Talk:Ottobock

A fact from Ottobock appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 October 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Ottobock technicians at the 2016 Paralympic Games carried out 3,361 repairs for 1,162 athletes, including 2,745 repairs to wheelchairs?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Otto Bock.

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213.61.92.180 (talk · contribs) has been paid by Finsbury Glover Hering Europe on behalf of Ottobock. Their editing has included contributions to this article.

Title

@Hawkeye7: is there a reason for the inconsistent naming strategy employed in this article? Is it Otto Bock or Ottobock? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:53, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In Germany it's Otto Bock; elsewhere it's Ottobock. You can see this in the two images in the article. The latter form has bee preferred since 2011. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:13, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The usage in the article should be consistent. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:11, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: Before this hits the main page, could we please establish a consistent approach to the naming? Right now the target article in the hook in the DYK is a redirect, and that's sub-optimal. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think this edit summary was a little unnecessary, you could have continued the discussion if you felt that having an article title and a lead in conflict with one another was de rigeur. I won't bother you directly again. Sorry for any inconvenience. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:09, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've altered the article to use "Otto Bock" consistently, although its still "Ottobock" for the US subsidiary and in the references. There's nothing I can do about the name in the hook, as it is in the queue and I am not an administrator. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: You can raise a comment at WT:DYK or at WP:ERRORS if you want to wait for it to hit the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:53, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies

Hello, please don't remove the controversies, this is the right place for it. It's not applicable on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Hans_Georg_N%C3%A4der

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. Adam.Sudo (talk) 19:49, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies/Negative Facts

Hello, I would like to know what's wrong with my edits. I understand they represent negative publicity, but they are well-referenced. The words are originally not mine, but from the referenced. Please reach a consensus regarding this matter. Centrereded (talk) 09:04, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the consensus, I believe my edits are acceptable because they speak the truth and are supported by good references, including some top publications. Majority of my edits are in neutral tone and referenced accordingly. If the problem is negativity, then I will work on the tone again using the same references. Let me know what could be done, as I believe the edits are not an attack, but just pure facts. All the AFC reviewers suggested to add the edits on the company's page (Ottobock), rather than the owner's page (Hans Georg Nader). Thank you. @Adam.Sudo:, @Mlb96:, @SVTCobra:, @Slywriter:, @Timtrent:, @David notMD: Centrereded (talk) 10:36, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This does not work for building consensus on anything. State what you believe should be changed and make a case for that change Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 11:00, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Timtrent: I want everything I added to be back again? Not just one thing?Centrereded (talk) 03:42, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, while you may want that, I very much doubt that will be the start of consensus building. Folk will look at that and just ignore you. There is no proposal here, there is just "I want."

Would you give this request any attention if you were seeing it for the first time?

Ok, you'll say "Yes", but you will be unique. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 06:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Timtrent: Ottobock is one of the leading prosthetics companies in the world that is subject to extensive media reporting and scrutiny on a frequent basis with its founder being a prominent German industrialist, George Nader, whose German Wikipedia page I have attempted to translate into English and include additional research. My additions outlining some recent controversies of the company warrant a permanent inclusion on the basis that:

a) While the company founder's page submission was declined, multiple Wiki editors agreed that the controversies section belong to Ottobock page rather than the company's founder's page
B) The materials are carefully and diligently sourced from leading German and International sources. To make sure accurate sourcing, no tabloid sources were used.
C) The changes were reversed by an user with a likely COIN who was recently activated and was likely hired to scrub the page from any negative information.Centrereded (talk) 17:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Centrereded I will give this one final try. If you are unable or unwilling to take advice onboard I will simply wish you luck and pass on by. I have no horse in this race. I am advising you only on the matter of creating a consensus. I do not care about the outcome one way or another.

A consensus is created by making a proper proposal for what you wish, hope, to happen. This requires detail. A broad brush "I'd like to do this" will not suffice. You need a full rationale,

Once you have made this detailed, concrete proposal, you need to seek the views of the community. You are allowed to ask those you view to have an interest in the topic to offer their unbiased views. You may only seek to influence those views inside the discussion.

Wikipedia:Consensus is your reference guide.

