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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 76.90.32.229 (talk) at 01:18, 21 October 2020 (→Undisclosed payments). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Source

Worker mistreatment and coercion: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/instacart-hounds-workers-to-take-jobs-that-aren-t-worth-it?srnd=premium - Mainly 14:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tech Company?

This article reads like a company handout, and starts with the unfortunately commonplace assertion that Instacart is a tech company. It's the same assertion that WeWork has made when it is simply a real estate company. The same seems true of Instacart: it's a delivery business that uses technology (but what doesn't these days?) to facilitate ordering. The rest of the article does little more than trumpet the company's expansion. It needs serous editing. Josephlestrange (talk) 21:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"shoppers" ?

This article uses the term shoppers for Instacart's workers. --ZenGaadida (talk) 01:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Undisclosed payments

This article has been edited by a large number of different editors and has undergone an ‘overhaul’ since the flag was placed. Even if there have been paid contribs on this page in its past, its likely not the majority of the current state of the page. No sense in having this on the main page, adding to the noise and clutter across Wikipedia. Makes more sense to discuss any concenring edits here. 142.105.49.206 (talk) 19:09, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Super Goku V: I'm adding to this discussion because, as another user above has brought to light, this article has been edited by 73 different users. Even you (Super Goku V) are within the top 5 of the 'Top 10 by added text' - not implying anything, just something to think about. Per Template:Undisclosed paid, the UDP tag is for articles for which there appears to be a significant contribution by an undisclosed paid editor. When placing this tag, please also tag the article talk page with {{Connected contributor (paid)}}. Are we claiming there has been significant contribution by a paid editor? I don't see the tag on the talk page to identify which editor's contributions we should be concerned with.

Discussing the actual content of the article is important as you've stated, so I'm starting with my observations below using WP:CONPOL as a guide and encourage others to participate:

WP:CONPOL:

Article Titles: No issue
Biographies of living persons: N/A
Image use policy: N/A
Neutral point of view: I don't see anything overly promotional. Appears to be mostly about expansion over the years. Some areas could be rewritten more to-the-point (ie. 'alcohol delivery service include over 30 new partners in more than 20 states' could be rewritten to '32 new partners in 21 states' or whatever the actual #s may be). If anything, the most concerning area in regard to NPOV is the large Controversy section WP:CSECTION. Are we concerned that paid editors were involved in this section? This is where identifying the users would be helpful.
No original research: This doesn't seem to be an issue, except maybe needing additional sources for the "In 2018.. national expansions with.." line.
Verifiability: Doesn't appear to be an issue. Appropriate sections have already been flagged as needing additional citations or third-party source, but these are pretty minor.
What Wikipedia is not: This is probably the most important one to discuss. These types of articles can easily lean towards advertisement even with GF edits. As stated above, I'm not seeing anything overly promotional, but other editors need to weigh in here.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary: N/A

With all that said, I don't see any reason to keep the UDP tag on the page given that there is no single editor that has significantly contributed to the article, nor is there concerning content upon review, in my opinion. The disclosure should definitely be included and kept on the talk page as is standard for any closely connected contributors. 76.79.68.66 (talk) 22:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

