Talk:Epik/Archive 1

Archive 1

Sources do not back up claims made in the article.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I decided to split the changes into small bits, to describe each change as accurately as possible. But this is the final version I was going to publish.

Epik is an American privately held and ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company, headquartered in Sammamish, Washington. Its' founder and CEO, Rob Monster, has been involved in a controversy for defending, and eventually hosting Gab's domain.

The sources did not reflect what was said in the article. The Wired article focuses on the controversy surrounding the CEO's private statements and the eventual hosting of Gab's domain. My proposal keeps this fact in a WP:NPOV. Also, I've added some much needed sources for information about the company. Alex.osheter (talk) 17:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

References

You are, once again, attempting to whitewash an article about a company associated with the far right. The sourcing supports the claims in the lead, and so they should remain. The reliable sourcing surrounding Epik exclusively discusses the company in the context of the services it provides to far-right people and organizations. Monster is not somehow personally registering Gab, Epik is. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:17, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Read your sources. The Wired article specifically mentions Monster and his statements about Gab prior to registering them. The Seattle Times article simply discusses Gab's new home. The HuffPo article practically ONLY focuses on the founder. Not one source talks about it being known for providing services to websites that host alt-right and white supremacy far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist connections. Alex.osheter (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Don't accuse me of not reading my sources, I wrote the article for Chrissakes. I'm not sure why you're bringing up the alt-right or white supremacy—I have not mentioned the alt-right at all in this article or on this talk page, and white supremacy is only mentioned in the context of The Daily Stormer, which BitMitigate serves. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's my bad. I've corrected the comment and underlined added text for further clarification. Alex.osheter (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

My comment below addresses the clarified version as well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Response to your claim on my talk page that you were removing statements that are simply not in the source, which is what I did.:

Since each of these points is from a separate source, I'd appreciate it if we could address them separately. I'll add my own comments below each source. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

You removed "known for providing services to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications" from the lead.

• "Social-media site Gab.com, which became an internet outcast after one of its racist users was arrested in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, is back online thanks to the help of a Seattle-area web company.... Bowers was one of many far-right extremists who had found a home at Gab. After the shooting, domain platform GoDaddy told Gab to find another provider, saying that GoDaddy had investigated and “discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people."" The Seattle Times GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This article discusses Gab. Not Epik specifically, and certainly does not classify Epik as a site that provides services to websites (plural) that host [...] content. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Did you read the rest of the source? It talks about both Gab and Epik. A source does not need to be exclusively about a subject to be useful in a Wikipedia article about said subject. Furthermore, Gab is among the websites that Epik provides services to, and a particularly notable one according to the sourcing. As you have said below there are other sources that confirms that Epik provides services to multiple websites with such content; this source just happens to focus on the one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Correction: I said there is one source. That one source (The Columbian) does not characterize Gab a far-right or a Neo-Nazi website. Assuming The Columbian implied it would be OR. These labels (far-right, Neo-Nazi) are contentions, and we need to exercise caution when using them. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • I was referring to the Vice article as the other source, though you're right that you only mentioned one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "The ease with which Monster, a tiny player in the tech community, was able to revive a gathering space for extremists illustrates the main limitation of deplatforming efforts: They require universal agreement. As long as one person, somewhere, is willing to host the hate, deplatforming doesn’t work. Rob Monster is willing to be that guy." HuffPost GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This one also not make the claim that Epik provides services to websites that host [...] content. This article also only seems to talk about Monster himself. I would suggest it be removed as a source entirely. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Again, this article discusses both Monster and Epik. See above for comment about the focus on just Gab. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • This article dedicates a whole 1 paragraph describing what Epik is, and 7 passing mentions when talking about Monster. Surely you must agree, this article discusses Monster. They even divided the article into sub-sections on Mr. Monster himself. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Sure, I agree it discusses Monster. It also discusses Epik, and as I said above "A source does not need to be exclusively about a subject to be useful in a Wikipedia article about said subject." GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "His company Epik describes itself as “the Swiss bank of domains” and is one of the few US-based registrars with a history of refusing to respond to reports of illegal activity. According to a report by the pharmaceutical watchdog organization LegitScript, Epik has been told that some of the domains the company sponsors sell illegal drugs and inauthentic medications, yet the company has not acted." Wired GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Again, accuracy matters. They have been notified once by a single watchdog organization. This is a stretch from "known for". I think this should be included in the article, but definitely not in the lead, and definitely not the way it's phrased now. Also, the word Gab appears in this article more than twice as much as Epik does, it's clearly not the focus of the article. Specifically regarding illegal drugs, I'd recommend giving the actual report as a source, as opposed to an article discussing the report (and again, Gab). Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • I have no strong opinion on this being in the lead (I was not the one who put it there). However, we should continue to use this source, per WP:PRIMARY. If you want to add the report as a source, I have no objection. As for "known for", it is not for us to decide how many notifications are required for them to be "known for" it—that's why we rely on coverage in reliable sourcing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • I believe that in the spirit of Wikipedia, it's okay to list is as a source. As long as we quote it directly with no interpretation, it's fine. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources.. The topic's notability isn't put into question here, and we will not interpret the source, simply copy what it says. I believe it's fine. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Like I said, go ahead and add the source. Just don't replace the existing one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Since you've challenged the content, per WP:LEADCITE I'll pull up some additional sources that support the characterization, including:

• "The Far Right Has Found a Web Host Savior // A web host called Epik has begun hosting the sites that other web hosts won't, which raises questions about how successful deplatforming hateful websites can actually be.... The connection between the neo-Nazi podcasters and the Seattle-based company isn’t surprising: The web hosting service has recently become the safehaven for the extreme right." – Vice GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This Vice article conflicts with various reliable sources. It alleges Epik is a webhost, which is false. The Seattle Times reports: "Monster said on Epik’s website that his company was serving as Gab’s domain registrar but not its hosting company". We can also verify this, their host is Cloudflare. Therefore, this source is not credible. Please remove it. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Epik is a webhost ([1]), they just do not provide their hosting services to Gab. This article does not make the claim that they do, although I wouldn't be surprised to see an article erroneously saying they do (a lot of folks do not know the difference between a registrar and a webhost, and when one company provides both services, I can understand why a reporter might accidentally say "host" instead of "register"). A small error like that would hardly discredit the entire piece. FYI Cloudflare is also not Epik's webhost, as you've erroneously claimed, and the link you've provided to try to show that they are says quite prominently "We're unsure who this website is hosted by" and explains why Cloudflare is mentioned. Cloudflare is not anyone's webhost, for that matter ([2]). As you've said, "accuracy matters"... GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • I take it back then, you're right. They are a webhost. But certainly not one that hosts Gab as the article suggests: "Epik seemed to start as a nondescript web host, it has recently updated its mission [...] which has meant grabbing a long list of new far-right clients. [...] Gab, [...] Bitchute, ...". I take issue with reliable sources that make mistakes and don't issue corrections. It calls their reliability into question. Ben Makuch didn't do a good job, and therefore, should not be taken as a source on this. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Gab is a webhost, and Gab and Bitchute are among its clients. That is not a mistake, and the article is fine as a source. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "One thing that was not mentioned in Monster’s video: the acquisition brings together two companies that have each made headlines in recent years for providing services to far-right and neo-Nazi websites that have been dropped by other providers." The Columbian GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This is a good source, and should be kept. It more or less does state what you wrote. IMO this is the only article that specifically fits here. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • I would have appreciated you taking a look at this source before accusing me of making "statements that are simply not in the source", then. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Yes, I apologize for that. I did read the articles and attempt to verify your claims, I must've missed it. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "Quietly, a small domain registrar called Epik is cornering the market on websites where hate speech is thriving....Now, the company has picked up the business of BitChute, a low-rent YouTube clone that carries an array of hate-fueled material, including white nationalist podcasts, propaganda linked to a murderous neo-Nazi group and a parody song called “N----- Babies,” which chortles at the idea of slaughtering and then eating black infants." – SPLC GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • The SPLC's stance as a reliable source is heavily contested. They've been right in some cases, and wrong in other ones ^{1 2 3} . They've been dropped by Twitter as a reliable source for identifying hate groups ⁴. While they get it right sometimes, I would strongly advise against adding them as a source. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Feel free to bring it to WP:RSN if you think the SPLC is across-the-board an unacceptable source. Just about every publication has been "right in some cases, and wrong in other ones"—unless you have a specific reason to believe the statements in this article are inaccurate, that is not a reason to remove it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • As I've said, I don't think they're across-the-board an unacceptable source. But they've been quick to call parties they disagree with white supremacist and neo-Nazi in the past. I mean, if you read the article, it's so unbelievably biased and full of loaded language - very unprofessional (Twitter knockoff, a low-rent YouTube clone, the racist right, organized racism, racist, misogynist and antisemitic talking heads). So for this specific case, I have reason to believe the statements are inaccurate and extremely biased. If we are to keep a WP:NPV, given the fact there are other sources that say something similar, it doesn't have to be here. Per WP:NPV - Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view. This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether.. There are already enough neutral-ish sources here. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Mmm, nope. You "have reason to believe the statements are inaccurate" but have provided no sources contesting anything in the SPLC article. That won't fly. If you think the SPLC is unreliable, bring it to RSN; if you think a statement sourced to the SPLC is inaccurate, provide a counter source. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Citing the SPLC on the article Epik (domain registrar) is like citing Apple.com on the article Microsoft. wumbolo ^^^ 10:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see the analogy; SPLC is not offering a competing product to Epik. It is not even in the broad industry category of Epik (unlike Apple and Microsoft)? Britishfinance (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
• Are you claiming the SPLC is a competitor to Epik? GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

In many ways. The SPLC has a website known for tracking online Nazi finances (though they'd call most Gab and BitChute users Nazis) [3]. On the other hand, Epik is more lenient with the websites they host (like the entire article says). According to The Columbian, """In media interviews, Monster has said he does not support the views of the websites he hosts, and has expressed confidence that Gab’s operators will use good judgment when curating the site. But in a January post on its Hatewatch blog, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Monster’s willingness to host Gab and similar websites means that he is “cornering the market on websites where hate speech is thriving.” """ As I read it, this establishes that SPLC goes after the "hate speech market". The same Columbian news article cites the nonpartisan EFF saying "But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with." [4] Monster obviously refutes the accusations from the SPLC. [5] Finally, the SPLC's Twitter account said this verbatim [6]: "GoDaddy and Google made the right call kicking hate site The Daily Stormer off their systems." And GoDaddy is an obvious competitor to Epik [7]. wumbolo ^^^ 19:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

It totally makes sense to say that GoDaddy is a competitor, as it also provides webhosting services. The SPLC does not provide webhosting services, or any other kind of services that Epik provides. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Trying to remove reference to Epik's hosting and association with far-right elements is not a credible line of reasoning. A material amount of WP:RS on this company mentions this fact, and it is one of the most notable facts regarding the company; thus appropriate in the lede. Britishfinance (talk) 10:10, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sources do not back up claims made in the article.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I decided to split the changes into small bits, to describe each change as accurately as possible. But this is the final version I was going to publish.

Epik is an American privately held and ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company, headquartered in Sammamish, Washington. Its' founder and CEO, Rob Monster, has been involved in a controversy for defending, and eventually hosting Gab's domain.

The sources did not reflect what was said in the article. The Wired article focuses on the controversy surrounding the CEO's private statements and the eventual hosting of Gab's domain. My proposal keeps this fact in a WP:NPOV. Also, I've added some much needed sources for information about the company. Alex.osheter (talk) 17:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

References

You are, once again, attempting to whitewash an article about a company associated with the far right. The sourcing supports the claims in the lead, and so they should remain. The reliable sourcing surrounding Epik exclusively discusses the company in the context of the services it provides to far-right people and organizations. Monster is not somehow personally registering Gab, Epik is. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:17, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Read your sources. The Wired article specifically mentions Monster and his statements about Gab prior to registering them. The Seattle Times article simply discusses Gab's new home. The HuffPo article practically ONLY focuses on the founder. Not one source talks about it being known for providing services to websites that host alt-right and white supremacy far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist connections. Alex.osheter (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Don't accuse me of not reading my sources, I wrote the article for Chrissakes. I'm not sure why you're bringing up the alt-right or white supremacy—I have not mentioned the alt-right at all in this article or on this talk page, and white supremacy is only mentioned in the context of The Daily Stormer, which BitMitigate serves. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's my bad. I've corrected the comment and underlined added text for further clarification. Alex.osheter (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

My comment below addresses the clarified version as well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Response to your claim on my talk page that you were removing statements that are simply not in the source, which is what I did.:

Since each of these points is from a separate source, I'd appreciate it if we could address them separately. I'll add my own comments below each source. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

You removed "known for providing services to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications" from the lead.

