Draft talk:Shawn Merriman (Ponzi fraudster): Difference between revisions

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* ref. 11 has an author and date

* ref. 11 has an author and date

* ref. 12 has an author (AP) and date

* ref. 12 has an author (AP) and date

* incorrectly located. ref. numbers 12 and 13 under References header

[[User:Limelightangel|Limelightangel]] ([[User talk:Limelightangel|talk]]) 07:15, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

[[User:Limelightangel|Limelightangel]] ([[User talk:Limelightangel|talk]]) 07:15, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This draft is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of crime and criminal biography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related

This page is part of an Educational Project by students of LIUC, Italy, with a course page at: [1]https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/LIUC_-_Universit%C3%A0_Cattaneo/Digital_Technology_(Autumn_2025)/home . The users of the group are new to the Wikipedia platform, have completed mandatory Training for Students, and are learning to edit following Wikipedia rules. They are open to any advice on improvements of the page in conformity to Wikipedia requirements and guidelines, and any help useful for the enhancement of the page will be gladly accepted. The student Usernames are:

• Ulivo30
• ele2006
• LiucAnna.1
• Fastuca06
• Novarae123

Issues or questions can be referred direct to the users or to their tutor @Limelightangel (talk) 13:51, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

You have ceated two incorrect and redundant draft pages at:

You need to now mark both these pages for speedy deletion to avoid confusion. See: Wikipedia:Drafts#Deleting_drafts and use help resources to resolve this. It is very simple to do. Limelightangel (talk) 13:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have just done it, I thought the best criteria was g6 (technical deletion): another page with the same goal already exists Ulivo30 (talk) 17:13, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The request was rejected. See [2]. Find a better way to flag the two old draft pages for speedy deletion. Limelightangel (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikipedia draft pages have been successfully deleted after being nominated for speedy deletion for the following reasons:

Draft:Shawn Merriman ( Ponzi fraudster ) – G10: Biography of a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced. The page has been abandoned because, as the title was wrong, it was useless to work on it.

Draft:Shawn Merriman: The Mormon Ponzi Schemer – G10: Attack page (not written in a neutral or objective manner). The title included an off topic religion term. We suddenly decide to create a completely neutral new page on him. Ulivo30 (talk) 09:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

very good work Limelightangel (talk) 07:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

• You have ignored advice on NOT to add markup above the page header. You need to create content below the draft banner, not above it.
• You need to use the help and guidelines on section headings to format these correctly in the draft. See Help:Section and existing similar pages.
• Sections require content and sources and should not be added with no content.
• remove the text ‘This page will be about Shawn Merriman (Ponzi fraudster)’

Limelightangel (talk) 13:41, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We changed the location of the text from above the markup to below the markup and we also made sure not to add sections that did not include text. Initially, we added ‘This page will be about Shawn Merriman (Ponzi fraudster)’ because we did not want to have an empty section but once we started writing about our findings, we deleted that part Novarae123 (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

• use the extensive help resources e.g. Help:Infobox
• You need to identify a relevant Infobox template, learn how to use it, and then fill the relevant template fields with information.
• Consider using this template: Template:Infobox_person

Limelightangel (talk) 15:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

we used the help resource for creating the perfect infobox, we are just missing the picture, we are trying to find a free copyright one. Ele2006 (talk) 10:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

• half the content in Background and early life should be in a lead section
• understand what a lead section is, look at examples on similar existing pages and see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section

Limelightangel (talk) 15:32, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have moved some of the information out of the “background and early life” section and into the lead section Novarae123 (talk) 10:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

