Talk:Behringer/Archive 4

Trademark dispute section revisited

I removed the Trademark Dispute section for the following reasons:

First, this section is not consistent with the type of information provided in other company articles on Wikipedia. As multiple editors have noted, legal dispute sections are not included in articles for other companies. From an institutional standpoint, if Wikipedia is intended to provide an unbiased neutral point of view, then articles must be edited using consistent standards. If this type of information is not included in the articles for other companies, it should not be included in the Behringer article.

Second, according to Wikipedia’s policies, editors should “assert facts, but not opinions.” Wikipedia’s policies define a fact as “a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute.” The legal dispute section is based on unfounded allegations from decades old lawsuits that were never proven in a court of law and which therefore do not qualify as facts under Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines. Note that allegations in a lawsuit are nothing more than opinion, gossip and rumour until proven in court. Further, allegations in a lawsuit, are by definition, the subject of serious dispute (see Wikipedia definition above).

Third, the few experienced editors who persist in reposting this section who are not neutral and are using their experience with Wikipedia processes to pursue personal agendas. As Binksternet, the original author of this section has stated on Wikipedia: “I'm not a fan of Behringer in any sense, and in fact I am angry at Behringer business practices.” Binksternet (talk) 02:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC). Using Wikipedia as a tool to further personal agendas seriously undermines the credibility and relevance of the service.

As other editors have noted, the appropriate and fair solution is to start from a neutral point –with this article being edited and presented in the same manner as the articles for other companies on Wikipedia – which means not including a legal dispute section. We can then discuss the appropriateness of including such a section, consistent with Wikipedia guidelines and policies. If the community as a whole – not just a few self-interested editors, ie Binksternet, thedarxide and their associates- decide that the information these self-interested editors want to include complies with Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and to ensure institutional neutrality, that this type of information will also be included in the general information articles for all companies on Wikipedia, we can then proceed with the discussion as to drafting an appropriate section.

Finally, I will note that I was informed by Mike Godwin, the General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, that it is appropriate for me to edit this article.EdatBehringer (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the section because this debate has gone round and round. You are raising the same points and going nowhere. The section in question contains facts reported in other sources. Comparing this article to others is not an argument - if other companies have had legal disputes, it will be included in their articles. I would also appreciate you not referring to me as a "self-interested editor" Thedarxide (talk) 08:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

You have misidentified me as the originator of the Controversy section. The first editor to bring the Controversy section into the article was User:48v, a theater performance technician and college student from Washington state, who did it on October 20, 2007. At that time, I was still unaware of this article. During all of 2008, the only involvement I had with this article was in the reversion of vandalism—just two times. In April 2009 I helped by formatting the all-caps company name to lower case in accordance with Wikipedia style guidelines. Finally, in July 2009 when an editor calling himself UliBehringer began to change the article, I began myself to take a more active role. (As an aside, note that after UliBehringer was done with it, the article included the Controversy section.)

Regarding other Wikipedia articles: first thing to note is that there is not any requirement for all company articles to hold the same format. Ideally, the people at WikiProject Companies would have formed a general guideline for company pages, but that project appears inactive, and they don't have a guideline for handling controversy. As a result, this page is written and formatted in a manner that fits consensus by the involved editors, not in a manner intended to match other company articles.

Second thing to note is that there are company articles which feature legal disputes. If a legal dispute is commented upon in the press, it is notable and can be included here. Such inclusion fits with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and should be cited in the article in a neutral manner.

When I said "I'm not a fan of Behringer in any sense, and in fact I am angry at Behringer business practices", I was voicing my feelings. I have never allowed those feelings of mine to try and create a wrong impression of the company here in the article. What those feelings do for me is drive me to make certain that the information presented here is as neutral and accurate as possible. I consistently pull out promotional puff piece text and peacock words. I make sure that neutral information that the company doesn't like is retained in the article. That's the role I have assumed here. Very simple. I am not, as you say, "using Wikipedia as a tool to further personal agendas", I am using it to prevent such use. I am not the reason that there has been bad press about Behringer and I am not the reason that other companies have sued Behringer.

