Talk:Robin Hood tax

Unintended Consequences and Arguments Against the Tax

Why are these two separate sections? Surely an argued unintended consequence (after all, the tax hasn't been implimented yet) and an argument against the tax is the same thing. Also, is it really neutral to include a counter-argument for every argument against the tax? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myriamrobin (talk • contribs) 04:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC) Myriamrobin (talk)

Interesting. I'm trying to add new content without destroying the work of others in the process. The arguments / counter arguments is boilerplate copied from the tax advocacy organisation, and is most likely OR. I'm trying to add respected scholarly articles regarding this tax - perhaps best done in a different section first and then merge, erasing duplicate material? What are your thoughts? Beganlocal (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Press coverage supporting this redirect

This redirect is supported by the following quote from the press, Toronto Star:

"Long resisted by Wall Street, the Tobin tax – or its new broader version, the financial transaction tax, sometimes called the Robin Hood tax – is now winning approval in the corridors of power."

Notice the grammar of the sentence: The two dashes frame this phrase:

"– or its new broader version, the financial transaction tax, sometimes called the Robin Hood tax –"

The phrase "Tobin tax" is left outside the dash frames. Therefore the redirect should go to "Financial transaction tax" instead of "Tobin tax."

Boyd Reimer (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Other press references supporting this redirect are these (See titles in references):

This is not a columnist. Instead, it is an article:

This is a columnist:

Boyd Reimer (talk) 23:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

References

Boyd Reimer (talk) 19:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

A concept, legislative proposal, or organisation?

Do we need a disambiguation page? Should the WP article on Robin Hood Tax redirect to FTT or Tobin Tax? Do we need to discuss the organisation agitating for this tax separately? Are there enough WP:RS in this article and is it written with a WP:NPOV?

Trying to identify "interested editors" - otherwise it is looking more and more like single sourced boilerplate from a political lobbying group - time for the flamethrower... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beganlocal (talk • contribs) 22:36, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Having read some 30 or so reliable sources on this, most of them treat together both the proposed tax and the umbrella charity campaigning for it . So it might be best for us to continue to do so for now, though if anyone thinks it would be clearer to separate them out and will do the work, Ive no objection.

NPOV wise, most quality sources seem to omit or only very briefly mention the opposition to the tax, so one could make a case weve given undue wait to the controversy. Personally Ive no intention of trimming back the criticism however, IMO the chancellor is correct not to introduce the tax unilaterally and the example from your Swedish study illustrates why nicely.

On reliable sources, consider the huge impact Id agree the topic deserves considerable further expansion. Firstly to flesh out the campaigning and allied movements outside the UK. Secondly on how the popular support is influencing how politicians think about tax even if it looks like only limited progress is being made on the explicit goals. For example the Tories recently said theyd go ahead with a (non transaction based) bank levy even unilaterally if they win the next election. And the high level consensus for a global levvy has shifted in a popular direction, away from a bank friendly insurance scheme to a tax aimed at raising revenue for broader use. Some reliable sources discussing this would be swell. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

{{movereq|Robin Hood tax}}

Robin hood tax → Robin Hood tax — This page should be moved to Robin Hood tax, as Robin Hood should be capitalised (it's named after a person). We'll need an admin to merge the page histories of these two articles, as Robin Hood tax (capitalised) was created by Boyd Reimer (talk · contribs) as a copy-and-paste move. For the moment, I'll change Robin Hood tax to a redirect to this page, to prevent two versions forming. -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 11:41, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I was wondering how to go about this in good faith.

Here is my contribution to the discussion: According to traditional literature found in the footnotes of the article on Robin Hood, the "H" is capitalized. (However, the "t" is still lower case according to this Wikipedia policy: Wikipedia:Article titles.

Thanks again, - Boyd Reimer (talk) 12:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

 moved. A history merge was not required since there was no separate history. Boyd Reimer: please use the "move" button next time! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for your help - Boyd Reimer (talk) 13:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Blatant political lobbying not permitted on Wikipedia

This article is clearly intended to lobby for a cause. I intend to propose for deletion unless it is significantly cleaned up.Oldtaxguy (talk) 02:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Can you specify which parts youre not happy with please? All the pro tax and neautral points look okay to me. I've created some sub headings so we can break down what you're not happy with. Or you can just edit the article. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:23, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The entire article is an advertisement. My understanding of Wiki policies is that advertisements are not permitted. See this quote from [Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)]:

"Special note: advertising and promotion

Advertising is prohibited as an official Wikipedia policy. Advertising should be removed by following these steps, in order:

"1. Clean up per Wikipedia:neutral point of view

"2. Erase remaining advertising content from the article

"3. Delete the article, by listing it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if no notable content remains. However, if an article contains only blatant advertising, with no other useful content, it may be tagged per Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion instead."

