Talk:American Apparel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Fashion Portal This article is within the scope of the Fashion WikiProject. Please work to improve this article, or visit our project page to find other ways of helping. Thanks!
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid	This article is on a subject of Mid-importance within fashion.
Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

	Companies Portal This article is within the scope of Companies WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of companies. If you would like to participate please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as high-importance on the assessment scale.

Where's the proof that the anti-union claims where false?

Contents 1 Sexual harassment 2 Criticism 3 Union dues 4 American Apparel, Inc 5 Website down? 6 "Lawsuit against Clamor magazine" section 7 Tags 8 What's the latest? 9 external link - knowmore.org (for your consideration) 10 COI +POV watch 10.1 Sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry 10.2 Partial explanation 10.3 Reverting again 10.4 Rewrite 11 A response to accusations, and a few other notes from a "sockmonkey" 12 Hello again, Wikidemo. A few more responses to your untiring responses. 13 COI 14 Second Life

[edit] Sexual harassment

masturbated during an interview with Jane reporter Claudine Ko.

Anyone got a source on this? --Liface 00:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• maybe you should look at the little [2] right after this sentance? that signifys a references. If you click on it it will bring up the writer, magazine, year, date, ect. Alex 04:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

When I click on that 2, and I see the article, it doesn't mention Claudine Co, Jane, or masturbation. As such, it is enough that the uncited claim is discussed here on the talk page, and it need not be in the article. 66.41.66.213 06:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

• http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939108_mz017.htm#2 its mentioned in the same link as [1] -HiS oWn 08:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Alright it's now after the sexual harassment, what is was refering to. Alex 01:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Is this to say that he masturbated during the interview, while the interviewer was there watching...? It is confusing. -- Centrx 04:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes, that's correct. He did it in front of her, and she has said that she totally consented to it. Alex 05:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

After having done extensive research on American Apparel and through very reliable sources on the inside I know for a fact that this so called “masturbation” did not take place during the interview. The interview itself took place at a store. The way its characterized here implies that Charney acted alone or just whipped it out in a work context. Not true. The real story is that the consensual sexual exchange took place AFTER the interview in a completely social context. The reporter was not some innocent bystander, she just chose to tabloidize this personal experience for her own best interest and as a “journalist". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Polarina123 (talk • contribs) 02:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, your own personal research into the subject cannot be used as a source. Since Jane is a verifiable source, the statement about Charney's interview can remain the article. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

I find the article unbalanced. The section on criticism takes up half the article. More information on the company as such should be added. Calvin Klein for instance has a lot of information on the history, image etc., but no section on criticism.

I would very much appreciate if experts could add some criticism section to CK, and add some more factual information to this article.

As a disclaimer, I have no problem with the existence of the criticism section as such, just with the relative size 145.18.233.228 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a really interesting article on AA's criticism in the preview for the next issue of Clamor Magazine.[1] -- LGagnon 00:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Which I had just interjected into the criticism section. I got wind of the issue via AdBusters, where it was reported that AA is threatening to sue Clamor. I hope y'all don't mind the bloat...

But I digress, there must be something positive about the company, is there? IMHO I'd be hard-pressed to make this American Apparel article more balanced by taking out the criticism; I'd rather add more positive points. Especially since the cat's already out of the bag. The fish has already rotten. The s**t has hit the fan. Or something to that effect. You know :p --Lemi4 02:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hookay, I just went over to the knowmore.org wiki where I read some significant stuffs. Like how at AA's factory the workers are paid at least twice the minimum wage, that there's free ESL lessons for the mostly Latino workers, etc. The knowmore.org article also has an interesting section on the relations between the UNITE workers' union and AA, and how they've apparently reconciled. Even the BusinessWeek article has some positive points, though it kinda highlights Dov Charney's somewhat 'progressive' views on sexuality, which, though can be considered positive, would imply the chagrin of those more conservative.

So like, can someone else carry the torch? It seems a bit counter-intuitive for myself to be spending so much time scrutinizing AA's negatives and positives, especially since I'm not even in AA's market (I live in Jakarta, Indonesia, where home industry-produced brand-free t-shirts for under four bucks are but a ten-cent busride away). --Lemi4 02:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

What's up with the last paragraph under criticisms? What does UNITE and their New York operations have to do with American Apparel's shop in Los Angeles? Does UNITE represent the AA workers (the article says their currents status is unknown)? Did AA used to have a factory in New York (no reference to such in the article)? Someone please elaborate on this trend, or remove it if it is superfluous. I am also of the opinion that the criticism section overshadows the main purpose of the article.

