Talk:Moody's Corporation

message: In my opinion this should really be the focus of the article! When did it start to get big, how did it gain so much influence, and when did incorporate??  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.176.18.59 (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of this Institution 

message: I removed blatant word for word copypasta Copyright violations of Moody's text and adjusted the rest (also blatant copypasta copyvio) to a more acceptable level. I also added a freely available Moody's cite for several ratings. The article could still do with a copyedit. 84user (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright violations removed 

message: I deleted the following language from the beginning of the History section:  "Moody's as his main rival, is well known for it's poor criteria while deciding what is quality and what it isn't. Examples as the the Aaa qualification of Lehman Brother's before it collapsed, or the Madoff's products. However, even if unable to predict the crisis, it's able to use it and manipulate, while arbitrarily and unfairly decided to attack the eurozone for their own purposes, without caring about the life standards and quality of their habitants.
This agency follows the following formula: Low quality research + corruption + non reasonable criteria."
I believe it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, and does not match the style guide.
Kagee12000 (talk) 02:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed biased language 

message: I haven't made any changes to it, but I think that the first two paragraphs of this section should either be substantially rewritten or deleted.  They contain original research (or at least unsubstantiated claims) and violate the neutral point of view policy.  In addition, I think that the section title should be removed, and if these two paragraphs are kept, they should be rolled into the criticism section above. 202.20.3.68 (talk) 03:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this section is not written from a neutral point of view. There is plenty of well-sourced material that should definitely be included in the criticism section, including parts of what's in here, but as it stands now it reads like editorializing. I recommend getting rid of this section and beefing up the criticism section. Nwlaw63 (talk) 19:09, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

text: Thirded, removed the initial paragraph as it contained no sources and provided none of the actual ill effects brought from moody's downgrading of Greek bonds to junk status.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.142.75 (talk) 16:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

text: I think that "too much power and influence" should be removed and replaced with a more neutrally-titled "criticisms" section141.160.5.251 (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: "Too much power and influence?" section

message: I am about to make a couple of small changes to this page, which I believe are obviously helpful, and likely fall under the category of non-controversial edits. The reason I mention it at all is because I have a potential conflict of interest with Moody's, as they have asked me to see how this and other articles about the company can be improved. Later I will probably have more substantial changes, but my plan for anything much more substantial will be to ask for input and seek consensus for them rather than making direct edits first. Don't hesitate to reach me at my discussion page if you have any questions. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Vachnic, thanks for your notes. I looked through the changes since my previous update on Friday, and actually it seems you've removed some inline tags added by a subsequent editor. The issues I described in my comment above, particularly the style and tone problems, remain an issue and probably require some expert attention. I appreciate your note, and hope you can be of help on this page, Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 13:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disclosure before editing 

message: Following on my note from yesterday, I've just put  warning templates on two sections within this article. These are "Power and influence" and "Portugal controversy". Not to say that Moody's has not been the subject of criticism; it has been and there is place for that here. However, the former section has tone problems, focuses on one particular complaint, and more than half of the text is quoted directly from the Washington Post. The topic heading also does not have much to do with the actual content. The latter section is at least appropriately named, but makes assertions unsupported by the source material, and is written from a very strong viewpoint. Because of my relationship to Moody's I have to be really careful about this, but if you agree these two sections do not follow Wikipedia guidelines, please review them and make any changes you see fit. I hope to have some specific recommendations in the near future, but for now I simply wanted to flag this for readers and editors. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 20:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Vachnic, thanks for your notes. I looked through the changes since my previous update on Friday, and actually it seems you've removed some inline tags added by a subsequent editor. The issues I described in my comment above, particularly the style and tone problems, remain an issue and probably require some expert attention. I appreciate your note, and hope you can be of help on this page, Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 13:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed neutrality

message: "
* Moody's ratings often do not reflect its analysts' private conclusions. Instead, rating committees privately conclude that certain securities deserve certain ratings--but then vote with management to give the securities the higher ratings that issuer clients want.
* Moody's management and "compliance" officers do everything possible to make issuer clients happy--and they view analysts who do not do the same as "troublesome." Management employs a variety of tactics to transform these troublesome analysts into "pliant corporate citizens" who have Moody's best interests at heart.
* Moody's product managers participate in--and vote on--ratings decisions. These product managers are the same people who are directly responsible for keeping clients happy and growing Moody's business.
* At least one senior executive lied under oath at the hearings into rating agency conduct. Another executive, who Harrington says exemplified management's emphasis on giving issuers what they wanted, skipped the hearings altogether.
"
* MOODY'S ANALYST BREAKS SILENCE: Says Ratings Agency Rotten To Core With Conflicts businessinsider.com.84.147.102.235 (talk) 21:16, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Insider Facts 

