Talk:MacKeeper

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: uncontested move. DrKiernan (talk) 09:35, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

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Mackeeper → MacKeeper – The product's name is in CamelCase, so the K in the middle needs to be capitalized. After you've moved it, please replace this article with a redirect. 82.32.198.178 (talk) 09:15, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Untitled

Is MacKeeper free? There's no mention of cost in the article Ern Malleyscrub (talk) 09:23, 28 September 2012 (UTC) MacKeeper is not free. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.74.40 (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Honesty of MacKeeper

I always thought that MacKeeper was some kind of malware given the aggressive marketing and that I managed to download it without my consent several times (I never installed it, but while looking for other files it was downloaded automatically). I would include more content/warnings from blogs like this one: http://www.reedcorner.net/beware-mackeeper/ into the article. (It is not unlikely that MacKeeper folks will delete my comment though.) And then I noticed the following editing which made it clear that the company is watching over this website: [1] --188.230.211.225 (talk) 07:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Request Deletion

MacKeeper is malware, and this page should be rewritten and locked. Seriously, you guys need quality control. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.58.81 (talk) 21:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

WikiProblem - MacKeeper

Oh boy - this really outlines a problem for Wikipedia. How does a volunteer organization keep information clean in the face of deep-pocketed corporations?

This article so obviously reads like company advertising - dominated by "features", with absolutely no discussion by neutral parties. Come, on, my own mother has more faults than none, are you telling me MacKeeper is perfect?

This article needs supervision by Wikipedia staff, and it points up a serious problem, how to finance the supervision of countless articles which just become free advertising.

Wikipedia needs to protect its integrity. Billyshiverstick (talk) 23:27, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this is the crux of Wikipedia, its strength and its weakness. But we can all agree that MacKeeper is most definitely malware.(109.104.29.199 (talk) 11:51, 9 February 2014 (UTC)).

You have to show a position with reliable sources. No wide body is yet calling it malware, although there is certainly sources that have questioned the marketing techniques--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Corporate Editing

Any addition of information that questions in any way the legitimacy of MacKeeper, which is the top question among the Mac community, is deleted immediately. No sources are given for the majority of information ZeoBits has added and what little is present is incorrect. These actions alone go to show the illegitimacy of MacKeeper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipeian103 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

To answer GeorgeLouis's question, QuentinAdam and possibly Jeremiah2012. Both of them have also changed their talk pages to make their connection to the product more ambiguous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fiachra10003 (talk • Fiachra10003 (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Ad?

I have noticed that this article is written very much like an advertisement. The article skims all the features to advertise them, and has an awards section. MacKeeper is praised WAY too much in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.234.75.253 (talk) 19:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Partnerships

I deleted the partnership content as it was not clear how that related to changes inplemented in the software. Partership content likely fits on company article but not here.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Advert tag

What widely reported issues are you referring to. The most common stated problem is the programs association with MacDefencer. I went looking for an article on its advertising practices and although there are forum posts I haven't found anything that could be classified as a reliable source.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The Partnership section is irrelevant the Problems section is promotional, the Features section is kind of POV. FrankDev (talk) 04:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed on partnerships but disagree on features. Its not at all uncommon to find description of the software features in an article. Weasle words have been largely dealt with. I am open to suggestions on pairing it down if that's the concern.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Lies-by omission

This article is a simple ad following the pattern of the highly suspicious and widely detested mackeeper ads.. i.e. make claims and remove all criticisms (which are serious and many). Another feature of their promotion is people who are obviously employees post fake reviews and promotional articles. It is deceitful and shaming to Wikipedia and should be revised and locked with references to the many - just try Apple Support Communities for instance- very serious problems encountered on foot of this . . . and the company unethically promoting it.176.61.48.243 (talk) 21:09, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

The issues seem to largely relate to marketing technique and software that employs similar names. However the citations (all independent) clearly indiate that this is not malware. Forum posts are not reliable sources, if however you have articles that state otherwise that would work.--Labattblueboy (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Neutral sources

I removed mention of a brothersoft review only because I have some concerns about it's validity as a source. Any thoughts? Does anyone one have any concerns regarding the neutrality of macfeed as a source.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