There is no need to reply to me, nor to ping in any reply. I am politely not interested. Either seek to form a consensus or do not. Either is fine by me. Agains,the route you are trying will not work. It attracts no views for or against because your proposal is flawed. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 17:26, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Centrereded Apart from any other considerations, the sheer size of the content you wish to add is unacceptable. It is longer than the entire rest of the article. If you can trim it down to just a few short paragraphs it might improve the chances of being accepted by other editors. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not as proposed. Perhaps one short paragraph. David notMD (talk) 20:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted yet again! Adding more than 4500 characters is not a short paragraph. Centrereded please post your proposed addition here so that we can get a real consensus about it. Do not touch the article before there is a proper consensus text. Your repeated addition of the same excessively detailed text amounts to edit warring, for which you could be blocked. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dodger67 Hello, I only added around 2021 chracters or 310 words. I have only used top publications and everything is factual. I have added the content in my own words from the references used. I have seen people adding many times the size of my edits and they were accepted. I don't understand why Wikipedia don't want to publish something that has negative publicity but is the truth.

"Nader has publicly stated that he intends to float Otto Bock via an initial public offering scheduled for 2022,[12] while initially announcing the intention to take Otto Bock public in 2015.[13]

In August 2013, Otto Bock was sued by prosthetic limb users for abusing their products' prescription status to keep the prices for prosthetic limb repair artificially high in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.[14]

In 2016, Otto Bock was banned from operating in parts of Bosnia following an investigation by the Centre for Investigative Reporting that revealed the company was implicated in a scandal involving the misuse of public health funds in which prosthetic limb users were forced to buy Otto Bock's products.[15][16]

Since 2016, Otto Bock's declining financial performance was characterised as a "debacle" by Manager Magazin and leading Nader to sell a 20% stake in Otto Bock to EQT Partners in June, 2017.[17][18]

In February 2017 Ottobock acquired BeBionic.[19][20]

In November 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forced Otto Bock to divest all assets that it acquired via its acquisition of industry competitor Freedom Innovations LLC that was initially completed in September 2017 for breaking competition laws,[21] incurring a damage of 78.1 million Euros to Otto Bock.[22]

In May 2020, Russian business daily Kommersant reported that Otto Bock subsidiary in Russia was fined by Russian anti-monopoly authorities[23] for suspected cartel collusion which gave Otto Bock and its co-conspirators a monopoly over state tenders for prosthetics, worth 168.1 million Russian Roubles.[24]

Business Insider reported in 2021 that despite Otto Bock posting 107 million Euros in loses and increasing borrowing, Nader paid himself 40 million euros in dividends and overall withdrawing around half a billion Euros from the company in the last ten years, prompting repeated scrutiny from the company's advisory board. The withdrawn funds were then used to finance Nader's personal lifestyle and expenses.[25][26]" Centrereded (talk) 20:21, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Centrereded and Timtrent: Thanks for your interest in this Wikipedia page. If you have any questions regarding the company and its activities, please feel free to ask here or at our user talk page. Within the best practices for our conflict of interest, we are happy to help wherever we can. Merle at Ottobock (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Merle at Ottobock I have no interest in the article, nor the corporation. If you have read my continuations here correctly you will see that with some clarity. I attempted to guide @Centrereded in the manner of creating a consensus. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 21:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit by admitted for-pay IP

As reported at AN/I, on 9 May 2022, an IP that geolocates to Germany, 213.61.92.180, rewrote and expanded the article with the edit summary translated from German Wikipedia; disclosure: paid edit on behalf of Ottobock. Another IP (77.183.101.236) reverted on 19 May because paid editors are not to edit the article directly, pointing the other IP to talk. Hawkeye7 reverted that edit later the same day, with the edit summary rv - IPs cannot make editorial decisions - take it to the talk page. After further reverting back and forth, the latest version is the reversion today to the earlier text by IP 2406:5a00:f005:b800:d50f:32b4:164e:730d with the edit summary version without paid work (see WP:COI). Finding no talk page section, I'm starting one. Despite being for pay, the expanded version of the article appears to me to be an improvement (note that a bot came through and changed the German citation template wording to English), but obviously needs checking for accuracy in translation, and I can see phrasing I would tweak for English style. It would obviously also need to be tagged as a translation here on the talk page, in addition to the attribution the IP made in their edit summary. And the COI template that was rightly added should be re-added if that version is reinstated as the basis of the article, because the first IP did break the rules by editing the article for pay rather than suggesting an edit here on the talk page. But after all the to-and-fro reverts, nobody is blameless and the question should be decided here. I suggest restoring the expanded version with the COI template and then editing that to improve it. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]