Talk:David Marchick

New version to propose

{{request edit}} As the heading suggests, I have a new version of this article to propose: the current version is merely a stub, with few sources, and even some details unsupported by the citations included. I am also concerned that about one-third of the existing text is undue weight on a topic with scant coverage.

Before I explain further, the reason I'm not simply adding it now is because I have researched and written it on behalf of Mr. Marchick's employer, Carlyle Group. So consider this a request for an independent editor to review my draft and, ideally, replace the current version. Some details:

• The new draft includes more information on his role at Carlyle and clarification of his role at Covington & Burling; addresses his contributions to notable publications; adds information about his philanthropic efforts. The new draft is still not much longer than a stub; although I think he is notable, he's not really a public figure.

• Some details have been removed: one is that his title "director of intergovernmental affairs" at USTR isn't given in sources.

• A similar issue regards Halliburton, the part I think is undue. It's true that Halliburton was a client of Covington & Burling, and Marchick was "identified" as a lobbyist for them, but the only mentions I could find were in news stories about partisan sniping during the 2004 elections, when Marchick was a fundraiser for John Kerry (see these two NYT articles: here and here).

Moreover, this doesn't really say anything about his career; along with the inclusion of Halliburton controversies (which sources do not connect him to at all) I think this is simply coatracking. It may be worth noting that the article has only 3 edits total in its 2 years' existence, and the creating editor made a flurry of edits over a week in June 2010 and has not returned since.

Anyway, I'm happy to discuss the article in further detail, and I'll keep an eye on this page for further edits. One more note: I have disabled categories in my draft, so if you do move it, please re-enable them. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:56, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The Halliburton thing needs more examination. In the new draft he "became a partner with Covington & Burling, where he advised U.S. and foreign companies on foreign investment and trade issues." In Covington & Burling#Halliburton and the existing article he's a snake-oil salesman. http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/lobbying.html offers us an alleged copy of a C&B disclosure form of some sort: here. I don't think it is undue or coatrack to cover this aspect of the man's work, perhaps by amending the sentence I quoted by appending ", and acted as a lobbyist." --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Or, ", was identified in C&B filings as a lobbyist." Or somesuch. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:13, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

And another ref for this would be http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24545-2004Sep15.html which covers the same ground. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, Tagish, good to see you again. Thanks for following this up and looking at it closely. Fair point: the current draft doesn't make any mention of his lobbying at C&B, and it makes sense to include that much. How about concluding the end of the article's first paragraph, with "and was registered to lobby."? A good source to include for this point may be OpenSecrets. If you agree, I can format the cite and add it to my draft. What do you think? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Evening WWB. That works for me. opensecrets is a good starting point for readers interested in that aspect of his work. More broadly, I'm satisfied that with that change your draft represents an improved article with neutral point of view. I am content with dropping the specific mentions of Halliburton; the weight of RS is far too little on this point to suggest anything other than that it would be undue, and it is covered in the linked C&B article. I'll be happy to boldly update the article with your draft for those reasons. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree the draft looks fine now. I'll paste it in. FurrySings (talk) 22:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added the lobby fragment & referenced it. If you have any suggestions for changes to the style of the ref, let us know. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:26, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Dang, edit conflict. So I'd updated my user page draft before noticing you'd both got to it, which: thank you very much! The citation is fine, the only difference (here was mine) was putting both references at the end of the sentence, for aesthetic / readability reasons. Your call, though. Looks great overall. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI)

I've tweaked the ref slightly; but I'll keep them apart as different info comes from the two different sources. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No prob, that makes sense, too. I've also marked the edit request as complete. Thanks again, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget to mark noticeboard requests as resolved, too. —Cupco 03:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right, Cupco, I usually do, but was late on this one. Sorry about that. I've added a similar note to another forum I'd visited. Thanks for taking care of it at Talk: BLP. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:42, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

So what is he?

OK, the article survived discussion -- I'm fine with that, even though I had made the AfD nomination, as the discussion brought out info showing that he probably is sufficiently notable. So the first question then, is, notable for what? That is, with what do we fill in the blank for "David Marchich is ____________" when first introducing him to the reader?

Right now it says "...is an American lawyer and former diplomat", but this does not seem right to me, since he's not really that notable as a lawyer I don't think -- he's not participated in a famous case, argued before the Supreme Court, headed a law firm, been head of a state bar association, been popularly famous as a lawyer (e.g. legal advice radio show or popular legal books or whatever), won an award as a lawyer, or anything like that. And it's arguable that he ever was a diplomat, really. ("A diplomat is a person appointed by a country to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization"). He wasn't an ambassador or a Foreign Service officer at all, so I dunno. He did travel to Japan to "monitor progress" on a trade agreement.

