Talk:Joe Mohen

Moving Internet voting content

One editor keeps trying to remove references and accounts about the Arizona election. Indeed, there are thousands of references to this election on google, and most of the key facts are not in dispute.

One editor keeps trying to "wipe it out" of Wikipedia, making the excuse that since the Arizona Democratic Primary in March of 2000, was financed by the Democratic Party (as opposed to using tax payer funds), and administered by a contractor (as opposed to government employees), that the election was thus a "Private" election, and thus irrelevant. However, these facts are not in dispute: 1. The election was binding. 2. The election was lawful, and was upheld in the courts despite at least one lawsuit trying to stop it. 3. The election was extremely scrutinzed, as evidenced by the massive media coverage, and professional analysis, which is cited in the references and obvious from google. 4. Voter turnout increased by a factor. 5. There were no documented security breaches. Certainly internet voting will be controversial for some time. It certainly offers the potential to materially increase voter participation, and fundamentally alter the power structure of our country, and to dislocate the economic interests of many. Nonetheless, one cannot deny that internet voting does exist, and that something happened in Arizona in March of 2000 that attracted tens of thousands of television and newspaper accounts around the world at that time. Those who challenge facts about the election, should feel free to point out that the election was financed by the democrats themselves, and administered by a contractor, but simply calling it a "Private Election" is fundamentally misleading to the public, as office for which this binding election was for was President of the United States, clearly a public office. --Kops2222 (talk) 02:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello, no one is trying to remove references to the election. The sourced information has been moved. I certainly am not disputing any of the benefits of Internet voting or the importance of the election. An entirely separate issue is your characterization of the election as a public election. It was not a public election. It was not an election for public office, it was an election for a nomination of a private group (a political party). Again, this is not to dispute the importance of the election, but it was not a public election. Electiontechnology (talk) 04:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello ElectionTechnology, While I have modified some of my own edits to reflect your comments, one of your edits violated Wikipedia, and the other is excessively opinionated. First, as this article is largely a biography, while some of the information could have been COPIED to another page, it is not appropriate to eliminate nearly all the relevant detail on the Arizona election, especially the subjects role; certainly biographies about internet entrepreneurs. At least some of that material must be reinstated. Secondly, I know that it is vogue among many elements in the election community to consider the 2000 Arizona Presidential Primary as an exclusively private election. While that is your right, it is an OPINION, and it is not shared by many respected sources, including the Department of Justice, and Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt. Both of them took the position that it was a PUBLIC election, and as such the Voting Rights Act applied. This opinion was also shared by the plaintiff's in the lawsuit to stop the election. Furthermore, certain parts of the election were clearly PUBLIC, such as the office for which it contested (President of the United States), and it used the public election databases. More importantly, the results were legally binding, in the same way that states in which the taxpayer funds the presidential primary (like New York) are legally binding. To call the election only an experiment, ignores that it was indeed legally binding, and that its results stood. It was also a statewide election, the accuracy of its results remain unchallenged. Furthermore, in the historical record that Wikipedia documents, 2000 was a very important election year historically, as the public learned that in conventional elections the margin of victory is often less than the margin of error. We will never know who really won the Florida vote in 2000. The Arizona Primary of 2000, remains the only binding election for high public office ever done on the internet. It was binding, it was statewide, it was for public office, and against the odds, there were no known breaches. You are clearly entitled to your opinions, but please be more careful not to present your opinion as facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kops2222 (talk • contribs) 14:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Further comments have been added to make the subject of the biography's role more clear in discussions of the Arizona election. These include his personal role in the outreach to civil rights leaders and in particular the native Americans leadership. As this is a biography, this material is highly relevant, and if a subsequent editor wants, could be copied, but not deleted after move. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kops2222 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Kops222, if you feel it is fact that election should be classified as public, you should find citations that support this fact. Much of your edits are unsourced and read like a personal narrative. This is not appropriate for a biographical entry. Electiontechnology (talk) 22:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Many more citations have been added and much more extensively sourced. Also, this editor has recently also reviewed the actual court decision of Justice Rosenblatt himself, which, had to decide whether this was a public or private election, and as such, whether section 2 of the Voting Rights Act even applied. Ironically, the plaintiff's argued that this was a public election, in that it was for public office, that public buildings were used as polling places, and that public voter registration databases were being used. If you read his decision, Justice Rosenblatt concurs with the Plaintiff's and also notes the Democratic Party notice calling this the "first legally binding public election ever held on the internet". Justice Rosenblatt noted that this was for a public office, and was part of the public electoral process and as such VRA applied, although he denied the plaintiff's motion, as the plaintiff's did not establish that the election was discriminatory or dilutive of the minority vote, as the results later proved. Kops2222 (talk) 17:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC) kops2222

Cleanup1

I fixed a bunch of the source formatting. I'll do more when I have time.

