Talk:Cloudflare/Archives/2019

Cloudflare attacks

Should there be a section highlighting when cloudflare service went down due to attacks or problems?Manabimasu (talk) 14:25, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Down for under a half hour. Certainly caused me problems. But, the Internet has lots of problems. If it shows up as a big story in reliable sources; might make sense to add. O3000 (talk) 14:32, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Image Resizing

Perhaps some information on this belongs in a section under Services: Image Resizing Vxsc (talk) 19:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Obvious COI and Disruptive Editing

There is an obvious COI active here, user Domjh, who disclosed on their user page that they are the MVP of Cloudflare, and who are deleting any reference to today's interview in The Guardian with the CEO of Cloudflare and their work with 8chan. An admin Scott Burley, has declined to take action at RPP, however, given the combined actions of Domjh and an IP, I am not comfortable with this (and notice that Domjh has blanked their reference to being the MVP of Cloudflare here). Pinging Jorm and GorillaWarfare who have edited on similar types of articles for input. Britishfinance (talk) 22:34, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Put this on my watchlist, BF.--Jorm (talk) 23:32, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Jorm, Cloudfare's wikipedia page is being edited by a group on twitter. https://twitter.com/AVALANCHE_Girls/status/1158137928536731648. The edits you restored are being made to deliberately damage Cloudflare. Deganee (talk) 23:55, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Deganee, maybe the admins will listen to you! Domjh (talk) 23:58, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

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I am a Cloudflare MVP, but no COI, removed it from my profile to avoid confusion. I don't work for or represent Cloudflare. Please place items like that in the correct section. I.e. Content neutrality here, not replacing the info about the company.

Leaving Wikipedia now (if there is a delete account button!), ridiculous that users are just allowed to discredit a company by editing their initial description and that the admins back them up!

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• You might have seen my edit; I don't agree with the reference to the article being in the first paragraph of the page as it's not relevant to their main business and deviates from all of the other information in that paragraph. It would be like putting the same type of sentence about "hosting 8chan" on a page for N.T. Technology, Inc (the company that hosts 8chan's email server) (but who do not have a page at this time). I fully agree that the reference and article deserve to be included on the page, although "Content neutrality" would be a better section than Customers since it's related to censorship, as well as how the paragraph about The Daily Stormer is included in that section as opposed to the "Customers" section.

Judge (talk) 00:02, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

This talk page section is a mess so I'm just starting down here. Points:

• I would appreciate it if the new users would take time to learn how to use talk pages.
• I have modified the wording of the lede paragraph. I agree that it places too much emphasis on detail, but I also think a mention of this needs to remain in the lede.
• Wikipedia is not a PR firm. Wikipedia editors do not "discredit a company." A company tends to discredit themselves. Arguments and appeals along this nature will have no effect, so please save your time.--Jorm (talk) 00:14, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for that Jorm. I read the interview with the CEO of Cloudflare today in The Guardian (a Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources), and was surprised when I got to the article of how little mention there was of Cloudflare's relation to 8chan (which the Guardian consider so noteworthy). Obviously, I am certainly not part of any "twitter conspiracy", and am surprised at the rapid appearance of editors with low levels of edits but the tenure to overcome Oshwah's protection. Odd things seem to have been happening with this article imho. Britishfinance (talk) 00:25, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Regarding "tenure to overcome Oshwah's protection", SP was put in place after these edits were made by me and Domjh. Judge (talk) 00:42, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Please stay neutral. I don't think the current lede follows WP:NPOV. The sentence as it has been edited as of now, only provides a one-sided view of the accusations, without explaining Cloudflare's position. So you'd have to add all that to the lede to make it follow WP:NPOV which then would clog the lede with a whole lot of unnecessary information that will become outdated in a matter of weeks. It's obvious that, if anything, the recent media coverage should be be added to "Content neutrality" or merged into a new "Controversy" chapter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HoboDyerProjection (talk • contribs) 00:26, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Ha! That is ridiculous, so I could edit any company's Wikipedia page in a defamatory way and you would say that "A company tends to discredit themselves". End of involvement here, Wikipedia has gone way down in my estimations when the admins behave like this. Domjh (talk) 00:29, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• How is add a reference to an interview today in The Guardian with a company CEO defamatory? Are you saying the CEO defamed himself? Britishfinance (talk) 00:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: It does not seem useful to focus on the weakest argument in the thread. It would be more productive to provide feedback on the current additions in the lede, and if they are neutral or otherwise. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

HoboDyerProjection You are not making any sense? Are you saying that a reference to an interview today in The Guardian with a company CEO defamatory? Are you saying the CEO defamed himself? Britishfinance (talk) 00:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: I am saying neither of those. What I'm saying is that the newly added sentence within the lede is a one-sided view of controversies surrounding Cloudflare. It does not seem appropriate when taking WP:NPOV into consideration. The sentence should be followed with other perspectives on the matter, which isn't possible to do in the lede. Therefore it seems preferable to add it as a new addition to the controversy section.

