Talk:Synapse Group

Previous edits by user Hugeshantz were removed due to being a mixture of the editor's opinion, nonneutral, cherry-picked, and represent original research, using noncurrent and nonneutral opinion piece columns, directly against Wikipedia policies (WP:NOR, WP:CHERRYPICKING, and WP:NPOV).

The editor trying to add content apparently performed original research to write the statement "Synapse Group receives nearly universally negative reviews due to unethical and misleading business practices, including repeated unauthorized charges to customers’ credit cards." Sources used to back this up are a mix of unreliable and non-noteworthy articles and the content was cherry-picked to assert the author's opinion rather than fact. The author wrote that the company receives "nearly universally negative reviews", citing Yelp, which is composed of anonymous, self-published and unverifiable user reviews which should not be used on Wikipedia articles as representations of facts about businesses. Further, at a cursory glance one may find that various user review sites have a mix of both positive and negative reviews, from a very small sample of the likely numbers total customers of the company (as represented by subscription revenues reflected in Meredith's financial statements), and the company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. The author further provided Yahoo Local and Mapquest links which go to pages that just republish the very same Yelp reviews. So, the statement that it has "nearly universally negative reviews" is untrue, and non-neutral. The author further reports on a class-action lawsuit filed against the company in one state, without basis for the relative noteworthiness of the fact (many large companies have litigation ongoing, constantly, without it being sufficiently noteworthy to include in WP articles about them). The author cherry-picked the fact of the lawsuit without also reporting that it has been settled, as court news websites are reporting (which probably negates the noteworthiness of the claim, as ostensibly, the company would be complying with some of the claims made against them). Finally, the author declares the company to have "unethical practices" based on it being "investigated and documented by various publications", but only a NYT opinion-editorial from eight years previous, not an investigative piece, is cited which is based in part on an interview with one attorney and citing unverified user reviews from two other unacceptable sources. Also is cited another op-ed written 6 yrs ago from a small, local paper, which cites the same NYT article as its source, along with Googling the company. The authors assert that they consider automatic renewals "unethical", yet this is based upon opinion rather than established fact. As such, the edits by HugeShantz appear to be biased and were removed. WmLawson (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Mr. Lawson. I am a warrior for truth and justice; on an entirely relentless pursuit to prevent corporations such as Synapse Group from abusing their customers and misrepresenting their businesses online via paid freelancers devoid of moral cognition. Your allegations against me and my edits are false. See the following:

Regarding Original Research; per Wikipedia guidelines,

“Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form.” Also, “Editors may also use electronic media.”

The edit cites only sources that are published and available to the public, per Wikipedia guidelines. Per Wikipedia guidelines, electronic media is appropriate. The edit states that negative reviews exist. That is a fact. The edit makes no statement as to whether or not the information contained in the reviews is true. That is left for the reader to evaluate.

Regarding Neutral Point of View; per Wikipedia guidelines,

[Each article must] fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources.

The viewpoints expressed regarding the class-action lawsuit were sourced via an internet search of “Synapse Group class-action lawsuit”. The viewpoints were not selected based on any point of view; the first three sources from the search were chosen, all of which were reliable, per Wikipedia guidelines.

Regarding Cherrypicking; per Wikipedia guidelines,

[Cherrypicking is] selecting information without including contradictory or significant qualifying information from the same source and consequently misrepresenting what the source says.

The information included from the cited sources was not cherrypicked, according to Wikipedia guidelines. The information in the edit is an accurate representation of what the sources collectively communicate. For example, consumer reviews are overwhelmingly negative, so it is accurate to state the negative complaints made by consumers in the Wikipedia article. Hugeshantz (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Hugeshantz, thank you for discussing these points on the Talk page here, after months of requests for you to do so. However, the point of discussing items here is to explain the basis for article edits, and to try to come to a consensus before reintroducing disagreed-upon material. So, I will revert out your changes once more as we discuss the material here.

