Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

[badmachine]

probably not paid editing, but it looks like an autobiography:

Modernchoice is probably Mohammed Saleem:

Mohammed Saleem[1] is an environmental activist, environmental campaigner, National Geographic educator and explorer. He is the co-founder of Environment Conservation Group, a nonprofit NGO based out of Coimbatore, Tamilnadu that works on environmental conservation, advocacy and educational awareness. He has dedicated his entire life to the cause of environmental and wildlife conservation. He is also an ardent birder.[2][3]

Mr Saleem shares a name with a Palestinian who was murdered by the jews when they dropped a box of leaflets on his head. i wonder if this autobiography will go unnoticed

[ericbarbour]

Mr Saleem shares a name with a Palestinian who was murdered by the jews when they dropped a box of leaflets on his head. i wonder if this autobiography will go unnoticed

It belongs here whoever "Modernchoice" is. BTW there are several prominent people named "Mohammed Saleem". Including that guy who was murdered in Birmingham, a cricketer from Afghanistan, and a 12-year-old Pakistani girl who posed as a boy. Plus a child-molesting school founder in Illinois. Probably a few others. It is a rather common Muslim name.

But you Google that name and Google forces the Wikipedia article down your throat. None of the others are mentioned on WP that I can find.

Bonus: change the "o" to a "u" and you get this. Which also appears to be a paid/COI article. About a rather obscure figure.

[ericbarbour]

Unnoticed paid edit war of the week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stankey

See the talkpage. Fleishman Hillard is openly biasing it to make Stankey look like a great hero. Completely controlled by Jon Gray.

It is not difficult to find scandals and "bad news" involving Stankey. "Pac Bell and then AT&T lifer", and arrogant blowhard, who helped rebuild AT&T from a divested shell back to its present near-monopoly, AND bought DirecTV, then ran it into the ground, AND was directly involved with wrecking Warner Media and HBO, then sold it off to Discovery Networks, who ruined it even more. NONE of which you will find on his Wp article.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/17/att-ceo ... enson.html
https://apnews.com/article/50e1c3a15ba1 ... 1351874ad4
https://cordcuttersnews.com/directv-rep ... ing-grows/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06 ... hn-stankey
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/a ... 235226663/

[ericbarbour]

I would tell you about the "prominent jazz guitarist" who wrote his own BLP and was totally ignored.

But it's just too cringe. Plus he's a customer of my products, who does NOT know what he's doing.

[ericbarbour]

from a Dark Corners thread.....

Is Omaha Steaks being paid edited? Yep. Very funny talkpage.

[ericbarbour]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolie_Holland

Semi-well-known indie folk musician. Never heard of her? Neither did I....until TAPE OP magazine ran an item on her recently.

Did she edit her own bio?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ie_Holland

It mentions one of her recording engineers, Joel Hamilton. Whose article was created and chundered massively by one account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... &limit=500

And more recently, by an IP address in NYC, as is Joel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... :EEAC:5756

And what about his part-time band, The Book Of Knots? The work of a person who loves ultra-obscure indie bands.

Insert cruel joke about musicians here.

[ericbarbour]

Chamber of Commerce bullshit of the week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearfield,_Utah

Do you see any references in the "History" or "Government" sections?

It took them TWO YEARS to figure out they should block this account. And more than ten years later, no one has seen fit to fix the content.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Clearfieldcity

[ericbarbour]

From a private email discussion:

>> Look up the non-science fiction work of Samuel R. Delany; his novel Hogg (1969/1995) has one of the most grotesque title characters ever, a truck driver and rapist for hire who never bathes and craps in his pants, who is surrounded by a cast of characters who are similarly repellent. That novel was praised by Norman Mailer, because it is written well.


Not a fair comparison. Delany wrote that in 1969 to intentionally annoy the "establishment", like an experimental "art performance", not to titillate pervs. And he dared any publisher to print it. No one was willing to until 1995--before that there were bootleg editions, usually imported. I remember that libraries had it on their "banned books" lists for a long time.

Ever heard of THE GAS by Charles Platt? It was a similar deal. But it found a publisher. (Then the UK Crown Prosecutor repeatedly seized it for obscenity--which only encouraged sales.) Platt moved to the US, where no one had heard of The Gas, and found work writing for magazines about computers. You can't read about The Gas on Wikipedia, and it's probably because he wrote much of his own WP article.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... arlesplatt

"02:29, 24 July 2008 diff hist −6,617‎ Charles Platt (author) ‎ Why won't you allow me any control over my own god damned bio? Who are you to force me to be in Wikipedia?"

[badmachine]

From a private email discussion:

>> Look up the non-science fiction work of Samuel R. Delany; his novel Hogg (1969/1995) has one of the most grotesque title characters ever, a truck driver and rapist for hire who never bathes and craps in his pants, who is surrounded by a cast of characters who are similarly repellent. That novel was praised by Norman Mailer, because it is written well.


Not a fair comparison. Delany wrote that in 1969 to intentionally annoy the "establishment", like an experimental "art performance", not to titillate pervs. And he dared any publisher to print it. No one was willing to until 1995--before that there were bootleg editions, usually imported. I remember that libraries had it on their "banned books" lists for a long time.

Ever heard of THE GAS by Charles Platt? It was a similar deal. But it found a publisher. (Then the UK Crown Prosecutor repeatedly seized it for obscenity--which only encouraged sales.) Platt moved to the US, where no one had heard of The Gas, and found work writing for magazines about computers. You can't read about The Gas on Wikipedia, and it's probably because he wrote much of his own WP article.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... arlesplatt

"02:29, 24 July 2008 diff hist −6,617‎ Charles Platt (author) ‎ Why won't you allow me any control over my own god damned bio? Who are you to force me to be in Wikipedia?"

sad to see the talkpage contains:

It is interesting to note that Charles Platt is not his real name!!--Mr.Atoz (talk) 22:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh how wonderful, yet another triumph of the Wikipedia principle of allowing equal access to uninformed idiots. If Charles Platt is not my real name, are you going to tell me what my real name is? And if naturalized American citizens are not American writers, how many American writers are you going to throw out? Also I note that some other person who edited the text that I wrote about myself has mangled the grammar. Why? Time to set up my own home page I guess.:70.23.235.139 (talk) 03:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)Charlesplatt, July 2, 2008.

under current conditions he could request deletion and the wikipedians would probably comply