He really does seem to be kind of jack of all trades, so this is a hard question. In reality, "...is a Washington insider" or something might be accurate, but is awfully vague, and we don't have a cite for that anyway. His current job happens to be Managing Director and Global Head of External Affairs for Carlyle, but I'm not sure that is his main source of notability (it might be). It seems that his main notability is co-writing the book which garnered some attention, so maybe "...is an American writer" or since it's really a policy book "...is an American policy analyst". That seems best to me, but the problem is I don't see anyone calling him a policy analyst, so I dunno about that either. Herostratus (talk) 01:25, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

New edits

If you like my edits[1] to the biography, please post a note on my talk page, User talk:Uzma Gamal, and let me know. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 01:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Problems with the current article

Greetings, anyone visiting this page. In 2012 I worked with representatives of Mr. Marchick to improve this entry. It's a bit of a challenge: Marchick is notable (as established by surviving AfD) but not a very public person. Working with independent editors, consensus was obtained for replacing the stubby article with something not much longer.

Several weeks later, User:Uzma Gamal made a number of additions to this article, expanding its length considerably. While I think Wikipedia articles should be as complete as possible given reliable sources and content guidelines, and I appreciate the effort Uzma put into this article, I'm afraid I believe the current entry is problematic for a number of reasons.

The first concerns the sources included. Having researched Mr. Marchick's career in depth, I'm quite aware of the sources available, and there isn't a ton out there (hence the AfD). I simply don't believe that the sources which are available can support an article of this length. Marchick is certainly notable, but is a low profile individual. He warrants an article, but it hardly needs to be of this length. Moreover, the tone of the article is significantly off—it reads much more like a news article than like a Wikipedia article.

Even if the sources did exist, the article is far too detailed in its discussion of Marchick and his life, especially the level of detail about his personal life.

Here are a few examples of the problem of detail I'm seeing (and note, this is not, by any means, a comprehensive list):

• In the Early life section, the second sentence reads: Marchick grew up in Orinda, a city valued for its safety and commuting distance to downtown Oakland, San Francisco, and Walnut Creek California. The information about Orinda is completely irrelevant here, and the source for this statement seems to be an op-ed written by Marchick himself, and thus isn't appropriate for this article anyway.
• In the second paragraph under 1990s, the situation is even worse, where the details included aren't about Marchick either: At the time, the countries making up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprised the world's fastest-growing automobile market and Japan's 90-percent market share dominance in the area came from exporting its keiretsu system, in which parent Japanese companies agree to deal exclusively with a small circle of Japanese government selected suppliers.
• In the third paragraph of 2000s, there is a sentence that reads: A year later, Marchick observed that the fallout from the Dubai Ports World controversy hurt foreign investments in the United States: "Deals are taking longer to get through the process; the costs being imposed are higher; the conditions are greater; and transactions that don't raise any national security issues are being scrutinized as if they did." Again, this isn't about Marchick or his career at all, it's just quoting something he once said.

Because of the myriad problems with this article, my suggestion is to roll the article back to the most recent version that seemed to have broad consensus—the post-deletion-nomination version as of 27 October 2012. Because there were some citation/link issues with that draft, I've dropped a slightly modified version of it into my userspace, and fixed those issues, including correcting wikilinks, adding sources where needed, adding an infobox, and fixing a number of typos.

What do folks think about this? I'd like to get a wide range of views, so in addition to following up with editors previously involved (Uzma included, of course) I can raise the issue at relevant WikiProjects if that will help. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I hear you. It's a reasonable point. Certainly stuff like "a city valued for its safety and commuting distance to... San Francisco" does sound a bit over the top. On the other hand, I think what the person is trying to say is "a tony Bay Area suburb" but then you'd have to find a source using the word "tony". Whether Mr Marchick's class background (including going to The College Preparatory School which isn't mentioned) is germane is debatable, I suppose, but in my opinion it does inform my understanding of who he is.