I'll try to address each of your points, but I would recommend that you read Wikipedia's guidelines more thoroughly. I'll decline to address your statements referencing "paid freelancers" and "moral cognition" although those asides seem to underscore that the edits you have been adding are indeed non-neutral and may reflect a bias on your part.

Regarding the Wikipedia principle of "No Original Research" (WP:NOR), it is fine to cite reliable sources and quote conclusions that they state. But, if you cite some random content published somewhere, and then collect it together along with your opinions/conclusions, that becomes "original research" that is not allowed in writing Wikipedian articles. When you have previously stated that the company has "amassed overwhelmingly negative online reviews" or "nearly universal negative reviews", you are drawing conclusions from data and stating your opinions. The data that you have cited for this is Yelp reviews and Google reviews. However, neither of those sources are accepted on Wikipedia -- according to Wikipedia's guidelines on notability for organizations and companies (please read WP:COMPANY), these are categorized as trivial sources, not noteworthy. It states: "Be significant: brief and routine reviews (including Zagat) do not qualify."

If one only selects facts based upon a biased viewpoint, rather than "fairly representing all viewpoints", that's when it becomes cherrypicking. For instance, when you choose to claim that the company's reviews are overwhelmingly or universally negative, you were not noting that there are actually some 5-star and 4-star reviews at both your Yelp and Google sources, among the reviews there, and you're choosing not to include that the company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. So, "universal" or "overwhelmingly" are technically false statements which are demonstrably non-neutral, as you are intending to cherrypick solely negative content in order to try to make the company look bad.

It is fine to include negative content about subjects on Wikipedia, but it needs to be factually quoted, from acceptable sources, and it needs to be sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in an article.

Further, on the cherry-picking point, you chose to report upon only the plaintiff allegations in the class action suit, but not the company's statements in return that may have rebutted the allegations - for instance, it appears that California may have increased requirements in making print in notices larger for promotional offers, and the company may have unknowingly been in technical violation subsequent to that legal change, and this resulted in them being sued. But, the entire class-action subtopic would appear to be non-noteworthy anyway, making this a moot point.

It is not accepted in Wikipedia to cite non-noteworthy or unreliable opinion blogs, as you have done previously and currently. TopClassActions.com is not a reliable nor notable source, but appears to be a blog about class action lawsuits. Likewise, truthinadvertising.org and classaction.org are also insufficient sources to establish that the content is noteworthy, and might also be considered non-neutral and trivial sources. If one or more major media publications (significant sources) decided this was noteworthy and reported upon it, such as the Wall Street Journal, or New York Times, or CNN, then it would perhaps qualify. Simply listing multiple different unreliable or non-notable sources as supportive references does not establish notability - doing that is referred to as over-citing WP:OVERCITE. Over-citing does not collectively establish noteworthiness.

As I mentioned previously here on the Talk page, Wikipedia is not intended as a listing of all comprehensive facts, necessarily. It is a reference for notable facts. Many companies have lawsuits, but only fairly noteworthy ones rise to the level of encyclopedia-article-level notability. Imagine if one included all lawsuits involving Verizon or Microsoft in their respective Wiki articles? The articles would become so long they would be unusable! But, many of those facts are likely fairly trivial compared with overall information about the companies. For this reason, only significant or notable information is included in articles. We must apply some criteria in selecting whether particular facts are worthy of inclusion in an article, and the criteria is based upon using reliable independent sources. Noteworthiness may be established by articles from major newspapers, books, magazines, or videos from news outlets, etc.

WmLawson (talk) 20:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

WmLawson, there are lots of problems with your logic here, but let's start with sources. You state, "truthinadvertising.org and classaction.org are also insufficient sources to establish that the content is noteworthy." However, you don't state why. Is that your opinion? If so, that is no better than the opinions you falsely accuse me of sharing. It is a fact that a class-action suit was filed against Synapse Group due to their unethical business practices. I have cited the most reliable sources available. They are appropriate per Wikipedia guidelines.

Also, you previously criticized my edits for not citing enough sources, and you are now criticizing them for over-citing. You clearly are on a quest to bury the truth about Synapse Group's deceptive and unethical business practices, and no level of appropriateness in my edits will satisfy you.