I think that the amount of criticism of AA makes perfect sense, especially over CK. CK doesn't advertise itself in any way to be a socially responsible corporation. Union-busting and sexual harassment and exploitation of employees, which are both pretty socially irresponsible, should be emphasized in discussion of AA, a company that advertises itself as being some kind of paragon of social excellence. While their CEO is a nutjob. Hmm... I think it's fair. Lequis 13:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm an avid supporter of American Apparel, but I still think that the article is relatively balanced. However, I disagree that the company "advertises itself as being some kind of paragon of social excellence." American Apparel flaunts the fact that they make all their products in the USA, and that their workers have access to health care and are paid a living wage. Other companies whose products are made in sweatshops half way around the world don't get criticism because there's no gray area--the company's labor practices are known. It's definately unfair, but we are writing an encyclopedia. Bardofcornish (talk) 02:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Union dues

$200 a month union dues seems excessive. I don't see the source in the knowmore.org article, anyways. I don't think it's true. --ColdRush 07:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The Union section seems to take a position of justifying American Apparel's rejection of Unionization, using the above and other unreferenced declarations ("employees would receive very few benefits not already offered for free by American Apparel"). This area should either be properly referenced, or should be removed; as it is it seems to be biased propaganda furthering the interests of the article's subject.

[edit] American Apparel, Inc

I'm trying to figure something out about the differences between these two companies. AA,Inc is the maker of the great majority of BDUs for every branch of the US military, while AA,LLC is the independently owned shop out of California. Perhaps this should be clarified a bit, but AA,Inc has almost no web presence (perhaps due to the US military being their only customer?). In fact searches for "American Apparel, Inc" mostly bring up results for the California store.24.160.150.54 07:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

this would be a great section to add. i would say most people in americorps think they are given clothes from this american apparel when in fact it's the gov't operation. and plenty of anarchists and other antiwar types steal things from this american apparel under this impression.

[edit] Website down?

Does anyone know why the company's website isn't working? It has been down for many weeks now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Psychocandy85 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm going to guess bandwidth. I visited the website the other day just fine but today it's down again. Go figure. 172.191.245.98 23:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Lawsuit against Clamor magazine" section

"Clamor magazine, a Toledo, Ohio-based progressive media ..." Isn't this grammatically incorrect? Shouldn't it be the singular noun "medium", since the article "a" is also singular?

[edit] Tags

All statements in this article should be checked against their sources to see if those citations support the statement itself. There is an open discussion at WP:ANI about User:Leftcoastbreakdown's contributions to this article and Dov Charney while being employed as the "Web Content Coordinator" for American Apparel. This article may contain unsupported synthesis and original research and any controversial content not supported by a citation should be removed immediately. Thank you. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 09:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• Editors should also utilize this list of diffs made by IP:66.151.52.0-255 (the assigned IP range of American Apparel's Los Angeles headquarters) to assess any further POV edits made to this article. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 10:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done a substantial rewrite to improve quality, improve encyclopedic tone, and avoid obvious POV and advertising. I have not checked it against the sources. There is also a plagiarism/copyvio concern mentioned on AN/I. I restored two accusations of sexual misconduct made against the company CEO that were deleted by this editor in one case and from the company IP on another. Although they raise BLP concerns, they are in reliable sources and they are highly relevant to the company's issues with alleged sexual harassment so they seem okay. Wikidemo (talk) 12:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I reviewed all the edits of this article from the editor and the IP and have taken all into account. I did not attempt to undo each, but rather restore any deleted negative material and eliminate any puffery, defensive argumentation, etc., regardless of source. They did do some good for citations, organization, English, etc.; no point reverting those. I will discuss more on AN/IWikidemo (talk) 12:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

A couple futher notes re. recent edits. It's perfectly okay to cite things to sources available only to pay or registration sites, or sites that are not online at all; however, if two citation links are equivalent it's best to link to the more accessible one, and in other cases one may provide a "courtesy link" to a non-source online version of an offline or unavailable source. Second, there is no policy or guideline against making edits in a conflict of interest situation, just a caution. Where those edits are clerical and uncontroversial in nature there is no particular reason to distrust them. Things like correcting spellings, updating sales and other statistics (where there's no dispute), etc. In theory sales numbers ought to be cited, but in practice they often aren't, and they can be cited to self-published sources anyway.Wikidemo (talk) 16:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• It would seem inappropriate to me to allow American Apparel to inflate their own statistics without sourcing that information because that strikes me as being pure original research, but I'll defer to consensus on this policy. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's the latest?