• "Social-media site Gab.com, which became an internet outcast after one of its racist users was arrested in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, is back online thanks to the help of a Seattle-area web company.... Bowers was one of many far-right extremists who had found a home at Gab. After the shooting, domain platform GoDaddy told Gab to find another provider, saying that GoDaddy had investigated and “discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people."" The Seattle Times GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This article discusses Gab. Not Epik specifically, and certainly does not classify Epik as a site that provides services to websites (plural) that host [...] content. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Did you read the rest of the source? It talks about both Gab and Epik. A source does not need to be exclusively about a subject to be useful in a Wikipedia article about said subject. Furthermore, Gab is among the websites that Epik provides services to, and a particularly notable one according to the sourcing. As you have said below there are other sources that confirms that Epik provides services to multiple websites with such content; this source just happens to focus on the one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Correction: I said there is one source. That one source (The Columbian) does not characterize Gab a far-right or a Neo-Nazi website. Assuming The Columbian implied it would be OR. These labels (far-right, Neo-Nazi) are contentions, and we need to exercise caution when using them. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • I was referring to the Vice article as the other source, though you're right that you only mentioned one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "The ease with which Monster, a tiny player in the tech community, was able to revive a gathering space for extremists illustrates the main limitation of deplatforming efforts: They require universal agreement. As long as one person, somewhere, is willing to host the hate, deplatforming doesn’t work. Rob Monster is willing to be that guy." HuffPost GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This one also not make the claim that Epik provides services to websites that host [...] content. This article also only seems to talk about Monster himself. I would suggest it be removed as a source entirely. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Again, this article discusses both Monster and Epik. See above for comment about the focus on just Gab. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • This article dedicates a whole 1 paragraph describing what Epik is, and 7 passing mentions when talking about Monster. Surely you must agree, this article discusses Monster. They even divided the article into sub-sections on Mr. Monster himself. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Sure, I agree it discusses Monster. It also discusses Epik, and as I said above "A source does not need to be exclusively about a subject to be useful in a Wikipedia article about said subject." GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "His company Epik describes itself as “the Swiss bank of domains” and is one of the few US-based registrars with a history of refusing to respond to reports of illegal activity. According to a report by the pharmaceutical watchdog organization LegitScript, Epik has been told that some of the domains the company sponsors sell illegal drugs and inauthentic medications, yet the company has not acted." Wired GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Again, accuracy matters. They have been notified once by a single watchdog organization. This is a stretch from "known for". I think this should be included in the article, but definitely not in the lead, and definitely not the way it's phrased now. Also, the word Gab appears in this article more than twice as much as Epik does, it's clearly not the focus of the article. Specifically regarding illegal drugs, I'd recommend giving the actual report as a source, as opposed to an article discussing the report (and again, Gab). Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • I have no strong opinion on this being in the lead (I was not the one who put it there). However, we should continue to use this source, per WP:PRIMARY. If you want to add the report as a source, I have no objection. As for "known for", it is not for us to decide how many notifications are required for them to be "known for" it—that's why we rely on coverage in reliable sourcing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • I believe that in the spirit of Wikipedia, it's okay to list is as a source. As long as we quote it directly with no interpretation, it's fine. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources.. The topic's notability isn't put into question here, and we will not interpret the source, simply copy what it says. I believe it's fine. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Like I said, go ahead and add the source. Just don't replace the existing one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Since you've challenged the content, per WP:LEADCITE I'll pull up some additional sources that support the characterization, including:

• "The Far Right Has Found a Web Host Savior // A web host called Epik has begun hosting the sites that other web hosts won't, which raises questions about how successful deplatforming hateful websites can actually be.... The connection between the neo-Nazi podcasters and the Seattle-based company isn’t surprising: The web hosting service has recently become the safehaven for the extreme right." – Vice GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This Vice article conflicts with various reliable sources. It alleges Epik is a webhost, which is false. The Seattle Times reports: "Monster said on Epik’s website that his company was serving as Gab’s domain registrar but not its hosting company". We can also verify this, their host is Cloudflare. Therefore, this source is not credible. Please remove it. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Epik is a webhost ([8]), they just do not provide their hosting services to Gab. This article does not make the claim that they do, although I wouldn't be surprised to see an article erroneously saying they do (a lot of folks do not know the difference between a registrar and a webhost, and when one company provides both services, I can understand why a reporter might accidentally say "host" instead of "register"). A small error like that would hardly discredit the entire piece. FYI Cloudflare is also not Epik's webhost, as you've erroneously claimed, and the link you've provided to try to show that they are says quite prominently "We're unsure who this website is hosted by" and explains why Cloudflare is mentioned. Cloudflare is not anyone's webhost, for that matter ([9]). As you've said, "accuracy matters"... GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • I take it back then, you're right. They are a webhost. But certainly not one that hosts Gab as the article suggests: "Epik seemed to start as a nondescript web host, it has recently updated its mission [...] which has meant grabbing a long list of new far-right clients. [...] Gab, [...] Bitchute, ...". I take issue with reliable sources that make mistakes and don't issue corrections. It calls their reliability into question. Ben Makuch didn't do a good job, and therefore, should not be taken as a source on this. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Gab is a webhost, and Gab and Bitchute are among its clients. That is not a mistake, and the article is fine as a source. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "One thing that was not mentioned in Monster’s video: the acquisition brings together two companies that have each made headlines in recent years for providing services to far-right and neo-Nazi websites that have been dropped by other providers." The Columbian GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • This is a good source, and should be kept. It more or less does state what you wrote. IMO this is the only article that specifically fits here. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • I would have appreciated you taking a look at this source before accusing me of making "statements that are simply not in the source", then. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Yes, I apologize for that. I did read the articles and attempt to verify your claims, I must've missed it. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• "Quietly, a small domain registrar called Epik is cornering the market on websites where hate speech is thriving....Now, the company has picked up the business of BitChute, a low-rent YouTube clone that carries an array of hate-fueled material, including white nationalist podcasts, propaganda linked to a murderous neo-Nazi group and a parody song called “N----- Babies,” which chortles at the idea of slaughtering and then eating black infants." – SPLC GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
  • The SPLC's stance as a reliable source is heavily contested. They've been right in some cases, and wrong in other ones ^{1 2 3} . They've been dropped by Twitter as a reliable source for identifying hate groups ⁴. While they get it right sometimes, I would strongly advise against adding them as a source. Alex.osheter (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Feel free to bring it to WP:RSN if you think the SPLC is across-the-board an unacceptable source. Just about every publication has been "right in some cases, and wrong in other ones"—unless you have a specific reason to believe the statements in this article are inaccurate, that is not a reason to remove it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
      • As I've said, I don't think they're across-the-board an unacceptable source. But they've been quick to call parties they disagree with white supremacist and neo-Nazi in the past. I mean, if you read the article, it's so unbelievably biased and full of loaded language - very unprofessional (Twitter knockoff, a low-rent YouTube clone, the racist right, organized racism, racist, misogynist and antisemitic talking heads). So for this specific case, I have reason to believe the statements are inaccurate and extremely biased. If we are to keep a WP:NPV, given the fact there are other sources that say something similar, it doesn't have to be here. Per WP:NPV - Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view. This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether.. There are already enough neutral-ish sources here. Alex.osheter (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Mmm, nope. You "have reason to believe the statements are inaccurate" but have provided no sources contesting anything in the SPLC article. That won't fly. If you think the SPLC is unreliable, bring it to RSN; if you think a statement sourced to the SPLC is inaccurate, provide a counter source. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Citing the SPLC on the article Epik (domain registrar) is like citing Apple.com on the article Microsoft. wumbolo ^^^ 10:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see the analogy; SPLC is not offering a competing product to Epik. It is not even in the broad industry category of Epik (unlike Apple and Microsoft)? Britishfinance (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
• Are you claiming the SPLC is a competitor to Epik? GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

In many ways. The SPLC has a website known for tracking online Nazi finances (though they'd call most Gab and BitChute users Nazis) [10]. On the other hand, Epik is more lenient with the websites they host (like the entire article says). According to The Columbian, """In media interviews, Monster has said he does not support the views of the websites he hosts, and has expressed confidence that Gab’s operators will use good judgment when curating the site. But in a January post on its Hatewatch blog, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Monster’s willingness to host Gab and similar websites means that he is “cornering the market on websites where hate speech is thriving.” """ As I read it, this establishes that SPLC goes after the "hate speech market". The same Columbian news article cites the nonpartisan EFF saying "But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with." [11] Monster obviously refutes the accusations from the SPLC. [12] Finally, the SPLC's Twitter account said this verbatim [13]: "GoDaddy and Google made the right call kicking hate site The Daily Stormer off their systems." And GoDaddy is an obvious competitor to Epik [14]. wumbolo ^^^ 19:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

It totally makes sense to say that GoDaddy is a competitor, as it also provides webhosting services. The SPLC does not provide webhosting services, or any other kind of services that Epik provides. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Trying to remove reference to Epik's hosting and association with far-right elements is not a credible line of reasoning. A material amount of WP:RS on this company mentions this fact, and it is one of the most notable facts regarding the company; thus appropriate in the lede. Britishfinance (talk) 10:10, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Call for action

Thought I should warn you all about a call for help [[15]].Slatersteven (talk) 09:38, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

known for providing services also to websites that host

What does this mean "known for providing services also to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications"? either the to or the also are in the wrong place.Slatersteven (talk) 14:14, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I see you've removed "also" which is what I would've done. Not sure if it was added accidentally or not but I agree it doesn't make sense. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Looks like it was intentionally added: [16] GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:39, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Misleading

This page about Epik contains unbalanced, past facts which can't be verified. Allegations on the content that was previously hosted. Removal of the page/misleading content asked, or we can precise the past of the company (and explicitely say it was in the past, History section?) and add their answer to the claims made. However, Wikiedia is not a place for such debates, and the deletion of the page might be better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.180.101.2 (talk) 09:13, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

If you feel the article should be deleted you will need to nominate it for deletion using WP:AFD. The best solution is to update the article using reliable sources to show the updates are accurate. ~ GB fan 11:19, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Please be specific about what is unverifiable, or what is no longer true and needs to be changed to past tense. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:09, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to change the lead paragraph for Epik

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

As many in the domaining industry know -- the lead-in paragraph for the Wikipedia article does not accurately represent the company's corporate philosophy and also minimalizes the actual services that the registrar offers. The current Wikipedia Article for this subject does not contain objective detailed information about the actual product or services that Epik provides and instead provides subjective viewpoints on the lead at the header.

Many who are directly involved in the industry and who have had experience with using Epik as a registrar can attest that the company provides many services and tools that are useful to the industry and placing a description of these services in full on the header for this would be better suited for the article.

To keep the stances in a neutral viewpoint -- in an effort to provide neutrality to the article there should be a subsection labeled "Controversies" which details the stances that are currently portrayed in the article should be added.

"Due to the nature of the registrar's corporate philosophy in providing a less restrictive platform for free speech on the internet -- this has cultivated a number of controversies." is a highly more appropriate edit for this article. Is a more appropriate line to place in the lead.

This aims to be less inflammatory than the current article's projections while providing a completely neutral standpoint that is facts-based and not reactionary.

• • • • • If you support this change to the lead paragraph -- please leave your comments down below.