Hugeshantz (talk) 21:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the timeline, it looks like you are consistently posting content that doesn't follow Wikipedia guidelines, despite numerous explanations from WmLawson. You appear to be conducting tenditious editing WP:TE and making personal attacks WP:PA, which is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Your edits (and your self-described motivations) appear to be non-neutral WP:NPOV. Neutrality is one of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia, so articles here need to follow that guideline. It's fine to have a bias, but the content itself needs to come from reliable sources.

You're supposed to be discussing disputed content here on the Talk page to reach a consensus, rather than going in and adding edits back yourself (which could be seen as edit warring).

The responsibility for providing a valid reason for edits is on the editor, rather than the person reverting out the edits because they don't meet the guidelines. But the reasons for reverting out these disputed edits have been laid out pretty clearly.

For example, in the Customer Dissatisfaction subsection you added, you are stating your own conclusions while citing reviews from Yelp and Google (which, as has been explained, are not acceptable sources on Wikipedia because they are from review aggregators and are user-generated content--see WP:UGC. It looks like you added this section back without providing citations to establish the notability and reliability of the content. User reviews and op-ed pieces are not acceptable sources in and of themselves.

As for the content about class-action lawsuits, your citations appear to be all from potentially questionable sources. But the main issue is that these sources do not appear to meet or establish their noteworthiness. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, a listing of all facts without consideration of their relative importance, or a forum. So for the lawsuit to be sufficiently noteworthy, it should probably be covered by at least one major media source first, such as a major newspaper or news organization (such as CNNN or NBC News). In other words, is the fact about a lawsuit prominent or noteworthy enough for inclusion? A source establishing its noteworthiness needs to be added, rather than simply stating it's your opinion that it should be added.

CapnPhantasm (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

CapnPhantasm, the source cited regarding the class-action lawsuit against Synapse Group is Truth in Advertising. Truth In Advertising is a respected investigative journalism non-profit. It does not fit the description of any questionable or self-published sources per Wikipedia guidelines, and therefore is permissible.

Also, per Wikipedia guidelines, “Reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.” WP:RS

I also included the comment that Synapse Group denied the allegations of the lawsuit, per a decision published by the San Diego County Superior Court. The court decision is considered a reliable primary source of information per Wikipedia guidelines.

“ court decisions and the majority and some other opinions issued with them… are examples of primary sources.” WP:RSLAW

Regarding the deceptive business practices, per Wikipedia guidelines, I have cited an article from The New York Times that describes the business practices of Synapse Group. This is a major, well-respected, national publication and fits the requirements of reliable sources per Wikipedia guidelines.

Hugeshantz (talk) 17:35, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hugeshantz, I believe you keep missing some of the issues I've raised. First, you keep adding back contended text before attempting to gain consensus here -- it is actually your obligation to persuade others here that the content should be added to the article, BEFORE you revert yet again. So, I am reverting it back. Please follow the Wikipedia guidelines to discuss your reasoning here and see if we can reach a consensus, if possible. Stating your point and then adding the disputed content without us attempting to reach agreement is perpetuating your flaunting of the proper process, particularly as we've pointed out very clear issues with what you have repeatedly added.

Second, the criticism about reliability involved the mix of sources you've cited at times. But, the other repeated issue here that you have not adequately addressed from my perspective is the issue of noteworthiness. A posting on a consumer interest blog does not necessarily in of itself establish that the information is significant enough to be added into an article. I pointed out to you that many companies have many lawsuits, but simply the fact of a lawsuit, or a settlement of a lawsuit, is not in of itself necessarily noteworthy. Imagine if we added in all lawsuits involving Microsoft, or Time-Warner Cable - the article would be so long, and so crammed full of trivia that it would be rendered unusuable!

You have not addressed this central concern.

