Talk:Stephen Leather

message: "Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects ..."
"Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP
85.210.145.172 (talk) 02:06, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled stuff

message: I have been watching this page for a while and see that there is some controversy surrounding Cohen. I think the way that it is written in the article is borderline appropriate due to the WEIGHT. However, since it has been sourced as part of his marketing campaign, I would go for leaving it in the article in its current form. 
Also, I have done some major improvements including adding his books and screenplays (I sent an email requesting an image - we'll see if I get a response). Hopefully this will take away any previously expressed concerns about  NPOV.--Morning277 (talk) 16:30, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you, Morning277, I feel the way you've incorporated Bbb23's amended wording into your comprehensively re-vamped article is (for me) a more than acceptable compromise/solution. You must have done a tremendous amount of work on this! Sagaciousphil (talk) 19:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. It was not difficult as there is tons of press out there on this guy. --Morning277 (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major improvement 

message: False friends came out the start of August 2012, I have read it, So I'm going to change it. EoghanG93 (talk) 16:19, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  False Friends publication year mistake 

message: I've added a small quote which was featured in a Telegraph article. It seems that Stephen Leather really doesn't have any morals. And like Sagaciousphil who has a strange idea of what vandalism is, Leather has a strange idea of what a troll is.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by KoKingsmill (talk • contribs) 19:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional quote from Telegraph

message: I'm re-adding this section but will only mention what is relevant to the article (all else can either go on the sockpuppet investigation pages or on personal Talk pages). I will try to write in a neutal way.
There have been two sockpuppet investigations launched relating to accounts that have been used to edit this article. One concerns Morning277 (and a whole load of affiliated accounts), and the other concerns me (!), Morning277, Sagaciousphil, David Quantick, Natalieolson, and Wastedyuthe.
I suggest that if there are any editors that can genuinely be considered to be neutral that they check over the edits made by the above accounts, with the aim to try to ensure that a Wikipedia article page is reliable.
These are the relevant sockpuppet investigation pages for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Morning277/Archive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Morning277
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/KoKingsmill
KoKingsmill (talk) 00:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Sockpuppet investigations

message: The above user has made one contribution to WP, (see here) which, apart from containing an incoherent edit summary, removes a reference in the lead to a series of negative incidents – which are covered in numerous reliable sources – that brought Leather to public attention in 2012. User LimitlessSky2012's behaviour appears suspicious and I propose that the reference be restored.  Jprw (talk) 12:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Jprw - as far as I can tell none of this is new and is just a re-hash of the incident previously discussed above. The incident seems to be well covered already in the article. The actual wording used in the additional article you cited (David Vinjamuri, Forbes) is "Leather acknowledged using sock puppets to generate buzz for his books" not quite the same as writing fake reviews - sorry, I guess I am being a tad pedantic. As to whether User:LimitlessSky2012's behaviour appears suspicious or not, I wouldn't know - but surely everyone has to make a first contribution to WP at some point?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sagaciousphil (talk • contribs) 16:11, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, let's for the time being give the benefit of the doubt to LimitlessSky2012. But other serious issues remain. For example, the subject of the article is on record as stating that he paid 700 dollars to have an editor "clean up" his WP article, see here. Since paid advocacy is a serious WP violation, I will add some banners to reflect this, and also try to get the ball rolling on reinserting well-sourced public domain information that may not paint the subject in the best light. As a general comment, the article as it stands reads like a glowing endorsement / advertisement, i.e. it strikes exactly the type of sanitised / imbalanced / non-neutral tone you might expect from an article that had been "cleaned up". Jprw (talk) 12:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jprw, can you link to paid advocacy is a serious WP violation? I missed the memo, but thats not that unusual. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 01:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Found it. And this to. --Malerooster (talk) 02:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

