Talk:Naked short selling/Archive 3

message: Again we're getting wholesale changes to shift to an anti-shorting polemic. I note that one anonymous user was blocked and another performed the identical biased edits, (sock puppets?)  --Mantanmoreland 17:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tommy, as long as you cite reliable sources and do not severely favor one particular point of view, we'd love to have your contributions (as soon as you pass through the window required by semi-protection - we have been the target of a lot of vandals who fly in, edit, and don't explain their contributions). (ESkog)(Talk) 02:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Editing War Resumes 

message: An effort is underway to make an end run around this discussion and the effort to achieve a neutral POV treatment of naked shorting, by creating an article entitled Failure to Deliver Stock. This article has not yet been Wikified, but can be located, via external link, here. One of the principal authors of this article is User:Bobobrien, who is Bob O'Brien, head of the coalition against naked short selling (NCANS).
This article combs out one aspect of the naked shorting controversy and builds an entire article around it. The majority of this article is a discussion of naked short-selling from the point of view of the anti-shorting camp. It is a textbook case of POV Forking, if ever there was one. --Mantanmoreland 22:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The approach to a POV fork is a)try edit it down, with a combination of merge, redirect and removal; b)take it to AfD and conduct a nomination for deletion on the relevant grounds; if good evident of POV forking can be presented, AfD is often sympathetic. -Splashtalk 22:59, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Forking Underway 

message: I frankly think that there is already ample discussion of the "fails to deliver" that are not related to short-selling.
Every other use of the term "fails to deliver" is just a euphemism for naked short-selling.
I'm sorry, but we've had an editing war, vandalism, personal attacks and now a POV fork to circumvent the discussion here. Also, and more fundamentally, we failed to come to a consensus because you went off and did your page.
The discussion just stopped, and before I knew it there was this massive duplicate page being created off somewhere, projecting the anti-shorting point of view, with naked shorting now called "Fails to Deliver". I don't believe the normal assumption of good faith editing applies in this kind of situation, given what has happened here.
Moving en masse chunks of the rambling polemic that was created as Failure to Deliver Shares will do nothing more than to turn this page into a rambling polemic. It will just load up this page with a lot of confusing verbiage and statistics that we already discussed.
Therefore, I think that we should resume the discussion that was halted earlier when the POV fork was created. All significant changes proposed edits need to be posted here first and discussed. Otherwise we are just going to have a resumption of the earlier problems. --Mantanmoreland 21:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resuming the Consensus Discussion Proposed 

message: Seems like the seriousness of this subject is more universally accepted than some here believe.
See: www.nypost.com/business/61958.htm
February 16, 2006 --  Two state securities regulators have issued subpoenas to get at the trading records of Wall Street's largest firms in a quest to stamp out the controversial practice of naked short-selling, sources said.
Might want to read the whole article for enlightenment. river 19:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Naked Short Selling Targeted