Your source does not particularly establish noteworthiness. The edits seem intended to give undue weight to a class action lawsuit that has been settled, and the sources do not establish proper prominence. You appear to be arguing that any and everything mentioning the company should be included in the article, and on that basis we might also include quotes from these legal commentators about a frivolous class action against the company that was squashed by the court, along with some of the memorable quotes from it (|source).

I would be uninclined to quibble if you provided one or more (acceptable, reliable) sources to indicate that this was prominent enough for inclusion.

The additional content you've now added along with your own subtitle, "Deceptive Business Practices", likewise is not considered sufficiently noteworthy and acceptable under Wikipedia's standards because the article is an op-ed column, and adding in your own interpretation/opinion in the subtitle is not representative of a neutral POV. I pointed out these issues with the very first post from September of last year at the top of this talk page, which you've ignored and now re-introduced. Please review WP:STANDARDS and note that while news organizations like the New York Times are typically acceptable that is only the case if the cited source is not an op-ed.

WmLawson (talk) 19:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

WmLawson, your misbehavior with regards to the edits of the page for Synapse Group raises very serious conflict of interest concerns. Consider the following facts.

1. You created the page for Synapse Group in 2012, including overwhelmingly positive information about the company and zero criticism.

2. For over 8 years you have devotedly guarded the page for Synapse Group, including additional information casting the company in a purely positive light, and zero information that includes contrasting points of view.

3. You have consistently reverted out any changes to the Synapse Group page that include such contrasting points of view.

4. Your LinkedIn page identifies you as a professional editor who oversees content development.

It is clear that your motives in editing the Synapse Group page are not to facilitate an accurate representation of the company, but rather to protect the company and ensure that the laundry list of destructive business practices they are engaged in never come to light.

Specifically, I am concerned that you are in direct violation of two critical Wikipedia policies.

1. "If you are being paid for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must declare who is paying you, who the client is, and any other relevant role or relationship." WP:COI WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE Your behavior is typical of a paid editor, yet you have disclosed nothing.

2. "Do not edit articles about yourself, your family or friends, your organization, your clients, or your competitors." WP:PSCOI If you are a paid editor, the act of editing this page is in itself a very serious violation of Wikipedia guidelines.

What is your motive for guarding this page so fiercely? Why have you been doing so for 8 years? Why have your previous edits included only overwhelmingly positive information about the company? Why have you reverted out any negative edits about the company? Is it just a coincidence that you are a professional editor per your LinkedIn profile?

Given these very serious concerns, I will be including my edits once again until you provide an adequate explanation for your motives.

Hugeshantz (talk) 10:55, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Hugeshantz, your recent response to WmLawon constitutes a personal attack, which is against Wikipedia policies. WP:NPA You make an ad hominem argument, defined as "A fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." These types of attacks do not answer the criticisms about the content you have tried to add. This is not okay.

You also seem to be consistently defacing the article and ignoring administrator warnings. You need to discuss proposed changes reasonably before adding contested content back in over and over without proper discussion and without following Wikipedia policies.

Dee Roberts (talk) 14:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Not that it has anything to do with the criticisms I have enumerated multiple times, but I happen to have been editing hundreds of Wikipedia pages for some years now, including reverting out material that does not meet standards, is improperly cited, or which constitutes defacement. I'm not sure how my work as a professional editor has been characterized as something nefarious, other than exposing my deep prejudice towards bad grammar. I happen to have an interest in historical topics as well as corporate history, and I am not an employee of Synapse Group. I became interested in the company and its business methods after attending a conference presentation once many years ago, provided by a founder, Jay Walker.

Overall, I believe in giving back to the community in terms of helping to build and maintain this source of knowledge, and I'm not thrilled with it getting compromised by people with an agenda beyond adding sufficiently noteworthy, reliable content. It boils down to: Wikipedia articles are supposed to be neutral. When one adds in subtitles like "Deceptive Business Practices" or "universally negative reviews" that are not from reliable, acceptable sources, one is performing "original research" WP:NOR and including personal opinion. Rather than continuing to do that, it might be more productive to create a blog outside of Wikipedia, where one may have carte blanche to express one's self however one desires.

WmLawson (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2020 (UTC)