Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:30, 12 September 2011

Two organisations

This should be a disambiguation page directing people to:

• Givewell (United States)
• Givewell (Australia)

Objections?--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming that they are both notable, then the Givewell article should be disambiguated only when articles exist on both entities. In other words, once somebody creates an article for Givewell (Australia) that at least validates its notability, then we can move Givewell to Givewell (United States) and make the former a disambiguation page. Please be bold and feel free to make these changes at any time. Cheers, Vectro (talk) 16:15, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Advertising/Neutrality

There are many problems with this article. It seems impossible to conclude otherwise than that the article has been significantly written by employees of the company - not due to excessive advocacy, but because there are so many statements written almost as though it were the "company" speaking, in the first person. Statements like: "Givewell is, first and foremost, an attempt to investigate charities empirically." This is not a neutrally-voiced statement. The entire "Philosophy" section is voiced this way. Misplaced Pages is not in the position of stating what Givewell "is" in these terms. We can at most state what what Givewell claims about itself. This is not so much a problem of trumping up what they do too much, it's a problem with the way "facts" that relate solely to the company's self-declared purpose or goals are voiced as though they can be taken for granted. Though there are references for some of these statements, but the problem of a non-neutral voice remains, throughout the article.

Secondly, the use of images is problematic. None of the images are directly related to Givewell. They are at best loosely related to the concept of "charity" but their appropriateness to this article is not at all evident. If I look up "Toyota", I wouldn't expect to see a picture of a busy freeway. It does not seem that[REDACTED] encourages the use of images at this level of abstracted illustration. What I would expect to see are: pictures of employees/founders, pictures of company headquarters or facilities, corporate logo.

The overwhelming impression left by the article is that it is a carefully crafted reflection of the company's own self-image, and in this regard it is wholly inappropriate for wikipedia. Even if the article is devoid of false or unreferenced statements, overly slanted language, or blatant advocacy, it is still written in a tone that is overly deferential and implicitly approving of the company it describes. Given the company's well-documented history of astroturfing it seems entirely reasonable to suggest extra vigilance in monitoring this article. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 16:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've contributed to it, and I have no connection with the company. Any article about a company is going to be an article *about the company*, which of course can be framed by detractors as "astroturfing". Your "extra vigilance" seems overplayed - whose to say you are not a competitor yourself, whose out to disparage the companies reputation? BTW that statement makes as much sense as your claim of astroturfing - unfounded, confrontational and unwarranted.

If there's something wrong with the article, than lets fix it. Specifically, please list which words and sentences you don't like so that we can fix them *right now*. I want to fix the article, but I don't see the problem, so you need to be very specific about what's wrong with the article, not generalizations. Line by line, word by word. I look forward to working with you over the next few weeks in improving the article. If your just going to put up tags as a way to register a complaint, but not actually contribute to identify and fix the problem, then the tags will be removed because I disagree with them, and have no way to fix a problem that is unidentified. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

To address some your points above. The word "claims" is loaded because it implies there is another point of view and that it's controversial, it undermines the point being made. We don't around saying "claims this and claims that" unless there is a reason due to a ongoing controversy. And if there is a controversy, it needs to be framed as such up-front with multiple POVs provided, most likely in a separate section of the article. The uncontroversial stuff is stated factually, with cites. There is "Assume Good Faith", if a company says something about itself, we believe it, unless there is some specific reason not to, we don't assume bad faith in a company just because they got caught at astroturfing years ago (BTW nearly every company engages in astroturfing directly or through third-party hires, it's called internet marketing, and is normal business practice, unfortunately). I agree with the images and captions being more appropriate for a sales brochure and will remove them. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

"The word "claims" is loaded because it implies there is another point of view and that it's controversial, it undermines the point being made."

