Talk:Criticism of Walmart/Archive 1

message: I'm not a registered user and don't care to be just yet, so if someone wouldn't mind: toss this in as the citation for it; straight from the horse's mouth:  198.209.225.230 00:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  (NEW) Citation for 2006 emergency contraception thing 

message: I removed some of the recent changes about the magazine controversy:
1) changing "deemed" to "claimed to be" is excess verbiage. Wal-Mart says it won't carry offensive items. Wal-Mart removed some items from its shelves. QED, Wal-Mart deems those items it removed to be offensive.
2) moderating language about freedom of the press. Freedom of the press = "Congress shall make no law....". Editors/publishers did complain, and that's now noted in the article, but 'free association' of commerce trumps non-existant private-to-private press rights. Feco 18:35, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you Mr WalMart Representative for constantly censoring this article! Very nice of you indeed. --85.74.183.150 15:42, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what was censored? Feco 16:59, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: you described it above and in the next section. What critics say you "correct" it into "they allege" but what WalMart in your opinion always "deems". I doubt that your opinion is representing a neutral point of view. You make it look as if the critics don't know a damn thing and that they accuse WalMart injustly. --85.74.151.154 19:29, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: noted. I just did a style check of the article and tried to remove the "X says" "Y says" construction. I strongly recommend that you register (having a user name makes collaboration with other members much easier, esp. b/c it looks like you have a dynamic IP) as a wiki user and start making edits. As wiki states, no one has an NPOV. Rather, editors should always strive to write in NPOV style. I also am a big fan of brevity... "claimed to be" and "deemed" are almost exact synonyms in the context... fewer words are almost always better. Feco 22:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: incidentally, the verb to deem is used only twice in the article. In both cases, the context is Wal-Mart labeling something as offensive/inappropriate in the company's view. Seems like a textbook definition of the word. Doesn't speak at all on whether or not the item being deemed is objectively offensive. That would be much closer to NPOV.Feco 13:18, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're trying to fog things even more than ever before. I am more convinced than ever that you are a representative of WalMart who has been assigned to keep the article "clean" (or, in other words, to remove any remarks your company might find offensive). And, yes, I DO have a dynamic IP. That's completely legal, isn't it? And in your last post you say "claimed to be" and "to deem" are almost exactly the same. However, in the first lines of this section you wrote that changing "deemed" to "claimed to be" is excess verbiage. It seems to me that you're contradicting yourself.  --85.74.188.125 21:37, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: acting as an unregistered user is perfectly legit, however, Wikipedia strongly suggests that anon users register. Claimed to be and deemed mean the same thing... the latter is more efficient at conveying the same meaning. The latter is also better grammar. I have repeated this several times. And yes, you caught me! I'm a Wal-Mart representative whose sole job is to edit this wiki article. As a fringe benefit, I get to create and edit lots of other wiki articles. Clearly, my edit history shows that I'm on wiki at all hours and all days, so this must be my only job with Wal-Mart. In fact, I never even have to go to work. They just mail me a check! </sarcasm> What remarks/content have I removed, btw? Feco 22:01, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You didn't quite explain why you first said changing "deemed" into "claimed to be" is excessive language and later you said both is exactly the same. It didn't at all seem to me that your comment on this was based on any grammatical error or whatsoever. BTW I am already registered at Wiki but discussing all these explicitg things I was afraid WalMart might sue me for speaking "too frankly". As to my knowledge they're known to react quite aggressively when being criticised.  --85.74.188.125 22:09, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  sigh... they mean the same thing. One is better grammar and more concise than the other. This is what I've said all along. To soothe your paranoia, read Slander and libel. I don't think you're in danger of being sued. Alas, if you were to be sued, a subpoena on your ISP (from your IP) would quickly reveal who you are. Better start using proxy servers! Feco 17:53, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever even bothered to look at a dictionary?  They do not mean the same thing. "they deem" asserts a state of mind, while "they claim" asserts an utterance.  They only coincide if "they" are telling the truth, which of course is not a given and is beyond the scope of NPOV.  And that you would remove "X says" constructions suggests that you haven't read any of the NPOV and editing guidelines. -- Jibal 01:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There's clearly nothing redundant about "claimed to be", nor can it reasonably be considered "excess verbiage".  And changing it to "deemed" clearly changes the meaning, as the latter is a POV assessment of a state of mind.  But then, the entire article is a POV fork. -- Jibal 01:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Offensive" Magazines 