Thank you.NameShiba (talk) 22:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by NameShiba (talk • contribs) 21:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC) — NameShiba (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

References

• Oppose change (edited to insert an unambiguous stance on the question, in case it wasn't clear from my statement) As best I can tell by examining the references in the article, the links you provided, and a search of my own, the "controversies" are the only thing that make Epik notable (notable in the Wikipedia sense). Schazjmd (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not a platform for public relations- This means you will need to show that the reliable sources the article currently cites are somehow less reliable, or less accurate, than the press releases and first-hand comments you've provided here. Since Wikipedia strongly favors reliable, independent sources to primary sources, and doesn't allow original research at all, this is unlikely. Neutral doesn't mean bland. When Wikipedia says neutral point of view, we mean the article should neutrally summarizes reliable sources. If those sources are in some way unflattering, the article will still reflect those sources, so the article may also be unflattering. To make an article more flattering by suppressing some sources would be a form of censorship. We would be concealing part of the picture to accommodate public relations. As an advocate for a "free speech" platform, it should be obvious why censorship is not appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 21:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you Grayfell and Schazjmd for the input! I do feel that what I listed above is not an effort to conceal or hide previously posted and referenced content but categorizes them appropriately with a better lead-in for the article while containing the controversial and subjective input below in the article. NameShiba (talk) 21:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose change. To repeat some of the advice I gave you in our conversation last night: The lead as it stands now is an accurate summary of the article. It should not be made more vague by referring only to "controversies", and "the CEO doesn't like it" is not alone a good reason to change it. You may wish to read Wikipedia's policy on neutrality—it is a common misconception that Wikipedia requires articles to be "neutral" in the sense that they cannot contain anything critical about the subject. That is not the case—Wikipedia's neutrality policy requires that we "represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." In some cases, such as with this article, the significant views that have been published by reliable sources are primarily critical of the subject, and that does not make the article non-neutral. You may also wish to read MOS:LEAD, which states that the "lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents". When so much of the coverage of Epik has been about its ties to far-right organizations, that needs to be mentioned in the lead. The majority of the far-right related coverage is in its own section, as you are proposing, but in accordance with the guidance at MOS:LEAD, it is summarized in the lead. I understand that the CEO of this company is not pleased that mentions of the far right, etc. are showing up in search results/Google knowledge panels, but him wishing to whitewash the portion of the article that shows up there is, again, not a valid reason to change the lead in the way you are suggesting. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  I do appreciate you providing those additional sources, though—I will look at them and, if they're usable, try to work some info from them into the article later this evening. As I've mentioned already, the domain registrar world is such a niche area that it is a bit hard to gauge which domain-specific sources are reliable/independent, which are just some blogger, and which are press releases. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  To provide context for the other editors weighing in here, there was quite a long discussion in an off-wiki venue to do with this page: https://www.namepros.com/threads/epik-wikipedia-battle-is-full-on-right-now.1186029/, which all started with the edit war yesterday involving the editor named User:Intelliname. I was contacted on Twitter by a few people in that discussion, and have advised anyone who's interested in how to suggest changes on this talk page. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you for your input @GorillaWarfare. There are more articles available online from other reputable sources that I can provide later referencing other services that Epik does provide. I also do not believe I had mentioned in our conversations last night that my reasoning behind the change was not simply because of the CEO disapproval. However it was coming from an area that the service does provide a lot of industry services in the domain niche. Not limited to domain loans, aftermarket, and website hosting/creation.NameShiba (talk) 22:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  @NameShiba: I'm not sure I follow how that logic supports removing information from the lead about Epik's service to far-right organizations. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support Change @GorillaWarfare -- I believe Epik is as well known enough Registrar in the domain industry that it can stand on its own services as a Wikipedia article without the controversies to the alt-right being added subjectively in the header. I do feel like it is noteworthy for Wikipedia. I still stand by the objective revision written above for the proposal and would love to hear more input from industry professionals both on Wikipedia and the Domain industry to weigh in on this subject. Cheers.NameShiba (talk) 22:27, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

We are mainly concerned with WP:RS, which is certainly not exclusively based on industry professionals. We are also not interested in verifying whether or not editors are industry professionals. More importantly, we are not interested in downplaying "controversies" based on the concerns of a small number of such professionals. Based on sources, Epik is not notable because they provide good services to the far right. They are notable because they provide services to the far right. The quality of those services, or how potentially useful those services might be to other groups, is only as significant as sources say it is. Like it or not, Wikipedia has a mainstream bias because we build articles out of mainstream sources. Niche sources, which are often just industry churnalism, are not particularly useful here. If you have better sources, you should propose them sooner, not later. Grayfell (talk) 22:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• SUPPORT CHANGE*

I support the proposal to change the lead paragraph for Epik. It seems a deliberate attempt to defame epik and it's owner through paid means. Epik is a neutral registrar and it do not differentiate among human beings. Please always remember one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. How can someone else's action be the decision of epik. Epik owners are empathetic people and I have never seen them do any injustice to anyone since last 8 years. Epik is not only a registrar ,it offers many other services as well for the benefit of internet. Do you think if someone is so bad as mentioned deliberately in this Wikipedia article then how come they are able to get love of people all over the world and grow so fast. I stand with Epik and the people who have written this biased article must be named and shamed and must be ask to attest on court of law . Following are the services offered by Epik --

List of services apparently offered by Epik
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
- Anonymize.com: Privacy solutions, e.g. VPN (live) - Armored.net: Secure Cloud storage (live) - CloudChase.com: Resilient OpenStack Hosting (Dec 2019) - BitMitigate.com: CDN and DDoS Mitigation (live) - DNEncrypt.com: Free SSL certificates (Jan 2020) - DNProtect.com: Domain Insurance (Jan 2020) - DomainGraduate: Online training course (relaunching Nov 2019) - DropElf.com: Tools for online expiry stream discovery (live) - Epik Registrar: Our flagship product! (live) - Epik Escrow: Our fast-growing service for domain transaction processing (live) - Epik Marketplace: Domain name marketplace (live) - FullVenue.com: Online event booking (beta) - NameBrokers.com: Online broker network (Jan 2020) - Masterbucks.com: Cloud Wallet (live - relaunching Jan 2020) - Sibyl Systems: Resilient cloud hosting (live) - Toki.com: Decentralized smart search engine (Jan 2020) - TrustRatings.com: Online trust score (beta) - Us.Tv: Online video publishing (live) - Watchmask.com: Online video privacy (live) - WhoQ.com: Universal WHOIS/RDAP/Blockchain name search (Q4 2019)

I request honest leadership of Wikipedia to stop this paid witch hunting against Epik.

01:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)01:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)01:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)01:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)Barybadrinath (talk) 01:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC) — Barybadrinath (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

@Barybadrinath: Please provide evidence to support your completely-unfounded accusation that editors to this page are being paid to defame Epik, or retract it. Please also do not make legal threats against Wikipedia editors. It appears you have not read the notice at the top of this section, which explains that this discussion is not a vote, but rather a determination of consensus based on Wikipedia policy. You have not made any policy-based arguments for why mentions of Epik providing services to far-right organizations should be removed from the lead, nor have you provided any reliable, independent sources for the list of services you wish to see added to the article (which appears to have been copied and pasted from the Epik.com website itself).

I completely believe you when you say the people who work at Epik are lovely people, and that they are adored by their customers. I have no reason not to. But it is also true that Epik has provided services to far-right organizations and other groups, as is described in the article. One of those assertions (that they have provided such services to far-right orgs) is covered in detail in reliable, independent sources, and so it is in the article. If you have reliable independent sources describing how lovely the people of Epik are, feel free to provide them and those can be added also. But just because you like them personally does not mean that we will remove sourced content that accurately reflects how the company is described in reliable sources. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@gorillawarfare - who gives you authority to decide which organization is far right and which one is far left. The one which do not support your propaganda is termed as far right. You guys are properly handled only by trump which names and shames you openly in his Facebook timeline. Please go and check how Facebook has extended services of extensive social media tools to epik to support their cause. Are you more intellectual than Facebook in these types of matters. Did epik ask any one to go and shoot. Do you not find different wing pages on Facebook. Do you have guts to write about same kind of content about Facebook as well. Do you have guts to expose the dirty nexus between Cambridge analytica and Facebook when millions of people's details were leaked. Just because you have a pen and a paper to write ,it does not mean that you will try to defame epik. Just because as per you epik offered a paid service to any website which was not legal as per your views ,why don't you weigh on the thousands of other websites which epik hosts on their servers. Barybadrinath (talk) 01:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Look at the references cited in the page about Epik. They are the ones who describe some of Epik's customers as far-right, it is not a judgment call I personally am making. If you have concerns about the Facebook article, the place to raise them is Talk:Facebook rather than derailing this conversation, but I will point out that there is not only an entire Criticisms and controversies section on the Facebook article, but also an entirely separate Criticism of Facebook article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