I find it difficult to see how the article can be reduced to more than a stub and still avoid being an advertisement. So, let's take it a sentence at a time in the article.

"proposed tax" Proposed by who? A lobbying organization robinhoodtax.org.uk

"conceptually similar to [Tobin tax}" It is similar in that it is a tax on transactions. That's where the similarity ends. Note that the Tobin suggestion was by an economist at an economics conference, as a topic for discussion among economists. It has never been adopted by any government. Following sentence is OK.

"The campaign for the Robin Hood Tax was launched on 10 February 2010." The campaign is indeed a lobbying effort, and makes no attempt to say otherwise. This statement is factually accurate, but is just like saying "Pepsi launched its Drink Pepsi Now campaign on xx date."

"is being run by a coalition of over 50 charities and organisations, including xxx" The citation is to the self serving web site of the campaign. This violates 'unrelaible sources' and 'self published' guidelines.

The War on Want reference is to an earlier lobbying effort by what appears to be a small corporation that may or may not be a registered charity (unclear without research)

"The campaign" section describes the lobbying and publicity efforts. Campaign here is clearly in the strictest of advertising terms, as in an advertising and publicity campaign. "The campaign has proposed ..." and it continues to describe the advertising efforts.

Do we need to continue? This article violates a very large number of Wiki guidelines. I think it should be deleted. Those who favor it should edit it in keeping with guidelines. I will revisit in a few weeks, and perhaps proposed under AfD.Oldtaxguy (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Many of Oldtaxguy's points have merit. However, we need to sort the references to see which are news media(generally allowable), that of the sponsoring organization (allowable in part; covering the intent of the tax, not covering possible consequences), and that of fellow travellers (not allowable at all, except for the fact of their support). Once we get that done, we can see what might be salvaged. For example, the "argument/counterargument" section seems to qualify as an advertisement, and a copyright violation from an unreliable source. I may get back to this later, but it would be appreciated if someone more familiar with the concept can try to replace the unreliable sources with reliable ones. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:38, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

30 citations broken down as follows:

• Self published: 9 at website, 1 editorial by founders
• Quotes from self-published site and press releases: 6
• Comments about celebrities involved, or other minor references: 4
• inaccessible: 3

Other: 7

summary: 7 maybe OK, 23 no good

Note: the Tobin tax article underwent massive change during the same 4 weeks this article was being created. This is a well-funded (they even say so) campaign trying to capture all media space possible. Wiki is just one more such space.Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Although there are references to support by political leaders from various countries, that is buried in the middle of the article. The article should begin with a clear statement of exactly what political unit or units (in other words, which countries) the tax is proposed for. In other words, is it just for the UK, or just Germany, or just some other country or countries? Is the proposal for all countries? Most countries? A few countries? Or have the people proposing this tax even thought about this?

The article mentions that this is proposed to be a "global tax." It's unclear what is meant by this. There is currently no such thing as a "global tax" in a strict sense. A tax generally can be imposed only by a sovereignty (a sovereign country). Even the United Nations Organization is not, in and of itself, a sovereign in the technical legal sense of a political unit having "independent and supreme authority", so there is no sovereignty that could impose a "global tax" in this sense. (Note: The United States imposes a national, federal income tax on all its citizens world-wide, but that is a different concept.) I suppose if all or nearly all countries (i.e., all political units that do have sovereignty) were to enact treaties or other international laws imposing the very same tax for each such country, you might have a "global" tax.

In short, the article appears to be a bit "fuzzy" and imprecise in explaining who is proposing this tax, and for which countries, and what exactly the article's author means by the phrase "global tax." Famspear (talk) 18:37, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

@ OldTaxGuy, even excluding the quality non printed news sources like Reuters, there was in fact 16 cites to quality newspapers. All of them are broadsheet class, roughly on par with New York Times, except for WSJ and FT, which are even more reliable being the top 2 examples of the worlds daily English language financial press. True the tax has been promoted by a lobbying organisation, but that doesnt mean we cant cover a topic which has received:

• massive global attention - there are hundreds more sources apart the ones used.
• popular support from over a hundred thousand in Great Britain alone.
• Support from hundreds of economists
• Support from several leading world statesmen
• Support even from heavyweights in the world of business such as Warren Buffet.