I disagree. When point of view is the company's, and the statements in question are subjective to varying degrees, there needs to be a remove between the company's POV and the voice used in the article. Whether that means the word "claim" specifically is used or not isn't important to me. The goal is not to discount or cast aspersions on the company's claims but simply to present them in the proper context. The changes you've made so far appear positive; I will point out any further statements with neutrality issues. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV Issues

Givewell is an organization* Can you say better what sort of organization, here, right off the bat? Is it a non-profit? Would it actually be considered a "Charitable Organization"? This provides important context. Link to the relevant article for larger category in which Givewell sits, if possible.

 Done. It looks like you fixed the rest below. Green Cardamom (talk) 20:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

"Different charities face different burdens of proof, depending on the amount of data generally available to demonstrate their effectiveness." - this seems to be an assertion from the company's perspective, and not so much a settled fact that can be stated without qualification or context.

"One of the most relevant findings is that, when donating to one of the best charities, any individual can fund the saving of a life for about $1000" - as above, this is the sort of subjective claim that needs to be prefaced by "Givewell states that..." or something similar.

"Givewell is also dedicated to transparency, and their website goes to great lengths to explain their research and rating logic." - no problem with including a statement with this info, but there needs to be more critical distance here. As is, it verges on advocacy. Who is characterizing the "lengths" they go to as "great" here? It shouldn't be "wikipedia".

"It is also important to note, however: charities have a strong tendency to focus on emotional manipulations, and there is no prevailing pressure on them to demonstrate that their programs actually work." - Bare assertion here. If this isn't presented as a direct quote from the company's material, it should probably be removed entirely.

If all those issues were addressed I'd have no qualms about the tags being removed for the time being. Like I said, you have made positive changes already and the "Philosophy" section is much improved. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 18:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

GreenCardamom, I can see that you have made additional beneficial edits and removed the tags. I have removed the remaining statements described above and made a few other edits. It should be clear that a strong line needs to be drawn between things that Givewell claims, especially things that that Givewell claims about itself, vs. things that are effectively being put into Misplaced Pages's mouth to "say". Value judgements such as what is "relevant" or "best", or saying that something is done "poorly", cannot be stated in such an unqualified manner. These are assertions; these are claims, and they must be presented as such. Otherwise they strongly give the appearance of an advertisement or press release. Thank you for your collaboration in this effort - you give me no reason to doubt your good faith at all. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 19:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. And thanks for taking the time to evaluate, and re-work, the article. Green Cardamom (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Use of images

I like many of the changes. I often don't notice my POV phrasing so it's always nice to see rational improvement. I am a fierce advocate of images (I'm a very visual learner), so I'd like to offer a potential lead image.-Tesseract(talk) 13:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, the article's previous use of images was unencylopedic. Images used should be directly and unambiguously related to the company, and not abstractly illustrative in the manner previously employed. To address your specific example: that plane is neither owned by Givewell nor is it acting on Givewell's behalf, and further, the caption does not describe anything in the image, but rather attempts to further arguments that, if appropriate, would need to be made within the main body of the article. Using images loosely related to the concept of "charity" is beyond the scope of this particular article. Appropriate images would include (if freely available) pictures of Givewell's founders, company headquarters, notable employees, or corporate logos. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The relevant policies are certainly WP:IUP and WP:IMAGES. I would then draw your attention to the attempted description of different image uses over at at Misplaced Pages:Choosing appropriate illustrations. The images I now have up, and their captions, are currently quite encyclopedic. Especially using the descriptions of that last policy page: I have paired a description of Givewell's most highly rated sort of charity with an image of a doctor scrubbing in to illustrate that precise concept. I have paired discussion of village reach efforts in Mozambique with a picture of the exact sort of Mozambique citizens Givewell recommends helping.