One service provided by epik i.e domaingraduate has helped thousands of poor people like myself to learn about domaining and lead a decent life. Barybadrinath (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I am happy to hear you have found them useful! But Wikipedia is encyclopedia, we do not publish happy customer testimonials. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Long rant #1, including personal attacks
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@GorillaWarfare We do not publish happy customer testimonials here? Are you really having fun with the hardships of others? Every thread related to Epik represents a level of smug arrogance that is unprecedented. Where are all of the other Wikipedia assistants who should be protecting their own platform here? It has some great people. Where are you? I cannot fathom the degree of separations it would take to become a silent bystander in the face of such blatant abuse. The bias here is absolutely unreal. You can count on it being exposed. In fact, I would say that you are opening a legal hole up for Wikipedia its nonprofit foundation that just goes beyond any rational level of sense. This degree and level of mishandling is exactly what leads to new precedents being set. My thinking is that you may already know this, because no other possible explanation in light of the manipulation of facts, or the degree by which you are acting as a petty gatekeeper, makes sense. Clearly a small group of people with an agenda are treating this entire fiasco like their own personal project, with zero interest in truth or real discovery. Even your answers are mostly petty, and almost always used for misdirection to guide discussion points from the core issue. It is also the same bad actors every time! Guarding this data like their very jobs depend on it. This goes beyond just an unhealthy obsession with one company. They have selectively and intentionally portrayed Epik through the corrupt lens of their own political intolerance. Whether right or wrong. They already know that most of the articles they collected and used for reference material were written over a handful of days, all by individuals connected to the founders of Media Matters and other content creation groups, as well as the lobbyist and legal influence directions from Michael Edison Hayden earlier in the year. This is a decentralization issue being fought in the open, with those who would crush competitors to maintain their hookers, yachts, orgy islands and special benefits to keep them intact. The real citations that need to come out, are the ones connecting the dots on the respective threads that @GorillaWarfare and others tailored and crafted together to create this attack sequence. One only needs to see her direct level of participation, as well as the completely unhealthy and manic level of obsession she has in protecting this article, to see that she is not administratively fit to serve in any duty calling for such. I will say it again, because the administrators seem to pick out the singular lines and focus on them believing they are involved in a debate they are in control of. “One only needs to see her direct level of participation, as well as the completely unhealthy and manic level of obsession she has in protecting this article, to see that she is not administratively fit to serve in any duty calling for such.” This is real truth. She is compromised beyond every sense of the word and definition. This is one of the most singular unreasonable situations and examples of abuse I have witnessed for Wikipedia, and I have never seen a degree of personal ownership and outright vindictiveness that he/she displays. Even last night, I witnessed as it (@GorillaWarfare) literally took to Twitter, as a representative for Wikipedia, and literally taunted the CEO of a company through social media, that is responsible for maintaining the integrity and well-being of the content and business connectivity for tens of thousands of enterprises. It then belittled other individuals and organizations that have served one another faithfully for decades, labeling them as small and insignificant, inferring that @GorillaWarfare was the final and absolute say regarding what degree of authority they would have with respects to her published work. The Gorilla then literally set out to issue timed taunts, like it/she/he was gaining some sick and perverted pleasure from the suffering of others. With no care of the lives or impact it was leaving in its trail. This is the story of Wikipedia's handling of Epik Holdings, Inc. This is unquestionably the story that is being told now in real time. You administrators are helping to cast light and truth, even if it was not your intent. Others have asked you to help, to show compassion, and to be reasonable. You hide conveniently beyond other articles, opinion columns, and hit pieces, and quote them as historical works demanding the steepest levels of preservation. Your ruse and mirrors are coming down. I promise. You are no hero @GorillaWarfare. There is no honor in what you are doing. For whatever master you think you are serving, they will ultimately be exposed and fall. The childlike trails you leave are being exposed. The protection eroding. GoDaddy has 19 million customers. No one differentiates who they serve on their political orientation. They feed and unintentionally support horrific activities. The same goes with the other 200 active registrars that between them cover literally hundreds of millions of domain names under management. Twitter has created recent trends from scratch just this last week ranging from #AssassinationDay to #DeathtoAmerica. They harbor some of the most hateful angry individuals this world has ever seen. Same as Facebook. 2.4 billion followers, and if there are critical pages, they are normally separated and not utilized to intentionally harm and marginalize them. No small group of self-declared freedom fighters – designating themselves literally as “queers” and “feminists” - are holding their Wikipedia page hostage. Or deleting ten months’ worth of intelligent updates as they ignore every report of the degree by which context and reporting was clearly done out of political bias. That which you would find yourself selling your souls over is truly not worthy. You have also conflated and wickedly let the interpretation and cesspool of editorial opinion become the basis for your articulations of choice that you now want to permanently mark as fact. Elevating hack jobs and attack pieces by known correspondents that serve calls to destroy others. Wikipedia was supposed to be a global community of people creating and archiving our growth and journey together. You have perverted and stained the very essence of it, by succumbing to a level of confirmation bias so bad that it leaves most viewers with the impression that it must be paid for. Hence the constant comments you have endured that are reflective of the ludicrous nature you have adopted, as you wield your overpowered paintbrush. Oh how clever you must count yourself as. Likewise Google and Gmail. No one paints them as harbourer’s of extreme right racists, or facilitators of fraud, because of the billions of emails they issue without any regard to race, creed or color - a percentage of them will always be bad people with the intent to harm others. What would it even take for you in your outright arrogance to declare that “Epik has done nothing significant” outside of their support of right wing groups, Nazis, and extremists. How dare you. How dare you all. How do you think their families reacted when YOUR colleagues posted pictures of them, with the message they needed to be harassed and harmed at all costs? This is an abuse of power what you are doing, and one that again relies upon your selective choosing of the narrative you intended to create and help nurture. The result of it has cost Epik Holdings Inc. millions of dollars in revenue. It has marginalized customers. It has reduced staff wages. A staff that I may add in almost its ENTIRETY consists of individuals who are not even white. Since you are so clearly caught up in race politics and the galvanization of respective voting blocks as a tool for your own masters to move around. How dare all of you embrace such smallness. Again - you have attracted the eye of change that will bring it righteously and fairly upon all that need to be exposed on a legal basis. Count on it. Think about it tonight when you are sleeping. You are harming people for sport, taunting them for fun, and leveraging editorial pieces from known paid radical political operators and calling it your job. Through a community-based encyclopedia no less. One that Google and others have chosen to make prominent in their results, with Eric and others calculating shrewdly what effect and impact it could take when they needed to call upon its contextual capabilities. Bet your dollar all will be exposed. It is disgusting. A few points for you: 1. Eventually you become a footnote in the new Wikipedia page for Epik, whereby their courage to stand up for what is right exposes individuals with agendas that are soon to be exposed. Will you still then take to Twitter and call out other leaders in Epik's industry, and tell them that they are too "small" to be taken seriously in your world of perceived control? Disgusting and it will be exposed. The degree of empowerment that you have been given clearly indicates a mandate beyond what would normally be seen in government or private sectors. Outing won’t even be the word for it. 2. Rob Monster once said David Duke seemed to not be an idiot, under the context that he could be reached by people with love in their heart, and maybe that instead of CNN grandstanding his name to harm Trump, he could be instead made to renounce racism and lead people who had followed him to a better path. But Zucker himself gave the marching order that Duke needed to be elevated, so that he could be used as a counter position and media tool to harm the President. But you already know this. You saw the videos, and told others they were funny. Funny you said. If you were a good reporter and article creator, maybe your headline should have been that CNN was responsible in giving David Duke an 80,000% media boost, when most people in this country had never heard of him. That the liberal left media outlets did more to damage this country in a single week out of their hatred for Trump, to the degree that they were prepared to compromise everything. Why? So individuals socially engineering mass immigration protocols to convert pathways for thirty million new votes could still try and get the supreme court seats they were banking on. So you helped conflate everything you could, knowing ultimately it just separated and polarized us more and more. Wikipedia, and the specific managers and administrative tool related to this attack on Epik, are part of this. You help to tear apart the country, because you have been sold a lie. Rob Monster and others are just convenient collateral in your sociopathic march. Ultimately though, a couple writers just dropped the context of the comment about David Duke completely, and just made it look like an executive at Epik endorsed him. Disgusting and it will be exposed. As you all will be for your respective alliances. Your days of hiding behind codes and vernacular believing it gives you a false sense of protection are coming to an end. Mark these words. You will be exposed. Wikipedia does not set a legal precedent with respects to truth. This false code of signets and ancient codex references is not going to buy you a pass or protection from liberty herself. 3. Rob Monster never endorsed 8chan, gab, or any other groups or organizations right, left or otherwise spewing hate. He recognized the opportunity to purchase technology that could be integrated into his existing framework. He recognized that GoDaddy and others were grandstanding for positive press to support a narrative that was being constructed. He stood up for individuals on a general basis, reminding us gently that we should always be mindful of where we draw the line on free speech. Then he defined that line to further become a champion of responsible speech. He has no tolerance for hate, for racism, for ill comments based on religion, race, skin color, or belief systems. In fact - he has built one of the most impressive companies to fight inequality there is. There is not one of you sitting in judgement of this man and company worthy of joining him at this table. You will be exposed. If it is down to Wikipedia or Epik, I know who I am putting my money on. You are already exposed and just don't know it. All these threads are serving to do is to illustrate to a fine legal point the bias you carry so that your masters can be identified. It draws you out one by one. One by one. So keep making your petty comments. Your taunts in good jest. These are lives you are harming. These are businesses you are ruining. These are families you are impacting. This perverted sense of justice you carry is twisted, ugly, and should have no place in this country and our home whatsoever. You should be very happy you are not yourself being judged by the same standards you have drawn against Epik. You have cited 15 sources as your means to destroy him. I could cite ten million with total and complete contempt for you. Would you like to see what feels like? When your life is ripped apart and a thousand paid operatives in media work to destroy your lives intentionally? While a handful of Wikipedia admins laugh and get joy from their control of it? If you want something to report, go and explain to the world why all of these racist accounts exposed here are still active: https://twitter.com/w_terrence/status/1251230049090469888 https://twitter.com/w_terrence/status/1251215855771242501 This compounds from here, until eventually real heroes march into Wikipedia with warrants. Do the right thing while you can! No one is asking you to whitewash anything. Soon your concept of conspiracy is going to become very very real. Take my advice. XXX — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.97.239 (talk • contribs) 03:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

We agree on one point: Where are all of the other Wikipedia assistants who should be protecting their own platform here? I have gone ahead and made a post here asking for additional input on this page. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Various threats
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You do what you like. The days of this group ruining lives is over. Please underestimate it. At this point a $200 million dollar lawsuit will be the least of Wikipedia's worries as it relates to public exposure. Beyond that, your concept of codes, signatures, secret handshakes, and rules DO NOT OUTWEIGH THE HAND OF LIBERTY, LAW AND JUSTICE. You have taken your last rights from others here. Wikipedia is not a sovereignty within itself. I am preparing requests of my own to have my colleagues come and aid. By Tuesday, Wikipedia's foundation will find millions of dollars in support cut off, and beyond that the scales of justice will have their legal say. Nice job Molly. You are the one who breaks Wikipedia. Better buy another cat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.97.239 (talk • contribs) 03:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose change, as it is being proposed by single-purpose accounts created at the last minute, following the blocking of User:Intelliname's account. Their threatening stance and lack of a cogent argument show a limited understanding of the principles under which Wikipedia works, and an inexplicable loyalty to Mr. Monster. Might there be a conflict of interest here?--Quisqualis (talk) 04:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Long rant #2, including personal attacks and legal threats
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is the level of contempt that Wikipedia admin have for anyone who questions their authority. They literally are rolling their eyes in disgust of even having to read information that highlights they have inappropriately tagged individuals as racists. "@EEng: Can I get an illustration appropriate for seeing the wall of text, rolling my eyes, and doing a u-turn out of the nonsense? Natureium (talk) 04:13, 18 April 2020 (UTC)" Destroying a family is simply an inconvenient "rolling of the eyes" for them. Can you imagine how they will handle the report when they eventually come for you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.97.239 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC) Legal Note for Independent Review: I am notating this log as of 9:52PM PT / 4/17/2020 - Post ten months of attempted communications and respectful attempts to work within the boundaries and systems that Wikipedia have laid out, all methods have to date failed. Their members and administrative staff have engaged in outright dismissal and disregard for any input or notations that would highlight their representation being based off editorial bias and paid correspondent columns. Administrative members have repeatedly refused to address or deal with incorrect notations that they have fiercely and illogically protected. Across more than two dozen legitimate update attempts by peer members, all efforts for positive change from the general public outside of their localized handling have been completely and totally rejected. Furthermore, any actual attempts to engage through their system in an honest and open manner, are reduced and rejected to inappropriate behavior and mannerisms. In effect they are dismissing any requests for assistance in totality. Simultaneously any information provided with citations and notations of admin bias are not being rejected on the basis of the information being submitted, but due to the protocol in there submissions. However all legitimate processes for redress have been ignored, taunted, mocked in public formats, and reverted in a clear and transparent attempt to harm the organization Epik Holdings, Inc., and its founder. Reducing the legitimacy of the claims being made on the basis of assumed conflict of interest, is not the role of the administrator. It reflects the underhanded indoctrination and tiered layers of protocol and control being orientated within this medium. Note here, the recommendation to openly ignore an independent request for lead paragraph edits, on the basis of account status. With no regard, care, and an outright open dismissal for any discovery of legitimacy or informational merit: "Oppose change, as it is being proposed by single-purpose accounts created at the last minute, --Quisqualis (talk) 04:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)" As is their typical trained policy, they are attacking the individual highlighting the degree of incorrect reporting in the article, working to dismantle the independence and authenticity of the messenger, while dismissing all claims with no regard to diligence or pursuit of truth. Even those that are tagging individuals falsely as racists, neo-nazis, and extremist supporters would appear to have no recourse for directional change or accountability. The right is taken and reserved to utilize all of this correspondence and these notations as per the fullest extent that the law allows, as an illustrated point of reference for Wikipedia and @GorillaWarfare being utilized to harass, harm, and destroy individuals as a guided and intentional course. I am logging this to ensure that subsequent review, legal submission, and all future discovery processes leave no room for peer discernment whereby they could conclude that the Wikipedia administrators and #GorillaWarfare were operating in anything remotely resembling good faith. I would also submit this goes beyond any sense or form of negligence, due to the overwhelming notation issues reducing and restricting all change edits no matter what inbound source or reference made as discussion points. Furthermore that their actions or lack thereof reflect the strongest likelihood of policy coordination and direct guidance from Wikipedia and possibly Foundation members themselves, in an attempt to thwart, harm, and reduce Epik Holdings, Inc. and its founder to a TI status. I am conveying this with the sincerest hope that if anyone has the discernment and sense to look back upon the numerous related threads and open correspondence related to this matter, that they can determine for themselves that a mistake has been made and work to reconcile it. Without threat or prejudice I would advise that alternatively these will be pursued in the most aggressive of manners to the highest point of legal view and public awareness possible. There is no honor in your actions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.97.239 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Mr. Monster (or whoever you are), you have been going on, to the point of redundancy, using a repetitive and vituperative tone, and have yet to make any points which mesh with the principles under which Wikipedia functions. We are upholding our end of the bargain, while you seem to be unaware as to what that bargain consists of. As a "new user", you may find helpful the Welcome message and helpful links I have posted on your Talk page.--Quisqualis (talk) 06:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose change. The lead currently reflects the article content, and the article content reflects what reliable sources say. And that's exactly how a Wikipedia article (and its lead) should be written. (And I won't be replying to any long-winded rants posted here.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

