Talk:Instacart

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)

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)

"shoppers" ?

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

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)

@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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

@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)

@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)

To be honest, I still do not see the urgency of this. The template is factually accurate: The article was edited for pay over a period of multiple years and it will require at least another thorough examination and potentially more cleanup. There is no issue in leaving the template up longer, and I don't see the point of replacing it with {{advert}} since overt promotional language is not the issue we're dealing with. If the concern is 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, then switching out one template for another will make no difference. Courtesy ping to Super Goku V. Best, Blablubbs ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:56, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Given that there is evidence that 'fishy' edits have been made for five years to this article, I feel like there should not be a rush to remove the template lest mistakes occur. 76.90.32.229, my opinion is still that an admin is needed review the article before the tag is removed or that the user who added the template remove it. Since the second is not going to happen at this time, your only options are to wait or ask an admin to review the article to see if the cleanup has fixed the issues. Personally, I feel like this isn't an immediate issue; the editors involved have been banned for sockpuppeting and a cleanup of the article has been attempted. There really isn't that much that needs to be done at this time, except maybe see if there is anything to add to the article that hasn't been added or is new content. (For example, Instacart seems to have added another partnership, is involved in a local government lawsuit, and is dealing with some backlash over a California proposal. Maybe that should be considered to be added?) If you do feel like the template is a problem, then I recommend contacting an admin to ask it to be removed.

With that said, I do need to make it clear that the accounts removing PR were tricks to hide certain content and make the accounts appear as separate users. If you look at this edit by User:Frostedcoffee, you will see that they removed the text on what cities Instacart expanded into in 2014 and their CFO hire in 2015. But, if you go back a month to this edit by User:Chanandlerfriendz, you will see that they were the one who added the text about the 2014 city expansion. The problem is that User:Frostedcoffee and User:Chanandlerfriendz are considered sockpuppets of the same account. Thus, the same user added the content in June and removed it in July. Then you have this edit by User:Chanandlerfriendz who claimed to have been removing PR. The line was discussing that Instacart can charge a markup to items if they do not participate in Instacart's program, which is something that isn't PR. The citation actually went farther and noted that there was a markup of at least 168% on a single item. (Which reminds me that I didn't properly update the line when I restored it.) I wouldn't be surprised if I kept reviewing the edits and found more examples, but I have gone over some of these edits for the fourth time now and it is tiresome. Before I finish, you seem to still be upset over some of the content I restored to the controversy section. Is there a problem with the wording? (@Blablubbs: Thank you for the courtesy ping and here is one back.) --Super Goku V (talk) 07:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I was asked to take a look at this article as a completely uninvolved editor (I've never even read the article before) given the discussion above seems to have stalled. I'll start by assessing against the same headings as above: WP:CONPOL:

Article Titles: No issue here, the article is at the correct title/.

Biographies of living persons: The only content about a living person is about the founder, there might be a bit too much (see later comments) but it's all cited and it's neutral bordering on positive so there are no BLP concerns.

Image use policy: The only image in the article is the company logo in the infobox. That image is freely licensed, but even if it weren't the use here would meet the NFCC so there are no issues.

Neutral point of view: Taken a whole the article feels about balanced. The structure is wrong though - the history section reads mostly pro and the controversies section mostly anti. Integrating the two into a single approximately chronological narrative will significantly improve the article quality in other ways too (e.g. the history section has major WP:PROSELINE issues). I also recommend trimming the lists of other organisations the company works with, both to improve the general prose and make it feel less adverty - instead of "Additional operations include [list of 13 organisations]" integrate that into the prose, mentioning only around 3 of the most important using language like "including" or "such as". If they are from different sectors (as a Brit I'm not familiar with most of the names) say they work with grocery shops, e.g. X, and office supply companies like Y.

No original research: There doesn't appear to be any original research here.

Verifiability: Other than where explicitly tagged this is not an issue, indeed excessive citations are a problem in several places - we don't need four sources to verify something objective such as it originally starting in San Francisco for example. Do not I've not checked every reference for reliability or that they verify the content they claim but I didn't find any issues with those I spot-checked.

What Wikipedia is not: This has aspects that read a bit like an advert or a corporate website, but these are easily fixable by trimming unnecessary detail about minor changes to the system and lists of partrnets and integrating the controversies section into the history section to form a single section of coherent prose. I would also trim the biography of the founder, as that has aspects that are CV-ish and the article is about the company not the person. Ultimately though it is clearly intended to be an encyclopaedia article.

