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Hello fellow Wikipedians,
This page was hijacked by supporters of Mobigame who edited the page to add false and defamatory information about EDGE and its CEO Langdell to help Mobigame in its dispute with EDGE. Those edits should never have been allowed since they have been relied on by people as if they are fact, and they were fake information put there by Mobigame supporters. EDGE Games and Langdell recently won their trademark disputes with Mobigame in the US, UK and France, all of which decisions proved EDGE/Langdell never did act as 'trademark trolls' that they were always in the right, and that Mobigame was in the wrong to use EDGE's trademark. It is thus appropriate to return this page to the more neutral summary of EDGE Games that it used to be before Mobigame's supporters first hijacked it in 2009. I am double checking all changes before adding them and will put sources to prove the true facts where appropriate. Vertisis (talk) 18:43, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not. Would you please disclose your COI with EDGE? After disappearing for nearly 9 years after your last attempt to whitewash this article in 2014, there is no other logical conclusion. -- ferret (talk) 19:01, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is outrageous. The changes made were to delete the completely false information on this page put there by supporters of Mobigame to try to gain advantage to Mobigame in its dispute. Now that Mobigame have lost their dispute with EDGE and Langdell has been proven not to be a trademark troll, it is appropriate for this page to finally have all the derogatory, false information removed. See https://indygamernews.com/17042023EdgeOrEdgy.html
You have just put back in place all the lies about EDGE, including that it was formed in 1990, which isnt true, and all the other false information about the company. I have no connection to EDGE and am just concerned that the defamatory edits that should never have been allowed in 2009 should at last now be removed. Wikipedia should not be used to defame people, which is what this page does, and your reverting it back to the defamatory status just adds to the use of Wikipedia for nefarious purposes. Vertisis (talk) 19:27, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The information in the article is supported by the cited references, so far as I can tell. Is it your position that the citations themselves are incorrect? Also, per WP:NLT, you should generally avoid tossing around legal terms like 'defamatory' on Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 19:29, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The existing version is not supported by any reliable cited references. Hence the need to amend it. The edits done in 2009 and 2010 in particular used very carefully deliberately misleading citations to make EDGE and Langdell look bad, when the full picture with full cites (which keep being removed) show that EDGE and Langdell actually won most of the disputes and came out with their reputation unscathed. But the partial information gets left in without the full picture that would show what really transpired. For instance, the EA Alsup cite is technically accurate EXCEPT that in the final judgment of that case the judge reversed himself and ruled that Langdell was not guilty of fraud and that EDGE did genuinely own all its trademarks. The final judgement makes clear that EDGE retains all of its trademark rights and only surrendered a handful of its many trademarks as a commercial compromise with EA, on the condition no cancelled mark be considered cancelled because of abandonment or because it was improperly obtained. These true facts and many like them are obscured in this highly biased version of the EDGE Games page that was created to defame EDGE and Langdell Vertisis (talk) 19:38, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If your position is that the cited sources are incorrect - there's really nothing we can do about that here. Per WP:V and WP:NOR we have to follow them. You can write to them and see if they'll retract the articles, I suppose. MrOllie (talk) 19:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Trademark trolls" do not get repeated judgments in their favor on trademark disputes as EDGE/Langdell have done. It is about time to correct the record and delete all the false and derrogatory information put there by Mobigame supporters. Vertisis (talk) 19:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And yet the existing version of this page is fully of false and misleading information supported by court documents sources. This is why I was editing it to replace the false information that used court case information with independent secondary sources. Again, see https://indygamernews.com/17042023EdgeOrEdgy.html
Which makes clear that 95% of this page for EDGE Games is now proven to be false and deliberately misleading so as to defame EDGE and Langdell. This must be changed to provide a more neutral fair summary of the company.
