Consumer Action Taskforce:Write your first article!

Welcome to the Consumer Action Taskforce! If you're reading this, you likely share our desire to see consumers treated more fairly. This article will help you to start documenting an instance of "new" consumer exploitation, so you can help us to further that cause.

Before getting started, you need to know some of the requirements for a new article on this wiki. The wiki policy covers all the guidelines that mature articles need to follow, but reading these guidelines from start to finish may be a daunting task for new contributors. The next section describes the minimum requirements in order to write an article that can be molded into complying with these guidelines in a reasonable amount of time.

Don't have a topic to write about? Visit How to help to see what the wiki needs!

Minimum requirements

New articles must, at a minimum, meet the following three requirements:

Claims must be easily verifiable

A claim is verifiable if:

• A verifiable source can easily be found by means of an internet search, or
• A verifiable source has been referenced using the instructions in #Adding references

Articles should only consist of verifiable claims. Claims that make assumptions or are based on personal experiences or isolated incidents are not valid. For example, "Motorola is pushing updates to their older phones that intentionally slow them down" would only be considered valid if a verifiable source proves it.

Include at least one verifiable source

Every article must include at least one verifiable source. This allows contributors to understand why certain claims were made, as well as to expand on the article using the information provided by the source.

For more information about what constitutes a verifiable source, see the wiki content policies.

Verifiable sources do not include anecdotal social media posts. For example, the public opinion reflected by the comments under a Reddit post is not a verifiable source.

Issues must be systemic

This wiki is not the place to document isolated incidents, such as a company who unfairly rejected a few warranty claims or a plumbing contractor who charged you more than they should have. The incidents documented in this wiki have affected large amounts of consumers.

The following examples were summarized from the moderator guidelines:

Not systemic

• Amazon broke into my garage.
• AppleCare replaced my Apple Watch multiple times, costing me nearly $1,300. All replacements were scratched and lacked functionality.

Systemic

• Galaxy Fold blank screen update: The Galaxy Fold received an update that caused auto-rotate failures, blank screens and sound problems in many devices. Samsung only offered paid repairs, claiming that the issue affected only 3% of users.
• Motorola warranty issue: Users report extended service times and denied warranty claims across different countries with their devices, which started experiencing issues after updates under Lenovo ownership.

Creating an article

To create a new article, click on the Create page link on the sidebar.

Adding references

New references

To reference a new source:

1. Place the cursor after a claim.

   

2. Click on "Insert" → "Citation", or press Ctrl+Shift+K.
3. Click the "Manual" option and choose the type of citation you wish to add.
4. In the following tab add the information for your citation. (If you don't have enough time choose the "Basic" option to add a simple link)

Existing references

To re-use a source that is referenced elsewhere on the same page:

1. Place the cursor after a claim.

   

2. Click on "Insert" → "Citation", or press Ctrl+Shift+K.
3. Click the "Re-use" option and choose the type of citation you wish to re-use.