While I agree with the policy pages mentioned that the images must be relevant, the claim that images must be "directly and unambiguously related to the company" is simply false. The use of images for illustrative purposes is professional if done properly.-Tesseract(talk) 02:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

If we're to keep it, I think the captions need to make clear the "subject of the picture" (per Caption MoS #1), which would include stating the subjects have no personal relation to GiveWell. It needs to be clear we are not looking at pictures taken by GiveWell, or people or hospitals sponsored by GiveWell. Otherwise it leaves an open question, at least in my mind and I assume 98.189's. I'll try to add a caption as example of what I mean. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Given the captions, I think it is clear that these are conceptual illustrations, but I suppose your added captions could be relevant to someone. Accordingly, I've only put them in a footnote for the sake of Caption MoS, Succinctness.-Tesseract(talk) 05:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah it's clear it's conceptual, but since this is in the context of an Encyclopedia, we identify the subject of the pictures in the caption, per #1. I'll wait to see what 98 thinks. BTW do you have the source for the healthcare statement, it might be better to quote directly what GiveWell said rather than paraphrase, more meaningful that way and better supports a "conceptual caption." Green Cardamom (talk) 05:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Done!-Tesseract(talk) 14:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Green Cardamom's approach to captioning cited above. Good on adding the corporate logo. I don't love the pictures as they currently stand but I won't object to them any further if GC's policy cite can be the guiding principal going forward. I understand that 'conceptual illustration' is allowable within the letter of the law, but this is an article about a company, not a concept. When I look at Featured Articles for other companies I don't tend to see that style of image usage. 98.189.203.163 (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Just some input on the images: when I originally read the article, I assumed that the photos were actually of VillageReach's or another GiveWell-supported charity's activities. Then, because I like to read talk pages when I'm aimlessly browsing Misplaced Pages, I came to this page and read that the images were actually just generic—and only then realized my mistake (I then went back and looked for the footnotes—helpful, I guess, but few people will actually notice them when they read). It's not a major problem, but I do think the images slightly weaken the accuracy of the article. Neil P. Quinn (talk) 07:49, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

That was always my point: it's not a major problem. The footnote clarifies that the scenes are supposed to be nearly identical to what Givewell and Village reach are up to, but that they are not official. It's true that nothing would beat images from the actual givewell site. Actually, we might be able to argue in favour of WP:NFCI - and borrow some images from the actual sites. They do seem to be offering promotional material.-Tesseract(talk) 16:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Only the logo would qualify for fair use, Misplaced Pages is very strict about that, leans on the side of caution. Unless the promotional material is Creative Commons, or direct permission is given by Givewell for use on Misplaced Pages (there is a process for handling that which I can help with). If you know anyone at GW that could give permission (via email) that would do it. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

That would actually be pretty neat. I don't have any connections with either GW or VR, but maybe we could sent them some emails and see if they're interested in authorizing some pictures. We really ought to first ask them to just authorize some pictures for wikicommons. If they're really not persuaded, we could fall back on authorization just for this article.-Tesseract(talk) 02:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example of a copyright picture used with permission on Misplaced Pages, a template for how to add one. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I just sent an email to GiveWell and asked if they had any pictures. They can license any of three ways: public domain, creative commons, copyright w/ permission for wikipedia. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

OK I've been working with GiveWell and they sent 28 via email, I've uploaded and submitted a ticket to OTRS and waiting for approval (weeks) but shouldn't be any problem since GW agreed to release them under a CC-BY license. This is actually a lot of work :) I also added some of the pictures to the article, I don't think we should add any more as it would be too crowded - these are representative of the NGOs in the photo set. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we're probably at peak picture capacity unless the article gets much longer. I probably don't need to tell you those images look fantastic! Really great work. Man, having authorized images rather than just illustrations...too cool.-Tesseract(talk) 22:03, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Well guys, it looks like all the images were deleted. discussion here. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Restored, thanks to the quick help from User:Adrignola. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Not to begrudge the work you put into getting photographs from Givewell, Green Cardamom, but the photos that don't directly relate to Givewell, such as the street performance and the woman by herself, etc, seem somewhat promotional. The photograph of the actual Givewell employees is a great one, exactly what should be present on an article illustrating the organization. Given the discussion on going below, it's also kind of uncomfortable in that the main proponent for the images, Tesseract2, pitches GiveWell on their user page. I'd recommend removing the photographs that don't have a clear relationship with GiveWell.~ (The Rebel At) ~ 23:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

De-puffing reversions

I made a couple changes to the article, which I notice another user has now reverted, and I'd like to discuss the reasoning behind this.