1. All opinions aside, I think we can agree that a nomination is not a public office. "for a public office" removed.
2. There is no reference to Mohen having an equity stake in either Novell or Microsoft. Rephrased to match source.
3. All references refer to Joe as CTO of Proginet and not CEO
4. "Mohen is also considered an expert on highly scalable computer systems." This was supposedly supported by this source. The source does not reference mohen as an expert. (and he's not)

Electiontechnology (talk) 21:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The sources mostly refer to Mohen as "Chairman", who also held the titles CEO and CTO until September 1996. Mohen as CEO is also noted in stock exchange filings through September 1996. There are also several concurrent press releases showing that Kevin Kelly succeed him as CEO in September 1996, although Mohen remained Chairman for some time.

Microsoft taking an equity stake in Proginet in 1996 is noted in numerous sources. Novell's equity stake in 1994 is noted in the securities commissions filings The scalable systems comment is based upon two references, but even in the Microsoft Reference, Microsoft selected Mohen as the main speaker regarding scalable systems at their September 2000 announcement that Windows 2000 DataCenter had broken the previous record for highest ever TPS Benchmark for scalable systems. The transcripst of that speech are referenced from the Microsoft web site. A joint Microsoft election.com simulation was used to show the record being broken, and was demonstared in front of several thousand newspaper reporters from around the world. (I was there and saw it). Other scalability references related to XCOM. The nomination was for president of the United States, and the public office is taken right out of the memordandum written by Justice Rosenblatt. Will get to more when I have timeKops2222 (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)kops2222

Mohen having been CEO of Proginet and while there having secured equity stakes in Proginet is also noted on the Securities and Exchanged Commission web site, where it is a crime to make false statements and is reviewed by regulators and counsel for all those making submissions. Please be more careful when undoing these things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kops2222 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The sources you provided list him as CTO. The press release you refer to does not say Kevin Kelly succeeded him. It also says Mohen was CTO. If it's noted in stock exchange filings, cite them. MS press event featuring Mohen in no way indicates he's an expert in scalable systems and cites someone else as an expert. The election was for the Arizona Democratic Party's nomination. Again, if you disagree, the burden is on you to supply sources. Simply saying things are on a website does not qualify. Electiontechnology (talk) 22:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Most of the press articles refer to Mohen as Chairman of Proginet, not CTO. We should communicate directly on the "Public" Versus "Private" classification, as Wiki is tedious for that. I know that this is sacrosanct for you, and I think we should somehow form a group of non-involved persons to mediate that. Certainly, this was an issue in Federal Court and was adjudicated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kops2222 (talk • contribs) 22:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC) I have added specific references from the Securities and Exchange commission web site showing history of Mohen as CEO of Proginet, not only CTO. The public references to XCOM show at least 11 operating systems, although they also note that some of them are plural, as in multiple versions of Windows and Unix, so by implications that is clearly at least 12. Notetheless, I will look for more sources. I have also changed the comment about scalable systems to noting that Mohen was a featured speaker at Microsoft Scalability day, in 2000. By the way, how would you know if Mohen is an expert in scalable systems? Well, I have a hunch we will be updating numerous election web sites together over the next few years. Kops2222 (talk) 23:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)kops2222 ElectionTalk, you have not cited any sources that justify your reclassification of the 2000 Arizona Democratic Presidential Primary as a private versus public election, and you have repeatidly removed references to in as a public election, in spite of dozens of citations that I have added in support of it as a public election. One of my citizations is the United States District Court which actually adjudicated the issue that it was indeed a public election. You keep alteriung the story without any citizations to support your position, and ignore many that contradict it. Furthermore, to even suggest that a presidential primary is not for public office is preposterous. In the future, do not keep making these edits without any support Kops2222 (talk) 01:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)kops2222

Manual of style

Wikipedia has a manual of style, WP:MOS. I've noticed two types of formatting that are not in accordance with the MOS. Section headings should be in sentence case, not in title case. So, for example, it should be "Ongoing debate", not "Ongoing Debate". Second, citations should follow the punctuation, like this: "test.", not like this: "test."   Will Beback  talk  22:25, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

References

Genome

• In 2009, Mohen joined the human genome project, and through DNA testing was discovered to be descendant from the Irish King Niall of the Nine Hostages. Genebase

I checked the linked source and haven't found any mention of "Niall". Is this the correct link? Further, I'm not sure that a primary source is proper for this. If it's significant then a secondary source will have reported it.   Will Beback  talk  23:15, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the Niall of Nine hostages reference is now very specific to the exact Mohen yDNA mapping, including the exact chromsome map. Note that in order to verify the facts, you might have to register with the GENEBASE web site, and manually compare the markers to that of Niall. (there is only one deviation in 1500 years which is a match). You can also run a program to compare them through genebase, and I did this once, but it is work. If you want to edit the text to indicate that there is only a 99% chance of a match or something like that I have no objection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kops2222 (talk • contribs) 23:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to delete this as unimportant. If it's reported in a secondary source then we can add it back.   Will Beback  talk  00:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup 2

A lot of this looks like random articles listed as sources with no particular rhyme or reason.

