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Welcome IanRivian!

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Sincerely, E.Wright1852 (talk) 22:12, 4 March 2021 (UTC)   (Leave me a message)Reply

COI-editor work on improving Rivian article

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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)Reply

Thought experiment on COI-editor writing full paragraphs of prose for Wikipedia

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First, I'll just summarize a few facts as they are, and I suspect we can agree on:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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)
  3. 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."
  4. How do you explain this to your boss? Do you want to explain this to your boss?
  5. 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

  1. ^ Buedel, Matt (August 5, 2017). "Rivian quietly brings former Mitsubishi plant back to life". The Journal Star. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Denham, Ryan (January 9, 2018). "Searching for Clues Into Rivian's Electric Vehicle Future". WGLT. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Smith, Steven Cole (May 29, 2010). "Rockledge team plans gas-sipping Avera". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
  5. ^ Tisshaw, Mark (January 27, 2019). ""How I started my own car firm" - the story of Rivian". Autocar. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
  6. ^ 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)Reply

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)Reply