User talk:Ongal

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content which gains a consensus among editors. Thank you. Notinasnaid 23:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ongal 19:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC) The problem is that these people created a wikipedia entry about themselves and will not allow me to edit it. They also refuse to enter any discussion about it and deleted my comments many times. It is my opinion that the article itself is a one-sided PR job written by the same people who run the site which is a clear conflict of interest. I made several polite offers to discuss this to no avail.[reply]

I've decided that the most useful thing I can do in this dispute is remain impartial. As I told MickR, I will endeavour to remain neutral, and allow the parties to steer a course through Wikipedia's sometimes baffling policies and guidelines.

One thing worth bearing in mind is the verifiability guidelines. Sometimes company articles do contain criticism, but the standards for verifiability are high: for this sort of thing a press report in the mainstream press is the most common requirement. Private websites, blogs and forum messages aren't considered valid sources (WP:V). Do remember that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. My advice for now would be to stay cool and to build up your Wikipedia experience by editing other articles (and watching what happens to the results). Notinasnaid 13:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ongal 18:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Thanks for your coments. I've been editing the occasional wikipedia article for a while now and I also read many discssions around articles so I have an idea, but I'm defnitely not an expert. I only registered recently. I can understand that forums are not a valid source, but this article is about a forum. A forum that I believe has a strong bias, yet pretends to be impartial. They now have a wikipedia article which again is supposed to be impartial but has a bias.[reply]

I've been mulling over what I can post to help you work out the best way forward on the article. I've decided to go with a fictitious example. Let's suppose there is a national supermarket chain, and you know (because you've seen it), that there are dead rats in the aisles and the manager is threatening customers with a baseball bat. You know this to be true. So, can you add this to the article about the supermarket? No, because it is not verifiable (so far). The threshold for things getting into Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. How about if you tell other people? If you create a blog? You find it in a blog you aren't connected with? A forum? The managing directory of the supermarket chain tells you in person? Says it in a speech? Writes you a letter confirming it? So far, not one of these counts as verifiable under Wikipedia's policies. In such a case you would be looking for

a report in the press
an official and published document e.g. a court order
a press release from the company (which would have to be acknowledged as "the company states" or some such).

These would do it. There may still be debates about balance (e.g. if a supermarket article was swamped by verifiable references to every kind of bad mention in the press, some consolidation would be expected, and individual cases might be removed). You can see that there are almost insurmountable barriers against using Wikipedia to raise your own suspicions or grievances. You would have to get the grievances publicised another way (e.g. contacting the press) first. Notinasnaid 12:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the usual convention for signing talk page material is to sign at the end. If everyone follows the same conventions, it makes it easier for other people to keep track of the discussions and partipants. I hope this helps, Notinasnaid 12:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, but I have to refine your analogy. What we have here is a customer lobby group trying to stop the rats and the beating. However, when you look closely it turns out, by their own admission, that the customer group is manned by representatives of the supermarket who sit in key positions. Shouldn't this information be disclosed? Sig at the end... Ongal 14:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the information is to be exposed a source is needed, as per above. It doesn't really change anything whether the alleged situation is hypocrisy or hygiene, whether the problem is big or small, or who is involved. In no case is information ever "exposed" for the first time on Wikipedia, however. Notinasnaid 14:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]