• removed incorrectly placed POV-section template.
• election.com operated under the name not capitalized. "E" is incorrect.
• Mohen co-founded election.com
• Business week article does not support content
• The Standard] article in no way supports referenced content.
• Prof. Gronke's article makes no reference to the listed "threats"
• cnet article also does not support the content referenced.
• Ref Herring article also does not in any way support the content referenced.
• Reworded the text to match supporting Guardian article referencing KPMG audit.
• I'm not sure what the CRS report is supposed to be referencing.
• The NYTimes article does not mention referenced negotiations.
• "The Election Comes" is not an appropriate encyclopedia heading.
• One CNN article is not support for "Television crews from around the world converged on Arizona"
• CNN Money article does not reference registration.
• The Standard article does not reference said glitches.

Electiontechnology (talk) 03:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

More

Unreferenced content is being removed. Randomly adding references that discuss the subject but don't support referenced content are getting out of hand.

• ZDNet UK, references nothing
• Industry Standard, does reference lawsuit was depleting the party's resources or that Mohen made the decision to represent them.
• UNC article does not support referenced content about Mohen making any such decision.
• Minnesota Planning - also references nothing

Electiontechnology (talk) 20:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Still More

• Industry Standard, is not an appropriate source for all your first hand accounts Joe. The idea of citing sources is that they actually support what is written.
• Transcript of CNN Interview, citing a quote from Mohen is not an appropriate reference for this.
• Guardian UK, does not support claim that "At a meeting organized at the University of Maryland by Mark Strama, in January 2000, Mohen, Strama, and other Election.com managers meet with the leadership of most civil rights organizations, and were able to construct the election process to ensure either their support, or at least have them not oppose the election."
• Educause, random listservs are not WP:RS
• Strategy Business Press, does not support claim "came forward to provide assistance to ensure the denial of service attacks could be deflected, including Cisco, and VeriSign."
• [1], clip of press release is not a reliable source.
• Both the party and election.com argued in court against the election being classified as "public"
• Info Sentry, article does not relate to claim. Reworded to match relevant sources
• Election-America is a for-profit corporation whose founders were election.com employees
• election.com bio, neither supports wall street claims or those for CA-XCOM

Electiontechnology (talk) 07:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Focus

Much of the material in the article appears more germain to Election.com than to this biography. For example, here's an entire section that barely mentions the subject:

• Many public threats by hackers were made that they would bring down the election. These threats ranged from to denial of service attacks[36] and voter identity theft. Several internet security leaders[citation needed] came forward to provide assistance to ensure the denial of service attacks could be deflected, including then CEOs John Chambers of Cisco, and Stratton Sclavos of VeriSign.[citation needed] The election software was audited by KPMG.[37] While the original plan was to use VeriSign digital certificates,[38] [39]Mohen determined that these were too complex for the average voter.[citation needed] Instead, it was decided to mail a PIN number to each voter, and to prompt then with challenge questions such as birth date, place of birth, or social security number. [40]

The material in this article should focus on the subject, not on the details of a product he worked on. Perhaps we should split out that material into an article onthe company?   Will Beback  talk  21:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Will, I agree the content certainly doesn't belong in a biography, I would recommend starting with an article focusing on Internet Voting. I feel the election.com article would be a pretty short stub and potentially the Internet voting article might have more supporting content. Electiontechnology (talk) 07:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

SpiralFrog

Recent edits on SpiralFrog introduced were either not sourced, poorly sourced, and inaccurate. A edit was made stating the launch of SpiralFrog was delayed PRIMARYILY for lack of funding; that is clearly not supported by, and is contradicted by, the enormous media record. Press accounts show that web site software was not ready for even beta until at least June 2007. While Kent excited Spiralfrog in late 2006, the press accounts show that none of the technical or development team left at that time. Clearly the software was not finished, and that is what media accounts support. Further, the music publishing licenses had not been obtained either, or not enough of them, and most major publishing licenses were not announced until around September 1, 2007. There is no support whatsoever to lack of funding be the primary reason for the delay, nor any reason for the delay at all, except by inference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.122.204.173 (talk) 22:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

External links modified

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