It makes no sense to allow the existing statements to remain when they are almost entirely supported by court documents and similar. Vertisis (talk) 19:42, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot and will not use court documents or self published / unknown web sites like 'indygamernews.com' to undercut the reliable sources we already have. MrOllie (talk) 19:55, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So why wont you let in the secondary sources such as ones that are allowed on many other Wikipedia pages such as the Escapist article or the IGDA attorney's blog page? Why do you permit the existing comments supported by court documents or unsupported reference to court documents that are not even cited? Such as the false statement in the opening that EDGE had its trademarks cancelled when there is no cite to support that statement? Or the section on EA that contains many references to EA taking action, or court documents, etc, with no citation to support any of it and yet this false information has been allowed to remain?
Why are you making one rule for the supporter of Mobigame who put all this false information on this page, and another rule for me, an independent concerned person, just trying to correct the obvious errors and stay focused on reliable, balanced review of a company?
At least let me delete all the statements that are not supported by reliable secondary sources? Such as 90% of what is reported about the EA issue and the fake summaries of supposed other trademark disputes that have no cites to support them at all.
As it stands this page is a hack job designed to defame with no supporting sources and yet you are deliberately leaving all the false information up. Why? Vertisis (talk) 20:03, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is not right to have all the secondary sources that support EDGE/Langdell removed from the page (or not allowed on it - you just stopped me), when all the cites, including court documents, ARE being allowed on so long as they speak negatively about EDGE / Langdell.
@MrOllie Note that the current version was heavily edited in 2014 at the prompting of Vertisis, a very long and contentious drafting process that resulted in a draft accepted by myself, Czar and Vertisis. 9 years later, with little substantial change to the article, he's back to relitigate everything we discussed 9 years ago. I am unsure who he alleges to be a Mobigames supporter. -- ferret (talk) 20:04, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did try to correct the false information back in 2014 and was not permitted to do so. The result has been that for a further 7 years the fake information about EDGE and Langdell has remained on this page. The reason for readdressing this egregious situation now is that after 14 years EDGE just one all of its disputes against Mobigame, proving Langdell never was a trademark troll, Mobigame was in the wrong all along, etc. It is time to correct the false statements made on this page. And if the false statements were not made by Mobigame supporters then they were made by people who got caught up in the false game press reporting that was repeating Mobigame's falsehoods about EDGE and Langdell without bothering to fact check what they were writing.
The fact is any reasonable person can see this page was hacked in 2009 and 2010 by people antagonistic to EDGE and Langdell. They were permitted to put up false statements about EDGE losing its trademarks (when it still owns 99% of them), Langdell being a troll (when absolutely no one ever found he acted as a troll and the recent decisions state he acted entirely legitimately), and permitted deliberately negative comments about EDGE's games when they received numerous positive reviews, and false statements such as there had only been 9 games since 1990 which is clear false and was only stated to help Mobigame support its absurd allegation of Langdell being a troll that doesnt produce games. EDGE has done 5 games in the past year, yet you will not let this new information get added because it is not negative about EDGE or Langdell. So why are you being biased if you are not in fact a Mobigame supporter trying to stop the truth about the dispute from getting out? That EDGE won and Mobigame lost? Vertisis (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You both say you see no reason to alter the page in any way even though it contains deliberate falsehoods and misleading 'facts' all of which are designed to defame EDGE and its CEO Langdell. So if you are going to refuse to allow a fair and honest edit of this page, then at least let's list here the issues so that in future people can see how incredibly unfair you were to not allow the proper edits:
1. Edge Games founded in 1990 -- not true, just check the edgegames.com website
2. EDGE Games is not best known for the practices of its CEO in enforcing its trademark. That is a fiction invented by Mobigame's Papazian and repeated irresponsibly by some in the game press. EDGE is best known as the oldest UK game company and one of the oldest US game companies. It is well known for its over 100 games and for having several hit games. Apple Inc has had hundreds of trademarks actions to defend its common word mark 'Apple' yet you don't say Apple is best known for its trademark disputes. This is unfair bias not least since EDGE has won 31 trademark cases in the past 30 years and since it keeps winning it is deliberately misleading to suggest it has acted wrongly in any way in protecting its marks.