142.105.49.206, since the template has been present, ten users/IPs have edited including myself with three users being bots. Of the remainder, four users/IPs made edits that corrected mistakes in my 'Overhaul' edit. That leaves my edit (which was in-part restoring info), your edit (which did condense the November 2018 - April 2019 paragraphs), and a third editor who just updated the Funding section. Thus, both of our edits are the only significant edits since the article was marked and I still think there is more likely than not to be questionable content still on the article. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:43, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
76.79.68.66, you should note that I personally restored the template to the article since it was removed. (Apparently, that was 142.105.49.206 as they seem to have started a thread here.) The article has been edited by nine users who later received permanent blocks, with the most recent edit by a blocked user being September 4th. For just 2020, three of the users were blocked from this investigation and the fourth was initially blocked after being taken to WP:AN/I for disruptive edits.
Regarding the subject, I don't want to decide that the article passes or fails WP:CONPOL due to feeling like I am significantly involved in the article with seven edits between July and September along with apparently being a top editor. I would feel better if an uninvolved Admin reviewed the article to ensure that the template can be reviewed or if the person who added the template decided that it was no longer needed. (@Blablubbs: Pinging for this reason)
If you want me to weave in the "large Controversy section" with the history, then I can do so. But, what has happened was edits like this where material that didn't portray Instacart in a positive light was completely removed from the history of the company. (Other edits: A, B, C, D) This also impacted the section headers. (Other edits: E, F, G) (I ended up using some of the information prior to these edits on my 'Overhaul' edit as noted by the edit summary.) Honestly, reviewing things now, I am left with the feeling that I didn't restore everything as I do not believe I knew about all of this. Not to mention the questionable stuff like some of the pricing information in the Service model section (as in, the delivery fee and the membership service; the markup language should be fine) along with the Funding section still needs to be looked at to make sure it isn't an advertising issue.
Continuing on, I would like to make sure it is not just implied, but fully stated that parts of the 'Overhaul' edit was made using past versions of this article as I said in the edit summary. Examples include this edit which helped me to find some extra sourcing for the lawsuit and when it started, the mentioned Edit B where I restored the markup text with a better source and a change in wording, the mentioned Edit C where I reworded the equivalent line to better note that the founder had attempted to create other services and not actually creating successful companies, the mentioned Edit D where I restored the removed info about how in 2015 it started allowing its shoppers to become part-time employees. In addition, I reviewed the related articles of AmazonFresh, goPuff, Ocado, and Shipt and seeing as how most had a Service or Business Model section, which caused me to move some of the lede paragraphs into a new section called Service Model. (This allowed me a natural location to restore the markup text mentioned earlier; Also the link to JD.com wasn't there at the time and seems to be wrong anyways.) If there is something about that edit (or the others) that needs explained, then let me know.
Finally, just to make this clear, the banned users focused on removing content negative of Instacart and added more positive, PR stuff. It got to the point that the article had to be given the Advert, COI, and Undisclosed paid templates in 2019. (It didn't help that there was an Article for Deletion discussion on the owner at the same time, which drew attention to this article.) --Super Goku V (talk) 07:43, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Super Goku V, thanks for the ping. As the opener of the discussions at SPI and COIN, I want to underline that this article has indeed been very heavily edited by a sockfarm that is almost certainly engaged in UPE, as well as by some other suspicious accounts. I can try to have a closer look over the next few days (and I'm happy if someone else can do that), but for the time being, I oppose removal of the tag. Best, — Blablubbs (talk • contribs) 17:19, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I am not too surprised given how the history looks that something was going on. There are at least two accounts from before 2017 that registered before exclusively editing the article in a series of edits before going inactive. It is odd how a company that has only been around for eight years could attract such attention. --Super Goku V (talk) 17:41, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Super Goku V, there has been suspicious editing going on since at least 2016; see e.g. Special:Diff/719580607. Best, Blablubbs (talk • contribs) 01:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Blablubbs:, I didn't know that it was okay to mention the specific users, but that was one of the two I was referring to. The other had only six edits on Wikipedia; all of which were to this article. This edit is the most suspicious of the series as it listed over 10 large cities as the area served despite what Template:Infobox_company says. Given that it was in 2015, it feels like it was an edit to test the waters on how far the limits could be pushed. It would be over two years before someone edited the area served parameter so that it complied with policy, which had grown to list 20 locations by that point. --Super Goku V (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Blablubbs:, @Super Goku V: (posting this from a different location, but I posted the above from 76.79.68.66) I completely agree that there has been suspicious editing going on here, and there are some good points made above. The issue at hand is whether the UDP template actually applies to the article as it stands today. If anything, the {{Advert}} template would be more appropriate based on the concerns above. I also agree that most of the edits have been leaning towards removing ‘negative’ and adding ‘positive’ but there are a handful of examples of those blocked accounts removing PR as well.
The vast majority of the edits you’ve identified from blocked accounts (and the ones I’ve dug through myself) are no longer included in the current version of the article or have been modified enough to remove the PR spin. If the article has already been reworked enough to filter out the edits made by these suspicious accounts, then what more is there to do in order to remove a neutrality tag? Clearly, the next step is to check the article for neutrality and ensure that it complies with Wikipedia’s content policies, which is what was initiated above. FWIW, there is an active conversation happening over at the template talk page discussing this exact issue.
It seems we are proposing that this be a permanent fixture regardless of whether the issue has been resolved. The Wiki ‘system’ is working on this article - the suspicious edits have been removed naturally by other editors and the template is not needed here. The {{Connected contributor (paid)}} should be added to the talk page as is defined in the template parameters.  As stated before, this article doesn’t appear to be overly promotional, especially given that half the article is dedicated to “controversies” - that’s clearly not coming from the company’s PR team, but if others are concerned about tone, then let's use the Advert. template. 76.90.32.229 (talk) 01:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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