I removed the "recommendations" section as part of my overall effort to de-puff the article - my feeling was that there's no reason for an encyclopedia to keep a running tally of what charities are endorsed by GiveWell. As the section is phrased now, it comes across to me as advertising for the charities GiveWell supports. Encyclopedic coverage is "GiveWell rates on X, Y, and Z, in categories Q, R, and T." I feel that it becomes promotion when we start adding "And in category Q, company X is totally the best! In category R, we rate T very highly!" We need to remember that we're not intended to be regurgitating the contents of the GiveWell website here; we're intended to be covering the organization, how it works, and what it does, in an encyclopedic manner.

I also restored a removed part of the "shortcomings" section, as the way the section stood before today was incredibly weasely - vague references to "inappropriate" this and "errors" that, when if we want to discuss their controversies, we need to actually provide detail. I'm not saying we need to list every one, but simply handwaving about "yes, yes, the company talks about them somewhere else" isn't adequate, either.

Green Cardamom (talk · contribs), can you explain why you believe it's necessary to list which charities GiveWell promotes, and not discuss particular controversies? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This company was caught red handed in 2007 doing astro turfing, caught by members of Metafilter, of which I'm also a member. Ever since then, this article has been a hotbed of angry editors who appear on occasion to paint the company in as negative light as possible within Misplaced Pages guidelines. This includes downplaying what the company does, and up-playing that one incident in 2007. It's a sort of chest beating "hah hah caught you!" sort of thing, and MeFi community spirit and pride. I'm trying to move this article past that juvenile anger and "GiveWell hate" fest, and focus it on the positive things the company does and has done. The company has been extremely open about the 2007 incident, including devoting a web page to it on its own site, along with many other short comings. There's no reason to emphasis that one shortcoming with a lengthy description, it's out of balance. Further, listing the companies recommendations is appropriate because that is the core mission of what the company does. You said in the comments this was "promotional", but how can we have a complete article about a company that makes recommendations, without mentioning some examples of what those recommendations are. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:19, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not interested in "downplaying what the company does", GC. I'm interested in having an article that doesn't read like a brochure - an article that neither downplays the positive (as a Metafilter-member-controlled version might) nor up-plays the positive (as I feel your version tends to), but simply discusses the facts. To that end, listing what companies they recommend is pointless in this article, because this article is about GiveWell, not, say, VillageReach. The part that's relevant to GiveWell is that they rate charities, how they rate charities, and in what categories they rate charities. I could live with a paragraph summarizing their top picks, if you feel incredibly strongly that they must be discussed, but a large, multi-paragraph section just listing what charities GiveWell endorses is far out of place, in my opinion.