3. Even though it is a stated fact that EDGE has had far fewer trademark disputes than other companies (e.g. Apple who also owns a common word mark), and has only ever sued two companies since the 1980s (and won both times), clearly no one can call EDGE or Langdell 'litigious' and yet you let that false statement stand.
4. The statement about the court cancelling any of EDGE's trademarks in 2010 is partly false and deliberately misleading. The outcome of the EA dispute was that EDGE retained all its key trademark rights and this statement is designed to convey the exact opposite of the truth.
5. Statements that EDGE's games were thought derivative or etc are deliberately defaming since EDGE/Softek has had almost universally praised reviews of its games with virtually no one ever saying EDGE is not original. It has produced far more original games than any that bore any resemblance to another game. So this way of listing Softek and EDGE's games was clearly designed to defame. That should not be permitted on Wikipedia
6. Edge Games was not founded in 1990 (it was founded in 1981) and it has not produced only 9 games since 1990. That was false information put there by a Mobigame supporter.
7. The section on the iOS game EDGE is now grossly out of date since EDGE won this dispute and Papazian was proven to be the bully, with Langdell proven not to have acted in any way badly or as a troll. This section needs to be removed or edited to give the truth.
8. The EA section is written from a highly biased perspective with numerous false statements. This too should be either removed or the facts should be edited to show the truth which is that the court did not find wrongdoing by anyone, all of EDGE's trademark rights were preserved, and so on.
9. The Future section contains many falsehoods and is not backed up by cited reliable secondary sources. It is also grossly incomplete leaving out for instance that EDGE won the case in the end against Future with Future cancelling all of its EDGE marks apart of one that EDGE permitted Future to retain.
10. The 'other' trademark disputes section needs to be deleted. We do not put such sections in other company's pages -- another company that has hundreds of trademark disputes because it too owns a common name mark is Apple. Yet we do not list the hundreds of trademark disputes that Apple has had on its page. To list them on EDGE's is to falsely make EDGE seem it is litigious when it simply protects its marks.
11. There are also numerous other false statements. It is grossly misleading to include the dispute with RAZER, for instance, and yet deliberately fail to mention that EDGE won that dispute and got RAZER's trademark "EDGE" cancelled.
I could go on, but the page is full of false or deliberately misleading statements all of which are intended deliberately to cast EDGE and Langdell in a negative light. This sort of malicious biased editing of Wikipedia pages should never be permitted. Vertisis (talk) 20:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I said the same thing in 2014 when I came in as a third party to mediate. Provide the reliable secondary sourcing to support your claims, and they can be happily added to the article. However, much of what you've stated above is directly contradicted by the reliable secondary sources we have on hand, which this article is plastered in. These details aren't going to be removed. They might be added to with newer sourcing, if you provide it. But otherwise, WP:RS and WP:V are the guiding lights for Wikipedia. Provide the appropriate sourcing and I'll gladly and happily integrate it. -- ferret (talk) 21:12, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok that's a fair offer. I will take each error/incomplete issue one by one, if I may. Let's start with the false statement that Edge Games was founded in 1990.
There is no cite at all on the page about the year Edge was formed. The closest is a cite (6) that is a trademark office decision which you say Wikipedia does not permit and yet that cite of a TM decision has remained there for over a decade.
The other cite on the page is to the www.edgegames.com/about page -- if you allow that cite (and you have for over a decade) then we should be guided by what that website says about when Edge was formed. That is, in 1981.
So can we start by making that correction?
(and PS, if you do allow cite (6) which is a trademark decision, then I ask again that we allow the recent trademark decisions to ruled against Mobigame in the US, UK and France and against Razer in the US - to be fair and balanced about allowing trademark decisions or not allowing them).