message: I modified the text detailing Wal-Mart's position on carrying the "clean" versions of albums. The company stocks the commercially produced radio edit versions of certain albums. These versions are provided by music publishers to any retailers... the editing decisions are made by the artist/publisher, not by Wal-Mart. The previous text seemed to indicate that Wal-Mart had a direct role in influencing the edits made to these versions. This is not the case. Feco 05:28, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I again removed comments about Wal-Mart's refusal to carry "obscene" albums. I removed text that seemed to indicate that Wal-Mart has a direct role in choosing what constitutes obscenity and makes editorial decisions to remove such content. Wal-Mart does not, and legally cannot do this (producing and selling an edited version of an album is a derivative work and constitutes a big copyright violation). Wal-Mart doesn't carry music with RIAA's parental warning label. RIAA makes the decision on what's "obscene" and what gets the label. Feco 18:26, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Definately, any company that can be considered "[the] largest retailer in the world and was the largest corporation in the world based on revenue as ranked by the Fortune Global 500 in 2005," clearly has at least some impact on the market. By the way, I pulled that straight from the top of the Wal*Mart article here on Wikipedia. Marrow Chiller 05:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Radio Edit versions of albums

message: As of 4/19, googling "Gundam Deathscythe Hell"+walmart returns around 40 hits. This indicates to me that there wasn't a lot of press coverage over the company carrying/not carrying the product. As near as I can tell, the company never stocked the product, and there was no press coverage alleging why it wasn't covered. The current version of the article states that Wal-Mart doesn't carry the product due to its name, but I can find no credible assertion to back this up. Wal-Mart doesn't carry tons of products... I don't think this article should guess at the reasons for doing so. I'm going to remove that reference unless more compelling evidence is found. Feco 05:20, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gundam Deathscythe Hell

message: Of course not! It details the criticisms of Wal-Mart. It is a compendium of opinions rather than facts. It cannot possibly be neutral. --Colonel E 18:56, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But it is a fact that people hold these opinions. Just because a page is *about* the opinions people hold and why doesn't mean it can't achieve NPOV. --Calair 00:36, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral? 

message: I believe WalMart will, due to their unique philosophy, always be discussed very controversially. I think this means that it will be very hard if not impossible to get the WalMart article or this criticism article into a form which no one considers biased or otherways non-neutral. I think it's impossible to put the two articles I'm talking about in a context all parties involved would consider neutral. The views are too far apart. So let's just take it easy and let's discuss things on a rational level. --Maxl 22:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly is WalMart's philosphy and what's unique about it that it would affect attempting a nuetral point of view?  Stating criticism should only involve saying people with this background say A, people with this background say B.  The difference is listing the criticism and attempting to show document some peoples POV, versus writing the article using a particular POV.  For instance, you would not say "WalMart is bad because they use inferior widgets", but rather "WalMart is also critcized for using inferior widgets by US Widget makers."  Critcisms are just opinions that can be documented without representing them as belonging to the author.  There may be many views to be documented, but that does not necessarily mean it's impossible.  --GreatTurtle 01:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Take it  easy! 

