User talk:RobertMLangJr

July 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from L3C. When removing content, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the content has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. —C.Fred (talk) 03:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to L3C, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive, and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you.

Under the verifiability guideline of Wikipedia, some source should be cited for the information. You allege that Lane's source copies from your work. If it's a direct copy, then please provide a link to your work—and evidence of its earlier printing—at Talk:L3C, and an independent editor can migrate the references. If, however, Lane's work merely cites yours as a source, then the reference is appropriate.

Also, since this matter concerns work you are claiming as your own, you should probably review the guidelines for editing when you have a conflict of interest. —C.Fred (talk) 03:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did at L3C, you may be blocked from editing. Sources behind paywalls are acceptable sources and may be linked in references. —C.Fred (talk) 03:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I very much resent the implications and insinuations made here. I am the creator of the L3C and the founder of Americans for Community Development. I am behind the passage of the bill in nine states and two Indian tribes and am working on more states. I am in Washington at the moment meeting with members of Congress who have agreed to sponsor a federal bill we have written which will further the use of L3Cs. This Wikipedia page was started by Rachel Small who at the time was employed by Ashoka and had been loaned to ACD by Arthur Wood, at that time Social Finance Director of Ashoka. Rachel updated it for a while and when she left my wife Janice tried to take over but we got busy and I admit ignored it. But we were recent;y made aware that Marc Lane had taken the site over and was using it to promote Marc Lane. So I opened an account and decided to correct the mess. What is need is a straight forward factual explanation of what the L3C is as that is what an encyclopedia is all about.I do not need to cite myself since I am an original source. Anything I write here is from the creator. Marc Lane assisted a state legislator in Illinois on getting the bill passed in Illinois. That is the extent of his contribution. If you examine what he has written you will see that it is badly slanted to indicate that he is the original source for most information. A quick check at http://americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/ will show that he took much of it from me or from those who wrote after consultation with me. Even some of his citations are incorrect. He cites himself as the source of the Illinois state law. This is incorrect. If a law is on the books the citation should be to the appropriate spot on the state website for that law or to the specified sections of the code not to second hand sources. If you are going to allow one lawyer out of many thousands to use this site for self promotion you will be destroying the value of Wikipedia. I ask that you immediately restore what I did and I am perfectly willing to say why I did it but I also do not think Wikipedia pages should reflect personal conflicts. Please call me at [redacted] if you wish to discuss. I do not have time for a protracted email exchange and if you put me into that space I will merely turn it over to one of our attorneys.RobertMLangJr (talk) 00:36, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it's preferable to have the discussions on Wikipedia, at this or the article's talk page, so that it's more open, more transparent, and more available to editors. (And multiple editors are likely to want to participate in the discussion; would you really want to field a half-dozen to several dozen phone calls over the next several months?) I have not looked at the history of the article to determine if your assertion about Lane writing on the article with a conflict of interest is correct. If it's true, then the article does need to be resourced to some alternate secondary source, such as a newspaper or magazine article written about the subject. The article should not directly cite the law, as it's a primary source.

You're welcome to have a staff member or other party look at the article also. However, they will need to create accounts in their own names, and they will be subject to the same restrictions on editing when one has a conflict of interest that you are. Please note that nobody owns Wikipedia articles: any editor may edit the article, although editors with conflicts of interest need to edit cautiously.

