Talk:West Coast Customs

Angry outburst

RORY NEEDS TO BE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.127.124 (talk) 01:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:West Coast Customs.gif

Image:West Coast Customs.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 07:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC) Should we expand the article? Also "Street Customs" is no longer on the air —Preceding unsigned comment added by TruckyTrice (talk • contribs) 10:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

This article sucks

It honestly reads like someone watched one episode of Street Customs, then penned-out the article. This is just sad, especially considering how big the company is. 71.35.22.153 (talk) 03:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Advertisement Brochure

In my opinion this article reads more like an advertisement brochure for the company. The article falls way short of the standard that I feel is required for a Wikipedia entry.

"Cast and crew" and "trademarks" sections

To IP user 71.92.65.250:

I am writing here about my revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=West_Coast_Customs&oldid=755719390

I view this IP edit to be suspect and vandalism. You re-inserted a section right in the middle of the history section, splitting it in a way that made no sense (sub-sections of History suddenly appeared under "Cast and Crew").

This article is not about the TV show. It is about the company. If you want to write about the TV show, please add your edits to Inside West Coast Customs. I have been working for hours fixing this article and getting it into a semi-presentable state. There was so much unsourced information in this article before. I am attempting to assume good faith, but since your IP originates in California, all of your edits since 2015 have been to the WCC article and the speed with which you were attracted to the article I feel you may be somewhat connected to WCC. I should remind you that editing articles about yourself or your company is a WP:COI (conflict of interest).

Now let's talk about the "Trademarks" section. This section is spammy and ad brochure like. Any other article about a company on this site, Microsoft, MakerBot, Apple does not list all of the trademarks they have. I see no reason to list trademarks which are just variations on the company name.

I still have much more clean up to do to get this article into a WP:NPOV (neutral point of view). There are controversies I have not yet covered which I do plan to, like the $150,000 fine WCC received from the US government for paying employees little and late. I would appreciate your help with the article (you did add something I was going to cover in more detail, the new Burbank facility), but only if you can keep a WP:NPOV and not be a WP:COI. --Psiĥedelisto (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Another thing that makes me a little bit weary of you. You wrote "In early 2015 Ryan moved the headquarters to a new 60,000 sq/ft facility located in Burbank, CA." (and didn't include a source. Sources are vital on Wikipedia. You cannot just add things to articles without sources and expect people to believe them and other editors not to remove them. I know it's true, so I'm rewriting it.)

But you referred to Friedlinghaus as Ryan. This kind of familiarity with the people who work at WCC makes me suspicious of you combined with all the reasons above. Let's please be professional here, and refer to people related to WCC by their last names, as per WP:MOS and just general professional writing guidelines. --Psiĥedelisto (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:West Coast Customs/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sagecandor (talk · contribs) 21:24, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll do this one. Sagecandor (talk) 21:24, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article has failed its Good article nomination. This is how the article, as of December 22, 2016, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?:

• Good job on the research and the citations for asserted statements of fact. Some work to be done but I'm confident the article contributors can fix these issues over time. Keep in mind these recommendations before going for another review. Good luck !
• Overall, the article comes off as a bit too promotional in tone.
• Let's look at the introduction section. Way too much WP:Overlinking, that makes the introduction section virtually unreadable. It also comes across as name-dropping, like, oooh, look who we did business with, look at all these blue-linked names of other companies ! I would suggest trimming those down to maybe three name-drops total in the introducton section.
• Also, the introduction fails Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section -- it is not a good summary of the entire article. The introduction basically: Name-drops a crap-ton of companies, mentions nice locations where it has franchises -- and then fails to summarize all the other sections of the article. Very little about: "History", "Location changes", and "Controversies", and "Franchises".