As for the label "self-interested", I would like to see you prove that I am trying to benefit in any manner from my volunteer work here at the Behringer article. Perhaps you are projecting, EdatBehringer. I know I'm not. Binksternet (talk) 18:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your name-dropping of Mike Godwin, there is no added authority given your contributions here just because somebody at Wikipedia headquarters supposedly contacted you offline. Nobody here was questioning your right to edit the article, so why defend it? A straw man argument is not necessary. Binksternet (talk) 18:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

As this discussion indicates, we are at an impasse. Thedarxcide talks about the discussion going “round and round”. That is indeed the case, because Binksternet and thedarxcide, both experienced and prolific editors, have monopolized the discussion and insisted on forcing their position on the community.

Clearly, Binksternet and thedarxcide hold a different position than other editors who have also attempted to make changes to the article. The question is why does the position of these two editors - Binksternet and thedarxcide, appear to take preference over the position of other editors, particularly when the position taken by Binksternet and thedarxcide, is inconsistent with the general framework employed by Wikipedia for company articles and is based on information appears to violate Wikipedia guidelines on including facts and not opinions? I find it extremely curious that the article for Mackie, the company that brought the unsuccessful lawsuit that is the basis for binksternet and thedarxcides position, does not include a section on the lawsuit or other legal disputes. Clearly, this underscores the fact that inclusion of this information is not consistent with Wikipedia guidelines. Further, this inconsistent editing does indicate some agenda or hidden motivation.

It seems to me that the starting point should be neutral – meaning without the dispute section, as is consistent with Wikipedia guidelines and policies and the treatment of other company articles. Before forcing this disputed section into the article, the community should discuss whether or not this is appropriate within Wikipedia guidelines and guidelines. Only after that discussion has occurred and a community consensus achieved, should collaboration begin to craft an appropriate consensus statement. That has not happened in this situation.

This discussion has degenerated to the point where it does undermine the credibility of Wikipedia. In order to uphold Wikipedia’s principles and ensure that the service remains relevant, we need involvement of experienced editors or mediators beyond just Binksternet and thedarxcide, who based on the insistence of maintaining their one-sided position must be considered self-interested.

My reference to the General Counsel at Wikipedia was based on the fact that when I previously attempted to edit the article, I received a warning from thedarxcide that I was acting in self-interest. I wanted to make clear that I have the right to edit the article – consistent with Wikipedia guidelines and policies.EdatBehringer (talk) 22:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

You refer repeatedly to Wikipedia guidelines. I'm quite familiar with the three most important ones which are verifiability, neutral point of view and no original research. In the verifiability guideline, it says that "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." Regarding neutral point of view, the guideline states, "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." The guideline about original research prohibits editors from publishing their "own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions." What part of these guidelines are you referring to?

You also repeatedly mention a general framework for company articles. However, one does not exist. As a solution, you could join the Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies and submit a proposed framework for approval.

It appears to me that you aim to have myself and Thedarxide sidelined as holders of a hidden agenda or motive, and that you wish to form a consensus of editors who want to have the Trademark Dispute or Controversy section taken out. The group of editors you mention that wish to remove the disputed section primarily consist of editors who are limited in their involvement due to conflict of interest concerns. The editors that work for Behringer are assumed to be biased while non-Behringer editors are assumed to be neutral until proved otherwise. Once you recuse the Behringer editors, there is no consensus for removal of the section.

Company articles such as McDonald's, Microsoft, Apple Inc. and Burger King have criticism or legal dispute sections. McDonald's has both. Burger King's legal dispute section grew so large it was given its own article at Burger King legal issues. Same with Apple at Apple Inc. litigation and Criticism of Apple. Microsoft has the Microsoft litigation and Criticism of Microsoft pages. Is this what you wish to happen here? An article called Behringer trademark disputes or similar? Binksternet (talk) 23:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The starting point should be neutral – meaning without the dispute section, as is consistent with Wikipedia guidelines and policies and the treatment of other company articles. Before forcing this disputed section into the article, the community should discuss whether or not this is appropriate within Wikipedia guidelines and guidelines. Only after that discussion has occurred and a community consensus achieved, should collaboration begin to craft an appropriate consensus statement.EdatBehringer (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no requirement for what you describe. Sometimes I have seen that an article begins with a section about a dispute, and that the rest of the article is filled in as a response. The section you wish to remove is referenced and has been pared down by multiple editors. It is neutral, not forced in. It will stay in while you work to gain consensus for its removal. Right now I will warn you that you are at the edge of the three-reversion rule, the violation of which can lead to being blocked. Binksternet (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As a side, you can count me in as #3 who doesn't see anything wrong with said section. I read it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 10:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Make me #4. Behringer do not own this article. Ideally, they get zero say on its content. Mjroots (talk) 13:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, and sending a Cease and desist letter to someone because they said something about your company you don't like? Dick move. HalfShadow 18:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Non-free use images?