If you don't think we should mention Metafilter by name or something, I can live with that. But vague mentions of "errors" followed by a coy refusal to explain what they were - or calling something an "inappropriate Internet marketing strategy" when it could be called, much less verbosely, and more accurately, "astroturfing", is swinging the neutrality pendulum too far to the other side, to the point where we're whitewashing the company's history. My feeling is that the section should be titled something other than "Shortcomings" ("shortcomings" is their term, and doesn't match how Misplaced Pages tends to label sections such as this) and contain information basically saying that first, Givewell has had X, Y, and Z notable controversies (sourced to non-primary sources discussing these), second, Givewell maintains a page on their website addressing their errors, and third, they responded to notable controversies X, Y, and Z by doing . I cannot tolerate a section on "shortcomings" that refuses to discuss said "shortcomings". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reads "like a brochure" is a highly subjective POV, no doubt colored by an evident bias against the company due to their 2007 self-promotion campaign. This organization *makes recommendations*, it makes sense to list some examples of what those recommendations are so readers understand what types of recommendations they make. These are not all the recommendations only two of many - why are you against listing even two example recommendations? How are other recommendation-based orgs on Misplaced Pages handled? I'm curious why you think this Metafilter/astro-turfing event deserves such a lengthy discussion in the article, while not discussing the other shortcomings with equal vigor - why pick on that one so much? The current wording isn't weasel wording, it's a short summary, with a linked citation to the full description at the GiveWell website. There's nothing being hidden or weaseled, rather just giving it a balance of coverage to the rest of the article. It seems evident you want to emphasis the negative aspects of GiveWell, in particular the 2007 astroturf, while you want to remove the positive recommendations they are making. This strongly suggests a latent bias, that you may not even be aware of. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be awesome if you could respond to me without assuming that I am operating out of bias and/or in bad faith, Green Cardamom. I'm trying to make this article match our content standards, not promote GiveWell, Metafilter, or any other product, and for that reason, I very much resent your accusation that I want to "emphasis the negative" here. I want an article that describes what GiveWell is, what it did and does, how it does it, and what outside sources say about that. Nothing more, nothing less. If you feel you're unable to compromise on this topic, might I suggest that we get a WP:3O on the content of the "Recommendations" and "Shortcomings" sections? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Fluffernutter, we have the same goals. You haven't addressed why you want a Shortcomings section that focuses on the 2007 incident, but neglect the other shortcomings listed at their website. Why is that one given special high-lite, why is it so important, but the other shortcomings are not so important? Each of the shortcomings should be given equal weight to be fair, but the section overall shouldn't be out of balance to the rest of the article length. You also have not addressed what's wrong with listing a few example recommendations the company provides. Recommendations are material to what the company does, listing a paltry two examples is exactly what a Misplaced Pages article should do. And if you disagree, why would listing two examples even be "promotional" to GiveWell? Green Cardamom (talk) 21:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

GC, I don't care if it's the metafilter incident or something else, if there's something else more notable. I care that we actually discuss the "shortcomings" in some form, because at least one of them seems to be pretty notable and because we're already saying "they did something" and we'd might as well say what the something is. If the 2007 incident is the most notable, which is the impression I have, then that should be discussed. If there are two, or five, or fifteen notable controversies, those should be discussed. As for the recommendations, I'm not saying they're promotional of GiveWell - I'm saying they're promotional of the recommended organizations and are out of place in an article about GiveWell. I'm not sure how else to explain it to you besides repeating that this is an article about GiveWell, not its recommended charities. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

In fact the article does discuss the shortcomings, including mention of the astroturfing, among other things. Your proposing a much longer discussion of the astro turfing incident and I'm saying that would be over-weight and result in POV. As for the two examples being promotional? C'mon, that doesn't make sense, the context is clearly stated that these are orgs that GiveWell is recommending, since recommendations is what GiveWell does we give a few examples of what GiveWell does - even you said we need to say what GiveWell does. The recommendations are by GiveWell, within that context, it isn't promotional. Promotional would be if we said categorically these are the best orgs outside of the context of GiveWell's article. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• How could it be POV? "neutral point of view" is "cover each possible segment of the topic in accordance with the weighting given to it by sources". If the sources have covered the controversies in enough detail to provide more information on them then, by definition, including that information is obeying NPOV and not violating it. Ironholds (talk) 01:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

How do you know the astro turfing incident is more notable? It's perhaps best known among bloggers, due to its association with metafilter, and thus also many Misplaced Pages editors. It's a incident of lore among metafilter and some[REDACTED] editors. I would say some of the other shortcomings are "more notable" since they actually impacted what GiveWell does. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

If there are other notable controversies, those should be covered in the shortcomings/controversies section, yes. That's my point, in fact. If there are notable things to say about the organization, we should cover them. Please also consider the fact that other editors are weighing in here also, and mostly seem to think that the controversies should be covered. Your accusing me of canvassing notwithstanding, I would point out that you seem to be the only person currently commenting on this talk page who believes the section shouldn't discuss the actual controversies. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 02:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Any event in which a board of directors removes the founding executive director is very notable for any organization. 96.49.114.94 (talk) 02:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

GC, you write '"I'm trying to move this article past that juvenile anger and 'GiveWell hate' fest, and focus it on the positive things the company does and has done." This alone reads like POV to me: the first clause asserts bad faith in the strongest terms, characterizing any negative coverage of Givewell as malicious and childish. The second clause strongly suggests partiality: It isn't the purpose of a Misplaced Pages editor to "focus on the positive things that a company does and has done".

