Talk:Comverse Technology

Neutrality

While this articles seems to have the information right from what I know, it sounds opinionated. The phrasing could be improved, and references to the claims should be added.

nuffin 12:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Since August 5th a number of edits have been taken out by author YFeldman (aka YakirFeldman) always thought Wikipedia was about facts and sourced opinions. Simply deleting any of these for the sake of the good name of your company (Yakir Feldman is a Comverse Marketing director [1]) isn't the Wikipedia way. I invite anyone aiming to censor work from others to stop this and help create an objective page, eventhough its contents may sometimes reflect sourced opinions or facts that are not beneficial for the company discussed [2].

martijnb 16:47, 26 august 2009 (UTC)

Hi martijnb,

I am not a marketing director (thanks for the promotion, though...)

I am a plain entry-level marketing writer who happened to look at the Comverse text on Wikipedia one day.

As I have explained in a long note to Ipmatrix, I rapidly discovered that every edit I tried to make to the Comverse text -- minor or otherwise, was simply undone.

I would like nothing better than to invest serious effort into writing a full, truthful, balanced entry that we can all live with -- but what is the point if it will immediately be undone?

For that reason, I would like to (preferably offline) do some work to fashion a text that we will all be happy with, and end this unpleasant "undo" cycle.

If you are open to such an idea, please contact me directly at yakir.feldman@comverse.com.

Yours,

Yakir —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakirfeldman (talk • contribs) 06:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

< See User talk:Yakirfeldman and User talk:Martijnb and User talk:Ipmatrix for many more of these exchanges >

Followed the links to the Comverse article from a conspiracy website, using questionable articles from the height of the post 9/11 paranoia era. Can't find any records that the "top secret investigation" ever happened, or that Comverse was in any way formally accused by anyone of anything. Can anyone provide data to contradict that? So either it was simply shoddy journalism by Fox (quelle surprise!) or else the "secret investigation" found Comverse innocent...secretly! And the link to La Monde takes you to a page that requires subscription and payment to view. The free extract does not mention Comverse.

Mothra1961 (talk) 20:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the most biased, skewed, and poorly done articles I've ever seen. The whole company's history needs to be represented, not just the recent negative parts. Events must be summarized in regular prose; insertion of chunks of SEC jargon is not appropriate. Sources do not always have to be attributed inline in the text; footnotes are fine for that. Formatting and style violations abound. Will start trying to improve. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Have done so. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Comverse Technology/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Folklore1 (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC) Started review. Folklore1 (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
	1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	see notes below--all resolved
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
	2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	no recent disputes
	6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	non-free image removed
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	2 relevant pictures with suitable captions
	7. Overall assessment.

Kobi Alexander image

The source of the Kobi Alexander picture is unclear. I was able to follow only one of the links associated with the image back to its source, which had an Associated Press byline. If ownership of the image by the FBI cannot be verified, this image should be removed from the article. The other two images have Share Alike 3.0 certificates from the photographer. Folklore1 (talk) 20:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I found the original 'source', an FBI Most Wanted poster from 29 August 2006 that is archived here. Where the FBI got the image from isn't stated, but it seems a bit unlikely that an FBI agent actually took it. Does the FBI's publishing of it on the poster turn it into public domain, regardless of its actual origin? The Haaretz credit of the image to the AP came a month later. Does it imply that the AP actually took the picture originally or simply that they pulled the image off the AP wire? I'll keep looking to see if I can find out more. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Unless you can identify the source of this picture, so that its fair use status can be verified, it should be removed. Then it won't be an obstacle to GA status for the article. If the necessary info becomes available at a later date, you can add the picture back at that time. Folklore1 (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I found this Wall Street Journal story that credits the photo to Associated Press/David Karp, the clearest indication yet that the image is not really public domain. I've put it up for deletion at Commons and have commented it out in this article, pending the outcome at Commons. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Well done. That resolves this question. Folklore1 (talk) 12:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Plural or singular

Through most of the article, Comverse is treated as a singular entity. Three exceptions need revision to be consistent.