Regarding the new image of the ad, the problem isn't the COI - leftcoastbreakdown simply replaced an external image link to a link to a newly uploaded image of the same thing. Wikignoming and clerical fixes and improvements to an article by the a conflicted editor are no problem, and probably encouraged if they make the information more accurate. The real problem is that it's a copyrighted image without proper licensing. We have no fair use justification at all to upload an image just to link to it because the ad link is replaceable by a link to the New York Times version....in fact it's technically not an image use at all so the image is really an orphan. The only way we can accept this is if Amercan Apparel (assuming it is the copyright holder - otherwise, the photographer or whoever owns it) agrees to a GDFL article by licensing it under the GDFL share-alike or unlimited license as appropriate to the Wikimedia Commons or Flickr, from which we can import it into Wikipedia. That would be a sporting, public spirited thing to do because the world can use more free content, even ads like this. But that does give us and the rest of the world - any newspaper, any supporter or detractor, any clip art maker, the right to do anything they possibly want with the image and the text. A share-alike license would at least require attribution, which would keep it out of the clip art galleries. A number of companies, entertainment personalities, and photographers have seen the light and actually donated images to the public this way, but many others have legal departments or marketing people that would prohibit that. An ad like this could be a nice resource for the world.Wikidemo (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree and I believe that, both because he is employed by American Apparel and for his past edit history, Leftcoastbreakdown should be prohibited from making any changes to this article because it is an egregious WP:COI violation. We cannot trust that he is going to make any neutral contributions to his article because he is employed by this company. It is also a single purpose account and should have been blocked when it was discovered originally and though I thought that the account went dormant, recent activity suggests that Leftcoastbreakdown will continue to use it to make edits to this article to promote his employer. This is unacceptable and he should be blocked. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• We don't have to trust or not trust anyone - the proof is in what they do. I think American Apparel got off the hook easy on this one. Can you imagine the bad publicity for the company had it blossomed into a Microsoft-like incident and the newspapers decided to cover that American Apparel is trying to soften its reputation for scandal by manipulating Wikipedia? That would surely backfire. I'm guessing they know this and won't cause us any more trouble. If they do, let them have it! In the meanwhile, if they want to do anything that's actually helpful to this article or any others, as long as it doesn't introduce any POV slant, etc., the conflict guidelines do suggest that people are free to make clerical changes to their own article. But of course they're equally free to just come to the talk page and ask us to make the changes, which we'll do if they're legit and useful. As far as donating a copyrighted image to the public domain that should be encouraged. It's like charity. Whether the motivation is good bad or indifferent, just give. Any copyright holder that donates their content may have some self interest in the attribution or promoting their work. The very few stars, professional photographers, and companies that have donated are probably doing it out of self interest. That's just fine. We make the editorial decision to include or not include. I happen to think that poster would make a good illustration for that part of the article, but only if it's not copyrighted. It's actually a pretty notable event that the company did this, perhaps as notable as some of the scandals it's involved in. It tells a very informative (by which I mean encyclopedic) story about American corporate culture and history. But anyway, that hasn't happened. We'll see. 01:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC) Wikidemo (talk) 02:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] external link - knowmore.org (for your consideration)

In 2006, Knowmore.org published a 70 page report entitled "Understanding American Apparel", written and researched by Knowmore founder B. Dolan. Now, two years later, as Dov Charney and his company prepare to stand trial in January, Knowmore's report has been entered as evidence in the trial, and B. Dolan has been deposed and called in to testify. [2]

from Knowmore.org's FAQ [edit] Is Knowmore.org's information copyrighted? The articles hosted on this site are released by their authors under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the articles are free content and may be reproduced freely under the same license. [3]

Mwelz (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] COI +POV watch

[edit] Sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry

Recently several anonymous IPs (70.1.133.32 (talk · contribs), 70.6.90.178 (talk · contribs), 68.164.63.53 (talk · contribs), 70.6.153.149 (talk · contribs), and two new editors who have contributed little else (Rhodiaboy (talk · contribs) and Igloo1981 (talk · contribs)), have made and may be edit warring over a series of changes to this article and that of company CEO Dov Charney‎ to paint them in a more favorable light, including downplaying material related to the sexual nature of advertising, a unionization attempt, and reported allegations of sexual improprieties. These changes have involved removing sourced content, adding content that is argumentative ("paradoxically...", "despite..."), attacking the credibility of people who have made the statements (e.g. a writer's professionalism), and a number of other problems having to do with weight, POV, synthesis, reliable sources. These articles have in the past been the subject of attempts by the company itself to improve its image. Under the circumstances we should watch out for potential WP:POV editors and WP:SOCKs and WP:COI problems. I have allowed some of the additions and changes to remain but reversed the ones I saw as problematic. Wikidemo (talk) 00:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

