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Ongoing COI noticeboard discussion

This article is the subject of an ongoing COI discussion please see: 

Tim.thelion (talk) 13:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism accusation

Dear Zebrasil,

You reacently accused me of vandalizing the wikipedia article InternetQ here. Please provide an explanation for your accusation on this talk page. I have reverted your revert. Also, please review the guidelines on conflicts of interest here: Wikipedia:COI.

Thank you,

Tim.thelion (talk) 20:11, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear Tim.thelion,
In your recent edits to the Wikipedia article InternetQ here you are violating most of Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines of Wikipedia as follows:
- Concept: Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view…giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone….”Editors’ personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong’. So a reliable public company with proven record of quality services offered worldwide is not a spam company. Using the term spam company in the introduction is an individual opinion. It is neither a fact nor a neutral point of view.Wikipedia:FivePillars
- Neutrality: Wikipedia rules clearly state that users should “avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts”, “prefer nonjudgmental language” and “indicate the relative prominence of opposing views”. The words “spam”, “scam” and “victims” is judgmental and is presented as the sole truth for this company. InternetQ has a long history of the opposite cases: happy clients and customers. However, you introduce the company as spam rather than mention the controversy separately Wikipedia:Neutrality
- Verifiability: The reference “Civil law case VI C 143/11” that you used refers to an open law case for InternetQ Poland Sp. z o.o. two and a half years back when the regional court in Warsaw requested a payment of 60,000PLN (14,000€ / 20,000USD). So it proves a law case. It does not prove that InternetQ is spam.Wikipedia:Verifiability
Moreover you edited and removed content I had added without justification.
Thank you,
Zebrasil (talk) 11:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
The list in the first sentence of the articles is a list of the markets in which InternetQ is active. I provide a wide variety of sources which all suggest that InternetQ is active in the market of sending out unsolicited SMS spam messages. Tim.thelion (talk) 12:17, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Suggest? Please be clear to readers and the Wiki community on what your agenda might actually be? I have already asked the community for advice on how to deal with mendacious, one-sided posts. Non-neutral, no equal weighting and worse, the editorial subversion of the original text that is deliberately designed to harm a company's reputation? [COI declared] CJGM (talk) 12:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

A letter than Mark left on my talkpage: Entries on company article

Dear Tim.thelion,

I am a new Wikipedia user and created an account today in order to be actively involved in the editing process of articles of interest, as well as interact with other existing users. Having come across your comments in the article of the company I am working with, InternetQ, I decided to contact you in order to express my point of you on the matter. I am not very familiar with the Wikipedia user policies and practices, but will try to communicate an objective and unbiased opinion and hope this is the right place to do so.

The company under discussion is operating over the past thirteen years and is listed on the AIM-market of the London Stock Exchange since 2010. It has been serving carriers and end users around the world and has been growing over the past years in a legitimate manner. Having collaborated with the corporation for two years now, I have to admit that I am quite happy to be working in its healthy and challenging environment.

In your recent edits, I notice that you add the words "spam" and "scam" next to the company name in the introductory paragraph, add comments on a lawsuit with one of the subsidiaries of the group in Poland and add a paragraph using again the word "spam" in its title.

It is true that mobile marketing has been criticized as being intrusive in the past and has created conflicts in various markets that might have led to modifications in the legal context. So it's a sensitive matter. However, this does not make a company offering, among others, mobile marketing services, a spam company. Nor could it be assumed that a negative or troublesome experience in the occasion of a campaign should be the basis to judge and accuse an entire group of companies in such a definite manner. Moreover, the company's mobile marketing platform uses technology to create promotional campaigns that are subject to each country's legislation. This does not make it a spam service. I do know that the company has run numerous successful campaigns with renown mobile network operators across several countries and has had satisfied end users.

Corporations in the technology industry often receive criticism and this is sometimes reflected on their Wikipedia pages as well. I have visited pages of other companies and noticed that in certain occasions a paragraph on "legal concerns" or "legal matters" is added at the bottom of the article. I find it a reasonable and legitimate way to express any concern towards a company or a product.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mark.int Mark.int (talk) 19:43, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Moving this from my talk page...
Tim.thelion (talk) 16:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
To support the suggestion that this company was seen as a "scammer", I offer this reference:
Nowy tydzień i nowy scam na Facebooku from Gazeta.pl (Machine translation from Polish - A new week and a new scam on Facebook)
It's actually an article about another company, called "Mobile Dialogue", but labels it as a scammer like "the Greek InternetQ". Unfortunately, finding English language coverage of the company is problematic, as most coverage is either in Greek or Polish. -- Atama頭 18:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
According to the wikipedia article on InternetQ MobiDialog is a product of InternetQ. I saw the gazeta article when I was doing research. I will try to incorporate it's contents into the article. Perhaps it would be best if some Slavic language speaker tries to interpret the article with more accuracy than is granted by google translate. I am trying to do it, but Czech is not quite the same language as Polish. Tim.thelion (talk) 20:51, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Atama, I have found a number of new sources and integrated the whole of them into the article. Hopefully, I understand them well enough that this couldn't be some mere confusion on my part. Tim.thelion (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedians,

Here is the legal documentation with the true update on civil law case VI C 143/11. The truth is that InternetQ Poland Spzoo successfully appealed to the District Court in Warsaw and won the case.