message: For the purposes of keeping things easy for others to follow, I've created this sub-head, and will copy Bobrayner's questions on the draft's Talk page here. He writes:
:*The "1970s to present" section has this: "Although Moody's had fewer than 1,500 employees in its division, it represented approximately 51% of Dun & Bradstreet profits...". That appears to be comparing apples to oranges. Would it be possible to include a total headcount for D&B at that time?
:*The credit ratings table looks more organised than the original but is now quite big/obtrusive. Is there any practical way to shrink or split or condense it?
:*I don't see any broader problems of scope or neutrality, other than maybe the chance of splitting MIS into a separate article, so recent changes have just been pedantic detail!
In reverse order: Thanks, I'm very glad all the hard work has produced a broadly acceptable draft. Second, it is true that the table now is quite obtrusive. Now that you mention it, that makes for another reason to split the draft article into three. As to the question about whether the comparison is apples to oranges, it does make a point about how D&B was holding back Moody's, from an investor value perspective. And there's no synthesis here; the comparison is nearly verbatim (but I trust sufficiently rephrased!) from this New York Times article. Here's the relevant passage:
:Making Moody's a separate company is a risky move for the surviving entity, the Dun & Bradstreet Operating Company. That company, the home of Dun & Bradstreet's core credit-information business, has been floundering. Although nearly 90 percent of employees work for the operating business, it generates less than half of Dun & Bradstreet profit.
:Moody's stands in stark contrast. With fewer than 1,500 employees, the credit-rating agency accounted for roughly 51 percent of Dun & Bradstreet's operating profit in the fiscal year that ended in September and about 28 percent of its $2 billion in revenue.
So, I'd like to see it remain.
Then, as to specific changes in made, I have no objections except to the removal of the NYSE ticker from the lead. I agree it making the first line scan better, but it seems this is standard on articles about publicly traded companies, including FA BAE Systems and GAs Chuck E. Cheese's and UBS, not to mention other well-developed articles like Apple Inc. and Google. (Seems like there must be a guideline but, at present, I can't locate it.) For that reason I am inclined to replace it, however it's definitely still confusing with the additional parenthetical. I will think about how to make these work, and propose a solution soon.
Otherwise, I think the next step is to create three alternative versions that show what the three would look like split. And if those worked as expected, open a separate discussion on the Moody's Analytics discussion page (if only to point back here), update the current Moody's article and create Moody's Investors Service. Of course, if other editors have strongly differing views on these matters I'm open to further discussion. Thanks, Mysidae (talk) 21:40, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to Bobrayner review

message: Following the discussions above, I have divided my very lengthy Moody's draft into three separate proposed articles detailing the three key entities that make up Moody's overall. These are now available for review in my user space:
*Moody's Corporation (MCO) – the holding company
*Moody's Investors Service (MIS) – the ratings agency
*Moody's Analytics (MA) – the non-rating businesses
And though previously I had suggested including hatnotes for the different Moody's-related pages at the top of each, instead I've included wikilinks in the introductions and at appropriate places within each article so that readers may find their way from one to the other where they are mentioned. I think this is more than sufficient, and no one should be confused.
Relatedly, I'd suggest that the term "Moody's" redirect to the MIS page, as this is by far the best known Moody's entity, and it is reasonable to expect this is what most Internet users are going to be looking for when they search for "Moody's".
And with respect to Rpinergizer, I believe that this draft covers the general topics of his recent addition, i.e. sections in the current article under "Types of Ratings & Rating Criteria". Although sourced to Moody's, the figures included are subject to change and not critical for understanding the topic. In fact I think it's too much detail without a clear explanation, and in my opinion runs into Wikipedia's admonition that it is neither a directory nor a catalog.
I invite anyone watching this page to comment on the three articles, and to boldly make them so, if one agrees they are ready. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Three proposed Moody's drafts

message: I've had a quick (not exhaustive) read through the drafts, and they're looking good. Happy for them to go live. I still have concerns about the big bold table, but that's cosmetic - not enough to bring work to a halt. I'm sure that once it's in article-space, it'll evolve a little. bobrayner (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken a couple live, but am a bit sleep-deprived at the moment so there's too much risk of making some silly mistake with tasks like this (tried moving one draft over a redirect with a single revision in its edit history, which I thought enwiki should allow, but it didn't let me) - will tidy up loose ends at the weekend. bobrayner (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have also read through at least the investors service draft and I think it is looking good. John Shandy` • talk 23:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I very much appreciate the effort and review. The articles Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Service still need logos, with fair use rationales added, and I can take care of these soon. If there's anything I can do to help expedite the update of the Moody's Corporation page (this one) please let me know. I'd also like to suggest that this article be renamed Moody's Corporation and the page "Moody's" redirect to Moody's Investors Service, because that is surely what readers will be looking for when they run a search on the term. However, I am open to discussing further. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: More content taken live, logos added, redirects done. Anything else I missed? bobrayner (talk) 06:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Progress so far

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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018)