The edit is NPOV. You don't understand what NPOV is. The argument you could make would be that it's undue weight in the first paragraph, but even then that's going to be an uphill battle.--Jorm (talk) 01:06, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Per my response to your RFC below, there is an incredible amount of WP:RS from WP:RS/P sources, that support the interview that The Guardian conducted, and concerns about Cloudflare's role in supporting sites like 8chan; are you expecting that Wikipedia should not chronicle on the item regarding Cloudflare which most RS are focused on re Cloudflare; even from a basic search, there is probably more RS on Cloudflare in relation to 8chan, than there is on Cloudflare alone. Britishfinance (talk) 01:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• And yes, currently it is not neutral at all. Agree with the above!

QUOTE: without explaining Cloudflare's position. So you'd have to add all that to the lede to make it follow WP:NPOV which then would clog the lede with a whole lot of unnecessary information that will become outdated in a matter of weeks. It's obvious that, if anything, the recent media coverage should be be added to "Content neutrality" or merged into a new "Controversy" chapter.

Domjh (talk) 00:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 August 2019

Remove the following sentence in the lede due to the one-sided nature of the comments, based on recent media outrage which is more suitable for the main article than the lede. If possible, add the same sentence to the main article body.

Cloudfare has come under criticism for providing services to online hate groups.

HoboDyerProjection (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not done no rationale was provided for this change, which is the removal of sourced content.--Jorm (talk) 00:51, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

References

8chan: termination of service

Cloudflare has put out a blog post detailing the termination of service to 8chan: Terminating Service for 8Chan. The page should reflect such change (I personally am still reading through the blog article). Judge (talk) 01:51, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I propose two simple edit to reflect this:

1. Change "For example, Cloudflare provide[s] technical services to 8chan" to "For example, Cloudflare provided technical services to 8chan".
2. Append ", and in 2019 stopped providing services to 8chan" to the end of "However, in 2017 Cloudflare succumbed to pressure to no longer support the neo-nazi website The Daily Stormer".

I think that would suffice enough, as it probably wouldn't need an addition into the controvercy section. I think the wording would fit properly, but I haven't done edits in quite a while so I'd figure I'd submit the suggestion here instead of just doing it anyway. — Félix Wolf (talk | contribs) 04:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• This is complex. Frankly, if I ran a company that hosted sites, I'd have TOS that banned sites like 8chan. But, CloudFlare does not host sites. They provide services, like so many companies. So, should the electric company refuse to sell to a bad company? What I'm saying is that this should be mentioned in the article in general terms as CloudFlare has come under criticism, rightly or wrongly. But, I don't see how it should be detailed site by site, which could run into a huge amount of text given the huge number of disgusting sites, for one problem area. O3000 (talk) 23:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

While I'm at it, I have a problem with so many cites to EFF. This is an advocacy group with some opinions that are less than mainstream. O3000 (talk) 00:09, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads-up, I was not aware. I used a direct citation rather than using the Wire article which quotes them. I'll see if there aren't better options available. Do you think the EFF quotes should be kept as is for now, changed, nuanced or removed altogether for the time being? HoboDyerProjection (talk)

Frankly, I don't think EFF should be used as a cite for anything other than their opinion. As for Wired, I never thought it was a great source (even though they mentioned me in their very first issue). O3000 (talk) 00:20, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

In the spirit of optimism, as the changes were reverted by another editor anyway, I can improve the text and citations as I figure out how one goes about finding concensus. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

Request for comment on Cloudflare lede mentioning hate groups

The article and lead have changed significantly since the RfC started. I am closing this RfC as no consensus for any changes to the lead without prejudice against a new RfC if there are still concerns about undue weight.

Cunard (talk) 01:18, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

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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Recent controversies surrounding Cloudflare involving 8chan and hate groups are the reason for the changed lede, does this change follow WP:NPOV? Further clarification: the change started with User:Domjh being accused of bad-faith changes, while he was removing obvious vandalism (https://twitter.com/AVALANCHE_Girls/status/1158137928536731648). The edit that started all of this can ben found here: Special:PermaLink/909341255. All discussion from that point onward seems focused on preserving some amount of that vandalism, for whatever reason. It's clear I have the appearances against me, having a new account, but I am truly just a random new editor who stumbled across this discussion and took an interest as it seemed "off".