File:Regional Court decision V CA 448.2012.pdf

Please remove immediately the false reference that "In November 2011 the company was successfully sued for a paid SMS scam", along with the misleading references at the bottom. Thanks Mark.int (talk) 18:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Edited Tim.thelion (talk) 19:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't see it edited. The sentence has remained on the introductory paragraph. It should be removed. It's false and misleading. Mark.int (talk) 19:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I have modified it. Tim.thelion (talk) 20:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The reference #7 on civil case also needs to be removed. It's false and misleading Mark.int (talk) 19:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Are you going to sue me or any other wikipedian if it is not removed? Tim.thelion (talk) 19:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
The request is to any Wikipedia editor who has a neutral and unbiased approach and point of view to help improve the article. It's not addressed to yourself. Mark.int (talk) 19:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Reference #7 (Civil law, case VI C 143/11) is a primary source being used with a secondary source, so I'm at a loss as to why it should be removed. There's nothing "false and misleading" about it when used in this manner that I can see. --Ronz (talk) 20:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I have to rely on machine translation, but it looks like according to this the ruling was overturned (it looks like the article was complaining about how this unfair to consumers). I can't tell if the site "konsumentwsieci.pl" (Consumer Web seems to be the English translation) is a blog or a more reliable source. But to me it looks good enough to confirm the validity of the claim.
I also don't know that saying "scam" and "spam" in the lead is fair. The phrase "internet marketing" implies spam already, and it's a less negatively-loaded term. Calling it a "scam company" is a bit harsh (despite the fact that I myself provided a source calling it a scammer); I think it's fair to say that the company was sued for actions deemed to be fraudulent, but it's important to note that the ruling was overturned. I've restructured the lead to be a little less harsh (though I did leave information about the lawsuit). I think the "Scamming activities" section also should be changed; the section should be rewritten to be about the lawsuit regarding the activities it undertook and not be so clear to flat-out call the company a scammer. -- Atama頭 21:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Atama, could you please go back and move the references to the appropriate places? They are all wrong in the title now, as all of those references were to back up the claim that the company does scams. Tim.thelion (talk) 21:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I have now added a sentence that makes my previous request irrelevant. I disagree with your statement that "The phrase "internet marketing" implies spam already". I rent out a floor of my house to an "internet marketing company". They make graphics for various banks and food companies. That is, customers pay them to create marketing material. I would be shocked if they engaged in any of the scammy practices that InternetQ is accused of in my multiple sources. We have to make the distinction between the already unsavoury market of advertising and the downright immoral market of tricking people into spending money. Tim.thelion (talk) 21:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
It looks like a good course of action is to find some uninvolved editors who read Polish and who have access to public court documents (primary sources) or, preferably, news coverage of these legal proceedings (secondary sources) then have them write up a complete, un-biased history of the actual court case(s) from beginning to end, using reliable, independent, and preferably secondary sources to back everything up. Now, whether this is a practical solution, I don't know. But if it is practical, that's what I would recommend. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:57, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
We have a category showing a lot of native speakers of Polish who could potentially help. We have editors with the expertise. Finding someone active and interested is the challenge. I might drop a message at WikiProject Poland for assistance. -- Atama頭 18:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Refs that don't mention InternetQ

NatGertler, just removed a bunch of refs which do not mention InternetQ. While I understand that, these references were valid. They were all about InterentQ's Polish subsidiaries Mobile Dialogue and Akazoo. Just because a company hides behind a subsidiary does not make that subsidiary any less part of the company.

