Talk:Sam Bankman-Fried

Very recent change to opening paragraph -- questionable?

Should "Jewish American" be included in the first sentence? I saw that someone made this change very recently and thought it might deserve discussion first. Thanks! 205.178.63.9 (talk) 19:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That edit has been removed a few times. MOS:ETHNICITY suggests that it's not appropriate here: Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. Joyous! Noise! 19:56, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi there! I made this edit -- As mentioned before, it goes against the guidelines, but additionally Sam has mentioned that he is a non-practicing Jew. Adding that is in bad taste, and not remotely relevant to what made him notable. External-cover (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that @TarkusAB was the editor associated with this change, adding it back after several edits to remove it. External-cover (talk) 20:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That's not true. All I did was remove an in-line external link. "Jewish" was added in by an IP. TarkusAB^talk/contrib 20:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Apologies!! Correct, and once again -- apologies. External-cover (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Problem continues. Requested page protection. -- GreenC 00:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

"At the peak of his success"???

What success? Scamming people? This reads like it was written by Bankman-Fried himself. He is a fraudster, he was never a success. Please remove this from the summary. I had done this already and replaced it with the neutral, objective - "At one point, ..." Do not attempt to glamourize this individual with misinformation. He made big bucks through fraud and fraud alone. 2604:3D09:4184:5100:6D85:C839:DA7A:7E2E (talk) 18:17, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• Agreed, have removed this wording that is actually PR + POV, it's offensive to people who lost money because of him. --Devokewater 21:19, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! 2604:3D09:4184:5100:28C2:E9F:77AE:1D7F (talk) 20:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:OM: Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission encompasses the inclusion of material that may offend. And Wikipedia is not censored. Note that if enough sources qualify B-F as, for example, "one of the most successful fraudsters ever," or some such, then there could not be a strong objection to include the use of that word, "success" or its derivatives, in the article. No "promotion" or "editors' opinions" there. But, either way, please check out my suggestion below, no matter what the language in sources is. -The Gnome (talk)

• The lead section is a chronological narrative of his life story, which for SBF is one of rise and fall. The way we do things [ideally] is telling life stories chronologically as they occurred. You have to read the entire thing, not cherry pick words and sentences and ignore everything else. He was not always considered a bad guy. If his former public image of being successful is now offensive to his victims, that's understandable, but his former public image of being successful is a major part of his notability, and part of why his downfall is such a big deal - we all got fooled. But, if people want to suppress how publicly successful he was considered before it was known he was a scammer, the impact of his downfall will be harder to understand, particularly for future generations who didn't live through it, or are not familiar with who SBF is. The phrase "At one time" is vague and misses the point. If the word "success" is a problem we can try something else, since the sentence concerns his net worth, more precise would be "net worth". -- GreenC 23:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• To denote the zenith of B-F's criminal enterprise, we could use the expression "at the peak of Bankman'Fried's fraudulent schemes", etc. -The Gnome (talk) 14:08, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  It's overkill and out of chronological order. If the lead section is unable to convey how widely respected, admired, etc.. he was, then it is not accurately portraying the history of what occurred. He betrayed many people, who trusted him, and didn't know it was a fraudulent scheme. This needs to be conveyed, and it's easily done if you just give a little space to demonstrating it. It's very simple, tell the story in chronological order giving the basic facts as we knew them as they were revealed over time (except the first sentence which is special). -- GreenC 15:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Appeals process

Special:Diff/1222816958/1222993873 - "cleanup nonsense. you never have to convince two courts, find a better source if you want to include all this. it is contrary to even a basic understanding of US law"

"The appeal would need to convince the District Court, and possibly the Supreme Court" ie. the appeal begins at the District Court, and if SBF looses that, he can appeal to a higher court, which is the SCOTUS, at which point SCOTUS either rules on it, or sends it back to the lower court decision (or directs the lower court to refactor based on some issue with the law). There is no misunderstanding of the law, it is SBF's appeal roadmap: he will need to convince the District Court, and if that doesn't work and he chooses, SCOTUS. This is basic, commonsense, law 101. Nor is it "crystal" (a woefully overused rule on Wikipedia) to note what is the absolutely predetermined legal path open for SBF's appeals process. -- GreenC 15:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

In the incarceration history section, please add that he is currently incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Lewisburg https://www.bop.gov/mobile/find_inmate/byname.jsp#inmate_results 2600:100C:A211:7F18:358E:7CD8:2C0A:B889 (talk) 02:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done Charliehdb (talk) 09:51, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Reverted and removed all this stuff from the article Special:Diff/1226545638/1226604366. Verify at https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ choose the "Find by Number" and enter the BOp Registration Number "37244-510" -- he is still in Brooklyn. Everything else doesn't belong in the article, unless there is a reliable secondary source the says he moved. -- GreenC 18:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

SBF always calling the shots?

In this diff it said:

But they also emphasized that ultimately at both businesses, Bankman-Fried called the shots

Now changed to:

But they also emphasized that ultimately at both businesses, Bankman-Fried was the only individual in charge.

This gives the impression SBF was the only one in charge. The source says, "the defense poked a hole in the idea that Bankman-Fried was always calling the shots at Alameda".

It seems what we are saying is directly contradicted by the source. -- GreenC 16:51, 4 September 2024 (UTC)