text: Jprw - As I mentioned above, none of this is new and the incident has already been discussed previously. Do you have further sources showing more significant coverage of this as I haven't found any additional coverage of this since the prior discussion you were involved in on this talk page. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The incident was discussed previously and the article was allowed to remain sanitised? How was that progress? The subject's activities have brought a lot of adverse publicity for WP (it is the only reason I and, I suspect many others, have ever heard of him) and is even in danger of bringing the encyclopedia into disrepute. I have had one description covering those activities (see here) linked to Forbes, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian, repeatedly removed. There remain serious issues with the article (e.g. the lead is embarrassingly one-sided, and reads like a marketing blurb) and it is clearly non-neutral. Jprw (talk) 06:15, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I'm sorry to appear to be repeating myself but I'm becoming a little confused. I do admit I'm not totally au fait with WP:BLP and indeed many other Wikipedia guidelines, so please bear with me here. As far as I can tell, consensus was reached a few weeks ago that until further reliable sources were obtained which would indicate 'significant' coverage of this incident the status quo would remain (see 'How should the lede be crafted' above). I was naturally alarmed by the statement "The subject's activities have brought a lot of adverse publicity for WP (it is the only reason I and, I suspect many others, have ever heard of him) and is even in danger of bringing the encyclopedia into disrepute" so have spent time searching for evidence of further adverse publicity. I don't seem to be hitting on the correct search terms as I can still only find the sole reference to the op ed piece you quote, which is the one discussed previously. Could someone point me in the right direction as I think this is the third time I've asked about the new/additional sources for this. I apologise if I am interpreting this incorrectly. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: LimitlessSky2012

message: I'm reluctant to get pulled into a discussion on this page as I realise that there is a good chance that some of the editors I will be debating with will have been paid by the subject. And the artificial tone of a number of editor contributions I have read here (two examples: 1) Thank you, Morning277, I feel the way you've incorporated Bbb23's amended wording into your comprehensively re-vamped article is (for me) a more than acceptable compromise/solution. You must have done a tremendous amount of work on this!; 2) As to whether User:LimitlessSky2012's behaviour appears suspicious or not, I wouldn't know - but surely everyone has to make a first contribution to WP at some point?) has only reinforced this suspicion. But anyway, here goes, and I would say that the issues I am raising below should be quite obvious to any neutral, genuine editor. 
:
1)	The above "consensus" is meaningless, given that there is clear evidence that the subject of the article has paid WP editors to "clean up" (by which I take to mean sanitize, i.e. remove negative content) contained within the article. I suggest that the article be reappraised by Editors who have had nothing to do with the article at least for a 12-month period before it became known that Leather had paid someone to sanitize it, and that unregistered / new users be barred from editing it until further notice.  
2)	 Why is the Telegraph piece (specifically describing the pay-off) not included? 
3)	Why is the description covering Leather's dubious activities (see here) linked to Forbes, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian, repeatedly removed?
4)	Why has no-one addressed the point that the lead reads like a marketing blurb? I suggest that a number of people arriving here for the first time would find it embarrassingly inappropriate for an encyclopedic entry, as well as imbalanced (some mention must surely be made of Leather's dubious activities? And let's remember that the refernce to these was removed by an unregistered user, who made only one contribution to WP). 
To sum up, the integrity of this article has it seems clearly been compromised and a fresh approach may be needed to achieve the necessary balance and neutrality. Jprw (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The lede seems fine to me, except for what I assume is a missing word in the second sentence. No different than, say, the lede in our articles on Stephen King or J. K. Rowling but with significantly fewer accolades (as would be expected). The "Writing career" section does go into some of the controversy, but, per BLP guidelines, expanding on that theme would require sources that aren't so, well, tabloidy. (If you can suggest specific sources, please do so.) Ditto for bringing those details into the lede. I skimmed the sources in the diff you provided and didn't see anything about him specifically writing reviews, which, again per BLP guidelines, we need to accurately reflect what our reliable sources say. (If you can point out a statement in a specific source, I'll gladly take a look.) If the sources out there are correct, he's certainly involved in some shady "marketing"—scare quotes intentional—but BLP articles require a significantly higher standard when it comes to criticism. Woodroar (talk) 17:44, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