2. Verifiable?:

• Does not appear that WP:Citation templates are being used in the correct manner, or even in the same manner, from one citation to the next.
• Problems with lack of standardization in the citations. Some have works italicized, some do not.
• Example for the first cite, should italicize Los Angeles Times, but does not, but other cites do.
• Cite 45 has problems, not enough info here.
• Cite 47 appears to be WP:Original research, might want to check with WP:RSN to see if that is okay in this one particular instance.
• Cite 48 does not mention enough info on name of the original website, original hyperlink, etc.

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?:

• Problems with neutrality as noted in discussion about introduction, above.
• Concerns about violations of WP:NPOV with the pushing of all the negative stuff into a "Controversies" section.
• Strongly recommend integrating all "Controversies" related info directly into the "History" section, in chronological order as it occurred over time.
• Then, once that's done, go back and expand the introduction per WP:Manual of Style/Lead section -- to a sufficient size so it can be a summary of the entire article body text.
• Right now, for some reason, the introduction appears to be tacitly ignoring a great deal of article body content in the form of the "Controversies" information, and that violates WP:NPOV.

5. Stable?: Lots of changes recently, but aside from some IP address, not seeing edit history warring or conflicts. Talk page history shows a good faith attempt at explanation by the GA nominator, with no response, so good effort here.

6. Images?:

• File:West Coast Customs.png good fair use rationale.
• Three free-use images hosted on Wikimedia Commons, all check out okay.

Overall, nice effort so far on the research. Major concerns include WP:LEAD, WP:NPOV, fixes to increase standardization in use of WP:Citation templates, and fix the introduction to avoid a promotional tone. Best practice might be to bring in a couple of copy editors who are previously uninvolved on the article and previously not knowledgeable about the subject matter. Good luck !

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— Sagecandor (talk) 04:54, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I believe that I've taken all of your suggestions into account. Especially you're pushing me to find more negative content was a help, while it was challenging to think of keywords, I found a wealth of content critical of the subject which I added to the current version of the article. I hope the article will pass this time. --Psiĥedelisto (talk) 04:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Notes to future editors

Almost everything this company says about itself needs to be viewed as suspect. That's true of many other companies on Wikipedia, but in two major areas is it important as the company routinely attempts to rewrite history in them:

Franchises

WCC claims many more franchises than are open. It claims franchises which have closed as well as franchises which no reliable sources point to ever having opened. At [1], the company writes "We currently have franchises in Russia, Mexico, Germany, Japan and Malaysia and are currently looking at expansion in other areas of the globe." Unfortunately, this statement is being mirrored uncritically by many journalists, especially because it was in the English Wikipedia for a while until I came around and did hours of research. Literally none of the franchises on that list are still active. The German and Mexican ones closed (Berlin became insolvent, Mexico changed its name/legal entity), the Russian one never existed, and the Japanese/Malaysian ones never existed beyond a "COMING SOON!" website.

Company opening date

I have noticed a trend in the sources. When Friedlinghaus was first giving interviews about WCC, he would cite 1997/1998 as the opening year. However, these days he cites 1993. In the earliest source,[2] published in 2004 around the time of the debut of Pimp My Ride, there are two contradictory statements:

"So, six years ago, (2004-6=1998) Friedlinghaus opened his car-customizing garage, hoping to find customers desiring souped-up cars in a city popularized by famous rappers and movies featuring tricked-out rides.

and

"By the time he was 18, the car-customizing craze was beginning to take off and, with $5,000 he had saved from working at his father's liquor store in Laguna Niguel, he opened West Coast Customs in the same city in 1994."

A USA Today article from the same period also quotes 1998 as the year.