On the other hand, WP:BLP. I'm not sure that Mr Marchick is truly WP:LOWPROFILE -- he did choose to have a career that would put him in the public eye and didn't just stumble into notoriety -- but he is marginal in terms of notability, and (assuming that you're acting as his agent) has requested redaction of material, and those two things taken together carry a great deal of weight. The spirit of WP:BLP is "We are not here to make anyone unhappy without very good cause" and so if Mr Marchick wants some material redacted I'm inclined to be agreeable.

On the other hand, the Wikipedia is not paper and if another editor has elected to include material that's sourced, not trivial, and not defamatory, I hate to throw that away. I can see not including the name of his wife, for instance, if he doesn't want that, but going back to October 2012 would throw away an awful lot of material about his career. If he's going to have an article, it would seem worthwhile to keep a lot of that, and it's not like it's defamatory or pejorative or anything. Are you (as his agent) unhappy with including this level of detail? I'd rather see a scalpel used here than a sledgehammer. Herostratus (talk) 14:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Hero. And yes, I am acting as Mr. Marchick's agent again in this matter. I like your analogy about scalpel vs. sledgehammer, although I would still intend to cut plenty with the scalpel. I don't really know anything about Mr. Marchick's class background; at least, I don't recall any information from sources. Meanwhile, I just realized that Uzma adapted the description from the lead of the Orinda, California entry. That kind of detail is very appropriate for that article, but I think not here. I'm in no rush, so let's see if others I contacted weigh in over the next few days. That said, yes, I'm willing to consider a pared down article, as opposed to a rolled back one. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Well to this point there's no other response. I have to admit that I'm puzzled. On the one hand here we have 1) a living person who is 2) arguably WP:LOWPROFILE, and at any rate certainly only marginally notable, and who 3) has requested (through you) that material be redacted and who 4) has done so nicely rather than ranting or whatever. Given all that, per the letter and spirit of WP:BLP, you certainly have the right to remove a lot of material -- certainly any material that's not rigorously sourced, and unnecessary personal info such as the names of relatives, and really any defamatory material; and arguably, anything that makes the subject unhappy.

On the other hand, I can't help wondering, what is his problem? What is the motive here? I mean, I read the article, and it makes him look good. It makes him like an important, patriotic, and effective agent for American interests (in a good way), and an effective and sought-after businessman. Jeez, there's nothing about his lobbying for Haliburton (which I'm not saying there should be). He is or was a lobbyist, which some people might not like, but he's only described that way once in passing way down in. I suppose you could infer he's a revolving-door Washington insider which some people might not like, or a lackey of "the 1%" which some people might not like, but that's only by inference from the bare facts and isn't in any way implied in the article, and I'm sure Mr Marchick knows that we can't expect everyone to like us.

I was involved with the article Touré, where Mr Touré did not want his birth name given. I supported him in this, but I lost, and part of the reason I lost was that the argument was made "Well, Touré just wants to control his brand, and we're not in the brand-maintenance business". Is that what's going on here? I'd have a little credibility trouble with "Well, Mr Marchick is familiar with Wikipedia, and just believes that bios of people at his level of notability should be short, for the good of the Wikipedia" or "Well, Mr Marchick is just modest, and believes that the article makes him look too important".

For instance, regarding A year later, Marchick observed that the fallout from the Dubai Ports World controversy hurt foreign investments in the United States: "Deals are taking longer to get through the process; the costs being imposed are higher; the conditions are greater; and transactions that don't raise any national security issues are being scrutinized as if they did." This is spot on. He did say it. It makes him look smart. It does help us to get a handle on who he is and what he thinks about an important issue he was involved in. And an editor, for whatever reason, elected to source it and write it. So what is the problem here? Sincerely, Puzzled. Herostratus (talk) 16:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey Herostratus, thanks for your additional thoughts. I think Marchick's main concern here is the level of detail related to his family. There are also some errors in the larger chunks that User:Uzma Gamal added, which would have been resolved by simply rolling back to the previous version.

Regardless of Marchick's motives, though, the article still runs afoul of a number of WP guidelines, and I do care about those issues. As you note, under BLP, there are certainly some things that could be removed, like names of family members, but there are also other extraneous details that simply aren't warranted, alongside the issues of tone I raised previously. We might disagree about Marchick's quote on the Dubai Ports World controversy, but I don't think we disagree that the details about things like Orinda simply don't have a place in Marchick's article, not in terms of providing the right level of detail nor the right tone.

So, I'd like to propose that we do this—let's take your scalpel-not-sledgehammer approach. I'll spend some time with the current article, removing what I think is extraneous, but also attempting to avoid being too draconian in what I cut, and then upload it to my user space. I think we'll likely end up with an article that's a bit longer than the roll-back version I suggested, but still shorter than what we have here, with the right tone, level of detail, and discussion of family members.

