Lexjuris

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Hello, Lexjuris, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of your recent edits have not conformed to Wikipedia's verifiability policy, and has been or will be removed. Wikipedia articles should refer only to facts and interpretations that have been stated in print or on reputable websites or in other media. Always remember to provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. Wikipedia also has a related policy against including original research in articles. Additionally, all new biographies of living people must contain at least one reliable source.

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January 2018

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be repeatedly reverting or undoing other editors' contributions at Sholam Weiss. Although this may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is known as "edit warring" and is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, as it often creates animosity between editors. Instead of reverting, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to be blocked from editing Wikipedia. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a block. Thank you. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

--Lexjuris (talk) 01:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Hi, thanks for the info. I noticed that this was an old article, and some of the basic facts were incorrect. For example, the article stated that Weiss "looted" 450 million dollars. However, it also said that the court ordered him to pay "restitution" of 125 million. Restitution is based on losses. If he had looted 450M, the restitution would be 450M. Further, the article did not describe the crime. "Looting" is not a statutory legal term. There is "embezzlement" and "theft". He was not charged or convicted of these either. He was convicted of money laundering and wire fraud. It is a complicated case. Further, there have been new developments. His restitution has been fully paid. I reference the court order for that. He is still challenging the amount of losses the court found, attributable to him (125M). I reference the pending cases. A federal court reviewing letters from the Austrian chancellor found that only the President can give him satisfaction for outstanding U.S. assurances for a full re-sentencing given during extradition. This is also relatively new, and I reference the court order. So, in short, there were a number of basic errors, some admissions, and some new developments, in an old article. I noticed it has been a dormant article for some time. Lexjuris (talk) 01:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Fixing the wording can definitely be appropriate, however you removed the dollar amount and the reference that goes along with it. In addition you twice used a reference that just said "lbid" which is meaningless. I am happy to see you interested in improving the article but I suggest you read WP:BLP and WP:RS and they will help you edit the page within the guidelines of wikipedia. - Galatz^Talk 01:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

--Lexjuris (talk) 03:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC) "Ibid", just refers to the previous reference. It tells the reader to refer to the last reference. What money amounts are you referring to? The 450M is incorrect for the reasons stated. That is more than all the liabilities of National Heritage to policyholders, before considering the assets recovered. The amount of "intended and actual" losses to Weiss was 125M. That includes "intended losses", which is the bulk of the losses imposed, which I do not address in my corrections.Lexjuris (talk) 03:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Citing sources#Repeated citations on how to properly repeat citations. - Galatz^Talk 03:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

References move about as the article changes. You cannot assume what position a particular reference will be in. See Help:Referencing for beginners --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

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--NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:07, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Use Talk:Sholam Weiss to discuss how to properly implement changes. Right now, you are wiping out required references. Do so again and I will have to block you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

--Lexjuris (talk) 03:36, 5 January 2018 (UTC)What "required reference"? Some of the facts are either outdated or incorrect. For example, the statement that Weiss looted 450 million dollars is factually incorrect. "Looting" is not a legal term, and there is not conviction for this. There are convictions for theft and embezzlement, but he was not convicted of these. As the original first few lines of the article state, he was convicted of money laundering, and a restitution was imposed of 125 million. If he had stole 450, the restitution would be 450. In any case, that amount is more than the liability the company had to its shareholders, before you consider its assets, according to the insurance journal "Best" article that is referenced. Also, much of the changes are new developments that have not been addressed. Lexjuris (talk) 03:36, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

You removed references with these series of edits. Fix the any potential errors carefully one at a time, taking care not to delete references and then add to the article, adding proper references. Use the article's talk page to suggest and add specific changes if you are unsure how to do this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:45, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Lexjuris (talk) 04:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Okay, I looked at the references of the original article regarding the 450 million that you point out.  There are two articles. The NYT article does not mention the 450 million.  It does, however, note the restitution judgment against Weiss for 125 million.  It also mentions a civil judgement against him for 339 million, which was based on the 125 million of losses (civil cases often triple the original loss amount).  In any event, the amount of lost attributable to Weiss is 125 million, which the article clearly states.   (Also, the restitution has been fully paid, and the civil judgment is expired.)  The second source is an FBI statement.  It says that the total losses of National Heritage was over 450 million.  This is the amount the insurance regulators had to cover - all the liabilities, before they began recovering assets.  The insurance journal, "Best" (referenced in the original article), states that the amount is a bit under 400 million. In any event, this short statement does not address what amount of losses that Weiss himself was responsible.  That amount, as the court determined, was 125M, which included both "intended" as well as actual losses.  Therefore, this statement in the article is factually incorrect: "Weiss' theft from the National Heritage Life Insurance Co. was the largest in history caused by criminal misconduct, according to the FBI, with the loss exceeding $450 million".  The references do not support it.  Weiss was not convicted of "theft", and he did not steal $450 million.  Also, the losses of National Heritage have been recalculated because of the recovery of assets.  So the 450 figure is no longer inaccurate.Lexjuris (talk) 04:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Lexjuris (talk) 04:28, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Please advise, considering the inaccuracy of the edits you pointed out (re "theft" of 450 million), how do I edit it without it simply being undone again??Lexjuris (talk) 04:28, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