...and 70.1.240.224 (talk · contribs) [4]. Wikidemo (talk) 01:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

...and again[5]. Wikidemo (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

...and three more times: [6][7][8] Wikidemo (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

...And another new WP:SPA account Mmhernandez (talk · contribs) adding brand new unencyclopedia material to make Dov Charney look better[9]. This is looking more and more like a WP:SOCK or WP:MEAT account. I am reverting the latest series of edits on both articles pending resolution of this matter. Wikidemo (talk) 16:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

...And yet another new WP:SPA account Danicaobrien (talk · contribs), their first edit on the encyclopedia[10] identical to this one by the IP sock/meatpuppet 68.164.63.53 (talk · contribs) [11]. We're up to four named editors and five IP addresses all making the same edits. Wikidemo (talk) 20:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

...Another brand-new account Kingsasquatch (talk · contribs) fluffing up the article [12]: Dov Charney is "fiercely dedicated to manufacturing high-quality T-shirts, and at the same time proving that clothing manufacturers can turn a profit without exploiting laborers and engaging in other nefarious practices" (cited to the AA website); this one has fluffed up some other designer articles too.[13][14] This one seems to naive and simple to be the others - a school assignment? A prank? Misdirection? Wikidemo (talk) 23:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)...now is acting as the others:[15][16] Wikidemo (talk) 18:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...and another, IrisAlonzo (talk · contribs)[17], first edit ever, removing a paragraph lead from the Dov Chaney article as "uncited", etc. Wikidemo (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...and another, 76.168.41.13 (talk · contribs)[18]: "American Apparel is committed to leveraging art, design, technology to produce garments of the highest quality" (etc).

...and Floater71 (talk · contribs) (another first-time editor) uploaded two images from the "AA media kit", including one previously deleted after being inserted by their PR person.[19] Wikidemo (talk) 15:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...and 76.94.170.79 (talk · contribs) (first time edit), apparently admits[20] to being IrisAlonzo[21] (edit summary = "again...") Wikidemo (talk) 18:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...an anonymous editor 66.151.52.100 (talk · contribs) updates the yearly net sales the same day as the company issues the numbers in a press release[22] Wikidemo (talk) 19:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...and another anonymous edit warring IP from Los Angles 69.232.38.186 (talk · contribs), reinstates inappropriate material in toto[23][24]. ]. Wikidemo (talk) 20:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC). ...then edit wars over material[25] accusing me of "bias" (strongly suggesting this is the same sock as Igloo1981[26]) Wikidemo (talk) 21:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Environmentalgal (talk · contribs)} first-time editor joins and adds WP:CRYSTAL material to promote company's environmental record.[27] Wikidemo (talk) 14:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Note:

• "Iris Alonzo" is Creative Director at American Apparel[28].
• "Danica O'Brien" works for American Apparel[29]

So either the names are a coordinated hoax or this proof AA is again attempting to do COI edits here. Wikidemo (talk) 18:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Partial explanation

One of the above editors has accused me of bias and asked on my talk page why I am holding out on this article. First, I do not believe I have a bias, and I certainly have no stake in the article. My only concern is to protect the article, and Wikipedia more generally, from disruptive edits. If you look through the edit history you can see that for a period of about a year, ending in January, Leftcoastbreakdown (talk · contribs) was editing the article and that of the company's founder, Dov Charney‎, in a way that among other things seriously diminished the reports of sexuality in advertising,[30] the reported sexualization of the workplace, sex harassment lawsuits against the company, and so on.[31][32] [33] The user also made changes to praise the company and its founder. [34][35] [36][37] [38][39] As a PR agent for the company the editor had a clear conflict of interest and should not have been using Wikipedia in that way. The issue was raised and resolved this past November at AN/I: here. Although some others were more firm (and later urged the editor to not edit the article at all), I simply warned the user[40] that a company making POV edits to its own article could backfire on the company and assumed we could count on the company's better judgment to avoid stirring up more trouble. Th PR person soon disappeared from Wikipedia -- or did they?

