The common tendency of sock puppeters is to overshare good information--at least, the ones who get caught. Mary Rosh knew too much about lesser-known high points of John Lott's life, and indeed, his wikipedia entry seems suspiciously full of relatively obscure bits of information, such as the fact that "Nobel laureate Milton Friedman said that 'John Lott has few equals as a perceptive analyst of controversial public policy issues.' " "Rick Ellensberg" et al seemed to be in possession of a master list of everyone who had ever praised Glenn Greenwald. Sprezzatura had an almost deranged regard for the writing of Lee Siegel. Etc.In October 2008, Cerberus and General Motors discussed an exchange of GM's 49% stake in GMAC for Chrysler, potentially merging two of Detroit's "Big Three" automakers.[26] These talks did not come to fruition, and were discontinued the next month.[27] On October 24, 2008, Chrysler announced a 25% cut (5,000 jobs) in its salaried and contract workforce in November 2008.[28] Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced that she, along with 5 other governors, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke requesting emergency funding for the Detroit Big Three Automakers. On the same day, General Motors asked the Treasury Department of the United States for $10 billion to help restructure both their company and possible future sibling, Chrysler so that in turn, they can become one massive company.
On October 23, 2008, Daimler announced that its stake in Chrysler had a book value of zero dollars after write offs and charges.[29]
On November 5, 2008 it was published that Chrysler sales in the US market have fallen 34.9 percent in only 12 months.[30] A week later, Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli said, in a speech at an Ernst & Young conference, that the company can only remain viable by forming an alliance with another automaker, domestic or global, as well as receiving government assistance in the form of an equity stake.[31] Several days later, Chrysler together with Ford and General Motors, sought financial aid at a Congressional hearing in Washington D.C. in the face of worsening conditions caused by the automotive industry crisis. All three companies were unsuccessful and were invited to draft a new action plan for the sustainability of the industry.[32]
On November 25, 2008 The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released their Top Safety Pick awards for the year. Seventy-two vehicles earned the Top Safety Pick award for 2009. This is more than double the number of 2008 recipients and more than 3 times the number of 2007 winners. However Chrysler LLC. is the only major automaker still lacking a single Top Safety Pick.[33]
At the beginning of December 2008, amid the 2008 automobile crisis, Chrysler announced that they were dangerously low on cash and may not survive past 2009. After the defeat of the auto bailout in the Senate, Chrysler stated that they would most likely file for bankruptcy and shut down all operations permanently. On December 17, 2008, Chrysler announced that it planned to halt production at all 30 of its manufacturing plants through January 19, 2009. In addition, Chrysler announced that it would charge fees on dealers holding inventories of new cars and trucks that are unsold after more than 360 days, and will require immediate payment of all remaining balances on inventories of used vehicles that remain unsold after six months.[34] On December 19, President George W. Bush announced a $13.4 billion rescue loan for the American automakers, including Chrysler.
Chrysler's 2008 performance was hard hit among the Big Three U.S. automakers,[35] with 398,119 automobiles and 1,055,003 trucks sold during the year.
On March 7, 2009, Chrysler Vice-Chairman Jim Press stated that current sales volume is sufficient to keep the company going as sales should rise in the coming months. The Chrysler executive also noted the automaker's February retail sales were better than Ford's as Chrysler continued to curtail lower-margin fleet sales. He also said the volumes being forecast for 2009 are within the estimates Chrysler envisioned in preparing its viability plan for the federal government.[36]
On March 30, 2009, the White House announced it would provide an additional $6 billion in further support to Chrysler contingent on the company finalizing an alliance with Fiat before the end of April.[37]
Now, this is not always a sign of sock puppeting. I'm always shocked when someone pops up with a defense (or criticism) of me based on an apparently detailed familiarity with my life story, which they have apparently carefully harvested from my blog. And I was frankly a little creeped out when someone in India added the correct birthday to my wikipedia entry, which is also surprisingly detailed. (I've edited it once, to correct a wrong piece of information). That Wikipedia entry now notes that "In November 2008, various of McArdle's blog posts arguing against the proposed federal bailout of the U.S. auto industry were quoted approvingly by conservative commentators David Brooks,[3] Michael Barone[4] and John Podhoretz,[5] among others." On the other hand, the Wikipedia page also contains errors--I started at The Economist in 2003--which I haven't corrected because I've since learned that editing your own Wikipedia entry is a no-no. (Side note: it looks like I'm up for deletion again, being un-notable. Sob.)
More to the point, those citations were the kind of thing a fan might know, and they're in the relevant sections. And there aren't a zillion of them. The fact that Chrysler won a design award doesn't really belong in the section on the financial crisis. I say Chrysler, or their flacks, are editing it. What say you?
What do you mean by sock puppeting? As I understand it, a sock puppet is an account created solely for the purpose of taking your side in an online argument, to create a favorable consensus for your argument where there is none. An organization editing their own wikipedia entry is just biased editing.