  To respond to the proposal for change based on the claim that "the lead-in paragraph for the Wikipedia article does not accurately represent the company's corporate philosophy" - representing a company's corporate philosophy is not the purpose of a Wikipedia article lead. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose change to the lead while the article body is as it is, and oppose change to the article body while the identified independent reliable sources are as they are. Of course if the balance of coverage in independent reliable sources changes then the article can change with them. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

  I would add that if this organisation thinks that it is right to provide "services to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications" then it should be proud of it. If it thinks that there's anything wrong with doing so then it can simply stop. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose change as it does not reflect the quality RS about Epik (e.g. no blogs and non-independent trade sites like "domainnamewire" per above). I did my own google scan for quality RS on this subject and they clearly support the current lede. From Forbes (a staff writer), Far-right-linked firms Epik .... From Vice (a staff writer), As a registrar, Epik plays an important role in the online infrastructure necessary to keep far right extremists online, including those that advocate violence. There are several more; in fact in quality RS, the only thing Epik is notable for are the activities in the lede. The OP should focus attention on Epik, and get them to change their business model, rather then advocating Wikipedia adopt a distorted version of the fact-base. Britishfinance (talk) 09:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose change "placing a description of these services in full on the header" a full product and service list in the lead? thats for Epiks own website, not this article. Curdle (talk) 11:01, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose change - as Schazjmd said, the only thing Epik is known (or, as we Wikipedians say, notable) for is its controversies, and it would be a disservice to the article to change it. MiasmaEternal^TALK 12:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose change. We're not here to advertise, we're here to describe from reliable independent sources. Sure, hosting neo-Nazis results in net negative coverage in the media. That's not really our problem to fix, is it? Guy (help!) 23:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - Lord knows I am reluctant to dip my toe into this, but just wondering here: The lead currently cites the Vice article, which also includes info about the company's assertion that it offers a platform for all "lawful" speech. I mean, I know we're not here to report this (or any) company's corporate jargon, but I wonder if some carefully worded mention or clause inserted into the lead about their lawful speech stance would may be a little more NPOV-y for the sake of overall context, like "...operates under the pretense of..." or "claims to be..." or "...company founder asserts that...". Again, I'm not proposing a change...just wondering for the sake of discussion. Ditch ∝ 15:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think that belongs in the lead section, as we make no claim that Epik is doing anything unlawful. We already give the company's position in the first sentence of the section "Hosting of far-right and illicit content", which, per WP:MANDY, is enough, if not more than enough. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

  A very interesting essay, albeit one with a somewhat slippery slope. Something I would love to banter about one day, far, far away from this talk-page. Ditch ∝ 16:36, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

  Don't be afraid of dipping your toe in the water. I think it's a good thing when people make suggestions that might appear to go against many editors kneejerk reactions. In this case I think we've done a good job. We say that this company provides services to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications, but we don't say "and this is a Bad Thing", but leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions. As I said above, if this company thinks they are acting morally by doing this then they should be proud of it, rather than trying to hide the facts. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

As long as the sources are verified for the lead comments: "hosting Nazi, White Supremacist and illicit drug dealing content" they should remain, but perhaps the Epik Wikipedia article should not lead off with these particular facts as in that Epik is "known" for this - perhaps a more balanced introduction to the Epik subject should lead off the article.Cryellow (talk) 19:12, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Cryellow: Can you explain how the current lead is unbalanced? The sources support not only that Epik has hosted the types of content you mention, but also pretty unanimously report on Epik for that very reason. Furthermore, could you provide a suggestion for what you think would be a "more balanced introduction"? GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. The question is not just that this information is verified, but that it reflects the weight of coverage in reliable sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I just mean that there must be other things Epik is known for besides "hosting Nazi, White Supremacist and illicit drug dealing content" ? Cryellow (talk) 20:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Cryellow: Do you have reliable sources that discuss Epik outside of the context of their services to these groups? We can't change the lead because we believe there may be other references out there—we need the references to go alongside the change. I have looked for such sources, and have not found any. The fact of the matter is that, at least as of now, the company has only received coverage in reliable sourcing because of its services to and statements about these groups. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:02, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I will take a look online see what is available. Short of that, there might be some other way to word the intro? When I have time I may propose something. I am not taking sides per se in that I am acknowledging the validity of the information posted and its sources. I am aware that Epik did get press over these issues. Cryellow (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I can see both sides of the argument. But in an attempt to give the appearance of an unbiased article, compared to the Dynadot, NameCheap, and GoDaddy's articles, I would expect this article to look something like the following:
Epik is an ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company, based in Sammamish, Washington. It was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster and as of April 2020, Epik provides services for approximately 450,000 registered domains. Epik has been involved in several controversies related to censorship. Garett805 (talk) 00:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC) — Garett805 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

@Garett805: Please see my explanation below to do with comparisons to GoDaddy and Dynadot. The article on NameCheap has an even longer laundry list of issues in the template at the top of the page than Dynadot, so it's not a great article around which to model others. (By the way, while we're on the topic of referring to other articles when criticizing an article, please see WP:OTHERCONTENT).

Furthermore, there is no good reason to rephrase to "controversies" when it can be stated clearly and succinctly what those controversies are. This is something that is addressed specifically in Wikipedia guidelines at WP:LABEL: Rather than describing an individual using the subjective and vague term controversial, instead give readers information about relevant controversies. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi GorillaWarfare, I can see your point with that. In light of this, maybe it can be modified similar to the following:

Epik is an ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company, based in Sammamish, Washington. It was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster and as of April 2020, Epik provides services for approximately 450,000 registered domains. Epik has been involved in several controversies related to the hosting of far-right content, which the company describes as protecting First Amendment rights.

The last sentence of the lead appears to be an opinion by Vice editor Ben Makuch. Should an article's lead be defined by an opinion of one editor or can this be dropped? Thanks! Garett805 (talk) 01:58, 20 April 2020 (UTC) — Garett805 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

@Garett805: No objection from me to adding where they're based to the lead, if that's what folks want. The 450,000 domains claim you're suggesting is unsourced. Adding the company's defense of their choice to provide services would seem to be discouraged per WP:MANDY, a useful guideline I discovered just recently when another editor pointed it out to me—I had apparently always erred too far towards presenting rebuttals from a company or individual on controversial claims, but per WP:WEIGHT it seems like I was wrong to do so. As for the Vice quote, it is properly attributed in-text, and while it is one person's words it is not accurate to say that it is only one person's opinion. That quote, in my opinion, well reflects the consensus among reliable sources: that Epik has a history of offering to host websites with far-right content that have been booted by other providers. Now, I will reiterate that mine is just one opinion here on Wikipedia, and so I hope others will weigh in here on your suggestion. But the opinion in this section has so far overwhelmingly supported maintaining the lead how it is—despite the handful of SPAs who have come here per the CEO's urging to have what is showing up in the Google Knowledge Panel (which does generally correspond with the lead of a Wikipedia article) whitewashed. It seemed that in 2018/19 Epik was enjoying the notoriety they earned from their decision to provide services to and vocally defend Gab and others, but the fact that they are no longer enjoying that attention does not mean that the Wikipedia article should pretend that Epik is notable for some other reason. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare:I appreciate the feedback. Though, this isn't a single purpose account. It just happened to be the only time I saw a page that seemed to be greatly one sided on Wikipedia, but I would like to contribute in the future. I definitely didn't come here for a CEO, and in fact currently have a dispute with Rob, so my stance is almost to the contrary. I just like Wikipedia and I like fairly independent articles that are accurate. Thanks again for your replies. Garett805 (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough! Everyone's got to start somewhere. If you run into any questions around editing Wikipedia, please feel free to ask for help on my talk page anytime. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: More on the statistics and reference - It was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster and as of April 2020, Epik is the 22nd largest registrar in the United States and provides services for approximately 480,000 registered domains. Garett805 (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Garett805: Thanks for finding that! The 2009 founding is already mentioned in the article. I've added the 22nd largest registrar thing, though I believe that data is as of December 2019 and not this month as you said. As I noted in my edit summary I'm not adding it to the lead without additional sourcing or at least some amount of other support on this talk page. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, as an aside, I knew GoDaddy would probably be the forerunner but I never knew it was by such an enormous margin! Shows what I know, I guess. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: Great catch on the date. Here is another source that shows slightly higher numbers, but the same ranking from RegistrarOwl.com. They show 572,510 as of December 2019, so it appears their methodology was different. Very true on the GoDaddy assessment. They have always been in a class of their own in regards to competition. Garett805 (talk) 04:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Garett805: I've added the RegistrarOwl source; NameShiba mentioned it below also. It doesn't add anything that the DomainState source doesn't say, but can't hurt to have two sources. I've left out the specific numbers anyway, so not a problem that they conflict. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

References

(edit conflict)In this article we attempt to summarize reliable sources about Epik. If sources describe Dynadot, etc. in a certain way, feel free to discuss that at those articles' talk pages. As has already been mentioned, sources overwhelmingly discuss Epik in a specific context. We cannot downplay that context, or those sources, by euphemistically referring this is "controversies related to censorship". This is too vague, and too loaded. While it's helpful to see both sides, be mindful of false balance. There is almost always more than just two sides, and we do not assume that all sides must be treated equally. This is what we mean when we say "due weight". We weigh by reliable sources, not by individual perspectives. Grayfell (talk) 00:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Neutral request only

Ive noticed that Godaddy and Dynadot have a certain general format and historical facts are mentioned in the history section of each of these registrars, i was wondering instead of the second half of the sentence at the epik.com article replacing it with epik.com's customer count like the other registrars. And then taking the second part of the first sentence and second sentence in the intro paragraph and adding it to the history section of epik.com. ty. Wess12345 (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC) — Wess12345 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Hi, Wess12345, did you see the section above this one? That's what the discussion is about. Per MOS:LEAD, article leads should summarize the rest of the article, and so omitting any mention of Epik's services to far right organizations would fly in the face of that. I certainly have no objection to more information about Epik being added to the lead (if it is also added to the article body, of course) but there has been a bit of a dearth of reliable sourcing on Epik outside of its connections to the far right. If you know of any, by all means please link it here.

There have been a lot of comparisons between the Epik article and the GoDaddy/Dynadot articles in the offwiki conversations about this page. What people seem to be missing is that Wikipedia articles reflect what is written about their subjects in reliable sourcing. In the case of Epik, almost all reliable sourcing focuses on Epik's services to far-right organizations. In the case of GoDaddy, it is a much larger organization that has received considerably more media coverage, about a wide variety of topics to do with their business. In the case of Dynadot, well, there is a notice on the top of that article suggesting it may not even be notable enough for Wikipedia, and that it is suspected to have been written by someone with a conflict-of-interest. The sourcing on the Dynadot page actually seems to largely focus around their involvement with controversies as well (in their case, with Wikileaks) and I would be surprised to not see that in the article lead if it wasn't for the notices suggesting that someone affiliated with the company has used Wikipedia to try to advertise their services. I would certainly consider going to try to help out with that article, but if you've followed any of the offwiki conversations yourself (which I assume you have, as your request is very similar to some suggestions I've seen there) you can probably understand why I'm not leaping to involve myself further with articles about domainers. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, I do have to mention that the goal and objective of the proposed changes above was never to *omit information provided by reliable sources*. It was to simply format the lead in a way that was similar to other registrars. Please take Dynadots and GoDaddy's Wikipedia page as an example. There is no effort here on my behalf in this thread to omit any information in regards to support or prior controversy. There is only the effort to reflect the page appropriately with what the services rendered actually are. As always, thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies.NameShiba (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@NameShiba: Unless I am mistaken, you and Wess12345 here share the goal of removing from the lead the information about Epik providing services to far right organizations. Is that correct? I am aware neither of you are suggesting it be removed from the article completely. As for adding information about what services Epik provides, as I have said repeatedly, we will need sourcing for that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi again Gorilla, I was scouring the net far and wide and found some interesting takes with sources. Please review.