Starting about March 11, after a lull of 2-3 months, a swarm of new editors have been rehashing the very same issues the PR person was undertaking, in a very similar way. These are all single-purpose accounts with few, or no, edit histories other than trying to improve the way American Apparel and Dov Charney come off on Wikipedia. Yet they seem to know an awful lot (a lot for a brand new editor but not too much - about the same as the PR person and with some of the same flaws) about wikipedia policies and the e need for citations. There are a lot of stylistic similarities and editing quirks in common between the various new editors, and they also share this with the PR agent: Editing numerous sections at once to slant the article, with no edit summaries or edit summaries that misleadingly suggest that only minor technical changes are being done,[41][42][43] [44], PR speak praising the company and its founder[45] ("is the mastermind behind", "award-winning"), Throat clearing asides that tend to slant the tone of sentences ("perhaps inevitably"[46], "Despite...", "few argue that", "Paradoxically", "As the company's creative director"), adding and tweaking section headers to be more favorable, adding citations to controversial material (sometimes good, sometimes bad, often in a characteristic citation style), updating simple factual information about the company, and a bunch of other things. The edit summaries of all of these various accounts are written nearly identically. I'll spare the full analysis of the new editors for an WP:RfC or other administrative review of this article, but there are too many coincidences for this to be normal editing process. Another thing that ties them together (mentioned above) - all but one of the IP editors are from Los Angeles, and I'll bet the signed-in editors too. After rooting a number of sockuppets in the past year, I think I'm getting a nose for these things. This one just doesn't smell right.

Regarding the most recent edits by igloo1981 (talk · contribs)[47], I reverted them in part because I think it's improper edit warring in a meatpuppet fashion, but I also think each change is a bad edit:

1. All "key people" removed from infobox except their famous CEO, no reason given
2. Anti-union "demonstration" by workers sourced to unreliable source knowmore.org[48] per WP:RS. Knowmore.org's site is down now, but this is a wiki run by an ostensible consumer group with "Question Your Goods. Vote With Your Wallet" as their meta-tag. They would not seem unbiased. This change is made to a section on a failed unionization attempt in which the company was reported to NLRB, and where previous attempts were made by the same group of editors to insert a self-serving statement by the company that the union activists simply didn't get any support among the workers. It simply looks like an attempt to downplay the company's anti-union behavior by saying the workers don't like unions, a common PR tactic.
3. "and on May 10, 2004 the case was dismissed" - the paragraph already says a settlement was reached. Adding a statement that the case was dismissed on a particular day, after already saying the settlement was reached, is unduly specific, is redundant, and tends to mislead people by suggesting the case was without merit ("was dismissed" sounds to lay readers like a rejection of the merits of the case; a settlement is not a rejection). A dismissal of a case following a settlement is a mere legal formality, and is rarely reported in legal or news circles as a dismissal. The only plausible reason to do so here is a misunderstanding of how lawsuits work, or an attempt to slant the language.
4. "In a 2007 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, American Apparel characterized its relations with its employees as 'excellent.'" So what? A company's self-filed regulatory statement is not a reliable source for the state of a company's labor relations. The fact that the company is making claims in its filing is impertinent. All companies make claims and this is not a remarkable one. Such a statement is self-published and cannot be taken as evidence that the labor relations are in fact good. See WP:RS.
5. "In the last five years there have been no reports of American Apparel employees seeking to unionize since the September 2003 incident." This claim is unicted and only tangentially relevant to anything. In the context of a POV concern this tends to bolster the claim that the workers simply didn't want to unionize. "X did not do Y in 5 years" is not pertinent to a section that "X did Y 5 years ago", only a weak rhetorical argument.
6. removing "Charney claimed to have slept with employees, and reportedly masturbated numerous times and had oral sex performed on him by an employee during a series of interviews with a writer for the magazine Jane." - this incident was the focus of the edit wars and POV attacks several months ago. Note that in the past few days the POV editors have tried to discredit the reporter who wrote these articles as unprofessional, engaging in consensual sex with the founder, etc.,[49] some real BLP attacks. Any POV editor who wants to come back for round two needs to have a more serious discussion and not simply edit war over removing this again.

Igloo1981 claims to be a student doing research[50], but exhibits qthe same editing traits on the same issues, and arrived at the same time. He/she has also taken part in some of the previous edit warring, slanting, and insertion of inappropriate material in the past few days. In one series of edits[51] he/she heaped unencyclopedic praise on the founder ("At an early age Charney showed signs of an entrepreneurial and independent spirit", "breakthrough", "a hugely popular wholesale brand"), removed sourced negative material (a company bankruptcy, charney's personal interest in sexually-charged advertising, models sending photos directly to Charney, Charney walked across factory floor in briefs and masturbated, and staged a sexual encounter with an employee, in front of a reporter), and adding an un-cited attack that "Some critics questioned [the source's] professionalism". Even if we assume good faith about this particular user, the person is a new editor with negligible history here other than these articles who seems to have wandered into a meatpuppet attack and is making improper edits that end up helping the meatpuppets, in the same style and using the same tactics as the meatpuppets.

