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:17, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Controversey section

[edit]

@Pwardirl: I reverted the section you added on controversy, because I am concerned about the source. Please do the following

  • Go and look for sources that are passable on WP:RSP. You will note that Gawker is a no-no, especially on this WP:BLP.
  • Please re-add content that you can source from good sources, and you can use RSP as a guide for that.
  • Please ping me when you have re-added it so I can have a look. You could also add the content to your sandbox and we can collaborate there instead.

Note I am not opposed to the inclusion of controversial content, we just have to follow standards. Arguing for the inclusion of disparaging content (while interesting) on a BLP that is poorly sourced will not be a valid argument FYI. I did note there was some other WSJ sources, and those likely are ok here, so please work on making a section that is coherent using good sources.

Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:36, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Auren_Hoffman&oldid=1202759833"