I really do believe that the company, if it existed at all, was small time until the year 1998, where business required a legal entity to be opened as it was in 2000. However, because the LA Times did also publish the year of 1994 in 2004, I've decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and put 1994 in the infobox. Further sources which quote 1993 are based on statements from Friedlinghaus or, inevitably, the previous version of this article which copied those statements uncritically, so they cannot be trusted as much as these older statements from the Pimp My Ride era. --Psiĥedelisto (talk) 03:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Your correct, "west coast Auto Trends" opened in 1998 or close to it. BanVal (talk) 01:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism by (self-described) West Coast Customs employees

71.92.65.250, an IP I warned in an earlier section, has proceeded to blank all criticism twice [3] & [4]. 2605:e000:9086:7d00:1056:c17e:85b3:a8fb blanked the page, calling their vandalism an "Official WCC ReEdit" [5]. During this wave of vandalism from multiple IP, some critical content was removed which editors did not notice [6], I have restored that now. Now that I know that WCC employees are actively engaged in attempts to vandalize this Wikipedia article I'll keep a closer eye on it. I encourage other editors to do likewise. They seem very upset that I rewrote their WP:ADVERT into an actual encyclopedia entry. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 15:07, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

More vandalism by WestCoastCustoms. That account has fortunately already been blocked by an administrator. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 03:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Update: The article has been semi-protected until February 13 thanks to a request I made at WP:RPP. [7] Hopefully WP:COI editors will now either engage with us in discussion about their problems with the article or simply give up on blanking the page... Psiĥedelisto (talk) 10:31, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 February 2017

Section involving alleged criticism cites a fake website created under the name USA Today [5] "Allegations of quality" are worded in a slanderous way and Jake Glazier himself stated he would "happily participate again if given the chance". Allegations by Trisha Paytas are unsubstantiated and were a publicity scheme created my Ms Paytas, this is evident in the lack of legal action taken in part by Ms Paytas. She has also publicly stated that she is very happy with the build and continues to drive around with the West Coast Customs license plates on her vehicle to this day. Section citing Mauricio Hernández should be omitted because Mr Hernández no longer has a licensee agreement with West Coast Customs and is in violation of copy right and trademark law. Mr. Hernández has been making erroneous claims to strengthen the legal case against him. This is a pending litigation and should be removed until judgement by the Federal Court has been passed. Many of the edits by user Psiĥedelisto cite fake or fabricated websites and his information being posted seems to be slanderous based on personal motivations. 2605:E000:9086:7D00:DD6B:35EB:B532:1B72 (talk) 06:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Partly done: I've added an archive link to the USA Today reference. I don't see any other and request does not clearly specify a requested change EvergreenFir (talk) 07:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: I trust that you saw the above, someone in the range 2605:E000:9086:7D00:DD6B:35EB:/64 has claimed to be a WCC employee via edit summary/talk page before, so just to keep in mind the COI. The claims of this user are completely unfounded, my edits on Wikipedia are on a wide variety of topics, and I wrote this article after seeing the company featured on a Netflix show and looking for information about them online and finding nothing on Wikipedia but a POV ad seemingly written by the company (later confirmed by the employees above). I have absolutely no relationship to any of the parties involved.

Now, with that said, I am a firm believer in Wikipedia, and I believe that the company can have a say in how its page is written, but that they should not be able to dictate what we write here, but should follow WP:PSCOI and not just blank/vandalize and make personal attacks. I am attempting to assume good faith that even though you have an extreme COI with this article's content, you can improve the article; you should have the courtesy to do the same for me because I am really just one of millions of volunteer editors who just so happened to write about your company.

What this means for you, 2605:E000:9086:7D00:DD6B:35EB:B532:1B72, is that I'm happy to add anything you'd like if it presents a neutral point of view. I would be very happy to add that Mr. Hernandez is being sued by WCC if you can provide a reliable source for this, but removing the section about his franchise entirely is not possible, because it was covered repeatedly by Mexican publications; if Tuneame la nave gets a 2017 season on Azteca or otherwise, I'm sure it will be covered further. Wikipedia does not shy away from controversy and just write nothing: it covers both sides of the conflict. Once again, I would be happy to add an official WCC statement about Hernandez, but I only put his statements because I couldn't find yours. I look forward to your reformulated edit request. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 07:41, 6 February 2017 (UTC)