message: I wanted to address the points raised previously, re the recent edits, before discussing the issue raised in the head above.
First we need to accurately characterize the controversy. The article had previously inaccurately described it as people who were "pro" and "con" naked shorting.
That is not correct. This is a controversy between a handful of critics of naked shorting and their critics. The bulk of the critics of the campaign are not people who "like" naked shorting but rather are persons, mainly objective regulatory officials, who oppose naked shorting but say that the problem has been exaggerated and has been used as a scapegoat.
As for the SEC's position on "stock counterfeiting" -- they just don't talk about "entitlements" and whatever and leave it at that. As I have pointed out several times, they are quite plain in saying that stock counterfeiting does not exist. They say so in plain language-- that naked shorting does NOT inflate the number of shares outstanding. Period. I have said this several times, to no effect, and yet we still get editing that attempts to obscure that central point.
There is no need to use jargon when someone (or entity) has said something plainly. To do so is not fair to that person and obscures what that person (or entity) plainly said. Let's be clear on this and not foam it up with mud.
The position of the regulators on naked short-selling can be summed up as follows:
* Stock counterfeiting, the central thesis of the anti-shorting campaign, does not happen.
* Fails to deliver do not disadvantage investors.
* The whole issues has been exaggerated.
The word used by Cam Funkhouser of the NASD, in referring to one aspect of the controversy, is "hysteria." See transcript of NASSA panel, November 2005.
More fundamentally, I think this issue has been handled more than fairly so far. In fact, I think this page has been skewed far too much as it is in favor of the anti-naked-shorting coalition.
Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View states as follows:
*Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority).
In this instance, we are giving equal weight to the regulatory agencies responsible for policing naked shorting and a small handful of pressure groups. I think that our doing so, in and of itself, gives this article a bias in favor of the anti-naked-shorting forces. We are in effect saying that "there are two equal and opposite points of view: the SEC and NASD etc. on the one hand and the coalitions against naked short-selling on the other hand." I think that is a mistake.
I think that, given the above, the current compromise article is overly biased  favor of the anti-naked shorting position as it is, and that if anything the attention devoted to that POV should be reduced.
I also think that we should not bog down this article with a lot of verbiage and technical detail, particularly in characterizing regulatory viewpoints when regulatory agencies have spoken out plainly on the subject. --Mantanmoreland 21:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Minority Opinion Given Excessive Deference

message: *You can have what ever opinion you want, the introduction of facts that are verifiable should not be denied here, not matter what you think. For instance, the repeated deletion of SEC references and direct and exact quotes by regulators should not be constantly deleted. I ask that it not happen again.
*Anyone can add factual data here, but to delete the contributions and information that others provide that are fact based and correct, should not be deleted. For instance allowing one quote from the NASAA and deleting all other is not acceptable to maintain a neutral POV, it does the opposite. For these reasons, I ask that this stop.
*No assumptions should be made. This article needs to be fact based. Just because one person, government entity, company, politician, executive, etc.. says something, doesn't make it a fact. It's just a statement. The data is there for everyone to make up their own minds, especially on a controversial subject like this one.
--tom 22:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This article needs to be fact based

message: Errudite, please direct your comments to the issue and not the editor. This pattern of personal attacks is one of the problems that has beset this page, along with the editing war, vandalism, and still unresolved POV fork.
The SEC and regulatory agencies didn't just issue an edict concerning naked-short selling and airily dismiss the allegations of the anti-naked shorting groups out of hand. They've spent massive amounts of time and resources investigating it and exploring the issue and come up with the conclusions that I have quoted.
The scenario that you describe has been rejected by the SEC, not summarily but in detail, most recently in the legal brief cited in the article. The SEC has no motive whatsoever to conspire to conceal a massive effort to dilute shareholder equity.
Regulators have not been "evasive." They've made forthright comments stating that "stock counterfeiting" does not exist. What possible motive could they have to totally ignore a "massive stock counterfeiting conspiracy," to use the language of the anti-naked shorting coalition?
The NASD, for example, is not ignoring naked shorting nor being "inane" and "evasive." Quite the opposite. They sent a team of investigators over to the Berlin exchange, after what Cam Funkhouser described as "hysteria" over Berlin used as a venue for naked shorting, and found not one instance of it taking place there. Shall we give the naked shorting theorists equal time with the NASD on this issue too? I would say, no. Should we edit it out and ignore it? Again, no, because it demonstrates how many of the central accusations of the naked shorting pressure groups have been investigated and debunked.
What we've basically done in this article is to give equal weight to a wild conspiracy theory and the objective regulatory agencies that have debunked it. The article should not be removed but it should be handled in the appropriate manner, with the minority anti-shorting "stock counterfeiting" position not given the same prominence as the views of regulatory agencies that are objective and that have investigated this matter thoroughly and have issued clear statements of position.
Right now, the bulk of the article consists of lengthy allegations by the anti-naked shorting coalitions, with reaction by regulators and other critics. Personally I think the article takes the whole anti-shorting movement far more seriously than it deserves, given the definitive way its allegations have been rebuffed by objective investigators. I do not believe that it serves readers to give these minority allegations such prominence. --Mantanmoreland 14:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply