Talk:Ben Way/Archive 2
Major Change
edit- I have just made a major change to the article after a lot of work and research; it puts the sections into more logical order and removes some surplus one, it also fits better into the Biography Policy of Wikipedia, each piece of information I have included has multiple sources but I have included the fullest and the most reliable, if you need my references for any piece of information just ask. This finishes two weeks of research so I hope you like it! --Julia-The-Little-Lady (talk) 08:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
-Good work made a few changes--Ɔıƃol uʍop ǝpısdn (talk) 17:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Archive Created
editPlease view talk history here /Archive1 page byte size exceeded optimum. --HistoryManager (talk) 03:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Delete/ notability/ Vanity Page???
editIs this person really notable? Most of the references come from his web page or from their own press releases.
see this wikipedia link on self-publishing WP:SELFPUB as this article may be nominated for deletion Parkerparked (talk) 10:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
This has already been talked about many times please see the Archives we have reached WP:CONS and meets WP:N on this and a lot of other aspects of the article, and actually if you look refernces none come from his web pages or press releases. Hope this helps --Julia-The-Little-Lady (talk) 17:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I have just read the archive, it doesn't seem any discussion has taken place. But it is apparent that those wishing to fluff up the article have declared a conflict of interest. Do you really think family and friends should decide whether somebody is noteworthy?
Surely independent administrators/ established editors with no connection to the subject should decide in a proper deletion nomination? Parkerparked (talk) 20:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)#
Actually Wikipedia WP:COI generally have an interest in the subject they are talking about; they key WP:NPOV which I think this article adheres very well to, it uses extensive ref's well within the scope of WP:CS I think your find it hard to get this article nominated for deletion by an administrator as about half a dozen administrators have contributed to it in the past; however Wikipedia is all about collaboration it is absolutely your right to ask an administrator to look at the from a WP:N point of view, on another point of slight irony if your going to use all these WP:SOCK accounts to try and make a point, I would not, an administrator will take you far more seriously if you make consistent constructive edits over a period of time than try and push a personal crusade against one individual, I would almost say you have the WP:COI as you are trying to use Wikipedia for your own ends rather than make constructive edits for the benefit of everyone.--Julia-The-Little-Lady (talk) 23:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Vanity and self promotion by author
editThis author is constantly visiting this site an using it as a self promotion tool. He has no offices in Covent Garden (he traded from this address a few years ago and these premises are empty and are being redeveloped). His "business" Rainmakers has no staff and no premises. He does not have £10 million NAV. He is trying to create the illusion that he is wealthy. The NAV figure should be deleted immediately is is based on what he has reported to Newspapers and ITV gameshows. This false promotion is designed by the author to mislead investors.VentureCapitalist (talk) 05:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome to your views however Wikipedia relies on references, unless your can provide them your changes have to be reverted please read WP:CITE
--Julia-The-Little-Lady (talk) 09:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Response from Ben Way
editHi Guys I have just seen this and wanted to give you a personal response; I am sorry you feel this way about me, I have always tried my best even though sometimes I get it wrong, if I have upset you in some way I will try my best to remedy it, but I wanted to clarify a few of the points you have made. The Rainmakers have been trading for almost 10 years; but what people fail to realize is that the value I hold does not come through the Rainmakers but personal shareholdings in over 30 privately owned companies. The Rainmakers itself is only a support company, it does have staff but they are support staff for me including business development, PA, accounting support and admiration. You are correct that we no longer have our offices in the Piazza of Covent Garden as we were brought out of our lease by Apple a few years ago to make way for their flag ship store; we now have two offices, one in Soho and one in Floral Street in Covent Garden. In regards to our offices in the USA, we had planned to open a fully functional US office and we had a fully functional office with staff there for a year; however I had a visa issue which was outside of my control so even though we still have offices in Florida they are running at minimal capacity. However hopefully my visa issues have now been resolved so it will become a fully functioning arm of the Rainmakers again. As for net worth, I hate this as much as you; I have never disclosed my net worth, the estimation of £10m came from a journalist looking at the fact that I have over 30 privately held companies and most of them have a valuation of over a million pounds; what you find in the media is that once one media outlet has a figure they all use it. There is actually no independent way or calculation for net worth it is really just a guess, even the Sunday Times Rich List is very spurious. Also the Take me out was the worse TV show I ever did, I had no idea that they were going to do that awful net worth thing or concentrate on my wealth, it was only once I got to the studio that I found out they were going to present me like that. I hope this clarifies everything for you.
Ben Way
Questions on claimed projects and references
edit21:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)Bullsniffer (talk)Mtr Way claims he consulted with the US govt on 3G technology although there are no dates and the reference 2 to an allegedly supportive article is a 404. On his company site makingrain.com he makes clumsy reference to The US OFfice of the Chief Economist. Leaving aside the question of why a US agency would seek advice/evidence from an individual with no provenance in mobile technologies, the OCE is an executive body of the US Department of Agriculture and has no remit for technology. It's own website (http://www.usda.gov/oce/about_oce/index.htm)) lists no such project.
Mr Way also claims involvement with BT on a RTTS consultancy to the EU. The RTTS body sat between 2006 and 2008 and consisted of 16 members of European regions and a steering committee looking at infrasttructure issues to support regional innovation. The two UK representatives were Mr Peter Parsons of Technology Enterprise Kent and Mr Reza Zardeh from teh Belgian office of Yorkshire Forward. The committe records no submission by BT or by Rainmakers or Mr Way. A Freedom of Information request has been sent to Innovating Regions in Europe requesting any information rregarding a formal relationship between RTTS and Mr Way. (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ire/Innovating-regions/www.innovating-regions.org/network/whoswho/resultse5f2.html?sub_id=8])
All of the references in this document do not point to source material but simple to articles in the media that reference comments made by Mr Way himself without independent validation. As such they should be regarded as spurious unless corroboration is provided that isn't a media interview by Mr Way. I can see no reason why this biography shouldn't be deleted Bullsniffer (talk) 21:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bullsniffer (talk • contribs) 21:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Hey Bull Sniffer, always happy to clarify; I have now changed the source for the White House reference but to answer your questions:
White house, at this time I was known in the industry for my mobile expertise(We wrote the mobile business plan for Match.com) I was invited to the embassy of the USA in London to talk about the differences between the UK and US in mobile(as back then they were far behind) I was one of 10 participants in that meeting and got on very well with the Under Sectary for Economics Robert Shapiro; we remained in touch and he invited me to the White House(The executive office of the president of the United States to give its correct name) to consult to him on the roll-out of 3G technology in the USA.
The RTTS as you can imagine had a huge working group of about 30 people from the UK, Peter and Reza were the ones that took our recommendations to the formal board in Europe; in fact if you do get a response under the freedom of information act can you post it here as it would be useful for my credentials pack.
One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is that all information does come from sourced information; the point of this is that the journalist is supposed to do the research into whether it is true or not; now most don'd but the reality is im not going to say something to a journalist that is not true, because that would massively undermine my credibility. But it works both ways, journalist make lots of mistakes that I then have to correct!
If you are really that worried about the truth of anything is this article contact admin@makingrain.com and my PA will provide you with a credentials pack which contains amongst many other things(its 500 pages) letters from Robert Shapiro.