message: Almost half of the paragraphs in this article are simply duplicates of the main article. One or the other should be edited. —The preceding --plo comment was added by 67.171.74.109 (talk • contribs) .
Any employee of Wal-Mart can make a comment, and it is Wal-Mart speaking. What else could it be?
Plongpenii 22:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  this article duplicates much of [[Wal-Mart]] 

message: What is Palast, 121? It's given as a source for a quote about minimum wage, but I can't find anything like that on google. Just because someone gives a source, doesn't mean the source is real. Does anyone have any confirmation, or other source for this? (And be aware that nearly all mentions of this on google are merely duplicates of this article.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.171.74.109 (talk • contribs) . 
::Please sign your posts.
::It is from: # Greg Palast (2002). The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High-Finance Fraudsters, Pluto Press.   
::which is on the wal-mart page already, yet another reason to merge the two. Travb 03:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is Palast, 121 

message: I added major additions to the Wal-mart section, including many critical articles.  I think the two articles should be merged, unless someone wants to update all the info here.Travb 03:53, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Major additions to the Wal-mart section

message: The main Wal-Mart article is bloated, and quite frankly...a mess.  There was this existing article and it's crazy to try to dual-maintain.  I've boldly merged the content from the main article, and left introductory stubs there.  Should we decide to merge that content back, we can do it wholesale rather than trying to maintain the same content across two articles.
I think this has made the main Wal-Mart article a lot more manageable and easy to read, but there is work left to be done on both articles (this one is now bigger than the main article!  --MisterHand 18:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved criticism and response to seperate article 

message: I wonder if this article should be moved to "Debate over Wal-Mart"? I imaging it would be difficult to confine the article to only having criticisms with no responses to those criticisms. RJII 16:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really have an opinion either way, I just wanted to point out that the article does have a whole "Response" section.  The responses are a bit disjointed from the criticisms, however.  It might be better to merge each of the responses into the appropriate area.  Especially if we change the name to "Debate". Kudos to [[User:Jvandyke|Jvandyke][, by the way, who reorganized the article quite a bit last night and made it much more readable. -- MisterHand 17:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but my point is that SINCE it does have responses, then the title "Criticism of Wal-Mart" is kind of a misnomer. It's not just criticisms, but also praises and defenses. RJII 17:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move to Debate over Wal-Mart?

message: I have tried to reword both the criticism of product selection and the response. The "effectively forces" bit in the criticism was being read as forces too often, and it seems clear looking into it that the criticism applies more to the impact of Wal-Mart's policies on suppliers than on consumers. As to the response section, this was turning into a bloated defence of the Free Market from a Libertarian perspective. The underlying point, as far as I can see, is "if you don't like it you could always shop elsewhere", so we should just say that. Deleted text below. Mattley (Chattley) 16:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wal-Mart operates in a capitalist economic system which allows free enterprise. When operating as a free enterprise in a capitalist economic system, companies like Wal-Mart are legally allowed to engage in product discrimination while consumers are free to shop at any competitor of Wal-Mart for any product not carried by Wal-Mart. It thus argued by Friedman, as well as by Adam Smith, that people do not make a transaction unless they believe they will benefit by doing so (they value whey are getting more than they value what they are giving in trade, or they would not make the trade in the first place). Therefore, according to free market scholars such as Milton Friedman, both sides benefit from voluntary capitalist transactions, such as those between Wal-Mart and consumers, and because a transaction is voluntary no party to such a compact is exploited.  As a result, no rational person can legitimately argue that they have been forced to shop at Wal-Mart, forced to accept Wal-Mart "morals," or that a customer has been done a disservice by being offered goods for sale of Wal-Mart's own choosing.
No Mattley you have shown a penchant for deleting non sourced material...and a greater penchant for deleting sources of cited material and then deleting the section all together.  If this above section is reduced to "If you dont like it shop somewhere else" then you will delete it on the ground it provides no citation!!!!!!
Cut the bullshit and just accept the cited source...even as obvious a statement as it was without an citations or sources...(Gibby 19:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