Of course we still need to write from a neutral point of view, which means the article should not be written as though it agrees with the proposal. I.E we should avoid making contentious statements like “This tax will be a great way to alleviate global poverty”, unless we make clear that we're repeating the views of notable sources and not speaking in the encyclopaedias own voice. Also we should present both sides of any controversy , as is the case with this article.

@Arthur Rubin. I've removed the pro and con section you didn't like. Also Ive emphasied the fact its the robin hood org speaking when we source to them. There are no 'fellow traveller' sources in this article. The War on Want charity is a member of the current Robin Hood umbrella group.

@Framspear . Ive tried to sharpen the article a little for you. Essentially its been suggested that the tax be implemented by concerted action from the leading world economises, who showed they are still capable of such co-operation in the aftermath of Lehman. In the absence of agreement by the G20, campaigners has pushed for the tax to be implemented regionally or even unilaterally. Theres still some residual fuzziness Im afraid as no one source grapples with the complex and diverse history of the movement supporting this tax or the details of the various specific proposals offered to or drawn up by various finance minsters, economists and other key players. If we try to clarify too much we'll be violating OR and Synth policies, unless a really good summarising sources can be found.

@all, thanks for the feedback which has helped improve the article. Please remove the tags if the changes made have resolved your concerns. If anything Id suggest the article was already biased against the tax due to the criticism section stretching beyond the sources . However no objections from me if you want to add further anti tax analyses. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I would like to publicly apologize to FeydHuxtable if he is not actively connected with Oxfam or the RHT publicity campaign. In such case, my comments were inappropriately directed to him, for which I am genuinely sorry. Please forgive my over enthusiasm for a cause (Wikipedia integrity) in which I believe.

I have no opinion on the RHT or similar taxes. I do have a strong opinion that Wikipedia should not be used as an advertising platform, and believe it has been with respect to this article and others indicated on my talk page. There surely have been those who, thru their own enthusiasm, have unwittingly participated in this advertising in good faith attempts to enhance Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. I do not intend to cast aspersions on any of them.

Multiple coincidences make me curious. I did some investigation after reading the above, and am further convinced that the RHT article and certain others are publicity at least in part by paid staff and contractors of Oxfam, who is the sponsor of the RHT publicity campaign. For details, please see my talk page. The trail begins with an Oxfam intern who wrote original RHT article, and continues with articles linked to the Halifax Initiative in Canada, an organization associated with Oxfam. A lot of the content for the RHT article is from Oxfam and Halifax sites, verbatim.

Please comment here with views on whether this warrants Administrator investigation (realizing that Arthur Rubin is an admin, but may not have focused on the trail. I realize the trail as detailed on my talk page is long and convoluted, so I ask your patience.

With respect,Oldtaxguy (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to Oldtaxguy for his extensive work on this. I would like to summarize his lengthy findings and add a few points:

This page attempts to use Wikipedia for the purpose of advertising, a violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING. It was created by 389melanie who is (or was) an intern for Oxfam. Please note that I am not violating any policies regarding outing as she is the one who willing revealed her own identity by publishing a link to her own blog on her user page (http://melaniesblog.usual.ca). In a post on her blog (Ox Tales, dated October 28, 2009), she indicates that part of her job is to “write articles and edit the Oxfam related pages” on Wikipedia. I am archiving that post here for posterity:

I’ve now been interning for Oxfam for 3 weeks (or 3 sets of 3 days if you’re being pernickety) and it’s fast becoming a lot of fun. I’m doing 3 projects for them, all of which are cool in their own way.

I’m doing the communications with some activists which Oxfam trained at a program called ‘Change’ and the evaluation for the event itself. As well as being really good training for me jobwise, doing this is amazingly encouraging. I’m in prime position to hear about all the awesome things these guys are doing and all the great societies that are campaigning for really worthwhile causes. It’s been proving to me that all the little things do matter – that signing petitions or making small changes in your lifestyle really can make a difference. Love it.

The other completely awesome thing I’m doing is learning to use Wikipedia, so that I can write articles and edit the Oxfam related pages. This pretty much feeds all the ‘things Melanie loves to do channels’ – reading, writing, researching, learning new things, being on the internet etc, so it’s been amazing fun. Now all I need to do is work out how to get paid for doing this and my life will be complete! I’m also doing some venue research for Oxfam Live, which has turned out to be more rewarding than I initially expected it to be. As with anything of this nature it’s a lot of phone calls and checking details. However, during my research I did talk to some really cool people. It made me happy to have conversations with people who were just nice, helpful, friendly and pleased that Oxfam was showing an interest in their venue. Made the whole thing feel more personal and pleasant.

