IanRivian
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Hi IanRivian. I think your comment today on the Rivian Talk page was helpful, and it illustrated a good (and to this editor's eyes) proper appreciation for Wikipedia policy and practices with respect to company-involved editors.
Moreover, except for the one thing that I have taken issue with, I believe every action and attitude I've seen on your part has constructively engaged with Wikipedia and our WP:COI practices.
That is all true. And, that being said, I was thinking yesterday (before your helpful comment today) of dropping in on your Talk page and inviting you to consider a thought experiment with me.
(yeah, I occasionally teach an econ course at local uni and I sometimes talk that way. ;) )
I'll do that in the next section. N2e (talk) 02:13, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Thought experiment on COI-editor writing full paragraphs of prose for Wikipedia edit
First, I'll just summarize a few facts as they are, and I suspect we can agree on:
- You have written a multi-paragraph section of good/reasonable prose, with a bunch of citations, (mostly? or all?) secondary sources on the Rivian Talk page that is ready-to-go, finished article prose. Although it is "good/reasonable" prose, the fact remains it was authored by a Rivian company employee.
- You, of course, know that as a company employee, it would be wrong for you to place that into the article mainspace. So you do not do that.
- Tesla seems to be a much followed (and much loved, and much hated) competitor of Rivian in the EV space. I think it is fair to say that there are many editors on WP that edit/improve/argue over the content the the many articles on the company, and the many related articles on their vehicles, etc. This could become a factor in what occasions below.
Now, for the thought experiment:
- Some editor might come along and just cut/paste that "good/reasonable" prose you've written, with your sources, into the article. (one editor there on the Talk page has indicated they are close to doing this).
- Let's say that occurs. Now, it is YOUR prose, a Rivian employee wrote, in the Wikipedia article on Rivian, the company. (whether or not you intended it to be so)
- Now, let's say that some outside media (whether well intentioned, or not; whether just doing good investigative reporting, or being a click-bait site) comes along and sees this. Maybe sees a bit of (light or heavy) controversy stirred up in Wikipedia discussion pages, where not all Wikipedia community think this is/was a good idea. They write a story. The lede might be something to the effect: "Rivian xyz-position person Ian _______ wrote parts of the Wikipedia article describing the Rivian company. Wikipedia community is up in arms about it."
- How do you explain this to your boss? Do you want to explain this to your boss?
- How does this go for the company? Is it a PR win? Is it a PR disaster? something in between.
Okay, that does it for my thought experiment. Maybe it is all crazy; perhaps it is P=0.99 it never happens. Maybe I represented something wrong. You decide.
But here's the question for you: "Why open yourself up to this possibility?" "Why expose yourself in this way?"
There may be many alternatives you can control to mitigate this. Here's one I thought of; leaving it here for you to contemplate.
What if instead of writing fully-complete article-ready prose for Wikipedia, as you have done on the Rivian Talk page diff, what if you did something like this:
- Founding, 2009, founder Robert "RJ" Scaringe.[1]
- Scaringe background.[2]
- company renamed a few times: Mainstream Motors (yyyy) to Avera Automotive (yyyy) to Rivian Automotive (in yyyy).[3]
- name background[3]
- company’s initial vehicle concept: fuel-efficient 2+2 coupe[4]
- transition to utility vehicle market, 2013.[2]
- “stealth mode” wrt news and publicity[5]
- investment/growth, 2015[6]
Etc. ... etc.
References
- ^ Buedel, Matt (August 5, 2017). "Rivian quietly brings former Mitsubishi plant back to life". The Journal Star. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
- ^ a b Denham, Ryan (January 9, 2018). "Searching for Clues Into Rivian's Electric Vehicle Future". WGLT. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
- ^ a b Schwartz, Nelson (23 June 2021). "Meet the Man Quietly Building the Tesla of Trucks, With Jeff Bezos Aboard". New York Times. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
- ^ Smith, Steven Cole (May 29, 2010). "Rockledge team plans gas-sipping Avera". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
- ^ Tisshaw, Mark (January 27, 2019). ""How I started my own car firm" - the story of Rivian". Autocar. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
- ^ Friedeberg, Trevor (November 23, 2015). "State's leading R&D environment attracts new private investment". Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
Food for thought.
Three other miscellaneous notes. Promise, I'm trying to be constructive.
- The article uses "dmy" date format. See {Use dmy dates|date=April 2019} in the article. If you are going to provide citations, which as you know I think is very helpful to editors who might choose to use your helpful list of sources, then you really ought to conform your dates to the format the article uses.
- I would lose the multiline citation format, and go with the cite closer to the format I did as an example in one of your citations (above). Most editors nowadays hate the multiline cite format.
- use {{cite news ...}} rather than {{cite web ...}} whenever you have a bonafide news source. It will help you in your quest for a better more accurate article about your company. Use the web form for the ones that can't really be tied to a news source, which defaults to being treated as a secondary source.
Cheers. N2e (talk) 10:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
- User:N2e: Thank you for your thoughtful feedback regarding COI article participation. I appreciate your time and coaching pointers. I am going to look through what I have and begin to list topics and sources on the article talk page as you suggest. I think I will start with news that doesn’t impact the history section for now since there is ongoing discussion on how to handle its current state. Shall I tag you when I have something to include on the talk page, or will you monitor it from your watchlist? Thank you again. IanRivian (talk) 22:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)