COI tag

Copy editing on the article was completed after the article was identified as a having potential advert. issues sometime in Jan/Feb 2013. Copy editing and souring was completed and consensus at the time was that there was no longer an NPOV issue. Whether or not past contributors had any connection to the developer is irrelevant so long as the article is NPOV and fair. “Significant or substantial problems with the article's neutrality” have not been identified so I removed the COI tag. If there are substantial issues please identify them.--Labattblueboy (talk) 16:30, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that "copy editing" is sufficient to remove the fundamental conflict of interest. One of the authors who made substantial contributions to the text of the article admitted to a connection to the company marketing the product. Another has a "disclaimer" - he "... in the past worked as a consultant for IT and Security Companies and may edit those pages from time to time" - when he has only ever edited one page not related to Zeobit, Kromtech, PCKeeper or MacKeeper.

The only way to remove the conflict of interest is to start again or to get people to openly declare their connections and revert the edits of those with COIs. Otherwise, I believe we need to keep the WP:COI tag in place. Let's open a discussion and find a real consensus. Fiachra10003 (talk) 00:52, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Starting from scratch is neither reasonable, called for in Wikipedia policy or required; It may be if there was an apparent NPOV issue but I think it's been sufficiently managed at this point that the content in NPOV. The COI tag has very specific parameters ("an article is biased or has other serious problems as a direct result of the editing done by the subject of the article or a person with a close connection"). If the article is no longer biased that the tags not required. Now that being said, if you want to approach the COI noticeboard and get a second opinion I'm certainly not opposed, I just don't see where any potential biased remains in the article. --Labattblueboy (talk) 02:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The Conflict of interest/Noticeboard page is for determining "whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest ... for a specific article" and "whether an edit by a COIN declared COI editor does not meet a requirement of the Conflict of Interest guideline". It's not for determining whether bias remains as a result of undeclared or informally declared COI editors editing the article. Despite your Stakhanovite labors, I'm not convinced that the article is truly NPOV, not least because there's a significant school of thought that MacKeeper is simply malware and this point keeps getting purged from the article. Comments? Fiachra10003 (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Do update me on the result of the debate and whether the folks frequenting the noticeboard have any advice for this case in particular. There is no indication from reliable sources that mackeeper is malware. I am happy to include reliable sources that state that but at this point I haven't seen any that do. It's similarity in name Ia topic covered on the page is the apparent source of that mistaken belief.--Labattblueboy (talk) 02:48, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Kromtech Alliance

This entity seems to have no other products but those formerly sold by Zeobit. It would be interested to know why a company was formed to buy these controversial products, and whether there is any cross-ownership of Zeobit and Kromtech Alliance. Nicmart (talk) 00:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Major edits

The majority of sources do not call this software malware so I have removed that from the lead. The main body of the article describing the software features could likely use a copy edit but I don't agree with its full deletion. The Safe Mac is not the most notable of source, nothing in the fakes virus infection post gazette article states that the program "fakes viruses" or "scare users".--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

The software features section has been flagged as advert language for a long time. The malware claim is sourced sufficiently. And the article does say MacKeeper "identifies problems that don't exist", in the context of security. Nevertheless, I've changed the wording and added another source. --OKNoah (talk) 00:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Which sources site it as malware? The only source that does so is the Techbytes citation which is just a blog which is a bit questionable as a source (per WP:USERGENERATED and nowhere in the applehelpwriter.com article does it call it this software package malware. In short, there are no reliable source that I've seen call it such. There is at least one citation in the features section, I'll see if I do to increase that tonight. With that in mind, please see WP:VANDTYPES and immediate cease from blanking the section. Both I and Staglit have warned you to stop doing so. Lets work together to clean the section up. For the review section Safe Mac is not the most prominent source, I'd be happy to lead the section by saying reviews are mixed but thesafemac is not the most notable and of questionable reliability but see its value to help show there is a mixed view of this software package.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:23, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Check the retrieval date of the applehelpwriter.com article (and URL). Checking the sources again, they all say malware. --OKNoah (talk) 17:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I've added a couple additional sources to the features section and given it a light copy-edit. I also added reviews from AV-Comparatives and Softonic.com although the Softonic review could still use a one line summary of the pros and cons of the software. I returned the WOT reference to the Reviews section and placed it where the appstorm review was previously.--Labattblueboy (talk) 06:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit. I'll leave it there for now and review it later. Initial impression is it's too reliant on a single source that isn't a journalistic one. --OKNoah (talk) 17:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

