Talk:StankDawg

Notability

Why does this attention whore get a page all to himself? And how has he affected the hacking scene that greatly? He seems like a new age n00b to me. ( Anonymous comment posted 19:43, September 5, 2005 by 70.67.163.34)

• Those who can, do. Those who can\'t, cry \"n00b\". --Jscott 17:15, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Stank's probably had more direct influence in the "hacking scene" than any "famous" hackers (mitnick, poulsen) ever have.

--Othtim 06:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Plenty of non-notable people have gotten short speaking slots at Defcon or HOPE.

WP:N -notable people have independent, notable secondary source validation. Where are his? It appears as if this person is notable primarily for having a podcast. I've never heard of "techdecisions" --- a peripheral mention on an insurance industry IT trade pub? Tqbf 02:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Things that need sourcing

I'm going to strip out the following things if they aren't sourced reliably:

• "Worked for various companies and large institutions"

BTW, David would prefer that his employers are not named. He has been a target for hassle before, and he would like to keep private at least a few bits of personal info. Either way, though, his employer isn't really important within the scope of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Othtim (talk • contribs) 02:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• Guest instructor for professional certification company --- which one? Cite sources.

• "Reportedly found himself getting annoyed"

• BR Magazine (actually, I'm going to AfD this if it's not sourced and notable)

• Appearances on radio shows --- because he founded BinRev, this would be implied, so the explicit reference leaves the impression he's been on the public airwaves. Which shows?

---

• on Radio FreeK America episode 8,33,36,39-42,44,46-49,53,55-58,62,64,and 65. More, probably, too.
• guest host on GAMER Radio (05.15.2k3)

--Othtim 00:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

---

• "volunteer webcasts, presentations, or Q/A sessions to private corporations.". Cite sources.

• "many television interviews for local news channels in the state of Florida,". Cite sources.

• Super Sharks, February 15, 2005 episode of "The Most Extreme", on Animal Planet (credited as Stank Dawg)--Othtim 00:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• "routinely bringing thousands of downloads, and inspiring over a dozen other cyberculture and "Hacker Media" shows and podcasts.". Cite sources. Also, "thousands of downloads" is in the noise floor for Internet content.

It is indeed on the noise floor. Binrev does, though, rank in the top 100,000 web sites on the internet. It reached within the top 30,000 during 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Othtim (talk • contribs) 02:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Rename

This article should be renamed "David Blake". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tqbf (talk • contribs) 01:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. He is not known as "David Blake" but is well known as StankDawg. It is also belittling to list "(internet radio) after his name as though that were his only claim to notability. The discussion about his notable has shown him to be notable and multiple levels, not limited to internet radio at all. Changing the name is another attempt by you to make him non-notable since he is not known by his real name in most circles. Your transparent goal is to whittle away at things invalidly justifying them individually until you get nothing left and then you intend to mark the entry for deletion once again. I think this change should be reverted and the entry for StankDawg reinstated. -- Bad Monk3y 04:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

My goal is "transparent" because I have stated that this is my goal. Again: WP:AGF. Read the AfD for this page: the rename isn't my idea, but I obviously agree that it's appropriate. As for "invalidly justifying" edits: your only arguments have been "your edits are invalid". If that's true, it should be easy for you to make a case: revert the edit, with an edit summary like, "this is easily verifiable, has a cited source in the article, and is relevant to the subject". --- tqbf 16:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Who changed this to David Blake (INTERNET RADIO)?? That's pretty belittling of you. It's like me changing george bush's article to say "George Bush (SON OF GEORGE BUSH SR)". It's not telling the whole truth. So tell the whole truth. --Othtim 00:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Uh, it's (Internet Radio) because there are multiple David Blakes, and this one isn't the most notable. What's a better discriminator? Internet radio seemed most appropriate, because that's what makes this person notable. I don't care what it is. I certainly was't trying to belittle the subject. WP:AGF. --- tqbf 16:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Othtim 21:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPF

Per WP:NPF, this person may be notable enough for a WP entry, but is clearly not generally well-known. Therefore, "editors should exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability".

Subject's high school and siblings are not relevant to his notability, and therefore don't belong in the article.