First, let's not put words in mouths. Ollie mentions we don't like to use court documents. I never made any statement about that. Let's talk about the foundation date of Edge Interactive Media and the current trademark filing that is being used. I will quote the immediate relevant portion: Dr Langdell explains that in 1980 he formed a company trading as Softek Software in the UK. In 1983 this company became incorporated as Softek International Ltd. In 1990 he formed an American corporation, The Edge Interactive Media Inc. which acquired the intellectual property rights from Softek.. These are Langdell's statements to the court, that the American corporation Edge Interactive Media was formed in 1990 and acquired the IPs of Softek. Do you dispute this basic fact? In this particular situation, http://www.edgegames.com/about.htm is absolutely not a reliable source. It is a primary source that can only be used in particular ways, and with the history here, at best we could use it for claims with the deliberate statement of "Edge Games claims that...". Their version of history is somewhat irrelevant to us in the long run. For situations like this, we prefer legal filings and documents that show the incorporation of entities. In this case, we have legal trademark document where Langdell himself made these statements. I'd like to call on @IceWelder: for some assistance here. He's very familiar with sourcing for corporations and their foundation, and may be able to turn up some other sourcing or appropriate registers. -- ferret (talk) 22:22, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so as I suggested how about a format that echoes what was done for Activision on its page where there is a similar issue of the company being formed long before the current owner of the assets had them assigned to it. So
Where's the sourcing for any of it? We have sourcing for Softek and EIM. We have nothing for EGI or a change over in 2008, and you've not provided any. Frankly, it's hard to deal with this as you refuse to go by our guidelines or policies. You ape statements made on Edge's website, without apparently reading the documents in question. For example, the decision against Mobigames in 2020 was not a win for Langdell. The linked document is an appealed rejected on procedural grounds for being too late. It was an appeal to the cancellation of Mobigames trademark, also on procedural grounds, as they failed to renew the international trademark appropriately, which they had previously had. There was no ruling against Mobigame's use of the trademark, simply routine declaration of abandonment. The very same link clearly lists that all of Edge Games registrations to the same mark, EDGE, are ALSO cancelled by court order, with the one petition on file to revive denied. The EDGE trademark appears to now be owned by PSA, Inc, a security company in Colorado, who filed for it May 2022. -- ferret (talk) 22:59, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. if you dispute the 1981 date on the basis that it isn't when the US corp was formed, then perhaps we should draw a parallel with the Activision page where to cover the fact it was formed in 1979 the title box says "Formerly .."
That is the presentation aspect. The key part is that all the information in the Activison and Atari articles have reliable sources. Without that it wouldn't be in there. Please provide reliable sources for the claim you are making please. - X201 (talk) 07:44, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Summoned by ping, so I'm here to give my two cents. Drawing comparisons to Activision doesn't feel apt: Despite being renamed multiple times, it has been the same entity in some form or another since 1979, safe for re-registering to Delaware (probably for tax purposes) in 1993. With Edge Games et al., we are dealing at least with three corporations: Edge Games, Inc. (since 2005), The Edge Interactive Media, Inc. (1990–2018), and Softek International Limited (1983–2002), as well as the brief, corporation-less "Softek Software" (until 1983).
Wikipedia rarely enforces "company ≡ corporation" (and it should not, IMO) because sources present a company being the same without a corporation, with a corporation, or even across multiple corporations over time. For example, the given founding date for McDonald's is the opening date of its original restaurant in the 1940s, although the modern corporation was only created in the 1960s. In the case of Volition, the company transitioned to an LLC after being bought. On paper, it was a new company, but for all other intents and purposes, it was the same company established in the 1990s.
The case here feels similar. The article already states that Softek International was merely the incorporated form on Softek Software, and based on the current stated founding date of 1990, it seems to consider The Edge Interactive Media and Edge Games to be the same. So why the disconnect between Softek International and The Edge Interactive Media? In this filing (p. 2, sec. 1) from the lawsuit against EA, The Edge Interactive Media is characterized as a "reincorporation" of Softek following Langdell's (and thereby effectively also Softek's) relocation to the United States. According to Eurogamer, "The Edge moved stateside". The same source gives 1979 as the original establishing date for Softek Software, as does Kotaku for Edge Games as a whole.