Wikipedia is not a dictionary: There is no content here that would be suitable in a dictionary.

In conclusion, my verdict is that the remaining issues are mainly stylistic. Once the controversies section has been integrated and the lists of organisations trimmed then the paid editing tag should be removed. Any remaining perceived issues should be explicitly tagged and explained with inline tags and/or as a new section on this talk page so they can be discussed and addressed. Thryduulf (talk) 12:15, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

I was pinged by the same IP editor. I haven't read any of the article. I trust that Thryduulf wrote a comprehensive and accurate outline of the situation. I mostly want to tell @Super Goku V that there is not, and never has been, any sort of rule that says only admins and the original editor can remove maintenance tags, including this one. The usual rule for POV-related tags is that if you can't figure out how to fix the problems in the article, and there's nothing on the talk page that tells you what the problem is, then you should remove them. Maintenance templates are not meant to linger at the top of a page indefinitely, and they are not meant to be a Badge of shame to identify unsolvable problems (e.g., any problem that can only be solved by going back in time and protecting the article to prevent someone from editing it).

If you are curious about who wrote how much of the readable text currently on the page, then I recommend the mw:Who Wrote That? tool. Super Goku V has written 12.1% of the current version of the page. If you want to investigate specific editors, then Frostedcoffee and Chanandlerfriendz have contributed significant parts of the article and have been blocked as sockpuppets. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:, I am doing my best to follow the policies listed at Template:Dispute templates, including WP:RCD. As WP:THIRD suggests, I said the following to 76.90.32.229: 76.90.32.229, my opinion is still that an admin is needed review the article before the tag is removed or that the user who added the template remove it. Since the second is not going to happen at this time, your only options are to wait or ask an admin to review the article to see if the cleanup has fixed the issues. At the time, there was only User:Blablubbs, 142.105.49.206, 76.90.32.229 and myself. I felt like I should not judge my own work to see if it passes or not. You can read above for what the others have written, including Blablubbs. (Frankly, I am happy that User:Thryduulf reviewed the article given how much bad editing has been done since 2016.) WhatamIdoing, if you want me to list the specific edits I reviewed when I made my 'overhaul' edit, then I will go over the history and do so. I do request that you review WP:COIN/Potential UPE farm(s), WP:SPI/Yoodaba (September 6th, 2020), and some of the history of this article. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:31, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I did forget to say this, but based on what Thryduulf has said, I feel like we can remove the tag. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:33, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I know it doesn't work this way in the real world, but Wikipedia usually wants you to judge your own work. You have made thousands of edits. That means that you're in the top 1% of all registered editors. The community needs you to WP:Be bold, even when it comes to removing tags. (If only some people are allowed to remove a particular tag, then the tag will directly say that, like the AFD tags do.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:15, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:, I was recently reminded of this due to a message I received from another user. I never responded to your last message about judging my own work, but I feel it is important to point out why it was not a good idea specifically based on one of your prior messages.

If you are curious about who wrote how much of the readable text currently on the page, then I recommend the mw:Who Wrote That? tool. Super Goku V has written 12.1% of the current version of the page. If you want to investigate specific editors, then Frostedcoffee and Chanandlerfriendz have contributed significant parts of the article and have been blocked as sockpuppets.

When read with the highlighted bits emphasized, it should become clear why I don't think I should be the judge of my work on an article that had paid editing occurred as it can lead to my character being thrown into suspicion, which is why I have avoided responding to this and not editing this article until seeing that message brought things back for me. I hope you can at least understand my side of things to a degree. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

My concern here is that we have no evidence that anyone was actually paid to edit this article, but if we set the standard at being absolutely certain that every single problem has been addressed, we might never reach the point at which anyone feels like they can ever remove this tag.

We know, purely as a matter of statistical likelihood, that there are current and former Instacart drivers among Wikipedia editors. I've seen news reports that there could be a half million Instacart drivers. Certainly the COI rules discourage editors from editing about their employer, even if their employment situation is relatively minor, but Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and people who are tech-y enough and have enough time to be Instacart shoppers are exactly the right demographic for peple who edit Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, we do have significant evidence that several blocked accounts are part of a large-scale undisclosed paid editing operation by an American marketing agency. MarioGom (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Max Mullen seems notable only as one of the cofounders of Instacart, so I suggest merging to here by WP:1E. The references are mostly about the company; those that aren't are from routine listing on sites with corporate profiles. Klbrain (talk) 09:24, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Support merge proposal BoraVoro (talk) 11:50, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 17:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)