Were these changes made in isolation, I have no particular position on the article and I would let some edits slip. Again, I am not concerned with the article content in the end so much, just not letting Wikipedia be degraded by people who would use improper tactics to defend corporate images - perhaps the company itself.

-- Wikidemo (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting again

Will be reverting the POV material that has accumulated in the last 24 hours (that puts me at 2RR in case anyone is counting). I believe this can all be simply reverted as COI, POV, meatpuppetry, and sockpuppetry. And not a single one of the contentious editors has discussed what they are doing. But to justify why this is a problem I'll go over each issue:

• Deletion of names of executives - These have been in the article for some time. An editor with an account name matching an American Apparel executive has deleted these twice now without explanation.
• Addition of paragraph: "Marty Bailey has developed a new concept of team manufacturing based on eliminating wasted time in motion..." and "American Apparel is committed to leveraging art, design, technology to produce garments of the highest quality" - unencyclopedic, poorly cited, promotional fluff.
• Addition of non-free advertising image. Although American Apparel is known for its unique and effective advertising look, I don't believe including an ad in here satisfies the WP:NFCC#8 test. In addition this image is proposed for deletion for an inadequate non-free rationale.
• Carney is "fiercely dedicated to manufacturing high-quality T-shirts" and expounding on his "neo-capitalism" philosophy...fluff. Citing fluff to an industry magazine and Southwest Airline flight magazine does not change the fact that it is unencyclopedic fluff.
• Other miscellaneous material deleted as per above (the editor is at 3RR with this, and seems to be a sock/meatpuppet)
• Explaining away accusations of hiring workers for their looks as being "in order to emphasize the style of the products; unlike some competitors like Abercrombie & Fitch, the company has never been accused of discrimination or racial bias". Rhetorical fallacy, uncited analysis/synthesis, argumentation, POV.
• Addition of image of New York Times pro-immigration ad. This very image was inserted a while ago by an AA employee, and removed as part of the last COI dispute. Although I think it's useful there seemed to be a consensus to remove it. Also, it is a non-free image that has been nominated for deletion for an inadequate non-free use rationale.
• Latest edits also monged up the format of the article.

Note: I am retaining and re-inserting the very few constructive edits that were made here.

- Wikidemo (talk) 19:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No sooner done than an IP sockpuppet reverts to this and the Dov Chaney article. Wikidemo (talk) 20:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Please note - I do not intend to edit war on this article any further, and have done so only as a matter of dealing with the apparent sockpuppets. I am reverting one last time before bringing this to AN/I or a sockpuppet report, simply to flush out any more sockpuppet accounts that may join in. Wikidemo (talk) 20:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I've just rewritten the article to improve quality and get rid of a lot of messy stuff and the taint of conflict left over from the recent sockpuppet/POV attack by American Apparel executives. I also imported a lot of stuff from the Dov Charney article that was more about the company's history than him, and pushed some stuff about him to that article. Overall I've tried to balance it slightly in favor of talking about the company and its various decisions and achievements over all the controversies, particularly the sex harassment and unionization fight (but these are relevant and well sourced so they should not be eliminated entirely). Arguments and colorful examples both pro and con were unencyclopedic so I've removed some of that stuff. There's some more discussion on the Dov Charney talk page. I hope this is fairer to the company and also a better article. I'll leave the conflict tags up for now, but I think the article's been washed of that so if the company leaves it alone for a while I'll take them off. (all subject to reasonable consensus of legitimate editors, of course) Wikidemo (talk) 18:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A response to accusations, and a few other notes from a "sockmonkey"

