Talk:Shawn Merriman (fraudster)

This page is part of an Educational Project by students of LIUC, Italy, with a course page at: 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)

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

You have ceated two incorrect and redundant draft pages at:

• Draft:Shawn Merriman ( Ponzi fraudster )
• Draft:Shawn Merriman: The Mormon Ponzi Schemer

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)

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)

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

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)

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

@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)

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)

@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)

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)

@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)

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)

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

• lead section has no refernces
• better to start this with persons name, then 'also known as...'

@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)

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

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

• refs 1, 4 and 6 are formatted incorrectly as website refs. Use the Cite website. template correctly
• 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
• incorrect link from text in Victims compensation. Do not link out from text to external websites. See Help:Link
• Popular culture section has no sources
• refs. go after text, not in section headers

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

• note the extensive guidlines on biographies of living persons. See Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
• see also the draft page banner

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

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)

• 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)

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

• the internal link to YouTube is incorrectly spelled

Limelightangel (talk) 09:35, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

The YouTube link has been fixed. The source had been entered incorrectly. I’ve retrieved the official source and updated the “References” section. Ulivo30 (talk) 09:05, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• 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)

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)

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

• structure: the first text in Sentencing relates to another section.
• replace 'that same year' with a clear date
• Andreas's story needs relocation, the personal removed, the references put with text not section headers, and style improved e.g. 'the kids', 'Andrea', etc.
• be consistent with format for all numbers across the page e.g. years, currency, etc. See Manual of style and other pages

Limelightangel (talk) 09:24, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

@Limelightangel@Novarae123@Ele2006@LiucAnna.1@Fastuca06

I have just added a new paragraph following the professor’s recommendation.

Please feel free to revise it or include any additional information you find relevant.

P.S. I'll appreciate your help to adjust the section's title if you think another one would be more appropriate. Ulivo30 (talk) 21:57, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Just wanted to let the team know that I have been editing the wording of some of the paragraphs and have been checking for spelling mistakes throughout the whole page Novarae123 (talk) 09:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

• 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 []
• the Infobox needs an image of the person.

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

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

• the image of Denver has very limited relevance to the page topic
• image captions can be edited and used to show relevance

Limelightangel (talk) 09:11, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I deleted the image and I will keep searching for more relevant ones. Fastuca06 (talk) 08:38, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

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

• I wanted to let you know that I have sent a message on Facebook to Andrea, Shawne Merriman’s ex-wife, to request permission to use a photo of them for our Wikipedia project. I will update you as soon as I receive a response.

Ele2006 (talk) 14:17, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

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

• is this two different sections?
• remove the incorrect use of bold. See Manual of style
• remove the inappropriate style, including the use of personal names. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch
• the entire section has no sources
• needs paragraph breaks
• structure: dating before marriage
• subjectivity e.g. 'great work ethic'; 'more than she could imagine'; etc.
• avoid vague statements, use sourced facts e.g. About another decade later'; etc.

Limelightangel (talk) 09:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

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

• Structure
  • needs External Links, See Also's, Categories and Images
  • while too soon to add to a draft page, you may wish to open a talk page section to identify and discuss potential links in to this page from existing pages ('reciprocal linking'. Note all links out will be suitable for a return link in to this page, but some will be
  • while too soon to add to the draft page, consider openning a Talk page section identifying the relevant categories to add to the page. See Help:Category and use on similar pages

• references
  • fundamental issues. See above and Help:Citing sources
  • incorrect format: refs. 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13,
  • ref. 3 is Associated Press, not Press, Associated
  • missing source author/date: ref. 8 (Kathy Bazoian Phelps, July 31, 2013); 9 ( Michael Roberts,January 26, 2011); 10 (Howard Pankratz | The Denver Post PUBLISHED: June 26, 2012 ); 13; 15 (Oct 28, 2017,); 16 (Shelby Lofton, KSL-TV | Posted - May 3, 2025); 17 (Source: The Associated Press); etc.
  • the section on American Greed needs some secondary sources describing the content
  • remove erronerous numbers [17]. [18] below References header

• Linking
  • remove all duplicate links. See Help:Links
  • do not link to external sites from the text. Use correct references

• style
  • remove personal names e.g. 'Shawn revealed to Andrea'

Limelightangel (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I added "Merriman" to Andrea and Shawn's name and also removed the duplicate internal links. Novarae123 (talk) 10:31, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Style:

After reviewing the article, I found some off-topic and misleading sentences, which I have removed to improve chances in Article review. I've listed them below for your reference; please share any objections so we can discuss them. I've written my motivations next to the sentences I removed.