This seems to me to be the best way forward, developing a more appropriate version of the article based on Uzma's work. What do you think about that? Would you be willing to take a look at the draft I propose? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

WWB Too, I think that's a great idea. As you know, Wikipedia articles often use extraneous information to add context to an article. In my opinion, BLP:Avoid victimization does allow for limiting the amount of extraneous information if the person in question finds it a bit much. In my personal opinion, I think the second two points you took issue with above add significant context (ASAN and Dubai Ports World). However, I could imagine there are certain work situations where such an in depth article could be interpreted as causing undo burden on the subject. If you create a preferred edited version in your namespace, I will take a look and implement anything that makes sense to me. Cheers Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Dkriegls. Sounds like we have a consensus to discuss a pared-down version. I will lean toward removing material that is not about his career (like the detail about ASAN's market situation) or for which no third-party source claims to be an important part of his career (like the Dubai Ports World quote). So, all of this we can talk through later, and I'll let you both know when I have a new draft. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi again folks, I've now had a chance to take a look through Marchick's article, removing what I felt was extraneous detail, and have uploaded a revised draft to my userspace, in fact to the same subpage as my previous draft. As you can see, my prediction was about right—we've certainly got more details in here than the rollback version I originally suggested, but quite a bit less than in the current article. I tried to keep the "scalpel" approach in mind, removing only details that seemed to me to have no place this article. I also changed the tone in a number of places, corrected typos and some errors in the citation formatting, and did a few other general housekeeping things. I'm curious on your thoughts about this new draft. Does this seem to be a better candidate for replacing the current article?

I'd like to note that there may still be a few errors in the article. Once we're settled on a draft here, I'd like to run it by Marchick and see if everything looks correct—if there's anything amiss, I'll do my best to track down additional sources and make the corrections, and then repost for review before we take things live. Sound like a plan? And thanks again for the help with this! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

The draft looks fine WWB. Really, for my part, even though I thought the article was fine before, given the totality of the circumstances (including that you're a skilled editor), I'm inclined to give you carte blanche for any changes you want to make. So consider me signed off on the draft and any reasonable changes you want to make to it. Herostratus (talk) 17:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not too far off from Herostratus' take on things. A cursory look of the new draft seems good to me. I'll take a deeper look later in the week, but don't let that stop you from implementing it. I would like some clarity on the COI; is this a business relationship edit, or just a friendly courtesy? Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:36, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you, I'm glad you like the new draft. Clarity on COI: this is in fact a business relationship, and because I follow Jimbo's "bright line" rule, I believe I should not be the one to implement the draft. If one of you wants to make the move and read more closely after, or wait a few days to review it and then take it live, either is fine by me. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:37, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

One additional note: according to Marchick, his year of birth is 1966, not 1967. I've made this change in the draft in my userspace, although I'm not able to find a source for either date. As far as I can tell, the 1967 date looks like WP:OR based on this wedding announcement, which lists Marchick's age as 32 in 1999. Since there is not necessarily a controversy here, I've gone ahead and updated it in my draft. Other options: I have seen some articles say "1966 or 1967" for example, although in this case I'm quite certain it is not 1967. On the other hand, I don't have a better source than Mr. Marchick himself, so if editors would prefer to leave it out entirely, that's fine as well. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:07, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I changed the bd right away. Will take a deeper look at the rest later, before I'm wiling to attach my name to it. I had a friend with a wrong bd on Wikipedia and it was copied everywhere on the internet and beyond. I know how frustrating that can be. Would rather correct it here because if you remove it, someone will just add it back and cite a source that itself cites the old version of this article. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Cool, I appreciate it. Looking forward to your review later, and I'll keep an eye on this page in case you have questions for me. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, Dkriegls, just wanted to touch base and see if you'd had a chance to review the proposed. Any feedback, or does it look okay to you? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:03, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Assessment of WWB Too's requested changes.