I've removed a number of product images from the article as they appear to be from by Behringer's product catalog and would fall under non-free content criteria. But they also don't contribute anything to the article and were simply clutter. I would recommend that someone goes through RyanAtBehringer's contributions at Commons as that is where these images have been uploaded. —Farix (t | c) 21:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

EdatBehringer and POV tag

There have been edits questioning the fairness of this article. The person doing so has been blocked. Rather that cheer and pat ourselves on the back (and celebrate that a person who made a legal threat has been blocked), we must seriously examine whether:

1. There is any bias.

2. Whether there is emphasis on negative information, particularly in comparison to other articles. Some politicians have favorable coverage mostly.

3. Whether the article has sources for every fact listed.

4. Whether 25% of the article devoted legal controversies section is appropriate. There have been huge discusssions over controversies in certain biographical articles and it was decided that there should not be a controversy section in some of those discussions.

I think number 3 could be vastly improved and 1 and 2 could use some looking. 4 is a decision that should be made for all of Wikipedia, not just one specific article.

The tag on the article alerts people to come to the talk page and look at these comments. Only then can we hope for improvement. So let's keep the tag on for a minimum of 24 hours before removal. In the mean time, let's get this article better. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be better if you would first assume good faith, as you are instructed to do by Wikipedia. Nobody is cheering or back patting nor celebrating the loss of an editor.

There is no "we must seriously examine" based on the opinion of a blocked editor. We decide based on Wikipedia what we must do, not the opinion of an editor.

That being said, there may be some confusion in your understanding of what the article is. It is about an audio equipment company. This is not a biography of a living person, nor is it an article about a politician. So the specific concerns you have about politicians and biography we may discount.

If your points 1, 2 and 3 require looking at, then good luck, we await you report which I am sure you will submit in order to gain consensus before radically altering the page.

However on point 4 it seems that you are mixing biographies and other articles. An audio company is not a living person. A company is not a living person, it is a company. Criticism is appropriate, when adequately sourced.

The tag does alert readers to this discussion. The tag does not say that it should be removed after 24 hours, nor after it's presence has been referenced on the talk page. It says the tag should only be removed after the neutrality dispute is resolved, which is not yet the case. Weakopedia (talk) 23:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I've seen jocularity when some people are blocked. Maybe not in the case, but it has been done many times. However, I do know that corporate people who write on orders of the company are skating on very thin ice as far as being blocked.

In the general sense, there is no difference between companies and biographies in terms of neutrality and fairness. That's one of the basic pillars. It's certainly a balance between adequately sourced and neutrality.

For example, if a company has an article that is initially 4kb long, it is not right to add a criticism section of 30kb. If it is that long, then maybe (?) a separate article needs to be written.

I created this section in the hopes of injecting fairness into the article. I am not particularly interested in the company nor in any of the usernames that have Behringer within them.

Good luck in continuing to write this article. With some work, it could be a really nice article and an authoritative piece for people to read about the company. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I am new here. I just read through the discussion and also the archives and I am somewhat puzzled. I myself have been in the audio industry for over 20 years and I am curious why you would consider a complaint from a competitor as well-sourced material? behringer seems to have won all mackie lawsuits and was hence not at fault. But the article reads and implies otherwise. We all know that a complaint is always one-sided and often does not represent the truth. Also one of the references is from an anonymous blogger. Why would you consider this as relevant material? Shouldn't we use court-records and well-researched material instead as valid sources? Also there are people who make valid points such as eqdynamics and others. Why do you block all these people who do not seem to be affiliated with the company? Thanks Minto2 (talk) 05:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The complaint is well sourced because it was widely reported. I am confused as to why you think it implies that Behringer lost, given phrasing such as "claims were later rejected" and "court [...] dismissed Mackie claims". I am assuming that the "Anonymous blogger" you refer to is the Tom's Hardware link. This is a reproduction of a press release and can be found on many other sites. I chose Tom's Hardware because they are a reputable news source. Also, court records are considered primary sources and are very difficult for many people to verify. Thedarxide (talk) 08:50, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Minto2, as the blocking administrator, no one has been or will be blocked because they work for the company. People were blocked (and not all the self-declared Behringer accounts were blocked, only 3 of more than half-a-dozen) because they were using Wikipedia in a disruptive way. Here, we block for disruption and that's what they were doing, disrupting this article in an attempt at advocacy and promotion. They also violated the No Legal Threats policy which requires immediate indefinite blocking, but that was not why they were blocked as there was enough reason to block them for their disruptive editing of this page alone.