I am an employee of American Apparel. I do not know all of the rules and regulations of Wikipedia. I dont even know how to make a proper link or a citation. However, I do know a thing or two about Dov Charney and American Apparel, to the point that I could be considered an expert. Am I biased? Sure. I LOVE my job and my boss is great. Is there a conflict of interest? Maybe. But that's not the issue. The issue for me is that the full story is not being shared on these pages. You can't fairly tell somebody's life story without including the accomplishments along with the failures. Also, while the average person today might be more excited to read about blow jobs than industrial, retail and aesthetic achievements, it's not fair to sensationalize the "interesting" parts and disregard anything else (such as "Marty Bailey has developed a new concept of team manufacturing based on eliminating wasted time in motion...") as "fluff". In fact, I see some of the texts that the WikiPolice insist on leaving as negative, sensational tidbits of fluff themselves. "Charney has also emphasized sexuality in his public persona in order to raise his company's profile; in a similar synergistic manner, Hugh Hefner's profile raised that of the Playboy empire." I read through the editing history and I'm not claiming that all changes made by every editor have been totally without some agenda to shed a positive light on the company. Aside from myself and Danica O'Brien, I have no relation to, no do I know who any of them are. What I'm saying is that in order for any article to be fair and truly encyclopedic, the story must be told completely, without a heavy hand towards any one element. I don't have time or desire to "edit war" with anyone, but I would like to add some information that is completely essential to one getting a proper overview of Dov or the company, and I would appreciate the chance for it to be fairly considered before it's hastily undone. Just because a Wikidemo-type didn't write it doesn't mean that it's not part of the story. Everything I post will have a citation that is of the same or superior quality as the existing ones, and the tone will be no more biased than anything else that is published. I'm using what you have deemed "encyclopedic" as a guideline. I hope you find my edits as constructive and fair. Thank you, Iris —Preceding unsigned comment added by IrisAlonzo (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You can do us, and your company, a favor by avoiding further edits to the article until we can untangle the recent mess, and after that only cautiously. The kind of edits you are proposing would probably be unacceptable to the community, not only for process (editors with a conflict of interest should not be boosting their company here) but for substance (like it or not, public sex or a sex harassment suit against a company pushing the bounds of sexuality in advertising and the workplace is factual and notable; a manufacturing director who claims he has invented a new way of doing business probably is not, unless major business sources agree - that kind of stuff is often considered WP:CRUFT around here). It is hard to accept on face value the claim that the two accounts traceable by name to American Apparel are utterly unconnected with the rest of the biased editing that occurred in tandem. It is also hard to swallow that you don't know the rules and your playful misuse of the term "sockmonkey" in place of "sockpuppet" does not convince me otherwise. We all live by rules. If we go to your store we expect there are rules and we should live by them - no loud music, no running, no eating in the aisles, no setting up a stand and selling our own merchandise, etc. Certainly any reasonable person would expect (and you are on notice and have received lots of reminders by virtue of signing into an account) that we have rules too. When you are on Wikipedia you are in our house, not yours. American Apparel lists your job function as "creative director". That job usually entails some PR. Any PR person would tell you that journalists and other information sources have codes of ethics and standards. Wikidemo (talk) 04:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is a quick question. A few moments ago one of the apparent sockpuppets/meatpuppets, Floater71 (talk · contribs), who joined Wikipedia an hour after you did, just re-inserted several images in the article that have been deleted before and are against our rules.[52] The user claims that these images are from the AA media kit and "used with permission." Are you the same user as Floater71 or do you know who that is? Can you promise us that neither you nor Danica O'Brien have edited the encyclopedia using different account names, or without logging in, and that as far as you and anyone at American Apparel knows, all of these other accounts are not related to American Apparel? Before you answer that, please keep in mind that we have other ways of figuring this out.Wikidemo (talk) 04:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, regarding the Hugh Hefner references you refer to as sensationalistic fluff on the part of biased Wikipedians, you should know they were all added last October by an American Apparel employee, citing a New York Times article, starting with this one[53]. American Apparel's "retail and aesthetic achievements", as you put it, are all about sexuality - and so is the company's style, branding, image, and practices. This is not a PR outlet. You can't have it both ways, promoting it when you want, then denying it when it comes to a serious publication. Wikidemo (talk) 04:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hello again, Wikidemo. A few more responses to your untiring responses.