If Wikipedia was being super technical, we would have to put 2005 as the founding date, but using sources and reason, 1979 seems much more appropriate and is in line with how we handle similar cases for other companies. IceWelder [✉] 14:31, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moving on to the second item in the page that needs discussion, the statement that Langdell is 'litigious.' Checking the citation shows that the Eurogamer article does not state Langdell is litigious. So there is no secondary source supporting this claim against Langdell. With no secondary source citation, the statement should be deleted since without solid foundation to it, the statement becomes at the least derogatory and perhaps defamatory which is against Wikipedia guidelines.
I have scanned the articles and can only find a reference to someone saying Langdell is litigious who then cites this Wikipedia page as his source. So it would seem whoever edited this page and added in the 'litigious' accusation is themselves the source of the accusation>
I also note Langdell has consistently maintained that he has only ever taken the minimum trademark actions necessary to protect his EDGE mark, which he has denied can be reasonably described as litigious.
Secondary sources support Langdell in not calling his actions litigious: The Escapist and the IGDA's attorney both state Langdell has only ever done what trademark law requires him to do:
May we delete the reference to 'litigious'? And therefore delete the following sentence too as it becomes irrelevant if the litigious accusation is removed? Vertisis (talk) 22:51, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you properly balance it out and not leave the emphasis on a member of the game press giving his own unsupported opinion of Langdell. I note the source you added does not attempt to justify his assertion that Langdell is litigious and more sources say he isn't litigious than say he is. To properly balance the point we need to add "Other sources have described him as only taking the legal action he needs to take to protect EDGE's trademarks."
Hope you don't mind the outdent, but if we carry on at this rate there's going to be a world colon shortage. - X201 (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The source you added does not attempt to justify his assertion that Langdell is litigious We don't require reliable sources to show their work. more sources say he isn't litigious than say he is The sources you have brought to this talk page do not support that. We're not going to engage in WP:FALSEBALANCE, we don't do that on Wikipedia. - MrOllie (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MrOllie @X201 Thank you for the outdent. I was hoping for that.
MrOllie, I spoke with Alec Meer (author of the new cite you added) and he confirmed that he said Langdell is litigious because the Wikipedia page for Edge Games states he is litigious. So, congratulations, you just used a secondary source that was based on the false Wikipedia entry to support that same entry. It is circular and that should not be permitted.
With respect, this was the danger of I and others not being permitted to correct false or non-neutral edits back in 2009-2011. For the past 14 years despite protests the only cite for Langdell being considered 'litigious' did not say he was litigious (the other cite you left up). What this meant is that for 14 years secondary sources have made statements (like Langdell is litigious) based on this Wikipedia page that stated he is without a proper cite to support the statement. So now we have secondary sources we cannot rely on -- like the one you just added -- because those secondary sources are simply quoting from an edit to this page that should never have been permitted.
Again, more secondary sources state Langdell has only done what any company CEO needs to do to protect a trademark. Which needs to be mentioned in order to make this entry now balance -- especially since you now have a circular cite to support the statement. Contrary to what you say, these two additional cites need to be added for fair balance since they do support that he only took necessary actions:
The Escapist article states: "Due to the intricacies of trademark law, trademark holders--in this case, Langdell and Edge Games -- are obligated to actively defend their trademarks or risk losing them to other parties." Then "Langdell had a legitimate trademark, he did what was required of him to protect that trademark ... Yet somehow it got turned around: Langdell, ostensibly the victim, has been utterly vilified by the gaming media."
The IGDA attorney Tom Buscaglia states in his blog: "I suspect that if you had spend 20 odd years building a Trademark to brand your studio and games, and paid to have a Trademark registered, you might also feel compelled to enforce your trade name. BTW, if you do not enforce your Trademark, you may lose it. So you may want to also take that into account in your analysis!" and "I do not see how Tim L. vigorously enforcing his legal rights as contrary to the code of ethics [of the IGDA] in any way."