Tim.thelion (talk) 07:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore, your claim here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=InternetQ&diff=601420483&oldid=601420138 that the references do not mention InternetQ is not correct. The Gazeta article pretty clearly states that Mobile Dialogue is a subsidiary of InternetQ. (Not sure how clear this is when read via google transate...) Tim.thelion (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
If you search the internet for ""Akazoo" forum" or ""Mobile Dialogue" forum" (no results in the first page, but they are there) you will see many forum posts that paint a very clear picture of this company, but obviously none of those are admissible here. I have been trying my best to find valid sources for this stuff, which really isn't easy, but I don't want to let this company get away with having a "normal" looking wikipage just because calling them a scam is impolite. Tim.thelion (talk) 08:04, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Calling it a scam is more than impolite. We know that we have editors here with a conflict of interest who want to present the article in the best light they can. We don't respond to that by skewing the article in the opposite direction. This should be a neutral encyclopedia article, which doesn't cast judgments, but merely presents the facts that we can verify about the company, and let the reader form their own opinion. We don't call a company "good" or "bad", or call a company a big scam the way an opinion piece would. We can state that a company was sued for violations, and what facts were presented in the course of the lawsuit, and we can include allegations of negative behavior made by reliable sources. The article is definitely looking more balanced now than it did yesterday at least.
I know this is somewhat invoking Godwin's law (and Mike Godwin is never far away on Wikipedia) but a good example to use is Adolf Hitler. He is possibly the most reviled person in history, and yet if you look at the lead of his article, you will see nothing calling him a murderer, monster, or anything other loaded language, because it's not encyclopedic to do so. Instead, the lead presents the facts pretty straight-forwardly. The facts alone are enough (for me at least) to form a picture in the reader's mind of the magnitude of the atrocities he's responsible for. Later, in the body of text, you will see some negative judgments of the man presented, but in the form of quotes from historians. This isn't done out of "politeness", it's done as an effort to maintain this project as an academic one, rather than a form of advocacy or journalism. -- Atama頭 15:32, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Even without going through Google translate, I'm searching the page for the word "InternetQ" and not finding anything on the Gazeta article. You pushed this line high in the article claiming that the sources showed that this was what InternetQ was known for, and claiming the quantity of sources to show that... but as I noted, the sources weren't mentioning InternetQ directly, so they don't make the case that that is what they are known for.
As for concerns about the use of the term "scam" and assumption of guilt, we must tread very carefully here in particular because we are gleaning details from machine translation, which even at its best loses all subtleties, transforming reliable sources into unreliable sources. If we had reputable English sources referring to something as a "scam", we might have room for using it, but it's a term we should be particularly cautious about using when applying it to specific players. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
If you're talking about this Gazeta article, the word "InternetQ" is in the second sentence of the first non-bolded paragraph, "Jest nią Mobile Dialogue, podlegająca pod greckie InternetQ." I do agree though that we should be using something better than machine translation to verify claims (yes, this contradicts what I said before when I first presented it, but your arguments helped change my mind about that). -- Atama頭 16:23, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I was checking the Gazeta article that was deleted in the edit that was linked to when the complaint about misrepresentation was made. I see that I did make an error in missing the InternetQ mention in that other article, but the point that the claim that the preponderance of sources showed that that was how InternetQ was mainly considered fails almost as well with having one source as it did with having none. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I fully understand what you are saying here. Are there two gazeta articles? If the problem is, with establishing that Mobile Dialogue is a subsidiary of InternetQ, then I can provide you with a sufficiency of reliable sources. You must concur that all of these articles are about Mobile Dialoge. Tim.thelion (talk) 17:51, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I just realized that there are many Gazeta articles on InternetQ. Tim.thelion (talk) 17:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
The edit you pointed to was the deletion of this Gazeta article as a reference, and that one does not refer to InternetQ. If you are trying to establish that the main thing an international corporation is known for is X, it doesn't help if your references are all to one subsidiary as covered in one nation.--Nat Gertler (talk) 18:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
You say it is an international company, and that is certainly what the wikipage claims, but if you look at their 2011 financial report, "Indicatively, in 2010 circa 69% of our turnoverwas attributed to activities in Poland," There is a reason I'm having trouble finding sources from other countries about this! Tim.thelion (talk) 18:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Oh, and the article uses the word "scam" even in its original Polish form (in the title, and in the body, and one of the tags for the article is "scam"). That is why I originally said that the word scam is unambiguously being used in relation to this company (and from what I can tell, Gazeta.pl is a reliable source with editorial oversight). I will concede that without a reliable translation, though, the context of the term is difficult to understand. After all, an article saying "InternetQ is not a scam" would still have the word "scam" in it, obviously, and while it doesn't look like that's what this article is saying I'd rather have someone skilled in Polish to verify. -- Atama頭 16:29, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
And what's more so, we're dealing with the Polish word "scam", which I expect has a general similar meaning to the American word, but may have vital differences in tenor and tone that are obscured if we simply use the word as is in the middle of an English language article. (Remember, Sideshow Bob's tattoo that reads "DIE BART DIE" is merely German for "THE BART THE".) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
No one who speaks German could be an evil man! -- Atama頭 17:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps looking at the Polish wikipedia page for scam would help... It's not a Polish word. Tim.thelion (talk) 18:37, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
To the extent that it is being used in Polish articles to communicate, it is a Polish word. It may be borrowed from another language, but not all borrowed words retain their full original meanings when being borrowed, or even within variants of a single language. (If I say that my wife is a "chemist" in American English, I'm calling her a laboratory scientist; the same statement in British means she's a dispensing druggist.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:48, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I understand your point. I hope that the Polish wikipedia article clears up some of the confusion though. I cannot speak for Polish, but Czech(another slavic language, and one that I actually speak), has a very different view of foreign words than English does. In Czech, we have a very strict phonetic code, only certain sounds go together. This means that foreign words stay foreign. There are special dictionaries of foreign words. In Polish phonetics, the word scam, spelt S.C.A.M would be pronounced /stsæm/(which is obviously impossible to pronounce). If Polish is anything like Czech, I presume Polish people see this word as being 100% foreign and incapable of holding a meaning other than it's English one. However, you are right, of course it is best to be clear and try to figure out if there might not be some confusion. In this case there is none. Tim.thelion (talk) 20:22, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The good news