• Lead section, third paragraph: "restate their" should be "restate its".
• Early successes: "and were selling" should be "and was selling".
• Continuing difficulties: "still were anticipating" should be "still was anticipating" Folklore1 (talk) 15:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point, these instances are now fixed. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Labeling in Subsidiaries section

The list format of the Subsidiaries section starts the description of subsidiaries with a boldfaced name and colon, followed an unbold name. This style is hard to read, as well as redundant. I suggest you get rid of the colon and the unbolded name, so that the boldfaced name becomes part of the sentence. Folklore1 (talk) 15:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, your way is much better. Now done. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

"ComSor was active in the late 1990s and early 2000s, ComSor was" needs to be revised. Folklore1 (talk) 13:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Now fixed as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Technical jargon

Most of the technical terms in the article are explained for the reader within the text or with links to other Wikipedia articles. However, there are still a few strange words and uppercase letter combinations for which us less technical readers need help. In the Subsidiaries section, please define "IP", "IMS", "converged billing" and "converged network". In the Continuing difficulties section, what does "accounts fees" mean? Folklore1 (talk) 18:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've provided links for the ones in the first section, and added a needed possessive for the last one ("accountants' fees"). Wasted Time R (talk) 02:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Grammar revisions

In the following places, I noticed awkward or confusing grammar, which needs to be corrected.

• History: "with a $20 million valuation, with the company using the money so gained as a final round of funding"
• Growth with wireless: "where it completed with" Should "completed" be changed to "competed"?
• Growth with wireless: "included once" is used twice in the same sentence, technically correct but awkward in appearance.
• Continuing difficulties: "who had still be operating as consultants"
• Continuing difficulties: "company said it pursue legal action"
• Continuing difficulties: "the ongoing management crisis preventing" Folklore1 (talk) 15:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
• Options backdating: "when Comverse stock had been trading at prices". Should "at prices" be "at higher prices"? Folklore1 (talk) 16:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yikes, some of these passages made no sense at all! Too much moving of text around without getting 'editorial distance' later, I guess. I have fixed them (the final one meant to say "at low prices", since that increase's the option's worth). Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Redundant text and links

In the "Growth with wireless" section, contains text and a link recycled from the second paragraph of the lead section: "Comverse was one of the most prominent success stories in Israel's hi-tech industry". Folklore1 (talk) 15:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to reword the instance in the lead a bit. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

We still have two problems here with redundancy:

(1) The link in "Isreal's hi-tech industry" does not need to be repeated. You can fix this by simply removing the brackets where this phrase is used in "Growth with wireless".

I think I have to disagree with you on this one. WP:REPEATLINK says you can repeat a link when "later occurrence is a long way from the first". That's the case here, as there are 17 paragraphs between the mention in the lead and the mention in the body. If someone didn't click on it in the lead but became interested in what Israel's hi-tech industry is like by reading the article, they would be forced to hunt back through the whole page to find the original link. Also note that several other links in the lead are repeated when they first occur in the body, including Jacob Alexander, short message service center, options backdating, etc.

Agreed. Folklore1 (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

(2) "Comverse was one of the most prominent success stories" and "Comverse became one of the more visible success stories" look too much alike. You're just repeating yourself. The text in "Growth with wireless" needs to be reworded, preferably in a way that tells us a little more. In the cited reference, Comverse was described as "one of the flagships of Israel's high-tech industry". While such a dramatic phrase isn't something a Wikipedia editor would use in his own text, he might quote somebody else. Folklore1 (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't want another direct quote, since there's one from Bloomberg soon after this, but I've added additional sources and expanded the body text to "Comverse was one of the most prominent and profitable success stories in Israel's hi-tech industry, with both Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post referring to it as a flagship of that industry.[14][36][25]" Wasted Time R (talk) 11:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Good solution. I like it better than my own suggestion. Folklore1 (talk) 12:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

$500 million in accounts fees

The cited reference does not support "some $500 million in accountants fees". However, "Comverse plummets 32% on mass layoff announcement" in Haaretz.com, by Nir Zalik, reported a $500 million market value loss on a single day. Is Nir Zalik's article the reference that should have been cited? Folklore1 (talk) 18:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

That source is the right one, it says: "The workers also asked hard questions about exactly how half a billion dollars had been spent on accountants fixing the company's financial statements for the years since 2006, when a giant stock-option backdating scandal blew up." A number of other newspaper stories about this period also talk about how expensive revising all the past years' financial statements has been. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Citations

The article was thoroughly documented, but one citation has become a dead link, identified by the ref name, "dgms". Not a problem, as other references cited in the article provided enough information to verify the text where "dgms" was cited.

Another citation (for $500 million in accounts fees) seems to have identified the wrong reference, but this information was given in a previous reference. Folklore1 (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Overall

Excellent work. A few minor improvements for GA status. Those are:

• Grammar corrections, as described in notes above.
• Determine fair use status for the image of ex-CEO, or remove it from the article. Folklore1 (talk) 19:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the review! I have begun making changes and responding above. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

See the additional notes I've added to the following talk subjects above.