Thus these secondary sources do support the balancing view that Langdell only took actions he was required by law to take which cannot reasonably be termed 'litigious.'
I spoke with Alec Meer (author of the new cite you added) and he confirmed that he said Langdell is litigious because the Wikipedia page for Edge Games states he is litigious. This is obviously untrue, because this Wikipedia article didn't say that back in 2010 when the cited article was written. MrOllie (talk) 17:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I spoke to him more recently about this so his memory may have been faulty.
Regardless, the statement that Langdell is litigious saying that sources say this, when the only cited source did NOT say that, still stands as a major reason this should be deleted. If not deleted then as a gesture of even the vaguest attempt at balance it needs to be added that other sources disagree and say Langdell has only taken such legal action as has been necessary to protect the trademark. This is not engaging in false balance, this is entirely reasonable balance.
Other sources don't actually disagree. They are silent, or they say the same thing with slightly different phrasing. The Escapist author you cited wrote in another article Edge Games, the notoriously litigational company[1]. Buscaglia was defending a fellow IGDA board member, so isn't an independent source. And in addition to that, he subsequently apologized for that defence. [2]. We're simply not going to whitewash the article, certainly not based on false claims and misrepresentation of sources that we're seeing on this talk page. Please accept the proposed new edit with 2 cites supporting it. No. MrOllie (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let's say we believe you contacted Alec Meer, and presumably other journalists, as well as having a subscription to this no-exposure indygamesnews site which is... suspicious on numerous counts, including that it's only public content apes what Edgegames has on their site, and popping back up shortly after Edgegames makes new blog posts on this topic. I mean. This is far beyond the actions of a "concerned fan". This only deepens the very clear fact that you have a conflict of interest here. I'm pondering how far we need to entertain this considering your refusal to come clean. -- ferret (talk) 18:34, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, the link to the news piece on Indy Gamer News is on the EDGE Games website (look under their 'About' tab and then follow the link on the right to Correcting the Record about Mobigame). No need to have a subscription to the news site apparently.
I got involved in this back in 2009/2010 when I noticed Papazian of Mobigame boasting on Twitter that he and his friends had managed to edit the EDGE Games Wikipedia page to defame Langdell, and that they had their friend HalfShadow to add Langdell's name to the Trademark Troll page in July 2009 when the only person anywhere that had called Langdell a troll was Papazian. I saw as the Wikipedia page got repeated by the game press to reinforce the fake idea that Langdell was a troll when there was no evidence he was. And that bothered me since I didn't think one company should be able to edit rival's Wikipedia page or add its CEO to a page like the troll one just to defame the rival. But I have sat by watching as no one did anything to stop the harassment of Langdell and EDGE, but instead have doubled down in if anything ramping up the defamation of Langdell. Which I still don't think is what Wikipedia should be used for. Call it a personal crusade, whatever, I just think it is plain wrong. Vertisis (talk) 21:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry. There is no way that someone spends 14 years on a personal crusade to defend Langdell and EDGE without a direct conflict of interest, even going so far as to named themselves after Edge. Regardless, you never present sources that pass muster on Wikipedia, and you constantly misrepresent sources or exclude the fact they were retracted later or overruled in some other fashion. None of your changes are going to be enacted. -- ferret (talk) 21:45, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MrOllie I see you even made the balance far worse by deleting the well sourced statement that Langdell said they had only ever sued two people since 1990. You commented with your deletion that it may have been true at the time but isnt now. Why did you say that given even recently Langdell has repeated they have only ever sued two people? And there is no evidence EDGE has sued anyone else. The lawsuits on record are still just EA and Future No one else.
Please put back in what you deleted. There is no basis for deleting that given a at least gave a very small balance to the unfounded accusation that EDGE/Langdell are 'litigious'. Vertisis (talk) 21:25, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]