text: More unsubstantiated nonsense. Why would I delete material and supporting source that I added myself? Mattley (Chattley) 21:55, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It should be noted that in America, individuals and businesses are free to promote any ideology they wish. Why should that be noted? Did someway say otherwise? Doesn't the truth of the statement rely on acceptance of a POV about what constitutes freedom to promote ideas? I doubt Herbert Marcuse, for example, would concur with this statement. Given that there are always limitations on the exercise of free speech this statement seems unsupportable. Mattley (Chattley) 14:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Firstly, it isn't good enough simply to state that there is such an insinuation. Show us where you think it is and which exact words or phrases make this insinuation. I doubt you will be able to, as there has never been any suggestion in the criticism section that Wal-Mart's product selection policies violate any laws. This is a response to a criticism that has never been advanced! Secondly, my personal definition of "freedom" has nothing to do with it. What I am pointing out is that there are multiple points of view regarding how far it is, in fact, possible to advance and promote ideas freely in modern, Western societies. Since there are many POV's we should not be making statements that assert the truth of one POV. Mattley (Chattley) 16:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Once again, we cannot simply say In America, private individuals and businesses are free to promote any ideology they wish. This depends on an idea of what constitutes freedom to promote ideas etc which is not universally shared. Many would argue that it is a lot more complicated - if you want notables then Herbert Marcuse or Antonio Gramsci come to mind. Or, looking at it from a slightly different angle, imagine for a moment that the owner of a very successful business became a Communist or an Islamic Fundamentalist. I suspect he'd find some limits placed on his freedom to promote his new-found ideology. Citing the US Constitution does not help. It tells us what is in the Constitution but not necessarily what happens in practice. Mattley (Chattley) 10:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text: As I've also noted before, this is a response to a criticism that no-one has made. Why do we need to point out that Wal-Mart isn't breaking any laws by product discrimination when no-one has said that they were? Mattley (Chattley) 10:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Product selection and promotion of ideology

message: I think the article is fairly stable now (it's actually gone several days without an edit), and reading through it, it feels neutral to me.  So I've removed the NPOV tag.  If somebody disagrees, please post here with specific suggestions on how the article could be more neutral. -- MisterHand 16:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed NPOV Tag 

message: This article is friggin' LONG.  Can we reduce the sheer size of it without eliminating any of the key topics and points?SmartGuy 20:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long! (Merging pro- and anti- sides of same topics)

message: This statement  is unsourced - at least in this context. The two sources that follow are both statements by Wal-Mart: naturally they don't state that their workers are intimidated etc. I think Calton might have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere along the line. There is a substantial section documenting criticism of Wal-Mart's anti-union activities/policies further up. Perhaps this is the time to integrate criticisms with responses. Mattley (Chattley) 13:42, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify my edit summary - I think KDRGibby is right about this statement not being sourced, not about workers not needing to organise and combine to improve and defend their living and working conditions (!). Mattley (Chattley) 13:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wal-Mart and unions 

message: This article is chock full of unreferenced sections and paragraphs.  Several were already labeled, I have labeled several more.  I'm going to give it a week or so, and any paragraph/section that is not backed up with a citation will be deleted.  Any objections/suggestions/problems? -- MisterHand 00:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly, I object.  What unsupported passages are you referring to?  Perhaps if you identify the possible dreck first, others can try to cite it before there are "purges." Abe Froman 03:31, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  All the problematic passages are marked with the  tag. -- MisterHand 03:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  MisterHand has been busy with that   tag.  I hope purgers will give editors a day or two to find sources before editing.  I, for one, would like a shot at salvaging some of these passages. Abe Froman 03:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  As stated, I'm not planning to delete anything for at least a week, and if it seems progress is being made then I'll be happy. -- MisterHand 03:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, I've added several citations, but there's more to be done.  The biggest problems are the weaselly worded paragraphs that have statements like "Critics say..." or "Supporters say..." -- MisterHand 14:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've gone through and purged all the unreferenced material.  There's been more than enough time to gather citations. Feel free to add any or all of it back once proper citations have been found. -- MisterHand 00:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've  just found something unreferenced in the "magazines" section. Anyway that statement doesn't make much sense to me. The people approving of what Wal-Mart is doing about the magazines are more likely self-appointed extreme right-wing moralists than ordinary parents. --Maxl 12:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Big purge coming 

message: I've merged the "Criticisms" and the "Responses" section together for better flow and understanding of both sides. There's probably some duplicate material still left and some other cleanup to do, but I think the article works a lot better this way (but it's still incredibly long). -- MisterHand 00:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reorganized 

message: This article is huge.  In order to trim it down a bit, I'd like to split off the largest section, Employee/labor relations into a new artcle: Wal-Mart Employee and Labor Relations. Any thoughts on this proposal? -- MisterHand 22:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting the article? 