It's best to post this at Talk:Sholam Weiss. Once you explain your edits there, people will hopefully join in the conversation, and you can find consensus. If you can't reach an agreement with the other editor(s), you can make use of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. The dispute resolution noticeboard is one option. It offers a way for a neutral moderator to mediate the dispute. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I dont know enough about the facts to know the accuracy, my issues were with the WP:BLP violations it caused. You seem knowledgeable on the topic itself, however your knowledge is not a source, you need a WP:RS to support it. - Galatz^Talk 14:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

--Lexjuris (talk) 05:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Question: The first reference in the Wiki article is to an insurance journal article, "The Anatomy of a Failure" by Whitney, Sally. It is a dead link to a pdf file. How can I restore it? I cant find in on the internet, but I do have a pdf of the article.Lexjuris (talk) 05:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Sholam Weiss

Hello, Lexjuris. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the article Shalom Weiss, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. - Galatz^Talk 01:08, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

This was a relatively old wiki site, and there were a number of inaccuracies. E.g. Weiss was not a resident of Vienna, and was never employed by National Heritage. Those were corrected. However, I have been careful not to remove any sources that were previously present, even though (in my opinion) some sources may have had claims about Weiss' conviction that are contrary to his court judgment. I have corrected some statements that relied on the cited sources, e.g. where a quote was attributed to a judge, but the source actually says the quote was from a prosecutor. But mostly I have added information that was missing, and I have been careful in providing accurate references. Your response seems to be connected to the link I provided for "notice of the court", concerning payment of restitution. You commented that it was not a reference. But you did not explained what that meant. This is a very straight forward factual issue. Either it was satisfied or not. I provide the citation of the notice. But some readers may want to see the actual document. So I gave a link to it. It is true that the link was from a pro-Weiss website. But the link only brought up the document itself, and nothing else. It did not bring up the website. If pacer.com provided a direct link, or if I knew a way to somehow download a pdf file for the wiki page, I would have done that instead. In any case, I don't see the problem with that link since it went directly to the document. (I notice that someone else provided a link to the document from some other source, which is fine with me.) In short, I think I have kept closely to the advice given by you and others in keeping the edits objective. Lexjuris (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you are confirming you do in fact have a close connection with this subject. If this is the case you have failed to properly disclose this. - Galatz^Talk 03:44, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

You don't seem to be taking my response seriously. The response was specifically directed to the objectivity of my edits. My response reveals, perhaps, that I have knowledge of the case. But otherwise, there is nothing in my response to suggest a "close connection". I'll review what "close connection" means in wiki and what obligations are connected to that. Btw, you have not explained why the link was not a reference, despite that fact that it was a copy of the document being referenced. It may be a moot point, but it seems to be the catalyst to the present exchanges. Lexjuris (talk) 04:09, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I did explain it. I explicitly said you did not use it has a reference. You used it as a text link. - Galatz^Talk 04:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

This is first time you have said that I used it as a "text link" instead of a reference. I don't know what that means. It is a text link to the referenced document. If I put the text link in the text, instead of in the reference, would that been ok?Lexjuris (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

You in no way shape or form used a reference tag here [1] - Galatz^Talk 04:24, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that before someone else removed all the links to SholamWeiss.com you had added it in there 5 times. Which I suggest you read up on WP:PRIMARY. And if this is the organization you are associated with its another direct violation. In addition I am guessing its also you editing the page under the IP address in addition to your user name, which would be another violation of wikipedia policies. - Galatz^Talk 04:29, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I have only used my user name in my edits. I have never used an IP address. I do not belong to any association. I used Sholamweiss.com to link relevant documents. It is a biased website, of course, in the sense that it advocates Weiss' position. But the documents themselves are not biased. They are what they are. It is the only place on the internet I know to link those documents. Regarding the earlier links that were removed: I used the website, as I did before as a way to link to documents, not as a source for analysis. I had also earlier explicitly used the site as a source for Weiss' position, in the same way that one may use an autobiography as a source of someones position on their life. What other source could you use for someones position? This is a biographical page. The Weiss article uses a statement by the FBI. Okay, that's a source for the FBI' position. What does Weiss say on the matter? What does the insurance industry say? etc. You can look at something filed in a court, or a website, etc. The important thing is that the reader understands the source, and what it is used for. A court decision carries more authority of course on Weiss' criminal activity. But a defendant's voice should be heard as well. Lastly, you are not clear about "not using a reference tag". As far as I know, this is a reference tag: Obviously that was used. You remove things, but do not explain clearly why. Maybe you mean that I should put the link in a separate reference tag, from the actual court citation of the document, but I don't know. Lexjuris (talk) 05:17, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

According to guidelines for editing, "Wikipedia: identifying reliable sources", subheading, "biased or opinionated sources",WP:BIASED states: "...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." Thus, wikipedia guidelines would support the use of the Weiss website for providing Weiss' viewpoint, which is relevant in a biographical article. Lexjuris (talk) 06:51, 28 February 2018 (UTC)