• ♦ WhoIs data innovation unique to EPIK. https://domainnamewire.com/2018/01/16/epik-takes-whois-search-counts-another-level/
• ♦ Domain Graduate incorporation by EPIK https://domaininvesting.com/domain-graduate-acquired-by-epik/
• ♦ EPIK Forever domain services: https://domainnamewire.com/2018/10/30/the-economics-of-forever-domain-registrations/
• ♦ EPIK denying additional services to 8Chan after the El Paso tragedy and attempted to offer help to liquidate the domains https://www.geekwire.com/2019/epik-reverses-course-seattle-area-web-services-company-will-not-host-8chan-following-shooting/
• ♦ EPIK domain marketplace notable sales https://www.thedomains.com/2019/08/14/doto-com-sells-for-69995-on-epik/

All other articles that I could reference based on news.google.com for searches in regards to additional information would not be able to be counted due to them being press releases /PRNewsWire/ which has included topics such as bitcoin associations and domain industry conferences. Thank you once again. NameShiba (talk) 02:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@NameShiba: Thanks so much for searching for and providing sources! Seriously, I really appreciate you doing that. I am pretty sure that the domainnamewire/domaininvesting/thedomains sources won't be usable—see Britishfinance's comments above about non-independent trade sites. They also seem more like blogs to me than what we normally accept as reliable sources—in fact the domaininvesting.com site says "Elliot's Blog" right at the top... It's also mostly just a copy of an email the author received. The two domainnamewire.com posts appear to be based off a forum post by Rob Monster, and an in-person conversation between the author and Mr. Monster. The thedomains.com post also appears to be directly sourced from a forum post by Monster. However I would love to get more input on the viability of these sources from other editors here, because I could be wrong.

GeekWire should be usable as an independent source, though—I know it's pretty widely used on Wikipedia and appears to be considered reliable per (an old) RSN discussion. I'm not sure there's a whole lot in that article that can or should be added to this one, though—this article already says that Epik reversed course on their decision to host 8chan. The other information in that piece is primarily background on 8chan that already exists in this article, and then excerpts from an Epik press release and comments from Mr. Monster as well as a Voxility spokesperson.

As for the press releases, yes, you are correct that those can't be used. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Gorilla -- there is something that deeply troubles me about the post above.

• GoDaddy a major competitor has not just one, two, or three sources that are on the not accepted list for this page. They have 6 sources from either direct press releases from GD or the sources argued above.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy
• 32. "Entrepreneurs Can Now Easily Sell Everywhere with the Launch of GoDaddy Marketplaces". prnewswire.com. Retrieved 10 April2019.
• 35. "GoDaddy goes vertical with Neustar registry acquisition". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
• 36. "Go Daddy Marches Toward $1 Billion| Domain Name News & Views". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Views. 2010-08-17. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
• 102. "Domain Name Wire. "GoDaddy Deletes Domain Name for Inaccurate Email Address." February 27, 2007". Web.archive.org.
• 103. "Domain Name Wire. "GoDaddy Responds to Deletion Over Invalid Email Address." February 28, 2007". Web.archive.org.
• 104. "Domain Name Wire. "Has GoDaddy Done a 180 on Invalid Whois?" November 2, 2007". Domainnamewire.com. Retrieved 2009-04-20.

I feel in effort to be impartial over the source material -- that other registrars using their own press releases and unverifiable sources which you have mentioned could be seen as a contradiction to keeping the source material neutral and non biased. NameShiba (talk) 03:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@NameShiba: I fully agree, those sources absolutely ought to be removed from the GoDaddy article. But just because poor sources are used in another article does not mean poor quality sources can be added to this one—it means they ought to be removed from that one. Hopefully someone does so shortly, but it's not going to be me—as I've already written to another poster here I think I've learned my lesson about getting involved with articles to do with the domain industry for the time being... Until I finish having to deal with this fiasco I wont be jumping into more. I have added a tag, though, to alert others to the issue. If you have more concerns about the GoDaddy article, the best place to address them is at Talk:GoDaddy. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion. An appropriate replacement for the lead-in is the factual quantitative numbers by the registry. Which is how many registrations the registrar currently has and number of employees that are currently employed by the company. see @Godaddy [6] [7] [8] the way that GoDaddy's lead-in is the equivalent to what I am asking and pleading on behalf of neutrality in this post. See at GoDaddy [9] [10] the mentioned articles and sources in the lead is the level of fairness in respect to this registrar that I am asking without whitewashing any of the truth behind the facts based articles presented. This is for pure neutrality of the lead-in while the facts are what they are. Nobody can revise. If the main competitor's lead reads as such despite their censorship controversies -- why does Epik not receive a similar lead-in? Thank you as always. NameShiba (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC) I have an appropriate and factual based source for the quantitative aspects of the company's number of domain registrations that I will link below. NameShiba (talk) 03:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@NameShiba: No objection to those numbers being added to the article if you can find good sources for them. Not sure they should go in the lead, but if other editors think they ought to I also won't stand in the way. But I remain firmly of the opinion that Epik being known for providing services to far right organizations should remain in the lead—literally all of the coverage of Epik describes them in the context of their services to Gab, 8chan, etc. That is not the case for GoDaddy—although they have had more than their share of controversies (I am old enough to remember the SuperBowl ad), they are not singularly notable for them. I will again remind you that Wikipedia articles are created based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and arguments need to be based in those. Arguing that we ought to be emulating one article chosen from the millions of articles on Wikipedia is generally frowned upon in Wikipedia discussions (WP:OTHERCONTENT). GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, updating with the source.

• https://www.registrarowl.com/Epik
• Registrar Owl keeps records across all registrars to determine registrar ranking and popularity and total number of domains being hosted under the registrar.
• According to Registrar Owl -- Epik has 499,626 domains registered. Cheers! And thank you for taking the time out to reply. NameShiba (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't object to including number of registered domains in the article. I think the insistence on comparing Epik to GoDaddy is odd, as Epik is not on the scale of GoDaddy per registrarowl. It would be more appropriate to compare the Epik article with articles on similarly ranked registrars, such as DNC Holdings, Reg.ru, AmazonRegistrar, OnlineNIC, Launchpad. But Wikipedia doesn't have articles on those, because they're not notable. Epik would not be notable enough for an article either, except for its involvement in controversies. I cannot find a single reputable independent source that mentions Epik without also associating it to Gab and similar organizations. Epik is in the encyclopedia because of its associations, it has no other claim to notability. Schazjmd (talk) 15:09, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Just noting here (this conversation got split a little bit): I added that Epik is the 22nd largest registrar in the US, but omitted the specific number of domains because the two sources conflict. I suspect they're just measuring differently, but since they agree on ranking and not on the specific numbers I've included the former but not the latter. As for your comments on the Epik/GoDaddy comparison, I agree completely. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

AFD deletion submission

• Hi there, I have nominated this article for AFD.
• Please feel free to review. Thank you! NameShiba (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make an edit on the first paragraph at least? A lot of companies have a bad history, but it shouldn't be the first thing showing up on Wiki See Tucows page for example 2A02:A03F:BC7D:B700:E55B:A4BB:10B6:8BE0 (talk) 13:19, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Please read this section that you've posted your question in, as it begins with someone asking the same question you just have. Right now consensus appears to be against making a change to the lead, as Epik's decision to provide service to far-right organizations is its primary (if not sole) source of notability. If you have a specific suggestion for a change, feel free to suggest it here, but I'd recommend reading the rest of the conversation first so we don't end up repeating ourselves. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:36, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

additional newsworthy hosting to include in the page - thedonald.win

Reddit recently (June 29 2020) banned the subreddit the_donald for violating reddit rules 1 2 and 8, and the community had moved to thedonald.win hosted by Epik. coverage of the move by NPR, NYT, FoxNews, and others. would maybe fit as another note under the controversy section. Nrjank (talk) 15:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nrjank: Do any reliable sources mention that Epik is hosting thedonald.win? I don't see it in the NPR, NYT, or Fox sources you included here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I pulled it from a whois lookup. The only report i've seen on it is heavy.com. that's not an unreliable news aggregator, but it's not exactly mainstream.Nrjank (talk) 17:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Nrjank: While the existence of thedonald.win may be slightly newsworthy (and it is already described briefly at r/The_Donald), it does not appear that Epik's choice to host the site is currently newsworthy–Heavy only mentions it as an aside. Wikipedians could potentially add quite a lot of claims like this to articles based on doing research like looking at WHOIS records if that was accepted practice, but it is not. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion with DeadFreak781

@DeadFreak781: Regarding your edit summary, I'm more than happy to discuss your proposed changes. Just waiting for you to explain why you think they're a) necessary and b) in line with policy. Per WP:BRD, you are supposed to discuss after changes have been contested, not continue to reinstate them. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:46, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your openness to discussion. The reason for the increase in information on the page is the following. As you may know, at the same time that it was announced that PayPal had taken away Epik's payment platform, that website added several articles, which, being the official website, should be taken into account. For example, there is an SPLC report on Epik that said it hosted extremist websites, which one of the articles refuted.

On top of that, information was added regarding Nicholas Lim. According to the former owner of 8chan, Fredrick Brennan, the real reason he left Epik was a disagreement with the company's CEO because he decided not to provide hosting services to 8chan. As a result he formed another company that actively hosts the neo-Nazi and extremist 8kun sites and The Daily Stormer.

In addition, the controversies that Epik has had are added and categorized. In addition to the current situation of 8kun and The Daily Stormer, as their official and actively promoted websites were not bought from Epik, but from other companies. Only a couple of 8kun domains are still active on Epik, but they redirect to the official site.

The only thing missing are some ongoing disputes regarding the Proud Boys USA site (which, from the last I heard, Epik refused to service them and blocked them, so one of their addresses is on pendingTransfer status indicating they are looking for another domain registrar).

The sources are in my revision. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epik_(company)&diff=987926405&oldid=987863873)

DeadFreak781 (talk) 02:11, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@DeadFreak781: I'll take a look at that logically.ai source about Lim ending his business relationship with Monster/Epik. Unfortunately the size of your change makes the diff a bit difficult to read. My biggest concerns with your edit were 1) the massive change in the lead which very much downplayed Epik's association with the far-right, which is the primary reason the company is even notable; and 2) the introduction of a lot of content sourced only to Epik/their blog. While uncontroversial statements (for example, the year a company was founded) can be sourced from companies writing about themselves, we cannot use them for claims such as many of the ones you added. Furthermore, you may wish to read WP:MANDY, which explains why we generally do not include statements like "Epik has denied x/y/z" unless they are given considerable weight in reliable sources.

Also, can you please explain your change from [[Avengers (comics)|Avengers]] to [[Social justice warrior|Avengers]]? It quite frankly looked to me like straight-up vandalism. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:22, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I've just read through the Logically.ai piece and I'm not seeing anywhere it verifies that Lim resigned due to conflicts with Watkins over 8chan. Can you paste that piece? Maybe I skimmed through too quickly. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:30, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

1. Respecting of "downplaying Epik's association with the far-right", personally, I think there is not enough evidence to say that. Yes, we know that Epik became famous for hosting Gab's site, in addition to the comments that her CEO made on that site, but I would prefer to have more evidence to reach that conclusion. However, if I were really downplaying Epik's actions and his CEO would make strong changes to the site. That's why I left all the references intact.

2. Regarding WP:MANDY or the form of the texts I put, it can be discussed. In this case, the objective was to leave preliminary texts and let other editors make their respective contributions. That's why there are things like the ones you mention: "Epik has denied x/y/z". In that case, the person who made those statements was really Robert Davis, SVP of Strategy and Communications.

3. Regarding the change from [[Avengers (comics)|Avengers]] to [[Social justice warrior|Avengers]], I read the article from the Epik's blog and I assumed he was talking about the so-called "social justice warriors," especially since I was reading on Twitter that some users wanted to link Epik and BitMitigate to the extreme right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon. It's not vandalism, but because of how cryptic the message might be, it can be left it as it was before.

But the only change I would recommend would be the categorization of the controversies. It was precisely the most important change, since I placed the updates to the cases concerning Gab, Daily Stormer and 8chan.