"Background and early life"

- "Before Shawn Merriman proposed, they dated for six months, and a few months after their engagement, they got married." Personal and not encyclopedically relevant

- "At the beginning of their relationship, he put a lot of effort into planning romantic gestures". Personal, off-topic

I would also like to point out that under "View history" you can see other minor edits I made to make the text more neutral. Any feedback or contradictions are welcome, and I’m available to discuss my changes. Ulivo30 (talk) 09:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

After checking the Wikipedia pages of people similar to Shawn Merriman (Madoff, Ponzi) , I added a “Not to be confused with” and his "surname" at the very top of the article (it is in the first line of code). I also added a “Main article: Ponzi scheme” link (under the section Orchestration of Ponzi scheme). I wanted to add these to make the article clearer and to give readers a direct link to more information about Ponzi schemes. As always I'll accept every suggestion. Ulivo30 (talk) 12:39, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I’ve reviewed and corrected the references section. The citations have been reformatted according to Wikipedia’s citation style guidelines and missing author and date information has been added where available. The issues noted above should now be resolved. Ele2006 (talk) 11:20, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

• images
  • On this page, we could include photos of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the courthouse where he was convicted, and the seized items, properties, and vehicles related to the case.

Ele2006 (talk) 09:50, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I suggest we add a new section about AI generated pictures Fastuca06 (talk) 10:28, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Here is the new section we can talk about when we want to add AI generated pictures. Maybe we can add one of Shawn Merriman and one of the church he attended. Novarae123 (talk) 10:30, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I added AI generated pictures of the Latter Day Saints Church of Jesus Christ and Shawn Merriman, I believe there shouldn't be any problems with it but you guys can double-check Fastuca06 (talk) 10:32, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

In terms of pictures, we can add another one of the court where he was convicted Fastuca06 (talk) 10:33, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes thats is good. He was convicted at United States District Court for the District of Colorado Novarae123 (talk) 10:34, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I found and added on the page a picture of the court house on wikimedia commons Fastuca06 (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia removed one of the AI generated images and they sent me a private message saying: "You added an AI generated image purporting to be that of the subject of your draft. Images are not vital to the draft process, which only considers the text and sources; Images are an enhancement, not a requirement. We'd rather have no image than an AI generated image". I replayed asking if I could use AI images if I disclose that they were made by AI but I still got no response. I will let you know if they answer me. Fastuca06 (talk) 19:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm only here because I happened to click the link to this page because I noticed the name which is similar to one I am familiar with in a different context, among other strange similarities. Then the box at the top of the page suggesting there was a discussion that the article be split into multiple articles caught my attention because that doesn't make a lick of sense considering I've never heard of this specific guy before... and I don't actually see that conversation here, which I guess checks out.

However, I do have to add my .02 here because though I support using AI generated things when it makes sense, I have to agree with the Wikipedia stance here that if given a choice between no image or an AI generated one, no image is preferable. Sure, for some kind of abstract theoretical article, or some other situation where it isn't possible to give a misdirection by including an image that is nothing like the reality it is claiming to represent, that's fine. But that's not the situation here.

Aside from that I didn't read the page too closely nor did I read these comments closely so I don't have any other thoughts on the matter besides that bit about AI generated images. Relevantusername2020 (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

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

• images: improve caption; add further relevant images e.g. his church; relocate courthouse image to relevant text section
• minor grammar issues
• structure: much of the content in Andrea's story can be used in Early Life and the Ponzi scheme section. Remove the section Andrea Merriman's story, and use content from here earlier in relation to the page's subject; note the 4 children also relate to the page ubject, etc.
• error in external links;
• content/sources: there is relevant and unused factual content from authorative sources available via Google Scholar e.g. Gunn, 2015; C Adewole, J Bamiduro, 2011; Eaton, 20016; Pinto, 2016;
• repetitive issue with basic linking practice, duplicate links, over linking, personal style, etc. (see above)
• note conventions on all dates and numbers, including currencies

Limelightangel (talk) 08:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: This is somewhere between a newspaper style article and an extended revenge page in terms of tone, whereas we would need this to be written in crisp encyclopedic language, summarising the main facts. Some of the wording is judgmental too, though understandably so.
  I am not entirely convinced this gets over the WP:BLP1E hurdle either. Madoff clearly did get over that hurdle, but this is a lower level of notability. This may be easier to see with a more encyclopedic text.
  Thank you for the inline citations, that aspect is now OK. ChrysGalley (talk) 09:28, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Sources are critical in an article like this that describes crimes committed by a living person. Any potentially contentious claim should be backed up by a reliable source. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:36, 1 December 2025 (UTC)