...as per sources, their scams are more notable than their music.
— User:Tim.thelion

Well, here are some positive news on "their music" — for those not blinded by hatred ;)

Zebrasil (talk) 08:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The fact that you suggest that people here are "blinded by hatred" is exactly why Wikipedia is wary of editors with conflicts of interest. Granted, these sources can be useful for expanding the article, but you can present this info without offering a polemic at the same time. -- Atama頭 15:19, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
And the first couple of those look more like press releases than legit sources for establishing import. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Noted. I apologise. No need to be wary of me. -- Zebrasil (talk) 18:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Here are some more sources:

Zebrasil (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

A note on Polish references

Per the request at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Poland#InternetQ, here's my review of Polish references. At least one ([1]) is highly reliable. Another RS would be the series of articles at [2] which may be helpful in expanding the article. I think the discussion of the company's lawsuits in Poland is certainly a notable part of its history and should be retained. [3] article (RS: governmental agency news) from October 2013 confirms that the latest Polish court ruling confirmed the prior rulings that the company broke the laws, through it notes a further appeal is still possible. Another RS on this would be [4] and [5] from November 2013 (RS news reports). PS. Based on the RS from fall 2013 the lawsuit has ended with the company being found guilty; any claims to the contrary should clearly present a RS to back up their version. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Tim.thelion (talk) 10:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Acknowledgement of changes

Dear Wikipedia, I have made minor edits to the recent changes made to the page in good faith. I have noticed a duplication of text being added to the history section which is already stated in the 'Unfair marketing' section. I have removed this duplication to avoid reader confusion and left this text in the 'Unfair marketing' section where it is better placed.

There have also been several changes to the title of the section 'Controversies' the first being to ‘Dishonest marketing controversies’ and in a later edit ‘Unfair marketing’. These updates are a breach of the WP:NPOV policy specifically WP:IMPARTIAL as claiming any marketing practices as dishonest or unfair would be placing a tone of opinion on the subject. To adhere to Wikipedia guidelines it is important to use a title from a non-bias viewpoint, Controversies gives a balanced description of the section that does not influence an editors opinion for or against the subject.

WMartin74 (talk) 16:02, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the use of the word "controversies" itself is a violation of WP:NPOV, specifically the section WP:STRUCTURE. My suggestion is to call it "Facebook marketing practices". And change the "Polish lottery case" from a level 3 to a level 2 section header, since it shouldn't be a subsection of the previous section (they are similar but not really related incidents).
Also, I don't see where the text you removed was duplicated. The sources you removed aren't used anywhere else in the article, and I don't see where being accused by International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network was mentioned in a different part of the article, so it should be added back (if not in the same spot it was at before). If nothing else, the "2011 annual report" reference should be reinserted, possibly as a reference at the end of the "Polish lottery case" section to back up the total amount of fines they received. -- Atama頭 17:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
Having read the paragraphs on STRUCTURE for the first time, it occures to me that the section on facebook should actually be merged with the section on Akazoo, because the Polish news sources warn than InternetQ uses facebook to trick people into signing up for paid Akazoo services.
By the way, when it comes to NPOV, what is really NPOV is that the bits about their legal troubles were removed from the article's header. Tim.thelion (talk) 17:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I have made some updates to the page following your advice Atama. Your suggestion was to use "Facebook marketing practices" though this did not give a clear indication of the main focus of the topic. I have updated this to "Controversial practices in Poland: Facebook marketing and the Polish lottery case", both cases were in Poland so this is a clearer solution than solely using "Facebook marketing practices".
The claims totaling €432,000 was already posted in the "Controversial practices in Poland: Facebook marketing and the Polish lottery case", with regards to the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network i was unable to find any reference to this in the Annual report of 2011.WMartin74 (talk) 16:35, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm satisfied with the changes as implemented at this point, it looks good. -- Atama頭 19:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
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