As Thedarxide said above, we don't allow use of court documents except for in very limited circumstances that don't require interpretation or analysis, such as for verifying basic facts. See WP:PRIMARY for more information. We don't normally accept forum links as they're considered self published (see WP:SPS). In this case it's a link to an article posted on the forum but it's still not ideal and we should be sourcing directly to the article itself, not the forum. I will get on Factiva later and see if I can find the original article or a suitable alternative and change the source to that. The complaints from competitors are noted because they are verifiable by secondary published reliable sources. That section of the article looks well sourced and it clearly explains the lawsuits did not get up and does not give undue weight to them so I don't see a problem there.

Now I have a question for you: Have you edited here under a different name? Your comment style is very similar to the group of Behringer editors. Most people just start editing and do not introduce themselves and note they've read through the archived discussion. It's an unusual style that you share with some other Behringer accounts. Plus you've pretty much taken off where they left off in terms of the arguments you're making. If you are the owner of one of the now-blocked Behringer accounts, please note that creating a new account to edit when a previous account is blocked is considered block evasion and violates the blocking policy. If you have previously used another account, you need to stop using this one and go back to the other account and deal with the reasons it was blocked. We have the ability to examine IP addresses and user agents and a reasonable suspicion that a user is engaging in abusive sockpuppetry in order to edit in violation of a block is justification under the privacy and checkuser policies to examine a user's technical data, so it's not a good idea to try to dodge the block with socks. If you own the Eqdynamics (talk · contribs) account or one of the other blocked accounts, you need to stop using this one immediately and go back to the original account and explain your case for being unblocked on the account's talk page.

People editing here need to accept that Wikipedia is not the local public square, it's a privately owned website with a very narrow focus and as such we're entitled to set down and enforce whatever rules we see fit in order to achieve our purpose. We aren't here to whitewash, promote - or discredit - any person or business. We're here to write neutral, verifiable sourced articles about notable subjects. This means that no matter how many "social media co-ordinators" companies send here to try to sanitise articles, we are not going to allow Wikipedia articles to be whitewashed or misused for promotion. Everyone editing here needs to accept and embrace this or they have no business editing here at all. Sarah 02:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

"1989–2001: Foundation and early development" Section Is Junk

The paragraph entitled "1989–2001: Foundation and early development" is total garbage. It cites a lot of bogus sources (click them, there is nothing there), and the one verifiable article it does cite is some trade magazine crap that seems as if it had been (poorly) copied from a Behringer brochure. This paragraph and that "source" both say things that don't make any sense and anyone who has their gear knows that Behringer wasn't manufacturing in China in 1990. The article says that he first went there in 1992, then was shipping Chinese-made products in 1990, as if by time travel, nonsense. Can someone please fix this or strike it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.147 (talk) 11:58, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The Music Group

I think one of the more experienced wikipedist should add an important info that Behringer is owned by The Music Group whose CEO is Uli Behringer, i think since 2006. The Music Group wikipedia page is out of date, as until 2006 all those small companies were sold to other. Check the info on http://music-group.net and http://www.eurotec.cn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.207.228.36 (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I suppose this was relating to The Music Group. I saw no evidence that it has any connection to Music Group (company) (which I recently created) though I'm perfectly willing to accept the opposite. --Muhandes (talk) 18:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Headquarters

I just visited the company's website, and it no longer lists Monaco as the headquarters. I'm pretty sure it once did. Anyone knows the facts? --Muhandes (talk) 19:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

As I see it, the company's website lists a copyright of "Red Chip Company Ltd.", and when you look here you see that this company is headquartered in Bermuda. Hope that helps? --84.226.65.170 (talk) 10:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort, but that's a bit convoluted, unless a connection between "Red Chip Company Ltd." and Behringer is shown by a reliable source. --Muhandes (talk) 10:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"Behringer boy"

Apparently some audio professionals use "Behringer boy" as an insult. Not sure if there's a good clean citation for that though. I guess online forums aren't good enough. 31.18.248.254 (talk) 03:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

You are correct in believing that online forums are not enough. Binksternet (talk) 04:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)