One other note, since you mentioned attorneys: it is highly preferable that you address the matter via Wikipedia discussion and processes. Wikipedia guidelines require users to be blocked if they attempt to initiate legal proceedings related to Wikipedia. —C.Fred (talk) 01:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to research my comments and the L3C independently and get back to me. In the long run the integrity of Wikipedia depends upon how much you value your own name. I know many scholars who have a very low opinion of your organization just because they question the quality of the information. I have meetings with Congress and the agriculture Department today and just do not have time to spend hours laying out for you what a simple Gooogle search will make evident. Please do your own research and get back to me.12.50.103.2 (talk) 14:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The issue is that it's not anyone else's responsibility to make sure that the information you posted is correct. The responsibility to verify the published information is the person who posted it and to prove to others via reliable sources that the information is correct/true. If you're familiar with primary sources, you'll realize that you are one and fundamentally have a conflict of interest with the project that is WP when it comes to this page. No one here is attacking you. We're doing our best to improve Wikipedia and making sure that the Ford article isn't written by Ford PR employees is imperative (I hope you see the analogy). All we're asking is that if you have information to add to the article or see information that needs to be change that you do so by requesting the change on the talk page of the article. I'm sure you want the article to contain accurate and valuable information for readers and we want the exact same thing. Let's work together on this?

I understand that you may be very busy but if you have concerns, they need to be addressed somewhere and I doubt that anyone will be calling you. Do you have an employees or aids that can dictate a list of your concerns? I'd be happy to volunteer my time to improve the portions of the article that you're concerned with.

Lastly and with all due respect, I don't wish to make you think that I, a volunteer, am jumping at your whim. I'm not an employee and owe you and Wikipedia nothing. I'm attempting to help you and you and L3C simply because I want to. While I don't believe that you were specifically making a legal threat, I feel obliged to make you aware of the fact that Wikipedia doesn't take legal threats lightly and making such threats will result in you being indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia.

We all want the same thing here; for the article to be a good one. Let's do that. OlYeller^Talktome 20:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to mention one thing. The article, as it stands, is a copyright violation. Of course, you can give Wikipedia permission to use the text here if you would like. The process will need to begin soon or the article will be deleted to avoid and legal issues with the organization. OlYeller^Talktome 20:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You have my permission to leave it up until such times as I have time to do further work on the site. I disagree with your reading of the rule re primary sources. I think it is being misinterpreted here. Naturally we do not want Ford PR people to use the site for slick promotion but there is no one who knows a Ford better so if they can show what they are putting up is factual then there should never be a question of allowing it. I work with Congress a lot and I have to tell you that the smart staffers respect a good lobbyist. They cannot be up to speed on everything so they need an expert and usually the lobbyist fills that bill. By the way Marc Lane attributes comments to himself - why is it all right for him and not me?108.21.189.13 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC).

I started the Wikipedia site but now I have to jump through hoops to correct a parcel of errors? Maybe you are volunteers with nothing to do but I am very busy. I am already passed deadline on article I am writing for the National Renewable Energy Labs on the L3C and Renewable Energy but what is wrong with you doing some checking for veracity? Marc Lane has a full time marketing/PR flack who promotes his image. The people who work with us are trying to help people form L3Cs not engage ion self promotion. I really hope that someone comes up with a more reliable alternative to Wikipedia. Not being able to have areal conversation in real time with a real person is just ridiculous.108.21.189.13 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC).

We get it. You're busy and important.

I don't know what a "rule re" is regarding your comment on primary sources. As for Ford's PR group "putting up" information that's factual, it has to be verified as factual, no? How do we do that here? No one said that you are trying to promote yourself but you're obviously attempting to (and have admitted to) trying to promote your cause which is the definition of a conflict of interest. Aren't you an attorney? Why do I have to explain what a conflict of interest is to you?

Listen, I think the cause is great. I want to help you but I work 50-60 hours a week to make sure that the products I design will keep the families that use the product, safe. I'm also running a non-profit to break the cycle of poverty in areas of the US. A non-profit I've run since I was 9 years old that has raised millions of dollars in its lifetime. I've testified before Congress when I was in high school. I've been on Oprah. I've met two presidents. I could keep going but this isn't intended to be a pissing contest but I hope that by releasing information here that may compromise my identity and possibly my safety, that you might see that we're not so different. Everyone else took off from this article because they don't want to deal with you. I'm all that's left.

I'm being blunt because I think you deserve to be talked to in a direct manner. This wasn't an attempt to demean you and I sincerely hope I haven't offended you. I'd like to help you but I'm going to need a little bit of help in return. A little civility would be nice as well.

