Talk:United Rentals

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Comments[edit]

Can anyone tell me how to actually add the logo to the page?

Have to upload a copy to the wikipedia servers. I'll have a go. vLaDsINgEr 04:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: Ok, I did it. vLaDsINgEr 04:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article needs an overhaul![edit]

Hey all! After spending a long time cleaning up a couple articles in the trucking industry (XPO Logistics and Bradley S. Jacobs), I noticed a bunch of the pages they link to have issues. Oh boy, is United Rentals one of them. What is up with the sports section? Is Wikipedia an ad agency? Structural organization could be cleaned up, tone streamlined... There's tons to do!

I'm going to start digging into this tonight and tomorrow, but I wanted to reach out to anyone else watching this page: If you've edited here before and want to help improve things, please speak up! It would be cool to not do it all myself. :) I just moved across the country and find myself with a lot of free time, and while I'm starting here, I'm not stopping here. I've wanted to really start cleaning up some of the articles in equipment rental, logistics, and other "support" businesses that aren't flashy and so don't get a lot of help from other Wikipedians. If there's someone else who's interested in helping me do that, it would be sweet!

Aussietommartin (talk) 00:08, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've been going back and forth on some stuff all day, and wanted to lay out my thinking in case someone else has a different opinion.

Earlier this morning I cut the Sports & Entertainment section. I did it without batting an eye for obvious reasons: it was full-out advertisement. I don't think any other Wikipedian would fault me for the removal! But as I learned when dealing with some malicious modifications made to the XPO Logistics article late last year, just as people add positive content meant to trumpet a company, they also add negative content meant to pull it down. As user Leviathan2020 pointed out over there, stock manipulation is a thing, and while I don't know much about that side of the business world, what I do know has made me very leery of content that talks about legal troubles or the SEC.

Big companies deal with minor issues and lawsuits all the time. I don't know if I'm informed enough to be able to pass final judgment on whether a piece of legalese is valuable for public consumption, but I'm guessing that most other Wikipedians aren't, either! So in the spirit of being bold, I'm going to go ahead and make changes, and then if someone thinks otherwise, we can have a discussion and revert the changes.

I'm cutting three sections: SEC investigation, Abramoff scandal, and Restatement. Let's talk about the latter two first, which I think are easy removals:

The Abramoff scandal section is the easiest cut. It doesn't actually appear to have anything to do with Abramoff, but just a pair of random lobbyists. The section smacks of someone trying to make United Rentals look bad, with a sliver of a relationship to URI. Adios.
As for the Restatement section, putting aside the fact that the restatement was going from $1.81 per share to $1.80 (talk about financial nitpicking that seems ridiculous to point out in a Wikipedia article), I dug into a couple of the sources that were used. The section's language is rather misleading: "the company would have to restate years of financial results" is an exaggeration at best. It's exactly the sort of section that smacks of maliciousness, just like the legal battle sections Leviathan2020 and I dealt with last year.

Okay, so those are easy to cut, but the SEC investigation section gave me more pause. About a year ago, I was the one that actually ADDED about two thirds of it. What was there didn't say anything beyond "Oh hey, the SEC investigated United Rentals." This was before the malicious edits to the XPO Logistics article, and I didn't understand the consequences that legal discussions can have. Since I was the one that added it, I don't feel bad about being the one to take it away, especially since the investigation didn't end up in convictions, or even a charge of guilt OR innocence; it was just a settlement. How many zillions of corporate investigations end in settlements?

That said, it's also about the SEC – and that's exactly why I've been going back and forth on it. In the end, I decided to cut it. The straw that broke the camel's back: cleaner and more concise is usually better. But I could be wrong! If you have a counterpoint, please let me know; I'm all about consultation on this sort of thing.

Thanks, everyone!

Aussietommartin (talk) 21:52, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]