Here are my notes on the changes you request, as posted on your userspace. Let me know what you think, --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:28, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Inforbox: good, I implemented this.
• Lead: good, need to be shorter, I implemented this.
• Early Life: good, BLP privacy got these changes covered, I implemented this.
• Career: this is where I need some more justification. Simply arguing it is "too detailed" doesn't cover some of these deletions about his career. I'll break each edit down here:
• Intro paragraph for Career: justification not clear, Why the mass delete? It's a nice summary of his career highlights. You could argue WP:OR, but I would have to read that argument as WP:OR doesn't typically prohibit summaries.
• 1990's first two paragraphs: good, mostly excessive personal detail like salary, I implemented this.
• 1990's third paragraph: justification not clear, these deletes seem more like a whitewash of contentious details of his work and less like "too much detail". I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying that I am not fully comfortable implementing them, yet.
• 1990's fourth paragraph: good, mostly personal details covered by BLP, I implemented this.
• 1990's fifth paragraph: mostly good, I added back the info on the Bahrain and British deals. I did use less suggestive language.
• 1990's final paragraph: good, I think the personal quotes are covered by BLP, I implemented this.
• 2000's first paragraph: good, mostly extraneous info, I implemented this.
• 2000's second paragraph/first half: good, overly detailed partner info, I implemented this.
• 2000's second paragraph/second half (Kerry Campaign): justification not clear, again these deletes seem more like a whitewash of contentious details of his work and less like "too much detail".
• 2000's last two paragraphs: good, I implemented these changes.

Reply to Dkriegls' assessment

Hey Dkriegls, thank you so much for working through this—the article is looking tons better. Replying to the places you had questions about justification:

• Intro paragraph for Career: I took this out for two reasons. One, I felt that it's quite repetitive with what comes after. Second, it was confusing. The first time I read through the article after these additions, I thought the information about Marchick's career was written incredibly out of order, since that first paragraph covers everything up to the present, and then the next section starts over. It seemed clearer to just remove it. I'm not totally opposed to putting in a top-line summary, but I think if we do, it needs should be quite short (maybe one sentence?) and be very obviously a summary. What do you think?

• 1990's third paragraph: There are two things that got removed here, so let me respond to each in turn. Regarding the first sentence, which I think is probably what you're responding to, I suggested we remove:

"...where he in part was tasked with trying to control ad hoc and scattered international diplomacy actions at various levels of government in the United States, including his home state of California, where those actions interfered with President Clinton ability to conduct U.S. foreign policy."

The issue here is that it this was a single event, not a long-term mission that Marchick was tasked with. California was considering a bill that would impose human rights sanctions on Burma. The Clinton administration sent Marchick to articulate their position that such actions could interfere with Clinton's diplomatic efforts abroad. That's all that happened according to the sources, but this sentence makes it sound like this was a major part of Marchick's job function in this position.

Regarding the remainder of the removals from this paragraph—I was simply trying to tighten up, as I felt like there was simply too much detail about the specifics of the negotiations. Not a "whitewash" as if there was something negative to remove, just trying to keep the article focused on important points of his career.

• 2000's second paragraph/second half (Kerry Campaign): Again, two reasons for removal here. First, this is way too detailed based on the source; if you click through, you'll see that there's a tiny mention of Marchick at the end of the piece, just one short sentence (shorter, in fact, that what appears in the Wikipedia article). Second, this isn't actually about Marchick; it's about Marchick's career history being played like a card in politics. I just don't think that warrants mention in an article about Marchick himself.

So, there's my reasoning on the three things you had questions about. Any thoughts on these things? And really, thanks again for spending the time to actually work through this with me—very much appreciated! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:43, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, source weight doesn't match article weight, I can see that. Also, article too short for a section lead and summary, okay. I was hesitant to delete the other editors work there, but it is a bit much for a short article. You might want to check through the references and make sure I didn't delete any vital ones by implementing this one paragraph at time. CheersDkriegls (talk to me!) 17:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Very excellent, I'm excited to see all these changes made! Although it does look like there's one reference that went sideways, namely reference number 19, with the title "U.S., U.K., still apart on open skies, face U.S. elections, Marchick says"; there's no URL, so it doesn't like that there's an accessdate parameter—can you fix?

Now that we've settled on a draft that's acceptable in terms of length, I'm going to reach out to Mr. Marchick again; I believe there are some details he thinks are wrong, although I don't have details yet. Would you be willing to help out on tweaking information if anything turns out to need revising in order to be accurate?

