Talk:Stonyfield Farm

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This article had a 'reads like advertising' tag and I rewrote it in a NPOV. it still doesn't have any sources or references. Mtl1969 20:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I wonder about the phrase: "Its milk continues to be sourced from New England and Midwest dairy farmers". This article says that at least a portion of it's milk is sourced from New Zealand Organic farms, powdered, and reconstituted in New Hampshire. I wanted to reference the controversy on the main page but I figured that it deserved some discussion here first.Ecksii 20:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

interesting Businessweek article and i think it would be fair to bring some its content into the wikipedia article, properly referenced and labeled as 'criticism'Mtl1969 19:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually the Business Week article doesn't say they source milk from New Zealand. It says "Sometime soon a portion of the milk used to make that organic yogurt may be taken from a chemical-free cow in New Zealand, powdered, and then shipped to the U.S. ... What to do? If you're Hirshberg, you weigh the pros and cons of importing organic milk powder from New Zealand. ".

I found the source used for some of the information in our article. It comes from a Stonyfield farm press release, which is probably reliable for facts such as when and how many shares Group Danone brought. I wasn't sure how much to trust its claims for #3 yogurt maker in the US, so I used an older, independent source which said they were #4 in 2002. They very well could be #3 now, though. --Ishi Gustaedr (talk) 20:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 15:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Brown Cow (yogurt)

Hi! I think Brown Cow should be merged into this article because Brown Cow is a brand of this company. Furthermore, Brown Cow does not have very much content at this time and perhaps does not have a lot of standalone notability. Thanks, Bananasoldier (talk) 00:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Brown Cow was a separate brand for 20 years. Although it was purchased in 2003 by Stonyfield and now is actually owned by the parent company Danone, which purchased Stonyfield in 2004, it is still a separate brand and will continue to be made. Additionally, the history of a "home grown" California company that used local raw milk to make its yogurt is a historically significant event. I would cross link the two articles rather than merge them. If you merged Brown Cow into Stonyfield, it would be logical to merge Stonyfield into Danone. In both cases, the history and significance of each of the two companies in the natural foods movement in the US would be diluted and perhaps lost. Thank you. Bhneihouse (talk) 12:44 PM, 12 March 2015 (EST)

I did not know that Brown Cow was owned by Stonyfield - it would make sense to merge the two. And, if Stonyfield was 100% owned by Dannon, and not rather 85%, then Stonyfield ought to be a subsection of Dannon in its entirely.

Also, I believe it is worth mentioning that a Harvard Case study was done on Stonyfield Farms in 2000. They called them rather Natureview Farms, to cover the name for the sake of students not knowing what company was truly being spoken about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:83E4:4F10:B977:5143:A27:116F (talk) 02:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Oppose - I am against merging company articles simply because they are subsidiaries of a larger company. "Subsidiary" is a valid option in Infobox company, and Bhneihouse's comments above are good reasons to keep the two articles separate. --Ken Gallager (talk) 13:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Controversy over Use of Children in Deceptive Ads

Question for Ken Gallager: I see you've made edits that put Stonyfield in an exceptionally good light despite the controversy over its use of children to convey misleading advertising messages. I note you're in New Hampshire, where Stonyfield is headquartered. Would you mind disclosing your ties, if any, to the company?

Incidentally, Stonyfield was sold by its former owner Group Danone to Lactilis, another French company. -- RichardBennett (talk) 23:03, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Sure. No ties. --Ken Gallager (talk) 13:40, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

It appears we have a campaign underway to place a paragraph into the article with no input from other users. The problem with the text as it stands right now is that it does not adhere to a neutral point of view. We cannot start off a section with words like "fearmongering". While I understand the editor's indignation at having the entire paragraph removed, my attempt to make the section neutral was also immediately reverted. Let's talk about how to include this information so that it is neutrally written and does not overbalance the rest of the article. --Ken Gallager (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

A couple of editors, including me, have trimmed it. The issue is not that big a deal, but it's worthy of a mention, I think. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:00, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

A probable employee of Stonyfield is now removing information on controversies from the page. The IP address 134.43.0.1 is registered to Dannon, but it's uncertain whether the record has been undated since last fall's sale of Stonyfield from Dannon to Lactilis. The IP address removed the entire discussion of added sugar. RichardBennett (talk) 23:34, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Added sugar? Good grief ... well, 15 years in wikipedia has taught me to find better things to do when fanatics decide to play with an article, then come back after their attention has wandered and resurrect it. - DavidWBrooks (talk)

Exactly. --Ken Gallager (talk) 13:42, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

My edits to the Controversies section

Because this has been a bit contentious, I wanted to give specific reasoning for my various edits to the Controversies section. In general, the Controversies section was almost half of the article and gave undue weight to the subject, so I've tweaked it so it is more in-line with Wikipedia:Criticism. Ideally the entire section would be removed and integrated elsewhere in the article (per WP:CRIT), but the article is sparse enough already that this would be challenging.