message: So where is the mention of the handling of Bones in Hawaii at one construction site of Wal-Mart? 
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Mar/26/ln/ln12a.html--293.xx.xxx.xx 21:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Hawaii Graves Incident

message: I don't know what the article was like when the tag was removed, but right now large parts of it seem to come straight out of Wal-Mart's publicity material. Osomec 15:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed a couple of the most egregious examples of POV-pushing, i.e. statements that were misleading or outright false. Hope that helps. Kaldari 22:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Replaced POV tag

message: I have added a complete rewrite tag. This whole article is painfully baised towards Wal-Mart, with the defence too often placed first, made to read like a conclusion and presented as fact. I'm no anti-corporate activist, indeed I'm a Tesco shareholder, but the pro-Wal-Mart lobby isn't even trying to observe Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. A lot more needs to be done than tweaking the odd word and some sections are probably beyond salvage except by scrapping them and starting again. But I can't do it because I'm British and I don't know much about Wal-Mart - but I do know crude corporate propaganda when I see it. Osomec 15:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  This is sinister.  It's strange that on the main Wal-Mart page there's no _actual_ criticism, just a link to this page.  This is a bad idea; it's making that page inconclusive.  --80.176.94.14 16:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: A draft page exists on User:Tuxide/Wikiproject_Retailing/Wal-Mart, feel free to make improvements to it.  I basically dumped the entire contents of this page into the Criticisms section, however.  Tuxide 19:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Complete rewrite tag

message: This section cites only right-wing sources, and is clearly POV. Brianski 16:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hardly think that the American Public Broadcasting System is a right-wing source. Twiztidlojik 18:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems the section you reference was either deleted or you were looking in the wrong place. Check again, the 3 quotes are 2 from Cato, one from the conservative national review. Brianski 07:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Maybe it's different in the U.S., but in much of the world "a libertarian ideal of laissez-faire economics" is most certainly right-wing. 62.31.55.223 01:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even in the US, libertarians are most decidedly right wing, at least economically (Libertarians also have a caucus within the Republican party, the Republican Liberty Caucus). Perhaps I should have said *economically* right wing sources, but the point stands that regardless of how the groups are classified they are all lined up on the same side of this issue. Brianski 07:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason for Criticism section 

message: To avoid POV issues, the name of the article should be changed back to Debates over Wal-Mart, because the article includes not just criticism but also praise of Wal-Mart. RJII 02:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, criticism of Wal-Mart is perfectly all right! :D --Maxl 21:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Under WP:FORK, this page probably shouldn't exist.  Based on the fact that the Wal-Mart page contains the rebuttals but not this information, I think the correct thing to do is re-merge this page into Wal-mart.  Renaming this further hides the legitimate criticisms of Wal-Mart. The best solution is one single page, but failing that, this page should be, and should be called, Criticisms.--ZachPruckowski 00:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Restore previous name

message: Hello, a new WikiProject called Retailing has been created, and we invite anyone who is interested in joining to sign up.  If you would like to join it, then list your name on Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Retailing.
There is also a draft for a complete rewrite of the Wal-Mart article that is being worked on.  Feel free to continue improving the draft and to take part in its discussion. Tuxide 06:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have attempted to do some work on my draft of Wal-Mart page.  Here, my objective is to take what is on this page and trim it down a ways.  For example, I'm attempting to take sections 1.1-1.3 of this article and summarize it into a paragraph or two, because in my opinion individual cases should be noted in the references section and not the main article unless it really is remarkable enough for inclusion.  You can see this work on User:Tuxide/Wikiproject_Retailing/Wal-Mart#Cleanup_section, feel free to make further improvements to it and discuss it here. Tuxide 19:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject:  Retailing