Meantime, thanks again for all your help here! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:22, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

A few corrections to offer

As discussed above, I went back to David Marchick with the shortened, more Wikipedia-appropriate version of this article. Unfortunately, it still contains a number of inaccuracies, many of them apparently due to stretching the sources a bit past what they actually say. Below, I've detailed three of the problems that still exist with the article:

1. In the third paragraph of the introduction, as well as the third paragraph under Career#2000s, Marchick is referred to as an "in-house lobbyist" for the Carlyle Group. However, Marchick hasn't been registered to lobby during his time at Carlyle. I think the confusion here comes from the fact that one of the two sources used for this claim reports on rumors, saying, "The District company plans to announce today that it hired David M. Marchick, a partner in the local law firm Covington & Burling, to head global regulatory affairs, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because Carlyle has not announced the appointment." (emphasis mine) The second source, which is based on an actual statement from the Carlyle Group, says nothing about lobbying. I'd thus like to suggest that we remove mention of lobbying from these two sentences, and remove the source that reports on rumors.
2. The first sentence of the third paragraph under Career#1990s currently reads "By January 1998, Marchick had been promoted to Deputy United States Assistant Secretary of State." However, this was more of a lateral move for Mr. Marchick than a promotion, and neither of the sources actually says anything about him taking the position, only that he held it. I'd thus suggest that we reword this to read "By January 1998, Marchick held the position of Deputy United States Assistant Secretary of State."
3. The fifth paragraph under Career#1990s contains the sentence "Later that year, Marchick and another U.S. delegation leader, Paul Gretch, were successful in obtaining a U.S.-Argentina open skies accord." However, it was actually Marchick's staff that did the negotiating, with Marchick simply "concluding" the accord, as the source says:

:"The open skies agreement is the direct result of a determined effort by the U.S. and Argentine governments to begin liberalizing the aviation marketplace. Yohe said, "The two negotiating teams worked very hard to achieve the objectives that President Clinton and President Menem established during their January summit in Washington…" Yohe specifically commended the U.S. delegation leaders David Marchick and Paul Gretch for their leadership in concluding the landmark accord."

Given the fact that the source wording seems to confirm that Marchick's team did this, and not Marchick himself, I'm thinking we should just lose this sentence, especially since the source is a press release.

Please note that this isn't a complete list of errors in the current article, but I wanted to get started on making some of these corrections as soon as possible. If folks have comments or questions, please feel free to ask, but if all of this seems reasonable, I'd appreciate someone making the changes. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:31, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• Done. I reworded the last request, instead of deleting it. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for making those changes! Rewording the last one seems just fine to me. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Additional corrections

Deprecated request

Hey folks, I'm back again with a few more factual corrections that I'd like to propose for this article, detailed below:

• Marchick's birthplace is wrong in the current article; he was actually born in St. Louis, Missouri. I think the confusion arose because, in Marchick's wedding announcement, it says that his parents are "of" Orinda, California, which Uzma Gamal must have extrapolated from. I don't have a source for the correct place of birth, though, so I'd suggest that we simply remove it, both from the infobox and Early life section of the article.
• The article currently states that "In October 1999, Marchick announced that he was leaving the U.S. State Department to join the newly formed Bid4Assets, the first real estate Internet auction website to operate in the United States." However, the source for this claim doesn't say anything about the company being the first of it's kind. And, in fact, the first sentence of the article would seem to contradict such a claim:

"On-line businesses that sell the assets of bankrupt companies are springing up to convert others' hard times into revenue."

I'd thus like to suggest that we reword this sentence to remove the claim that Bid4Assests was the first such company: "In October 1999, Marchick announced that he was leaving the U.S. State Department to join the newly formed Bid4Assets, a website for bankrupt businesses to auction off their assets."

• Finally, in Career#2000s, there is a section that reads "On December 27 of that year, Marchick and several other inventors filed a U.S. patent application for a system for auctioning bankruptcy assets. The application issued into a U.S. patent approximately five years later." This overstates Marchick's role, however—he was listed on the patent, but did not file for it himself, nor was he a driving force in filing for it. As you can see from the patent application, he's listed fourth out of six names. Given the relatively small role that Marchick played here, I'd like to suggest we remove these sentences entirely, as well as the section called U.S. Patents.

As before, a caveat is in order before I sign off—I believe other factual issues remain in this article, so once we've decided what to do about these, I'll likely have a handful more corrections that I'll be proposing. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:01, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Also, I just noticed that Marchick's year of birth is still incorrect in one location in the article, under Early life—it should be 1966, not 1967, as per previous discussion. Can someone also correct this when they address the information about Orinda mentioned above? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I've rolled these requests into the list in the next section, so I've collapsed these requests. Please see below for outstanding issues. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:39, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Full list of corrections

Per a request from Dkriegls, I've prepared a list of the remaining inaccuracies in this article, going section by section, rather than posting these changes a little at a time. I've also rolled in three of the four requests from the above section which have not yet been addressed (the other edit was addressed).