text: Paid editing violates our conflict of interest policies, is grounds for blocks and bans, and may even be illegal in some areas. If you believe some editors are being paid, it would probably be best to bring this to the conflict of interest noticeboard along with your proof. A screenshot from Facebook isn't going to cut it, though, as that that's not considered a reliable source for articles or for proving guilt of paid editing. Woodroar (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Woodroar, paid editing doesn't always have to be a COI, not that I am a fan of it or have ever been paid to edit, though I would take somebodies $ in a flash if offered :). --Malerooster (talk) 16:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point. I was using "paid editing" as shorthand for "being paid to push an agenda on Wikipedia", something the OP is suggesting, and I (obviously) should have been more clear. The reward board is a more neutral example of paid editing. Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 17:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding Leather in the real world – so conspicuously absent from his WP page, now to a laughable degree – rumbles on... Jprw (talk) 17:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Dubious goings-on

message: I have removed the reference given concerning the Press Complaints Commission ruling as it was a blog, so I believe is not considered a reliable source - please let me know if my interpretation of this is incorrect. However, as I can see others wish to have the information included, I have left it in the article marked with a citation needed tag. I did spend quite some time searching the PCC website to find the adjudication, but it does not appear - as yet - to be listed. Obviously, once the PCC make it public, that can then be used as a reference.
Hopefully this will give an acceptable compromise until it can be reliably sourced? SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:17, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I have since removed it as I cannot locate it in any source that is reliable. Also, the paragraph it is located in is about an article Cohen wrote accussing Leather of someting. If there was a complaint about Cohen and if he was "investigated," then this information would belong in HIS article. The only exception I would see is if there is a source stating the Leather made the complaint. As teh complaint does not involve Leather, it doesn't belong. --BookLoverBrit (talk) 22:36, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable sources 

message: What a magnificent enterprise in digital marketing this Wikipedia entry is. Less than a year after Mr Leather was featured in half the UK press - Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, Paid Content, Bookseller, Spectator (none of which it appears below are suitable sources) - for sockpuppetry and abusive online behaviour there's not a single reference to the disquieting affair on this page - just long lists of awards and latest releases. I don't suppose there's any point changing anything here as, within a day or two, it'll all be sanded back to resemble a promotional website once again. It's a shame to see Wikipedia, such an admirable project, exploited so brazenly for an individual's commercial advantage.
:I'll have a go at trying to make it more accurate again - and before any paid shill tries to claim that the mountain of articles about Leather aren't reliable enough, I'd like to draw their attention to WP's policy on the verifiability of newspaper and magazine blogs i.e. they're perfectly acceptable if the person writing them is a professional. If the shills strike again, I'll have no option but to report this mess of a page.Truthteller88 (talk) 22:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion the section in question should be reinstated, though in all probability A Certain Editor will no doubt drop by and delete it in short order without providing any credible reason. Salmanazar (talk) 21:13, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The shill has returned - keeps going on about "consensus", even though at least one editor has only edited Leather's page and the page of Jeremy Duns, the man who first exposed Leather as a fraud - and I've filed my report.Truthteller88 (talk) 23:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please be more careful when referring to other editors. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've amended my last comment, but my point still stands - people with an agenda are the bane of WP, and this page is a perfect example. As certain editors insist that the sources aren't reliable, I would like to once again remind them that [blogs written by acknowledged professionals are considered verifiable] and the sources linked have been used on two different Wikipedia articles and yet they're not good enough for Mr. leather's article.[[Truthteller88 (talk) 13:22, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

text: Purely looking at this page and the article it would seem that consensus was that the sockpuppeting and marketing ploys should be mentioned yet there is nothing in the article about them at all. There seem to be a number of sources which even quote Leather directly. disclaimer : I don't read Leather, neither a fan nor not - just not my genre. I have no skin in this game other than Wikipedia.--   🍺  Antiqueight confer 15:11, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disappointing editorial standards 

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thread_title:  External links modified