1. You untangling the recent mess that infests "your house" (isnt this an open source? isnt this EVERYONE's house? I guess not.) is not my concern. With the common display of misinformation found on this site, and all the scandals that are linked to this infallible resource, Im sure you've got plenty of untangling to do! I will do my company a favor, and I will say what is fair and truthful.
2. The kind of edits I am proposing are constructive to the overall bio, factual, and part of the total story. As I said, if I post anything, it will be with sufficient citation.
3. Public sex and sexual harassment are certainly notable! I am not proposing, nor have a I attempted to remove any of these points. True or false, it's part of the story, that can and will be expanded on. Im not sure why you keep insinuating that Marty Bailey is "probably not" telling the truth, but I do have the publicly reported Case Study conducted by Penn State University. I'll get that up asap. It's strange how you almost seem to not WANT any of the non-slanderous notes to be true! It's fairly common, though, that the typically average person relishes in the failures of others more than they do in the successes.
4. True, If you go to our stores, there are rules. However, the rules are not one sided, and it is not black and white. If an uptight woman living in the Bay Area with A LOT of time on her hands comes to the door of one of our stores and the manager smells something fishy and doesnt want to serve her, that's too bad. The rules are not made up as they go, and uptight and fishy or not, everyone gets a fair chance to fit into a pair of lamé leggings. Even you.
5. I dont know what code of ethics and standards that you go by, but I go by the truth, and an un-puffed, un-airbrushed view of it. If this was a fair and unbiased report that gave a solid overview of something that I am passionate about, I would not be here. Instead, I would be sending it to people interested learning about the company. But it's not that. It's a tabloidized view of a man and a company, being monopolized by people who only know what they read on the internet anyway. I don't care how many linkety links you can post. If you dont get the full story, you're not doing your job. If you continue to perpetuate a biased story about the company, it could (if it hasnt already) damage us. We are a public company and under fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders (a large portion of which are the worldwide employees of American Apparel) to protect our image from misrepresentation. Again, I have not attempted to simply remove anything that is negative. This isnt a press release. Even a sockmonkey knows that. In fact, I've made very few detractions at all. What I am insistent upon, and what I am trying to figure out why you are insistent against, is a fair portrayal. I mean, you haven't even given me a chance yet, and already you're sure that it's not up to snuff. If this is an encyclopedia, let the experts speak. You might learn something.
6. I am not Floater71 and I do not know who that is, scouts honor. And if you had ways of figuring that all out, then there would probably be a lot fewer recent results when you google "Wikipedia scandals". This is clearly a flawed system.
7. I wasnt referring to the reference to Mr. Hefner as fluff. If you'll notice, that reference is made in the intro paragraph, and has not been touched. It was the fluff leading up to it that I was referring to as fluff: "Charney has also emphasized sexuality in his public persona in order to raise his company's profile;" Says who? Im still looking for that citation. Please provide it, or remove the text.

And no, Wikidemo, this is not a PR outlet. Nor is it a therapeutic negativity outlet for you or people like you. There are rules, and ALL OF US, not just guests to "your house", have to follow them. Just because you have more edits than some does not make you exempt from the rules, nor does it make you any sort of authority on, well, anything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.170.79 (talk) 07:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to all those disingenuous points. You don't seem to realize that you and American Apparel are on thin ice and in no position to get on a soap box. Later today, once the community notices that American Apparel has been surreptitiously editing Wikipedia to downplay Dov Chaney's exploits and the company's issues over sexual harassment, American Apparel may well become one of those Wikipedia scandals to which you refer. For you to come out swinging, laying accusations on me about negativity and being "one of those people" after American Apparel is caught breaking the fundamental rules of Wikipedia, is unproductive to say the least. Not to mention, less than candid. You again deny you know the rules, and suggest they are bogus and should not apply to you because you are defending your company's public image against detractors. There is no fiduciary responsibility to engage in subterfuge. Wikipedia believes in the principles of neutrality, verifiability, and avoiding bias and conflict of interest so that it does not become a PR outlet for corporations trying to increase shareholder value by denying misdeeds and spinning their brand. That's only common sense but in case you don't get it all you have to do is click a few of the links you have been provided - you can start with WP:5P. Your company was already sternly warned about this behavior in the past. Neither I nor any of the other volunteers who are inevitably going to have to deal with the mess you've created have a bone to pick with American Apparel or its corporate practices. Frankly, and speaking only for myself here, I would love more sexuality in the workplace - CEOs parading around in their underwear, masturbating, receiving oral sex on public occasions. People who know that Girls Gone Wild is more than a guilty passtime, it is good business. On a more serious note, we would all welcome a more comprehensive, factual, informative article rather than silly fluff that Dov Charney is "fiercely dedicated to manufacturing high-quality T-shirts, and at the same time proving that clothing manufacturers can turn a profit without exploiting laborers and engaging in other nefarious practices." We get there through honesty, integrity, and hard work - probably how your company achieved what it did in the first place. Not by playing games. I gave you an opportunity to come clean, asking what other accounts and un-logged in IP addresses American Apparel may have used to edit the article. You've ignored that so far, instead responding on one of them. If you're not going to cooperate or at least attempt some damage control, the best you can do for you and your company is to sit back and let us authorities on nothing, as you put it, take care of things. Wikidemo (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] COI

I went through and removed all traces of COI and also got the article back up to Wikipedia standards. There are still some cosmetic changes I'd like to go back through and make but I'm exhausted and will probably take a break. Thanks go out to Wikidemo for getting this thing back under control. TheRegicider (talk) 07:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life

Totally feel like it deserves a mention, but 4 extensive paragraphs about a single advertising venture that was eventually cancelled does not seem like it fits with the article. Perhaps it could go in the Second Life article. Otherwise, I feel like it hurts the integrity of the Wiki entry and is a bit too tangential. I could be wrong, what does everyone else think? TheRegicider (talk) 06:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)