So! Our master list of remaining problems:

Introduction

• In the second paragraph of the intro, as well as the second paragraph under 2000s, the description of Marchick's role at Covington & Burling is incorrect. Although he worked on trade issues, he was not "special counsel". I'd suggest we simply remove this detail so that the sentences read:
  • For the intro: "After working as Vice President of Development for the online auction business Bid4Assets, Marchick joined Washington, D.C. based international law firm Covington & Burling in March 2002."
  • For the paragraph in 2000s: "At Covington, Marchick worked on international transportation and trade issues."

Early life

• Marchick's birthplace is wrong in the current article; he was actually born in St. Louis, Missouri. I think the confusion arose because, in Marchick's wedding announcement, it says that his parents are "of" Orinda, California, which Uzma Gamal must have extrapolated from. I don't have a source for the correct place of birth, though, so I'd suggest that we simply remove it, both from the infobox (where it appears twice) and in this section of the article.

Career#1990s

• The first sentence here, which begins In 1991, Marchick served… seems to overstate his role. Marchick has indicated that he wasn't an analyst, but was simply an aid. The source (available on Nexis here, if you have access) makes it look like he was tacked on as an author (presumably in his role as an aid), although it does call him an analyst in the "editor note". However, this source isn't even about Marchick: it's a piece co-written by him. Since it seems that just this by-line is being used to provide the info for this whole sentence, I think this sentence should come out. This section should then begin with the sentence that currently follows it, changing the beginning of that sentence from "Two years later,..." to "In 1993,...
• There's quite a time gap between the sentences that begin "Two years later" and "In May 1996…" in the first paragraph. I'd like to propose that we add a sentence here about Marchick's time in between, when he worked at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, based on this source, which indicates that Marchick was hired in early 1993. For the sentence, I'd suggest something simple, like "Marchick was hired by the Office of the United States Trade Representative in early 1993."
• Regarding the paragraph that begins "By January 1998…":
  • According to Marchick, the sentence that begins "In September of that year…" overstates his role. However, I can't locate that source (despite having access to resources like Nexis, and it apparently being from Reuters), so I'm not sure exactly what it says. Given a number of other places where Uzma Gamal extrapolated things that weren't in the sources, I think that may have happened here as well.
  • Further, the article used as a source for the claim about Italy only quotes Marchick in passing. I'd thus suggest that we shorten this paragraph to simply read: "By January 1998, Marchick held the position of Deputy United States Assistant Secretary of State" and roll in the following paragraph (see suggestion below).
• Regarding the paragraph that contains a single sentence: "Between November and December 1998, Marchick, along with U.S. ambassador to China Jim Sasser, successfully moved China towards increasing air passenger and cargo services between the United States and China." Neither of the sources used here say that the agreement was successfully concluded. It also isn't clear to me where the two month range comes from. I'd like to suggest rewording to "Also in 1998, Marchick led negotiations with China to expand air passenger and cargo services between the United States and China" and adding it to the end of the preceding paragraph.
• Regarding the paragraph that begins "In March 1999, Marchick…":
  • The first sentence, regarding his promotion, is not supported by the source; it only indicates that his title, by June of 1999 (when the article was published), was Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. I'd like to suggest we rewrite this sentence to read "By June 1999, Marchick held the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of State."
  • The next sentence, "His air transportation work with Bahrain lead to a U.S.-Bahrain open skies agreement in May" is also unsupported by the source, which says only that Marchick was the actual, physical signer of the accord; it says nothing about his role in the negotiations. I'd like to suggest that we delete this sentence entirely.
  • The last sentence here is also problematic: "During this period of Marchick's tenure, the U.S. and Britain open skies negotiations were regularly ongoing." Although I'm not able to locate the full text of the source used, this looks like it isn't about Marchick himself, and is simply about ongoing negotiations that he had previously been a part of. Because of this, it doesn't seem to belong in this article.
• The last paragraph of this section currently states that "In October 1999, Marchick announced that he was leaving the U.S. State Department to join the newly formed Bid4Assets, the first real estate Internet auction website to operate in the United States." However, the source for this claim doesn't say anything about the company being the first of it's kind. And, in fact, the first sentence of the article would seem to contradict such a claim:

"On-line businesses that sell the assets of bankrupt companies are springing up to convert others' hard times into revenue."

