Wifione arbitration case

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Editor Wifione (T-C-F-R-B)

Arbitration case request posted 26 December 2014

Statement by …

Background

The background to this case is a long-running edit war over the article on the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (T-H-L-F-C). Supporters of the school persistently remove negative references to the school, particularly to the fact that it is not accredited, but has falsely claimed accreditation or affiliation with accredited institutions such as Stanford Business School, University of Buckingham, and that it has claimed special relationship with employers.

IIPM is owned by millionaire businessman Arindam Chaudhuri. You cannot escape the Institute’s advertising presence in India: bold, glossy ads promising job placements for its students, multinationals recruiting on campus, affiliation with other accredited institutions, awards of degrees from those institutions and so on. Hundreds or thousands of supporters – almost certainly paid supporters – promote his interests on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Quora, other internet forums. Chaudhuri’s Facebook page currently has four million likes. Its ‘degrees’ are practically worthless, but unsuspecting parents are persuaded to mortgage the family farm, or take out loans of 10 lakh (about £10,000) or more to send children to the Institute.

See this New Delhi High Court order restraining Arindam Chaudhuri from using the words “MBA, BBA, Management Course, Management School, Business School or B-School” in relation to the Courses or programmes being conducted by them.

Before this decision by the High Court, Chaudhuri has been relentless in taking legal action against websites and publications which sought to expose his deceptive claims. In February 2013 he got over 70 URLs blocked, one of them belonging to the Indian University Grants Commission which had merely publicised the fact that IIPM was not recognised by them, provoking Cory Doctorow to protest.


Wikipedia is one of the few channels that Indian students can use to check the misleading claims of ‘schools’ like the Institute. One parent spoke of being ‘ruined’ after taking out a bank loan. All they have is misinformation. “We got lured by the fake ads coupled with newspaper news praising IIPM institute,” said one parent. Astonishingly, while Chaudhuri’s lawyers were blocking official sites that may have helped the students and their parents, Wifione was at work on Wikipedia, removing statements like “Historically, IIPM has also been by far the largest advertiser among Indian educational institutions,” and “IIPM has been involved in controversies with respect to its advertising.” (Link)

Despite the fact that the Institute was running a blatant scam, Wifione has, for a long time, been able to use his deep knowledge of Wikipedia policy and his connections to its administration to prevent any of this being divulged. Yet, given that the Western media have largely ignored the issue of India diploma mills like IIPM, and given the effective censorship of criticism under the draconian laws on defamation, Wikipedia is often the only place which students can – in theory – reliably depend on. It is deeply ironic that this censorship and suppression has reached into the very heart of a project like Wikipedia, which was based from the very beginning on the principle that knowledge and truth ‘want’ to be free.

Using BLPs to further a dispute

Using BLPs to promote a dispute is strictly against policy. For years, Wifione persistently added derogatory and defamatory material into Ashok Chauhan (T-H-L-F-C), while at the same time puffing up the article on Arindam Chaudhuri (T-H-L-F-C).

  • wikipedia:Amity_University. Adds or replaces material about arrest warrant against Ashok Chauhan: [1],[2], [3], [4], [5], [6]
  • wikipedia:Ashok Chauhan. Starts the article, then adds or replaces material about arrest warrant against Ashok Chauhan: [7], [8], [9], [10], [11].
  • wikipedia:Indian Institute of Planning and Management removes references to the investigative work of Maheshwar Peri, editor of Careers 360: [12], [13] adds the story about criminal defamation charges against Maheshwar Peri, [14] Removes statement by the Uttarakhand High Court that ‘A truth spoken for public good can never be called defamatory." and replaces with "In 2009, IIPM filed a criminal defamation charge against Careers 360" and " In May 2010, it was reported that the court upheld that the contents of the Careers 360 article were "prima facie defamatory".", [15] removes the court statement again.

Tendentious editing

  • wikipedia:Indian Institute of Planning and Management. Downplays or removes references to lack of accreditation: [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25] is egregious, changing "In June 2008, The Wall Street Journal's Mint carried an op-ed by S.Mitra Kalita about misleading advertising by educational institutes in which it mentioned IIPM's claims about foreign faculty" to "In June 2008, S.Mitra Kalita in an op-ed column in livemint.com (a Hindustan Times and Wall Street Journal joint venture) gives a mention to the JAM and IIPM issue", and removing ""In August 2007, India's Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta announced that IIPM is under investigation for running courses without AICTE approval", [26] changes "IIPM has been the subject of controversies regarding accreditation, rankings in third party publications, advertising claims, trade practices, and tax issues" to "IIPM was the subject of a blogging controversy in 2005", [27], removes story about student complaints in Bangalore Express, [28] removes "It has been alleged that IIPM engages in misleading advertising practices."
  • wikipedia:Indian Institute of Planning and Management. Positive slant: [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38] adding "In 2008, IIPM placed 2,670 students through campus placements. It was reported to be a record. In the same year, there were 165 international placements, reported to be "second only to the best in the country", [39], [40], [41], [42], [43] ("IIPM has been ranked #9 amongst India's top ten private schools by Hindustan Times in 2009"), [44], [45], [46], [47] "IIPM was ranked the 5th best business school in India and the 2011 Best B-school in Asia overall among B-schools from 29 countries at the second Asia’s Best B-School awards", [48] "In March 2009, IIPM received the “candidate for accreditation” status from International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), an accreditation body for college and university programs.",

Evasion

At Wifi's editor review, he was asked on 19 January 2014 "*What got you interested in the IIPM-related articles in the first place? Do you have any opinion about the IIPM that you'd be willing to share? --SB_Johnny | talk 23:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)". This difficult question finally caused him to leave Wikipedia for seven months, even though he had himself started the editor review a week before.

At the beginning of August he finally replied.


    • It's a long time back, but as much as I recall, I think IIPM was a big advertiser in India and would have pulled top-of-the-mind recall in many youth. That would have been the reason at that time that got me interested. When I think of it now, I suspect that if I hadn't gotten into an edit war with another editor within a handful or so of days of landing up on that article, I might perhaps not even have stayed back on that article. As a newbie, the way I handled conflicts then was quite different from now. I have no particular opinion about IIPM. As mentioned in my RFA, the article itself could be brought up with some work to a GA status; I might try to do that in the coming months if it interests me any more then. Wifione Message 06:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

What was the edit war? He started editing the IIPM article on June 2009. That day he proposes the deletion of the JAM magazine reference. The magazine was one of those suppressed in India through 'defamation' legal action taken by Chaudhuri. He then removes the entire section on the Careers 360 claims, such as IMI Belgium not being recognized as an institution of higher learning in Belgium, Standard Chartered and other banks denying any affiliation, testimonials from former students etc. On the 29th June he was accused of being a sockpuppet of Mrinal Pandey.

The idea that he had 'no particular opinion' of IIPM is not borne out by these initial edits to the article. This edit on 1 July 2009 shows detailed knowledge of the investigative reports in the two publications he tried to remove mention of. On 30 July he is confident enough to report an editor at ANI, claiming 'harassment'. He repeats the accusations at Wikiquette alert, Reliable source noticeboard, and even the accuracy dispute board. He is always claiming harassment. "Dear Makrand Joshi, I have to request you to write calmly. I feel you are trying to steamroll and harass an editor. If you're accusing me of being a person called Mrinal Pandey, I feel completely harrassed by your accusation. Wifione (talk) 12:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)"

Lack of accountability

Edits


See also

Notes

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