Update: I took it upon myself to follow the suggestions of more experienced editors and rewrote the lede, better summarising Cloudflare's controversial history in regards to freedom of speech for using multiple perspectives. Thereby leaving the controversial topics in the lede while also adhering the WP:NPOV. HoboDyerProjection (talk) 01:00, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes. I don't think the new editors swarming the page understand what WP:NPOV means or how it works.--Jorm (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for contributing to the discussion. Although I'm hoping other editors can share a fresh perspective, I still appreciate your input. Could you elaborate on how the WP:NPOV is being applied wrongly? I might indeed simply be misunderstanding since I'm so new to editing articles. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

Agree with Jorm; I count 4 editors now with a handful of edits between them, over multi-year accounts, who are on this Talk Page (and now running NPOV rfcs). Here is a selection of the RS that have been writing about Cloudflare and 8chan (and much of which is missing from this article): Guardian, Vice, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Daily Telegraph. Only a sample. Britishfinance (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• This RFC is too vague to really give a meaningful answer to, so I'll give a vague answer instead. The body of the article does talk about controversy surrounding the service, so the lead should mention it too. However, the current level of detail in the lead is rather disproportionate in relation to the amount of the body dedicated to this information (over half the lead talks about this, compared to a fairly small part of the body of the article), so it should really be trimmed down significantly – one or two sentences should suffice. Currently, this is WP:UNDUE attention to the negative attention focused on Cloudfare, so a violation of WP:NPOV. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• This article clearly needs a re-write to reflect even the small sample of RS I have listed above, which supports the lede (and which I think is being done now, and will probably happen more over the next few days as Cloudflare's involvement with 8chan re El Paso attracts more editors; I expect editors in this area like Beyond My Ken will pay this article a visit). I don't know if the article was just poorly written or "whitewashed", but it does need to be fixed to reflect what the bulk of the RS is discussing about Cloudflare and their relationship with sites like 8chan. Britishfinance (talk)

We just took a strange turn with a new edit to the RFC header by the OP who said: the change started with User:Domjh being accused of bad-faith changes, while he was removing obvious vandalism (see the twitter post). And yet nobody from twitter made any such edits, just me (and I have over 50k edits on WP to mostly to mountains and finance). In addition, despite knowing how to start an RFC, the OP describes themselves as a random new editor. Britishfinance (talk) 01:45, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you believe a new editor wouldn't be able to start an RFC. After your comment I've added links to the tweets and corresponding edits in the RFC request summary, for clarity sake. HoboDyerProjection (talk) 22:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

You have been shown to be telling mistruths re this statement: the change started with User:Domjh being accused of bad-faith changes, while he was removing obvious vandalism (see the twitter post). That is the clarity of the situation. A new user starting on August 4, starting an RfC that same day ... that also fits a pattern on WP. Britishfinance (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I'm breaking any Wikipedia policies, as I've said before, I'm new to editing and I'm eagerly learning as I go. That having been said, I do politely request you assume good-faith, I don't believe I've given any reason to assume otherwise. Do I correctly understand that you believe I've intentionally misrepresented the truth? If so, I'm afraid I don't understand what part of my comments have not been truthful. The quote you shared was my honest observation of the edit history. Can you please elaborate on what mistakes I have made? I'll make sure not to repeat them. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

I think the problem is that putting controversy in the intro paragraphs is inflammatory sensationalism. It does not follow the ideal of WikiPedia articles being written from a neutral point of view. It almost makes WikiPedia writers themselves seem like a hate group. I would have to guess that any successful large company has dirt on it. There's no need to dish it out into the introduction, nor several more times in the same article. JulesGrav (talk) 23:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

(Now we have 5 editors with a handful of edits, but mostly multi-year tenures, who have found their way to this Talk Page, and have exactly the same view). Per above, most of the highest quality RS regarding Cloudflare, explicitly mention this subject. There is more high-quality independent RS on Cloudflare regarding their support of these controversial sites than any other aspect of their business. Wikipedia is a collection of what independent RS say about a subject. Readers do not come to Wikipedia to read the opinions/views/otherwise of editors; only what the best-quality RS say about it.

23:37, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Preserve exposition added in question, although move it from the intro to the body. The FRSbot/legobot sent me. EllenCT (talk) 04:31, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• Keep the mention - I agree with the editors above in that an interested attempt to preserve the reputation of the company, there is no reason not to have a mention of the controversy regarding 8chan and Daily Stormer, since they have been the main reason for increased media scrutiny on Cloudfare. As long as everything can be clearly referenced with a reputable source this should stay. PraiseVivec (talk) 12:29, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I have to honestly admit that it seems I didn't correctly understand the premise of Wikipedia at first. After having been around for a few more days, it seems somewhat obvious that the mentions of controversy should remain in the lede, either in a very minimal and brief, manner or in a more extended form adding information and perspectives from a neutral point of view. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

A possible way forward, after reading the above, would be to reduce the length and detail of the section describing the controversy. As others describe the current length of the section in the lead describing controversy is disproportionately large, which can be seen as non-neural. The addition of examples, even with the current wording which describes Cloudflare taking action against hate groups might appear non-neural as well. Perhaps, "Cloudflare has faced controversy over its stance of non-interference with users of its services, stating in response "our proper role is not that of Internet censor"[ref]. However, some perceive this as support for online hate groups[ref][ref][ref] and terrorists[ref][ref] who use their services." or similar. Aaron_Locke (talk) 21:57, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• I like this proposal. Your example does a good job reflecting notable events from a NPOV without being long-winded or coming across biased towards one side. HoboDyerProjection (talk)

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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.