I've reworded the Clinton section a bit to make the text more neutral, and adjusted the ref to a more neutral source (US News & World Report). Because I couldn't substantiate some of the claims in a source less biased than Mother Jones, I've removed some claims about the motivation or impetus behind the actions, while leaving the thrust of the section in-tact.

I've removed the High Added Sugar Content section because, while the Business Insider report does list some of the Stonyfield brands at the top of the list for sugar content, I was unable to locate a reliable source which indicates there is significant controversy around this subject.

Finally, in the section about the anti-GMO campaign, I adjusted the wording for NPOV, and removed a couple of sources (notably the Forbes article, which was published in the Opinion section and generally should be attributed to specific quotes if it is used per WP:V

-- Sykes83 (talk) 03:50, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

This is a bad edit. The email sent by Hirshberg to Podesta is part of the Wikileaks dump and is well sourced. If you can't find it, you haven't looked very hard because there's a link to it in the MJ article you deleted.

As to sugar, the company's action - announcing a plan to reduce sugar purchases by 25% - is proof of the controversy.

This section has already been edited by someone using an IP address owned by Dannon/Stonyfield, and your edits are consistent with theirs. Wikipedia is not meant to be a megaphone for public relations operatives. RichardBennett (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Please provide specific examples rebutting the points I have made, sourced with neutral, reliable sources. I am not a paid contributor and have no connection to the subject, and such an accusation is a personal attack. I will revert the page back to my good-faith edit in the mean time. --Sykes83 (talk) 18:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Note: If you wish to improve my edits you are welcome to do so, but please do not remove my work entirely. --Sykes83 (talk) 18:29, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Your user page says you are paid by Fastly to edit Wikipedia. The material you removed contained a link to the Wikileaks email dump you claim you can't find, so be careful of who you label "bad faith". The sugar section links to the statement by Stonyfield itself, so your displeasure with BI is irrelevant. RichardBennett (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

I am not paid by Fastly to edit this page. My COI report relates only to my editing of the Draft:Fastly page because I am a Fastly employee. I am not connected to Stonyfield Farms, paid or otherwise. The report by Stonyfield indicates that they are reducing sugar content, but does not show in any way that their sugar content is controversial. If you can provide a third party reliable source indicating controversy, then I would accept your conclusion that Stonyfield's sugar content is controversial. --Sykes83 (talk) 18:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

It appears that you have now violated WP:3RR, so I am now referring the matter to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring for third party intervention. --Sykes83 (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Note Well: Sykes removed Hirshfeld's thank you to Podesta AND two citations that support it. And he accuses me of bad faith! RichardBennett (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Responding more specifically to your comments, I maintained the factual parts of the Podesta/Hirshfeld story. I removed claims about intention or connections to events which require a logical leap from the source material, and which can only be found in biased sources. Honestly, I'm not sure that this section belongs in the article at all given that short-lived controversies are generally not considered to be worthy of inclusion (and there is little indication that this controversy is still notable today), but I've opted not to fight that battle.

The edits you've made to the added sugar are much improved. I would still suggest that the article you've linked doesn't provide verifiability to the existence of controversy on this subject, the new text is much more neutral.

The Scientifically Inaccurate Advertising section still lacks neutral tone.

Finally, you haven't responded to the WP:UNDUE concern. Can you explain how the weight of the criticsim section complies with Wikipedia policy? Specifically "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." --Sykes83 (talk) 19:40, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

I've made some edits that integrate the verifiable parts of the claims in the added sugar section, while reducing the weight of the section and using more neutral language. When I have time I may try to integrate the text from criticism section into the main body of the article per the best practices suggested here. --Sykes83 (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Sykes claims Mother Jones - winner of the Magazine of the Year award in 2017 - is a less reliable source than US News. See https://www.motherjones.com/about/awards/ That is obviously not a rational opinion. RichardBennett (talk) 20:11, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily claiming that Mother Jones is unreliable, but I am claiming that the article itself is clearly written in a biased tone. Bias in sources is allowed, but neutral point of view must be maintained in the article itself. I'm not opposed to adding it back as a reference without modifications to the article text itself, but I maintain the leaps in logic between the source material and the biased article are not appropriate for a article written in a neutral point of view. --Sykes83 (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Actually you did declare award winning Mother Jones is biased against the subject. You also claim there are "leaps of logic" in the MJ article with respect to its quid pro quo claims. Yet the article cites text from Wikileaks that clearly shows Hirshberg threatening to withdraw financial support if he didn't get what he wanted from Hillary. You claim you can't find any evidence for his, but it's in the MJ article and in the Wikileaks emails linked in the MJ article. I see no evidence of leaps of logic on the part of anyone but you. RichardBennett (talk) 16:55, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

At this point, I think it is unlikely that we will reach a consensus between the two of us. If you think that the current version of the text is inadequate, then I would invite you to bring in a unbiased third opinion to help improve the article while maintaining a neutral point of view, as was suggested on the Administrators Noticeboard. --Sykes83 (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

If it helps convince anybody (it won't), the current wording seems to me to be as reasonably neutral as we can get about hot-button topics. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:51, 8 February 2018 (UTC)