OKNoah making significant changes to the article without discussion or consensus needs to cease. I would like to improve this article but that won't be possible if you are not willing to arrive at a baseline through consensus. If you'd like to bring in Mediation I'd be happy to do that, but you can't keep making major changes to the article without discussion.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

We're discussing it right now. --OKNoah (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead a requested a WP:THIRDOPINION.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Principle concerns for myself are:

1. There isn't what I would describe as a body of reliable source material to make a claim that this is malware. None of the reliable sources in the reviews section accuse it of being malware so I don't see it as appropriate to call it as such in the lead. There are opinion pieces and forums that have accused it of being malware but no truly reliable source (Not a single magazine, or newspaper, or industry leading blog / review site) has done so.
2. The Reception section should be neutral and provide a summary as exists in reliable sources. It should not be title "criticisms", as that's not a neutral point of view and rather ambiguous.
3. Giving priority to reviews that are not the majority opinion and of questionably reliability. I have concerns with The Safe Mac as a source in general but moreso if it's given the priority of the reviews section. I am happy to see it and Web of Trust stay because I think they provide about as reliable a source as possible as to concerns with the software. That being said, actual publications and more reliable sources and , as is the case in most articles, should be given priority.
4. The reference to the confusion between Mac Defender and MacKeeper has been present since 2012 so I'm not sure why it is being removed. It's cited and believe is a notable an common issues.--Labattblueboy (talk) 01:36, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

1. It's sometimes called malware. The article is impartial about whether it is or not.
2. This is a pretty standard section.
3. I don't think the positive reviews represent the consensus.
4. I may have removed it by mistake or as redundant. I remember editing something about that and finding it interesting. My bad, I guess. (EDIT: If you mean the Hamburger article, it doesn't mention MacKeeper. It's not needed in this article, in my opinion. The 3rd opinion can decide.) --OKNoah (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I've undone your edit. You removed a great deal of cited content. If you want to place a note in the lead that it's sometimes called malware I can live with that (but would still disagree) until we get some mediation. I will however oppose edits to the reception section where you delete cited content, place the safe mac as the lead reference or change the title of the section to criticism.--Labattblueboy (talk) 06:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I've referred a couple references to the reliable source noticeboard for comment. Notably WOT, The Safe Mac and the UMass blog.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Can you please link to that notice board here? Thanks. Please see Wikipedia:Criticism Sections. We can either separate Criticism and reviews, or create a Controversy section. Let's talk about it before reverting again. --OKNoah (talk) 08:32, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Although WP:CRIT is not a policy I do note the following which applies directly to this case:""Reception" section. With this approach, the article contains a section dedicated to positive and negative assessments of the topic. The section should not use a negative title like "Criticism" or "Controversies" but instead should use a more neutral term such as "Reception", "Assessment", "Reviews", "Influence", or "Response". This approach is often found in articles. I'm not going to undo the edit but I am going to remove the sources marked as not reliable and return the cited content that was in the review section that you've deleted. I am also flagging the criticism section as potential POV, per the criticism section template and leave my edits to that. I've provided a full explanation of each individually.

• WOT is not reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Web_of_Trust
• The Safe Mac is not reliable Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Safe_Mac
• Blogs.umass.edu split at the moment Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#blogs.umass.edu--Labattblueboy (talk) 01:55, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Features section

This is a contentious part of the article and overdue for removal/edit. Some sources have been added but they're first-hand sources and from "Softonic". Softonic is a download site, do they write their own content or take it from first party? Aren't they a purely promotional (marketing) source? Please comment on how valid this source is. --OKNoah (talk) 03:12, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

• A features section is standard for software articles but entirely agree that further copy-editing would improve the section. Deleting it would be considered blanking. Softonic has been accepted as a reliable source via the reliable source noticeboard [2] but that's not to say it's the best source. It's not perfect but better than nothing. --Labattblueboy (talk) 06:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)