My Parting Gift to Chris Cohan

[Nuck Chorris]

The beauty of wiki is that you can edit what other people add

Systematically deleting well referenced additions is an entirely different ball game. It certainly does not qualify as "editing."

[and1GS]

I'm in agreement with you, I'm just saying that we can actually fix that. I reverted Fitzgerald's page back to the way it was a few months ago. Someone took out all the good stuff.

[Coxy]

This all sounds dodgy and illegal.

How can I contribute?

[and1GS]

Uh...click edit on Chris Cohan's wiki page?

[Chris Porter's Hair]

Warriors/League PR deleting well referenced additions to Chris Cohans Wikipedia constitutes a potentially serious case of astroturfing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Zagalejo


This guy Zagalejo is running promotional additions, censorship and PR interference on Wikipedia. Pretty disappointing.

The tipoff is that he says "Just wait until he gets fired."

Implying that then Cohan won't be a part of the NBA and thereby not this PR guy's problem.

Rather than contributing by revising what others have added this guy is selectively deleting or trumping up whole sections of wikipages for various NBA related figures.

If that is what he's doing, then people are sure making his life easy. If someone writes:

"Chris Cohan is frequently listed as one of the worst owners in sports, and here is one reference to prove it."

Then he's technically right that this provides little evidence that he's "frequently listed", and if Wikipedia is purported to be an authoritative source, the sentence is potentially bogus. If the sentence instead said:

"Chris Cohan has been listed as one of the worst owners in sports, and here is the reference"

or

"In this article, Chris Cohan was listed as one of the worst owners in sports."

then the sentence is a statement of fact, difficult to dispute, and he'd be on poor ground removing it.

Same deal with the other clause he edited. Calling him the "soon-to-be-ex-owner" is probably true, but is lazy and sloppy for something trying to present factual data. If instead a paragraph had been added that mentioned that Cohan has employed an agent to attempt to sell the team, that would be factual, and easily backed up with references.

The guy may be a PR plant. But people are making it easy for him if so; I think he's playing by the book at this point, because people are giving him easy pickings to edit.

[cladden]

Warriors/League PR deleting well referenced additions to Chris Cohans Wikipedia constitutes a potentially serious case of astroturfing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Zagalejo


This guy Zagalejo is running promotional additions, censorship and PR interference on Wikipedia. Pretty disappointing.

The tipoff is that he says "Just wait until he gets fired."

Implying that then Cohan won't be a part of the NBA and thereby not this PR guy's problem.

Rather than contributing by revising what others have added this guy is selectively deleting or trumping up whole sections of wikipages for various NBA related figures.

If that is what he's doing, then people are sure making his life easy. If someone writes:

"Chris Cohan is frequently listed as one of the worst owners in sports, and here is one reference to prove it."

Then he's technically right that this provides little evidence that he's "frequently listed", and if Wikipedia is purported to be an authoritative source, the sentence is potentially bogus. If the sentence instead said:

"Chris Cohan has been listed as one of the worst owners in sports, and here is the reference"

or

"In this article, Chris Cohan was listed as one of the worst owners in sports."

then the sentence is a statement of fact, difficult to dispute, and he'd be on poor ground removing it.

Same deal with the other clause he edited. Calling him the "soon-to-be-ex-owner" is probably true, but is lazy and sloppy for something trying to present factual data. If instead a paragraph had been added that mentioned that Cohan has employed an agent to attempt to sell the team, that would be factual, and easily backed up with references.

The guy may be a PR plant. But people are making it easy for him if so; I think he's playing by the book at this point, because people are giving him easy pickings to edit.

While I agree with your points is there really a book to play by here? Wikipedia is just a website that lets everyone and their mum write anything they want about anything. It tends to rather factual in most cases and has a surprisingly important role in society but I doubt legal considerations come into this. Maybe Wikipedia has some guidelines for disputed pages.

[Nuck Chorris]

The wording was altered and the additions were still removed. There are clearly private interests representing themselves anonymously in the public sphere and attempting to influence the public image of Chris Cohan and the team via wikipedia.

The wikipedia plants are hard at work astroturfing the public greens.

[Nuck Chorris]

While I agree with your points is there really a book to play by here? Wikipedia is just a website that lets everyone and their mum write anything they want about anything. It tends to rather factual in most cases and has a surprisingly important role in society but I doubt legal considerations come into this. Maybe Wikipedia has some guidelines for disputed pages.

They do, on their notice board for disputed biographies it is stated that the revised SI and ESPN references do not violate their terms of use, yet someone still took them down. They were put back up with a warning and a reference to comments on the notice board.

Also Wikipedia has a policy against vested contributors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_vested_contributors

As well as a policy against disruptive editing (spamming or deleting outright).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing

[Nuck Chorris]

We (the people) won (for now). Wikipedia has one of their more senior editors balancing the page to present both the negative and the positive after their conflict of interest and neutrality notice boards were notified to potential corporate abuses.

"User Zagalejo and others with vested interest have abusively edited the Chris Cohan page to restrict its representation as only positive. The most radical changes and involvement coincided with news of a pending sale of the NBA team Cohan owns. Chris Cohan's public image directly correlates to his efficacy in the sale of the Warriors."

[Nuck Chorris]

On a related note, the Blazers onliners were immediately pushing Game 6 ticket sales today after that overly-dramatized Roy return from surgery and officiating debacle in Portland.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

We may have opened a can of worms (I see you in there David Stern).

[and1GS]

It's sad that I mostly use wiki for college essays and finding out rappers real names. BTW check out what T-Pain and Chamillionaire's real names are.

[St.Nick]

LOL at people that don't think this is a business.

[Sleepy51]

LOL at people that don't think this is a business.

Everyone knows this is a business. Most people believe that businesses should be held accountable for unethical behavior. The people who are too lazy in their consumption habits to hold businesses accountable for ethical standards are complicit and a big part of the problem.

I would LOL @ people who like being peed on and told it's raining, but it's not funny. Their apathy and adolescent desire for instant gratification damages the marketplace for the rest of us.