I’m also starting to really enjoy getting to know all the people I’m working with. Today I had lunch with one of the members of my department who I didn’t know very well, but she saw me sitting by myself and asked me to join her and her companions. I had a really pleasant lunch and learned a bit more about her work. There are loads of other people who I chat too in passing. Actually, there’s no one I’ve met so far who I wouldn’t be very happy to chat to or have lunch with. Everyone’s talented, interesting and ethically minded. It’s a great place to work.

389melanie created the article on Wikipedia on March 18, 2010. This was followed by 9 edits on March 22, 2010 by an IP address (193.133.69.201) that belongs to Oxfam UK. Examining the original article clearly indicates that it took all of its source material verbatim from the site for the Robin Hood campaign. Seeing as how Oxfam is one of the organizations behind this campaign, this is clearly a case of a group creating a Wikipedia article for its own promotional reasons and is a violation of policy (for example, “Those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so” under WP:NOTADVERTISING).

There is not much point in attempting to rewrite this article. The material will fall into one of two categories:

1. Discussion of merits: There is nothing here that has not been or cannot be covered in one of articles Tobin tax, Financial transaction tax, or Currency transaction tax.

2. Promotional material: This is a violation of Wikipedia policy and all such material should be expunged.

Since all of the category #1 material is covered in other articles, the only remaining material is from category #2, which is inappropriate for an article. Moreover, Wikipedia editors are not unpaid lackeys for Oxfam. It is not our job to rewrite their articles for them. Therefore, this article is best deleted.

Cosmic Cube (talk) 21:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

After careful consideration of the arguments here and and AfD, the following is what should be done, IMHO.

1. The advertising material, even if apparently published in reliable sources, should be excised.
2. The remainder of Oxfam's "Robin Hood tax" (probably only one or two paragraphs) should be merged into financial transaction tax.
3. The additional "Robin Hood tax"es should be given a sentence to a paragraph here, with a pointer to where the tax is described in a more detailed Wikipedia article (if any).

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:05, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Unless we get a bizzare decision from the wider community, its out of the question not to have a dedicated article on RHT when we have such vast dedicated coverage. Its not Oxfam's tax, they are merely one of the more active members of a coalition with over 100 civil society actors, not to mention the various international sister movements. As an experienced admin I might hope your reccomendations would be based on the sources, not just the arguments. Can you please explain what you mean with the insinuation above: "even if apparently published in reliable sources" -it sounds like you might be implying the sources arent truly independent, but it hard to see exactly what your point is. FeydHuxtable (talk) 09:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

By "apparently published in reliable sources", I'm referring to the tendancy of even the most reliable sources publishing "press releases", without noting them as such. AP and Reuters, for example, have directories of press releases which are marked as such, but not all nominally reliable sources are as honest. I found a few press releases among the references. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I completely concur with Arthur Rubin's conclusions.Oldtaxguy (talk) 02:34, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, can someone please edit or advice specifically what parts & sources in the article are disputed for neutrality, factual accuracy or being like an advertisement? Keep in mind that an encylpedic article on a noteable campaign ought to point out the principal advantages of whats being campaigned for - as long we give the counter arguments a fair hearing we're not advertising. Per the fact all the fresh eyes who looked at the article in the AfD didnt see any major problems, Im going to remove the tags in the next week or so if we cant identify specifically what you guys are objecting to. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You, as one of the promoters of this article, should be the one to edit. Just removing the tags from an article an administrator has indicated needs cleaning up, without doing any cleanup, may be considered vandalism. If you favor the article, please try a rewrite. Specifically, delete those parts duplicated in the Tobin tax article, remove blatantly promotional material. As one commenter favoring keeping pointed out, most of the article is redundant with the Tobin tax article. A reader of the article would think the tax has been proposed in a legislative body, which it has not. The "proposed" part is a proposal by Oxfam. The box indicates "Founded 2010"; what was founded was an advertising web site. These are just examples. In my view, the article should be about 10% of its current length.Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the good suggestions concerning ambiguity in the Info box and lede, I’ve edited accordingly. There will be no substantial reduction in article size. Some duplication of information is ok as long as we dont have a POV fork. Im not seeing any blatantly promotional material, but if you can identify any we can discuss. Theres no hurry on removing the tags, as long as constructive discussion is taking place they can probably remain indefinitely. For some reason the article doesn’t have the usual high place in the google rankings, so it rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)