4. Regarding the reference, Fredrick Brennan put it in his Twitter account. However, I was trying to find it, but it seems he deleted that tweet.

DeadFreak781 (talk) 03:39, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

1. Citations 1, 3, 5, 6, 11, 27, 28, 29 all support the statement. This is the majority of sources that write about Epik in detail; many of the other sources on the page are used to support various other statements about Gab, 8chan, etc. Frankly I don't know if there's any other statement that is so prominently mentioned in the reliable sources. It absolutely should remain in the lead, per MOS:LEAD and WP:WEIGHT, as Epik's choice to serve far-right customers is the primary source of their notability.

2. It doesn't matter if the person making the statements is Monster or someone else working for Epik, they're still statements made on behalf of the company and should not be included without secondary reliable sources determining they're noteworthy to include.

3. We should not be interpreting statements the way you did; that is in violation of WP:OR. If a reliable source specifically said that Epik was referring to "social justice warriors" when they said "Avengers" then we could possibly include that as a note, but certainly not as a easter egg wikilink. But without secondary sourcing, that link is very improper to include.

Regarding categorization of the section, if you feel strongly about including it I don't have any major reservations, though I think it makes reading the section a bit choppy. However, I don't agree that it should be renamed "Controversies", per WP:CRITS.

4. Again, we should not be using unreliable sources such as a person's tweets for statements in this article, nor should we be adding claims without any citation at all (even if you think you've seen the information somewhere). If Brennan makes such a statement to a reputable source and they choose to reprint it, we could potentially add it, but it's not the kind of claim we can make based on a tweet alone. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:00, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@DeadFreak781: Just a heads up that Laval just split the article into sections sort of like what you were thinking of doing. Does that address your concern? GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

"Far-right haven"

Epik (company) isn't nothing but just one of a hosting website including Gab, 8chan, and so forth. there are no any clues that Epik is far-right or extremist as Epik aims no political, unbiased and free-speech-friendly as technologically or in policy. I also tried to delete unreliable sources, journalists, or claims, but my edit was considered a vandalism. Being free-speech-friendly has nothing done with "extremism". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.218.128.125 (talk) 01:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The available reliable sources do not reflect your views on Epik, and per WP:NPOV we must "represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." (emphasis mine). You removed quite a lot of sources, so it's a little hard to respond in detail to your concerns there—at a glance the removed sources were Vice ((RSP entry), could potentially be discussed since there's no consensus at RSP, but I don't believe the source is being used on its own anywhere and is supported by other sources everywhere), SPLC (RSP entry), Seattle Times (not at RSP; in the "most reliable" category by Ad Fontes' Media Bias project), and HuffPost ((RSP entry), also supporting other cites; not used alone except for the Tal Moore claim), Wired (RSP entry), The Daily Telegraph (RSP entry), Fortune (RSP entry), NPR (RSP entry), Financial Times (RSP entry), and the ADL (RSP entry). GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

An amazing coincidence

By an amazing coincidence, Epik has provided services for:

• The Daily Stormer (Neo-Nazi message board)
• Proud Boys (violent hate group that spreads conspiracy theories regarding Covid-19)
• Oath Keepers (anti-government paramilitary organization)
• 8chan (white supremacy site that welcomed those kicked off of 4chan for child pornography)
• Parler (service for antisemites and QAnon supporters kicked off of Twitter)
• Gab (haven for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and QAnon conspiracy theorists)
• BitChute (service that welcomes hate group videos banned from YouTube)
• Patriots.win (alt-right service set up to replace Reddit's r/The_Donald subreddit after they shut it down for coordinating the storming of the Capitol)
• InfoWars (just read Talk:InfoWars#Let's review, shall we?.)

See a pattern? That's right. the pattern is... it's all The Jews fault.^{(Source: Epik)} I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

directly anti-semitic statements unsupported by sources have no place on wikipedia. Please edit out or revise the words written after "the pattern is...". Your point is clear without such an indefensible statement. TuffStuffMcG (talk) 09:30, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

No. I do not believe that anyone on earth other than professional outragists (people who feign outrage at innocent phrases, anodyne jokes, etc.) does not understand that I was making fun of the moronic Neo-Nazi tendency to blame anything bad that happens on "The Jews". I also don't believe for a minute that you didn't get the joke. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Wow, hit piece for sure

The first paragraph should describe the company in an unbiased way. "Known as" would be an opinion. "Described as" is a bit vague, could be said about literally anything. For example, I once described Obama as looking like Alfred E. Newman, so are we going to say "described as looking like Alfred E. Newman" on Obama's page? The History section, minus the last sentence, should be the first paragraph.

The criticism on Parler is outdated. In fact, it was outdated even when it was written. It was fact even then that Facebook and Twitter also served as homes to extremist planning of the Capitol Building attack. Turns out, Facebook was the #1 source and Parler was probably the least used. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/02/07/sheryl-sandberg-downplayed-facebooks-role-in-the-capitol-hill-siege-justice-department-files-tell-a-very-different-story/?sh=6d76a75010b3

I've seen a lot of biased pages about politicians and such, but this was the worst by far. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truxp (talk • contribs) 07:13, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

@Truxp: I would recommend reading through Talk:Epik (company)/Archive 1#Proposal to change the lead paragraph for Epik, where the first paragraph of the lead was discussed at great length. Regarding Parler, what is outdated or incorrect? It is true and well-sourced that Parler was among the platforms on which users planned the storming of the Capitol; this article makes no claims about it being the only platform used to plan the storming, or that it was the most used, or anything like that. I'm not even sure what you're interpreting as critical of Parler. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

What an awful hit piece

This has to be the most embarrassing hit piece i have read in Wikipedia. You should be embarrassed. Xgllo (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

What specifically is your objection - it is a sentence, term, or reference. thanks. Without knowing what your specific issue is, we can't have a useful discussion about it. 11:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not Xgllo however I assume the objection is that the header (and by extension, article) is dedicated to describing a small subset of the service's userbase, rather than what the service is. It's a little like if Target's wikipedia page described it as a "safe haven for violent, far-left militants" because even though we know many of their names, have arrest records, and Target knows who you are if you pay with card, they still continue to serve (and market alongside) people who participated in the BLM riots which killed over two dozen people and caused hundreds of billions in damage. Or another example might be describing twitter as "a place for anti-white racism and violence" because they check marked @sarahjeong, @sairasameerarao and many other far-left figures who have tweeted things like "kill all white men", "oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get for being cruel to old white men", and "white people have done everything to make my life miserable. Yet I'm supposed to not hate white people?". If we don't describe these platforms by their more controversial users, why would we describe Epik this way?

Wikipedia should strive to be a balanced platform, or at least as close as possible. It doesn't make sense to describe a domain registrar by its most controversial users, we should describe it by the services that attracted those users (such as their secure server services or DDOS mitigation services). 2600:1700:12D0:A970:7D56:32A4:E6F6:6035 (talk) 00:34, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

We describe subjects how they are described in reliable sources. Please read our neutral point of view policy, which requires articles to "represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." That is what this article does. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Clarifications re Epik

Thank you for the feedback. While Wired is an authoritative source, the sentence in the Wired article appeared to be loosely paraphrased from the LS report, and this edit clarified and pointed to Wired's source material. Zorbatic (talk) 17:46, 29 July 2021 (UTC)Zorbatic

@Zorbatic: To clarify, do you still have concerns with the sourcing, or are you satisfied with the addition of the LegitScript report citation? GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 17:48, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: No concerns now about this - thanks. Zorbatic (talk) 21:36, 29 July 2021 (UTC)Zorbatic

Clarifications re Epik 2 - Submitted for Consensus

Epik is listed in Category:Neo-Nazism in the United States. However, this article does not cite any source documenting any overlap between the people at this company and those who create actual Neo-Nazi content. While Epik has a well-documented reputation as a "haven" for hateful content, simply providing domain registration services does not imply an endorsement of the content on those domains. Gab has direct ties to Neo-Nazis. In contrast, Epik's connection to this content is indirect. In other words, Epik has a similar relationship to Neo-Nazism as David Goldberger.

The article refers, without attribution, to "websites Epik supports" when a more neutral and accurate statement would be "websites that rely on Epik for technical support" or "websites registered with Epik". Epik, like the ACLU, has taken a public position to advocate to allow "freedom for the thought we hate," but each of the other entries in this category is directly related to Neo-Nazism. Epik's presence in this category is misleading and does not reflect NPOV.

Consider too how Wikipedia treats similar conduct. For example, DreamHost is directly responsible for keeping creativityalliance.com, rahowadirectory.com, beasstproductions.com, americannaziparty.com, and other abhorrent Neo-Nazi sites online, and also generated considerable public controversy. Yet DreamHost's wiki article is still largely NPOV. Wikipedia should call Nazis Nazis but should not imply support for Nazis without external sourcing to justify the association. I do not see that here. Zorbatic (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2021 (UTC)Zorbatic

References

I don't have a strong opinion on the category, though I don't think it suggests that Epik is itself a company run by neo-Nazis. It seems reasonable to use in articles where the subject is noted for its connection to neo-Nazism, but I also see your point about the other members of the category.

Regarding "supports", I think the wording was intended to mean "provides support for" (in the context of providing internet services, rather than ideological support), but the wording was definitely ambiguous. I've tweaked it to "services", which I think is clearer.

Regarding DreamHost, please see WP:OTHERCONTENT.

GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:43, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I agree that the article has many problems. Readers shouldn't be able to immediately determine the page owner (and administrator...) GorillaWarfare's political opinions based on how she wrote the Wikipedia page. I noticed a few users tried to write the article in a more encyclopedic and neutral tone (while still including long paragraphs on all the "controversies" GorillaWarfare wants to mention) but it was quickly reverted by GorillaWarfare as "whitewashing".

On top of that, the current lede is very misleading. It gives the impression (to any uninformed reader) that Epik goes out of their way to provide "support" for neo-nazis, white supremacists, and the "far-right" (because they agree with their ideology), when in reality Epik simply supports freedom of speech, and would also have provided domain names to femi-nazis, black supremacists, and the "far-left" (however fortunately these groups have no problems getting domain names through any of the other ~1000 independent domain name registrars without being harassed by the media).

This article was clearly written with the intention of "shaming" Epik for providing services for websites the page owner GorillaWarfare doesn't like, e.g. Gab & Bitchute, and evidence for this can be seen in her comment on Intelliname's talkpage, where she says that: "If Epik would like its Wikipedia article to stop saying that they are known for providing services to various objectional groups, then perhaps it ought to focus on not making headlines for doing just that." This is not what a Wikipedia article should be used for.

Dismissing Zorbatic's concerns about the neutrality of this article by pointing him to WP:OTHERCONTENT is inappropriate, please see WP:OTHERCONTENT for an explanation why it is inappropriate.

2001:DF0:A280:1001:0:0:3:1 (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

for the content suggestions. This article reflects how Epik is described in the reliable sources used on the page, so if you think the content needs to change you will either need to make the argument that a) it is not properly reflecting the existing sources, or b) there are reliable sources that describe Epik differently that aren't being used.

Regarding the aspersions against me, please raise your concerns, with evidence, at ANI or some other appropriate forum and I'll respond in more detail if needed. But I'm not going to waste my time responding to baseless accusations when they're apparently being made just to try to further a content argument. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 December 2021

The opening paragraph needs to be changed to say that "EPIK provides hosting services for most content with few restrictions"." If you want to mention far right posters it should be in a separate sentence saying that says "They have drawn attention for hosting far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist content which are banned from other platform."

As it is currently stated, the wiki is saying that far right content is their primary or majority business which is far completely wrong.