I'd say this is unlikely:
"On November 25, 2008 The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released their Top Safety Pick awards for the year. Seventy-two vehicles earned the Top Safety Pick award for 2009. This is more than double the number of 2008 recipients and more than 3 times the number of 2007 winners. However Chrysler LLC. is the only major automaker still lacking a single Top Safety Pick.[33]"
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I read this quote to say "There are more safe cars being produced by more manufacturers than ever in the history of these awards, there are so many safe cars in fact that Chrysler is the only major car manufacturer who has NOT produced a safe car." Doesn't seem like great PR to me.
My apologies if I miss read.
Boy, I sure read that paragraph different than you do. How do you square, "Chrysler LLC. is the only major automaker still lacking a single Top Safety Pick" (despite the number of cars with that rating tripling in the past two years) with "Chrysler won a design award"?
If this Wikipedia article is an example of Chrysler's PR activities, it seems that their PR department is just as bad as the rest of the company.
I was going to pile on (most incompetent sock puppet EVAR!) but instead I'll point out that the date in your wiki page has already been fixed.
That section used to be called "2008 onwards" and was simply renamed to specify the financial crisis. It looks like that part, which used to belong there, was added when it happened and just left behind when the focus of the section changed.
Now assume they did puff this piece up. The fact that their PR folks would highlight being the least safe car manufacturer in America goes a long way to explaining why they went bankrupt.... Perhaps the next revision will highlight their god-awful gas mileage.
"Perhaps the next revision will highlight their god-awful gas mileage."
Yeah, I love those Howie Long commercials where he compares two random cars and goes on and on about how the Chrysler gets better mileage, and you look at the fine print and it's always something like 21/16 vs 21/15. After they cherry-picked that comparison in the first place.
But really the Howie Long commercials have done more to make sure I never buy a Chrysler in my life than the incompetent management could ever do. What an insufferable jackass.
He's the Chevy guy, not the Chrysler guy.
Wow. So Chevy must have a great ad agency if their ads can convince people (or at least Adam) not to buy a Chrysler.
I like those Howie Long commercials where Chrysler says we need to share our wealth (as taxpayers or bondholders) to that Every [UAW] Man [Can Be] A King!
Oh, sorry, that's Huey Long!
Eh. Not enough evidence to say for sure, I'd wager.
In other news, GM burned through $10 billion in cash during the first quarter.
Megan,
Some folks call that hermeneutics.
That is how Bush II got rid of the robber barons in America.
The Chrysler folks would be better off editing their competitors' Wkipedia pages, perhaps along the lines of this:
http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1733332
In case you were wondering what Wikipedia thinks of this, the article was checked for "conflict of interest" and here is some of the relevant discussion:
And:
The result: "No evidence to suggest this is true" and the question has been resolved.
On a side note, Megan's detractors have indeed occasionally listed her for deletion, but this was settled back in 2007. Any attempts to delete her entry again are crackpot, and if she checks again now, the flag on her page has already been removed.
As the one person with (I believe) the most paid editing output within Wikipedia, and even a Wikipedia article about my business (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyWikiBiz ), it's a bit of a wonder to me why I'm not contacted by journalists like Megan McArdle before they publish pieces like this. I have a lot of background info that would spice up the reporter's perspective on the subject of "conflicted" editing on Wikipedia.
Reading that Articles for Deletion page that Wikipedian linked to reminds me of the ridiculous full-of-self-ness that Wikipedia is victim to.
As if things should be removed because they're "not important enough"?
It's not like it's a print encyclopedia where excess information adds cost or difficulty. It's cost-less to have extra information - even about things that the Wikipedia Elite don't think are sufficiently "notable".
I can see the utility of some cutoff, simply to prevent abuse by listing people who are entirely private citizens and would have no plausible mechanism for correction; but even someone as "un-notable" as Megan on her old site circa, say, 2003, is "notable" enough to have a following and influence discussion.
Welcome to the existence of the Internet, Wikipedia!
(I further see nothing on the AFD page suggesting that the question was "settled" in 2007. No final decision is apparent, and the Talk: page shows nothing to suggest that either.)
@Sigivald You're right, my mistake. It appears the article was deleted at that time. Since then it has obviously been recreated and left to stand, even though she doesn't clearly meet Wikipedia's notability guideline. So why does it stay? I'd chalk it up to a combination of Wikipedia's failure to agree upon notability standards for journalists and the "ignore all rules" guideline. Same goes for Chris Hayes at The Nation; only difference I can see is nobody has nominated him for deletion.
As for your point that Wikipedia doesn't have the same limitations of a paper encyclopedia but there must be some cutoff lest it become anarchy, well, that's exactly the debate Wikipedia has had within itself over time. The current notability standards are the result.
@TheKohser Megan McArdle is a blogger (commentator), not a journalist (reporter). I wouldn't expect her to interview anyone for a post on this site.