Also, in addition to the brochure-like language, two or three of the photo choices strongly resemble charity brochure photos. The photo of the Mozambique girl, the mother and child outside a clinic and the Indian street theatre do not depict anything material about Givewell itself. The fact that the caption states that they were taken on a Givewell visit doesn't alter the fact that the subjects of the photos are not Givewell or demonstrably associated with Givewell. Their inclusion has a marketing quality, suggesting that they depict beneficiaries of Givewell's efforts or that the conditions depicted are somehow representative of Givewell's aims. If so, this is a brochure technique rather than informational content. P.T.isfirst (talk) 18:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Concur that this article reads like promotional literature. The "Controversies" section should be restored, and "Recommendations" removed. The latter is about some specific charities; this article is supposed to be about GiveWell. Cloonmore (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

agreed. GC, you can have whatever intentions you want, but "neutral point of view" doesn't mean "say no nasty stuff". Leave your opinion on GiveWell at the door. Ironholds (talk) 00:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I reckon there should indeed be some kind of controversies section. That is a better name than "shortcomings" too - a title which, at least to me, makes it seem like we cannot mention alleged shortcomings (i.e. controversies), only actual failures. In addition to a controversies section, however, we ought also to mention relevant sources praising Givewell. This could all be under an "In the Media" or "Reception" section, no? It seems to me that Misplaced Pages should cover the most notable negative, but also positive reactions to Givewell.

I find the pictures are fantastic. Examples of people from the charities to which Givewell has sent its readers, or benefiting from the sorts of help advocated by Givewell ... I do not think you could get a more direct, physical illustration of the sort of work done by this organization. The only picture issue is that the lead does not yet have an image of Givewell's headquarters. What's the deal with that?

We must (especially those of us with strong opinions on the organization) maintain encyclopedic standards. With that in mind, I do think the majority of the "Recommendations" section also belongs here on Misplaced Pages. Maybe we don't need an updated list of Givewell's top charities (as RebelAt discusses below), but certainly it is important to mention the stuff about the types of charities that Givewell recommends and why (e.g. health care, because of large, measurable impact). Failing to discuss Givewell's recommendations entirely is to fail to properly cover the topic; Givewell is a charity-recommending organization, after all.

Just some ideas for you guys. I think the discussion here has been great.-Tesseract(talk) 02:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The general title "Controversy" is fairly Misplaced Pages-standard for these sorts of things and is found in a number of different articles on different things. I really think the illustrations should be a little more tailored towards the subject of the article. If the article is about GiveWell the organization, the photos should not just be images that they took during their visits. I work at MetaFilter, but I have a long history as a Misplaced Pages editor, and I think this page could stand a little revising to make it more Misplaced Pages-like and less brochure-like. Jessamyn (talk) 03:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I came here to concur with the above. "Controversy/ies" is the bog-standard section header on Wikipeda for any negative history regarding a company, politician, organization, etc. Use of "shortcomings" instead strikes me as a euphemism. The issues in question were serious enough to lead to the (temporary) resignation of Givewell's head officer, and rather directly impugned the reputations of competitors in an unethical way. That rises above the level of mere shortcomings, which I think would apply more to simple weaknesses in the company's methods or strategies than to a malicious act of dishonesty by their leader implicating their core values (transparency). I'll go ahead and retitle it now if there aren't any objections. --Jordan117 (talk) 04:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It was called shortcomings because that is what GiveWell calls it on their Shortcomings webpage, thus the section title is descriptive of what they are calling it themselves. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how Givewell describes themselves, it matters how others are describing them. We shouldn't be relying on primary sources to write the article.