It would be like opening up a description of the Catholic Church by saying "It is an institution where adults rape children" 207.68.110.132 (talk) 15:05, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

New source

CNN: "Epik is a refuge for the deplatformed far right. Here's why its CEO insists on doing it" GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 6 September 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: pages moved. Consensus is that there is a primary topic. (closed by non-admin page mover) GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 02:53, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

---

• Epik (company) → Epik
• Epik → Epik (disambiguation)

– Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:16, 6 September 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 19:45, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Steel1943 (talk) 19:32, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

@PhotographyEdits: Ping nominator. Steel1943 (talk) 19:33, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

• This does appear to be the primary topic with respect to usage [17]. Uanfala (talk) 12:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Companies has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject United States has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support per WP:SMALLDETAILS. The only other Epik is titled as EPIK. cookie monster 755 07:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose given EPIK and Hryhorii Epik (1901–1937), Ukrainian writer and journalist, cannot see that this company is long term encyclopaedic primary. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:12, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:43, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why was the previous revision deleted, even though it contained factual stuff?

The company is notorious for supporting far-right websites, so why was the previous revision deleted? The sources were good and it explained everything clearly.

Why was it removed? 2804:5DA8:BB20:DC95:455A:AFD3:F2E4:3A70 (talk) 06:15, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Rob Monster into Epik

All sources on this article are about Epik anyway. Bolt and Thunder (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Monster is no longer involved with Epik, as far as I can tell. There is a substantial amount of information on his biography article that is not relevant to Epik, such as his pre-Epik endeavors, Toki, etc. (Note: I created the article.) GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - His article is comprehensive and almost none of that content would belong here. None of the WP:MERGEREASONs are met. DFlhb (talk) 12:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per above. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Reverted edit and NPOV discussion

@Black Kite You changed to "right-wing domain registrar." Where does the source support this?

The source: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37754550/epik-hack-anonymous-right-wing-hate-groups/ "Epik, purveyor of online services to the extreme right" means the userbase consists of right-wingers, not the domain registrar.

93.45.229.98 (talk) 07:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

To be clearer: if an organization is right-wing it assumes that there is some restriction that prevents those of other orientations from using services; however, the service is public - anyone can register a TLD. It is clear that the "extreme right" in the sentence is the userbase and not the domain name registrar itself. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 08:22, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I've removed it. There are other sources for "right-wing" but it's actually spurious anyway as the lead sentences make it very clear what Epik actually are. Black Kite (talk) 10:13, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay @Black Kite, if there are no objections you can proceed to remove the POV template. Greetings and good work. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 10:27, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

The IP's argument is spurious. This sets an impossible standard which will only insult the reader's intelligence. A service which overwhelmingly caters to right-wing users, promotes those users above and beyond any other group, and justifies this via the owner's far-right ideology, is properly described as a "right-wing company". Realistically, there is no way for a company to be any more right-wing than this. Being public has nothing to do with anything. It's absurd to pretend it's some accident that far-right users flock to this platform. Grayfell (talk) 02:47, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there any reliable source saying the company "overwhelmingly caters to right-wing users, promotes those users above and beyond any other group, and justifies this via the owner's far-right ideology"? The owner is a theist, and I have no issue with considering a theist right-wing and an atheist left-wing. But the company does not only provide services to the right-wing. It's a web hosting company and people from both wings can use its service. Matt Smith (talk) 03:36, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, many sources already in the article support this. Him being a theist has very little to do with his far-right views, and his self-described religious views are at best tangentially related to his company's ideology. People from "both sides" can theoretically use this service, but they generally don't. Very few moderates, leftists, liberals, mainstream conservatives etc. are interested being associated with neo-Nazis, serial harassers, and various other far-right domestic terrorists. Per this article, the only notable users outside of the far-right are drug counterfeiters. This is a recurring pattern with alt-tech. They loudly proclaim that "anyone can use" their services, but the numbers do not reflect this supposed egalitarianism, and neither do reliable sources. Grayfell (talk) 05:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't find in the article that the company promotes those users above and beyond any other group. But if you're referring to Rob Monster's personal view, I think that does not necessarily define the company's nature. It won't be too late to conclude the company's nature when one day it starts to reject left-wing customers. Matt Smith (talk) 06:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@Grayfell I don't think the article in the current version somehow hides what Epik.com does, and both speeches appear to be highly polemical in nature.

My points were: 1. The customers and the domain name registrar are two different things, no source states "epik.com is a right-wing domain registrar" - all sources refer to customers; 2. the company's services are objectively non-discriminatory (any political orientation can use the service); 3. We all agree on "known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi and other extremist material."

Btw, it is worth noting that Epik.com is utilized by a diverse range of users for domain flipping and domain parking, as evidenced by the significant number of TDL investors on NamePros. Notably, one may observe that the domain mutualism.org, helpukrainetoday.com, etc. are registered on Epik.com.

Epik's marketing strategy is quite mainstream, as exemplified by their motto The Swiss Bank Of Domains and their promotional videos (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGSdjZP1y0A) etc., etc. Therefore, I believe it is unlikely that Epik's primary source of revenue is derived from providing services exclusively to the right or the far-right. Most of the TLDs on the Epik Domain Marketplace are not even about political issues.

So Grayfell, I think your efforts would be better devoted to pointing out that other companies also do the same – like Godaddy who provides services to the CasaPound neo-fascists (https://whois.domaintools.com/casapounditalia.org)... or the double standard on LBRY's entry where it simply says "supports free speech." (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/14/odysee-video-platform-nazi-content-not-grounds-for-removal). 93.45.229.98 (talk) 14:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

p.s. I noticed among other things that gab.com is registered with Cloudflare, 8kun.top is registered with eranet.com, and dailystormer.in is registered with Endurance Digital (an Indian company).

Ref.

https://www.whois.com/whois/dailystormer.in

https://www.whois.com/whois/gab.com see also https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler

https://www.whois.com/whois/8kun.top 93.45.229.98 (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

All of this is original research and whataboutism. The current article describes Epik based on reliable, independent sources. Your claim that Epik's "marketing strategy" is mainstream is contradicted by those sources, and is also a distraction. Obviously, Wikipedia isn't a platform for marketing. As I already said, alt-tech company's love to loudly proclaim that anyone can use them, but the reason Epik is notable enough to even have a Wikipedia article is because it is a far-right company. The place to discuss other services is on those other service's talk pages, not here. If you have a usable source for the bit about domain-flipping, go ahead and propose it, but I don't expect reliable sources to be as impressed by the ideological purity of digital rent-seeking as you appear to be. Grayfell (talk) 00:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that we move on. As you informatively mentioned, the current article describes Epik based on reliable, independent sources. Because those sources do not explicitly say that the company itself is a right-wing or far-right company, we can consider this topic resolved. As an additional information, here is a quote from WP:NOR: "Take care not to go beyond what the sources express or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source, such as using material out of context. In short, stick to the sources." Matt Smith (talk) 03:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Grayfell @Matt Smith

The fact is that the most controversial sites - gab.com, 8kun.top (8chan), and dailystormer.in - are no longer Epik users (sources support this), and that is quite relevant. It is also good to remember that the neo-Nazi site Dailystormer was previously registered on Go Daddy. It is also clear in the Wikipedia article that BitMitigate kicked off dailystormer after Epik acquired BitMitigate.

References:

https://www.businessinsider.com/epik-hack-reveals-proud-boys-qanon-backers-names-addresses-2021-9?op=1&r=US&IR=T

https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/21/epik-far-right-hack-anonymous/

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965448572/meet-the-man-behind-epik-the-tech-firm-keeping-far-right-websites-alive 93.45.229.98 (talk) 06:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we can safely remove the case of The Daily Stormer, which was already on BitMitigate when Epik purchased BitMitigate. And Epik stopped BitMitigate from providing services to The Daily Stormer when it discovered the usage. So this case never is that The Daily Stormer found a safe haven at Epik, nor is that Epik was willing to provide services to The Daily Stormer.

As for Gab and 8chan, I'm not sure how to rephrase the content. And the latter seems be still relying on Epik's DNS services. Matt Smith (talk) 07:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Matt Smith Don't get me wrong. Mine was just a clarification, the paragraph is fine with me. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 09:02, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay. But don't you think the case of The Daily Stormer should be removed? It is not an applicable case. Matt Smith (talk) 10:25, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Matt Smith The historical fact must remain, but you can make the termination of service clearer. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 11:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll open a new discussion for this issue. Matt Smith (talk) 02:40, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Off-Topic Content: The Daily Stormer

The Daily Stormer had already been using BitMitigate before Epik acquired BitMitigate, and Epik was totally unaware of that usage. When Epik discovered the usage, it stopped The Daily Stormer from using BitMitigate.[18]

Such a case contradicts the purpose of the Hosting of far-right and illicit content section, which is for showing a list of websites which were expelled by other web hosting services and found a safe haven at Epik.

Including The Daily Stormer in that section not only makes it an off-topic content but can also easily mislead some readers into believing that Epik willingly provided services to The Daily Stormer if they only glance the table of contents and do not or have no time to read the article carefully.

Based on the aforementioned reasons, I feel that such an off-topic and potentially misleading content should be removed. And I'm humbly asking whether there is any objection to the proposed removal. --Matt Smith (talk) 03:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes there is an objection. BitMitigate redirects to this article. The content, and the attached sources, are specifically about this topic. Grayfell (talk) 04:06, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

You missed the point. The point is that the case does not fit into the Hosting of far-right and illicit content section. --Matt Smith (talk) 04:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I would like to add that the case can also be moved to the The Daily Stormer article and does not necessarily need to be removed from Wikipedia. --Matt Smith (talk) 04:40, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I assure you I did not miss the point. It wasn't subtle. The content is specifically about Epik's hosting of far-right content. As mentioned above, Wikipedia isn't a platform for public relations, and attempting to soften the placement of this content is therefor inappropriate.

To restate, you do not have consensus for this change, and you have not proposed any policy-based reason to remove this content. Even the cited source for Monster's stated "regret" is followed up with Yet his self-professed boundaries become squishy upon examination.[19] followed by examples of Monster's lack of moral consistency in personally deciding which websites cross his "bright lines". If your effort is to decrease confusion, ignoring sources and attempting to whitewash the article in favor of Epik and Monster's public relations is a poor way to do it. Grayfell (talk) 04:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I thought pointing out the offtopic is enough, but if you want a policy-based reason, here it is: WP:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion.

Whether the case is subtle or not is subjective and is not policy-based. We edit articles based on sources. And it's clear enough from the source that Epik stopped The Daily Stormer from using its services when it discovered the usage, so you shouldn't impose this case on the section just because you think it wasn't subtle.

Off-topic case has no place in the section and removing it is not "whitewashing", so please avoid using that kind of derogatory term. Matt Smith (talk) 05:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

@Grayfell @Matt Smith I think there is no need to remove anything but only to add some footnotes. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 09:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

If you have additional sources, please propose them. The article explains cites reliable sources to explain the connection between Epik and Daily Stormer. The article already points out that Epik bought a company which was providing services to these neo-nazi websites, and it even repeats the owners claims that he did not realize they provided these services. (In any sane business, this is something you "discover" before you purchase a company, which the NPR article indirectly acknowledges). The article also includes sources which mention that Epik continued to provide at least some services even after it had publicly announced it was no longer hosting the site's content: Today, 8chan and The Daily Stormer are both back up. The Daily Stormer is up on its original Epik/Voxility netblock, while 8chan has popped up on a netblock owned by Reno, Nevada-based N.T. Technology.[20] This isn't currently mentioned regarding the Daily Stormer, but it could be. Significance is indicated by reliable sources. Since many reliable sources talk about this, the article will also talk about this. Grayfell (talk) 19:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Epik/Masterbucks/ICANN chaos

Recent source on recent woes, reorganization, and sale:

• Goforth, Claire (14 June 2023). "EXCLUSIVE: Far-right domain host Epik cleaved off its debt-riddled assets in sale—leaving customers it owes in flux". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 16 June 2023.

There is a lot to unpack here. Among other things, the source links to a blog post from the ICANN itself, which is odd, to say the least:

• Hedlund, Jamie (9 June 2023). "ICANN Support for Registrants Impacted by Epik Inc". www.icann.org. Retrieved 16 June 2023.

Grayfell (talk) 22:31, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@Grayfell I didn't understand the change you proposed. If there is any controversy that is missing concerning debt-riddled assets add it. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 17:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I have already told you elsewhere to stop pinging me. I mention a source that is useful for the article, this isn't hard to understand. Grayfell (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Ok my friend. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 20:10, 29 June 2023 (UTC)