• Labeling in Subsidiaries section
• Redundant links and text
• Kobi Alexander image

The additional notes describe the last revisions needed. All other issues have been resolved. Folklore1 (talk) 15:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've tried to address all these remaining issues now. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Mention of specific conspiracy theories

Wasted time has immediately deleted my appendage to the conspiracy theory note at the end of the Growth in Wireless section. I had added:

</ref> For instance, it is conjectured that Comverse technology protected Israeli espionage activities in the US, as well as covert operations involved in enabling 9/11 as a false-flag psy-op. Similar insinuations were made regarding the London underground train bombings of July 2005, where Verint were said to have got contracts for security and CCTV installations for the London underground in Sept. 2004. Immediately preceding is a reference to conspiracy theories, but not to the one that 9/11 conspiracy theorists have written about regarding Comverse and 9/11.

Wasted time wrote: "rv - the "details" of lurid conspiracy theories belong in articles about those theories, not a real article about a real company based on real facts)"

There are many problems with this. "Details" - I did not go into details but gave only the main line of the theories regarding a Comverse role in 9/11-as-false-flag-operation.

"Lurid" is a value-loaded term with no substantive content. The same applies to "real facts." What is real to me may be lurid to wasted time. What is a real fact to wasted time may seem absurd to me. That isn't relevant nor is it a reason to censor other views.

Why should theories about Comverse not appear under the Comverse article but only under the theories article? Millions of people have only heard of Comverse in connection with these theories. They are notable -- for that section of the public, certainly the most notable aspect of the company's profile -- so they shouldn't be scrubbed.

Anyone wishing to scrub these theories from wikipedia could argue that the theory of Comverse involvement is too minor a detail in the immense mass of data composing the corpus of material on 9/11-as-inside-job to be mentioned under that topic. Indeed, Comverse is not mentioned at 9/11_conspiracy_theories. It would have to go either under the article Main theories or Other theories. The suspected involvement of Comverse apparently has not been thought to be a main theory; the scope is of the treatment is quite limited, with the two articles together only adding up to about 5200 words.

Moreover, it is uncanny that Comverse has come under suspicion not only for 9/11 but also for the 7/7 London Tube bombings. That alone is a reason to cite these theories under the Comverse article, rather than at the 9/11 and 7/7 articles.

More often cited regarding 9/11 is the Odigo warning. Odigo is an Israeli company purchased by Comverse in 2002. Roughly half the Wikipedia article on Odigo is entitled "Odigo and the 9/11 investigation." If you search Wikipedia on Odigo warning, you are redirected to 9/11_conspiracy_theories, but there is no mention of Odigo there. Apparently it has been scrubbed.

So wasting time's reasoning is just a rationalization or brush-off. If the material were posted at 9/11_conspiracy_theories it would be deleted there too. JPLeonard (talk) 05:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's focus on Wikipedia's bedrock principle. The text you inserted suggests that Comverse, and the people of Comverse, are guilty of secret, terrible crimes. But there is no WP:Verification or WP:Reliable sources to back such suggestions, only some fevered conspiracy theory books. There was one Fox News/Le Monde report that linked Comverse to U.S. government backdoors for electronic eavesdropping, and even though there was never follow-up on that from those or other mainstream news sources, it is included in the article. But again, there are no mainstream, reliable sources that link Comverse or the people of Comverse to the terror attacks you have mentioned. Thus, it doesn't belong. I would also argue that WP:BLPGROUP applies here too to some extent. Whether this belongs in articles about those conspiracy theories is up for the editors that deal with those swamps to decide. The text here does state that Comverse has had the attention of conspiracy theorists, so if the reader is really desperate to find out what, they can do a web search and come up with all sorts of conspiracy junk. As for your finding it "uncanny" that Comverse has been the subject of two conspiracy theories, that's hardly surprising at all. Conspiracy theorists all use a common set of tropes and it's not hard to figure out which one Comverse falls into. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

This is an article about Comverse. The brief mention that "allegations have become a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists" is sufficient. Further discussion or expansion of the article with examples of suspected conspiracies would not be appropriate, because that would be wandering too far from the article's primary subject. Folklore1 (talk) 20:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the conspiracy theory addition due to undue weight being given to one persons opinion, there were no page numbers given so it fails on wp:v and the publisher does not seem very credible for statements of fact, so again undue comes into play. Darkness Shines (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

References

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