I'd thus like to suggest that we reword this sentence to remove the claim that Bid4Assests was the first such company: "In October 1999, Marchick announced that he was leaving the U.S. State Department to join the newly formed Bid4Assets, a website for bankrupt businesses to auction off their assets."

Career#2000s

• Regarding the sentence that begins "On December 27 of that year, Marchick and several other inventors filed a U.S. patent application for a system for auctioning bankruptcy assets. The application issued into a U.S. patent approximately five years later." This overstates Marchick's role—he was listed on the patent, but did not file for it himself, nor was he a driving force in filing for it. As you can see from the patent application, he's listed fourth out of six names. Given the relatively small role that Marchick played here, I'd like to suggest we remove these sentences entirely, as well as the section called U.S. Patents.
• In the last paragraph of the article, there is a sentence that reads "As a managing director, Marchick was responsible to Carlyle's co-founders for regulatory issues in the twenty one countries in which Carlyle operated." Rather than update the number of offices that Carlyle has as they grow (the number is now in the thirties), I'd like to suggest that this be changed to simply read "As a managing director, Marchick was responsible to Carlyle's co-founders for regulatory issues in countries where Carlyle operates."
• Finally, since this last paragraph of the article ends in 2011, I'd like to suggest we add a sentence to the end of this paragraph, to mention his latest role with Carlyle: "As of October 2012, he is also a member of the company's Management Committee." The reference is here. Although it's his company bio, it seems appropriate to me to use for a detail like this.

That, I believe, is the list of issues that still remain in the article. If anyone has any questions, please do reach out, but if everything looks okay, could someone implement these changes? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:40, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I've reviewed and implemented the requested changes for every section except 2000's. There were only one or two minor changes I made. Everything else checked out. I will finish reviewing the 2000's another day. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Very cool, thanks so much, Dkriegls. Let me know if you have any questions about the last section. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Done! Happy to help. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks so much for all of your help on this article—I really appreciate it! One last question: how do you feel about removing the U.S. Patents section, and the prose about the patent, given that Marchick wasn't a major player there? If you do think we should leave the section in place, I feel like we should at least correct the citation. As it is now, it looks like Marchick was the first author on the patent, which he wasn't. What do you think? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Gone. It was such a peripheral thing to mention here. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad you agree! Thanks so much for your help, and this one is  Done WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, shoot. I just noticed a small thing in the live version of the article: in the sentence "By January 1998, Marchick held the position of United States Assistant Secretary of State" we've lost a word from Marchick's title. This should read "By January 1998, Marchick held the position of Deputy United States Assistant Secretary of State." Do you think you could fix that? Sorry for the hassle, and thanks again. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Are we sure that is the correct title? Because it's a red link: Deputy United States Assistant Secretary of State. But United States Assistant Secretary of State and United States Deputy Secretary of State are both blue links. Just want to make sure. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 15:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Aha—I see your concern, but I do believe both "deputy" and "assistant" need to be in there. The L.A. Times source calls him "Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary of State", and he indicated to me that this is correct. You OK making the update? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Not all titles blue link. It just sounded like a fancy enough one to blue link so I thought it might be wrong. Anyways, done. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Very cool—as before, it's much appreciated! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

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Repeated reversion of poor quality content

This article's sourcing is very poor. MalluMalleus (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2017 (UTC)— MalluMalleus (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Your edits removed sources by Washington Business Journal, Contra Costa Times, Washington Times, Akron Beacon Journal, Japan Economic Newswire, Journal Of Commerce, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Aviation Daily, Washington Post, and others. Are you claiming that all these do not fit wp:reliable sources (RS)? Most, if not all are RS. Jim1138 (talk) 04:11, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The Washington Business Journal is a redirect for a reason - it is an online newsblog repackaging PR feeds. Contra Costa Times is a local newspaper of dubious reliability, which has sunk. The Washington Times link does not confer notability on Marchik, and has a passing mention on the appointments page,and so on. MalluMalleus (talk) 05:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

And the reason for removing the others? Jim1138 (talk) 05:51, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I've blocked MalluMalleus as a checkuser confirmed sock.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 17:53, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Edit Request—Updating Mr. Marchick's new position

I am requesting that Mr. Marchick's page be updated to reflect that, as of February 2021, he is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

Sources:

Sdbenedict (talk) 17:01, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done Ferkjl (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

References