I'm going to truncate the article to avoid a copyright violation (we can't just take your word that we can keep it up, it has to go through the proper channels described at WP:DCM). From there, if you can take 5 minutes to make a short list of things that you would like added to the article, I'd be more than happy to help. OlYeller^Talktome 03:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A good start would be to point me in the direction of a few good sources. I'm finding several articles but most seem a bit dated. Is the info at this website the most comprehensive? OlYeller^Talktome 03:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Whose site is [http://www.restrictedstockinformation.com/Philanthropy/Philanthropy_L3C.html ? No one is threatening you so I do not understand why you fear exposure. This is one of the problems I have with Wikipedia. It is all right to identify me but all the so called editors are volunteers who are not identifiable. So you can question my creditability but I cannot question yours? If what you say is true you may in fact have some background that does qualify you to comment but how do I verify that? I understand the principles of Wikipedia and in a perfect world make a lot of sense. But we are not in a perfect world so the next best thing we can have is transparency. If everything is transparent then at least we can judge for ourselves with all the facts in front of us. If I could just put everything I want to say about the L3C up on site along side whatever Marc Lane says then I would be fine.

Please understand that I have been burned badly by Wikipedia. In several of the states that we were trying to get our bill passed the legislative staff actually quoted Wikipedia as their only reference and used misinformation to block passage in a couple and delay passage in Maine. If you are going to become the "acknowledged authority for information you have a big responsibility to insure accuracy. If that is beyond the capabilities then you need to allow conflicting views with the sources identified. So Ford deserves the platform along side someone who has a different view. You may well have hit upon the key flaw in the Wikipedia model. In the "old" days a quality Encyclopedia like Britannica took pride in its fact checking even if it did increase the cost of the books. Maybe Wikipedia needs to grow up and figure out how. Try http://americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/ which is our website and contains the most information on L3Cs most of it authored by others. By the way just because you are busy is why sometimes a phone call gets there quicker. By the way there is no conflict of interest where there is total disclosure since no money is involved and all parties are free to make their own judgments. Conflict generally arise in the darkness. I do appreciate your efforts to break the cycle of poverty although I am convinced we need economic development which does not chase the last dollar in order to get there. 108.21.189.13 (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yikes. I can't believe they were quoting Wikipedia but at the same time, I see a lot of stupidity coming out of legislators these days. I love WP and do my best to improve it but wish people would take what's written here as a representation of the references provided and not as gospel truth. The idea of WP being accurate across the board is something WP will be chasing for a very long time. Pages that receive the most attention from viewers are generally the ones that recieve the most attention from editors which in turn, makes those articles better in several ways. Right now, there are things that will fall through the cracks and unfortunately, it seems that some info was posted here in this article that shouldn't have been. Regarding L3C, I agree that not chasing the last dollar is the way to go. This is probably outside of the scope of this article but I generally don't chase money. It's not in me to beg for money so we create relationships that bring the donations (almost never money) to us and creatively utilize those assets to further our goal. Even so and even if someone gave us $100B, we'd be treating the symptoms and and not the problem. In my opinion, your legislation is definitely a step in the right direction as far as treating the problem. Anyway, I'll read up at http://americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/ and start putting something together as quickly as I can. Are there any sections that would be beneficial to you to add to the article first? Have a good day. I'll post back here when I get some things added. OlYeller^Talktome 14:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, on a side note. I fear exposure because I've been threatened at an article I edit regarding free speech. Namely, an article about an event where people were drawing pictures of the prophet Muhammad. I don't care about the reasons that people felt they needed to draw a picture that would infuriate another group of people but regardless, the article must follow WP's policies and guidelines which in the opinion of a few, makes me complacent to the event/blaspheme. I think the threats are idle and I doubt anything would ever happen but I sleep better at night with my identity being a secret. OlYeller^Talktome 14:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)