I agree that the article has too many irrelevant photos. The photo of the founder is relevant and useful, and should stay, but the others are only tangentially related to the content of the page. Using photos for the sake of having photos adds to the 'brochure' feel. (For comparison, this article has more photos than the significantly longer Médecins Sans Frontières does.) Joygerhardt (talk) 09:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Detail on Recommended Charities

Just wanted to expound on the removal of the detailed information on the April 2011 recommended charities of GiveWell. I removed the specific information about the charities because this is an article about GiveWell, not VillageReach or the other charity. If the information about those charities is significant or notable, then it should be found in articles about those charities, like VillageReach, for example. Otherwise, the information prior to removal served to distract from the focus of the article. Please feel free to offer opinions to the otherwise! ~ (The Rebel At) ~ 02:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Metafilter users

If you are a Metafilter user and showed up here tonight because of a thread on Mefi, a few thoughts:

1. Misplaced Pages rules about Conflict of Interest. In particular Close Relationships. Metafilter culture has a long and demonstrable history of disparaging GiveWell based on the 2007 astro turfing incident between GiveWell and Metafilter. It is well known that MeFi users love to hate GiveWell. POV edits don't have to intentional, they are often made with good faith and best intentions but biased by an acquired POV from a previous experience.

2. This article was not not ever was edited by GiveWell. I can assure you, there is nothing to see here. You will not "catch" GiveWell self-promoting on Misplaced Pages. Give it up MeFi sleuths.

3. Ask yourself, when will you stop hating GiveWell. Its been four years. Will you still be here 4 years from now? How long will the MeFi community continue its campaign of anti-GiveWellianism. GiveWell moved on years ago, posting an apology on its website in 2007. No one cares anymore, except MeFi.

-- Green Cardamom (talk) 03:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

GC, I'm going to ask you again to please, please drop the stick and back away from the horse. You're assuming seriously, horribly bad faith of every single person who's commented on this page in the past few days, and that's feeding into your feeling that we're all out to "get" GiveWell when we're, or at least I'm, not. Do you have any reason, besides suspicion of all people disagreeing with your stance, to think that the Wikipedians commenting on this page are from Metafilter, other than Jessamyn, me, and yourself? If you have reason to believe that, do you have reason to believe that people who come here from Metafilter have any intention of torpedoing the article? I very much think you don't, because what I see on this page is a whole lot of calm discussion and people offering sane reasons why the article should be changed in manner X, and then you, desperately claiming that we're all just shills. Please, just once, consider the fact that some of us may be attempting to improve the article to the point where it conforms to Misplaced Pages standards, and look at our suggestions with that in mind.

Metafilter members, if any of you are here, please note that GC is correct that we have a conflict of interest policy and that it prohibits acting in a manner that promotes or disparages an entity for your (or your organization's) gain, whether financial or just "bragging rights". Our COI policy does not prohibit you from editing the article neutrally, or from commenting on this talk page, again neutrally and in a reasoned manner, about how you think the article could be improved. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 13:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Dubious practices

Recent edits made by Jordan117, who wrote:

The company has been accused of dubious business practices in the past, and addresses some of the concerns publicly on its website, on a page called `Shortcomings`.

This is biased POV, and factually wrong. "Accused" and "Dubious" are strong pejorative terms. It may be justified for the 2007 astroturfing incident, but the other 19 shortcomings listed on their website certainly would not characterized that way, they were just business mistakes such as out of balance portfolio allocations, failed to track website statistics, sub-optimal grant allocation, etc.. the kind of mistakes all companies make in the normal course of business. They were not "Accused" at all, they were self admitted, no one "accused" GiveWell of those 19 shortcomings, except for the one astro turfing incident. Further example of the inability of people to edit this article in a neutral manner even when they try, there is a strong ingrained bias towards focusing on the one astro turfing incident. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)