• Do not add draft content with no references
• reference at the end of the relevant text, not in a subsection heading, as incorrectly done for Seized asset’
• refs 1. and 2 are incorrectly formatted. Use the correct Cite tool templates and complete the required fields correctly. Note the basic information required in the Cite>website template including author, page title, date, date accessed, url, publisher, website name. See Help:Citing sources. As an example, for ref. 2 the page title is Ex-bishop accused of running Ponzi scheme; the date is april 9 2009, the authour is Associated Press, the website name is NBC News, etc.
• use consistent format for all references: remove the UPPER CASE in ref. 1
• the first bulleted reference in References is incorrect and needs to be reformatted correctly using the relevant Cite template. See Help:Referencing for beginners

Limelightangel (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

reference 1 and 2 should be correct now, we are also add other references Ele2006 (talk) 10:24, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ulivo30, Ele2006, LiucAnna.1, Fastuca06, and Novarae123:

• refs 1, 4 and 6 are formatted incorrectly
• page title for ref. 8 is So I Married A “Ponzi Schemer”. Publisher is The DAN Group 2025
• ref. 9 should not start with a date or have ‘posted’ in it
• ref. 10 has a date
• ref. 11 has an author and date
• ref. 12 has an author (AP) and date
• incorrectly located. ref. numbers 12 and 13 under References header

Limelightangel (talk) 07:15, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, I’ve added some new informations to the section about Andrea’s story. It’s not finished yet, but fell free to take a look and, if you have any suggestions to improve it, let me know. Fastuca06 (talk) 13:34, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I’ve been looking for copyright free images to use but I haven’t found any. Can someone help me research them? Fastuca06 (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• 8/10 We just applied to have access to the pacer us website where we can search for the court documents.We have to wait for the authentication token that will be sent to us by mail,so it will take five days up to a weak. In the meantime we will add information about the sentence based on other sources and then when we get access to the platform we will add more specific details. LiucAnna.1 (talk) 10:45, 8 October 2025 (UTC)LiucAnna.1 (talk) 10:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 9/10 I’m going to watch the episode 13 season 6 of “American greed”, that is the one about Shawn Merriman, and I will add information to the paragraph “in popular culture” Ele2006 (talk) 13:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Limelightangel (talk) 13:29, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When doing the biography of Shawn Merriman, we ensured that a neutral point of view was taken, that the information was verifiable (see reference in draft page) and that there is no original research Novarae123 (talk) 09:46, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• see Help:Link
• do not create links with long text sections, link just the key words for the link
• note you can use a ‘piped link’ to display text to link to an existing page with a slightly different name. See Wikipedia:Piped_link
• missing obvious internal links e.g. to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, affinity fraud, Utah, etc.
• you do not link out from the text to external websites; created a numbered text citation that links to the reference at the end, with the link in the references e.g. remove the external links from the text on the victims of the Ponzi fraudster of Shawn Merriman.[1]; in Aurora, Colorado; He married a woman Andrea on August 5th,1989; defrauded 67 investors ; he was sentenced to more than twelve years in federal prison for mail fraud.etc.

Limelightangel (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• check and correct all grammar e.g. state of Utah, Forearms, seized asset, Real Property, tools hunting paraphernalia, (a total of 43, 4,1 pieces, respectively), etc.
• Sentence is a good section, but needs a sub-section on the actual sentencing, followed by the subsection on vivtims compensations.
• needs a See Also section. See other similar pages and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#”See_also”_section
• the following text does not relate to the Early Life it is located in: ‘Shawn Merriman, also known as the “Mormon Madoff”, presented himself as a successful investment advisor. He told people he was a money manager but ran one of the longest fraud schemes in history.’ Some of it is better in the lead section e.g. ‘also known as the “Mormon Madoff”’

Limelightangel (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The grammar has been corrected and will keep being looked at consistently. As for the Sentence section, I have added the subsections and more information will be added into those subsections. The text that you mentioned was included in background and early life was changed to the lead section. Novarae123 (talk) 10:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• You may be able to source and gain copyright permission for relevant images by contacting the person
• there may be existing copyright-free images via public domain collections like WikiCommons. See [[3]]
• the Infobox needs an image of the person.

Limelightangel (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NEWS