--- tqbf 23:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, by an extremely strict interpretation of WP:NPF yes, but I'm not sure that that's the intent of that guideline. My understanding of NPF is to avoid information like, "He has a dog, he really enjoys watching reality shows on TV, he used to doodle a lot, and that's how he got into art in the first place, he has several self-published pamphlets about how to grow tulips, etc." Some simple biographical info (parents, schools attended, workplace) is the kind of thing we're going to want in any article no matter what. I tend to look at it like an interpretation of WP:AUTO -- there are some things that even the subject of an article is welcome to change/update on their own biography: "you should feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth" So when it comes to those kinds of things, I see no problem with including them in a bio, even if they're not directly relevant to notability, and as long as there is no reasonable concern that the information is incorrect. --Elonka 01:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll lose this argument:

1. You're arguing with the plain wording of WP:NPF, which I quoted.
2. Your examples of NN content fit the content I removed ("grew up in X, moved to Y, went to Z high school")
3. Those same examples are damaging to the subject's notability as a whole, since "self-published pamphlets on tulip growing" aren't far from where this subject rests in the WP.
4. A quick survey of other security experts in the WP shows very few examples, even in highly notable subjects, of high school attendence. See, for example, Steve Bellovin, Theo de Raad, Paul Kocher, or even Mark Abene, who was most notable during his high school years.

Care to address any of those points? Appreciated! As you know, the subtext here is that I think this article is innappropriate for the WP period, a case which I think will be easier to make when the article is scrubbed of indefensible content.

--- tqbf 02:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't care that much, so if you want to insist that the information stay gone, and no one else cares, then fine. But to answer your points: Cutting down the size of one article, because other similar articles haven't been expanded, is not a particularly compelling argument. By that logic, you would take any {{stub}} tagged article, and cut down the rest of the articles in the category to match?

Regarding "damage to Wikipedia", I see nothing that would cause damage, by having information about someone's parentage and the schools that they've attended, or where they've worked. We're not talking about a full resume or pages and pages of trivia, we're talking about a few sentences of biographical information to give context about someone's life. Or in other words, it's interesting to readers (at least I found it interesting), and no damage is being done to Wikipedia by leaving the information in, so why go to the trouble of removing it? --Elonka 03:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You misread me. I'm not talking about "damage to WP", which I agree will chug along with or without my efforts. I'm (confusingly, I agree) referring to the implicit argument about whether this "StankDawg" person should be in the WP, leaving the misleading impression that there is a security community that sees 2600 authors are peers to Steve Bellovin or Paul Kocher, both of whom have received less attention in WP than StankDawg, for reasons passing understanding.

With regards to "should high school affiliations be in bios of random security people", I rest my case on the clear wording of WP:NPF and the precedent of the highly non-random, highly notable security experts who do not have this level of trivia in their bios.

Glad we can agree to move on. Let's.

I cut out a lot of stuff from this article today (I'm doing it in tranches, waiting to see if anyone cares or contests). What do you think of the removals? Some of this is your content.

--- tqbf 06:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of it yes, but I'm also being very cautious how much I participate, since I'll admit a possible COI, as I've been a guest on Blake's show. But even allowing for that, I'm in agreement with you that much of the information that was in this article about Blake (not to mention in Digital DawgPound) was dubious and should be removed. Where I'm contesting, as I mentioned above, is on the biographical info. Including the name of someone's schools is pretty standard biography stuff, and I can't see as mentioning where he grew up, is going to cause a conflict or increase his notability. Yes, I've read WP:NPF, but I think we have to be careful about following the intent of the policy rather than getting over-specific on the wording. Someone's birthyear may not be "directly relevant to their notability", but it's still standard practice to include such information in biographies. The main purpose of WP:NPF, which is a subset of WP:BLP is "do no harm". My interpretation of this is that we should avoid adding negative information to the biography of a living person, and that we should also avoid using excessive positive information (because that may mean that they're using Wikipedia as a promotional device). But in terms of biographical information, I see that as neutral information: It's neither harming them nor helping them, and it helps give a more well-rounded version of the article. Again, I agree with you that removing the long list of blogs is a good idea, as that tightens up the article and makes it more ship-shape. But I still think removing the biographical info made the article weaker, not stronger. And I'd still like to see that information returned. But I'm not going to edit war about it. --Elonka 17:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying regarding the other edits. With respect to the biographical details --- we've retained the subject's birth date and his college alma mater, even though attending UKY and Florida Atlantic don't establish or support notability. What we have now is a relatively typical biographic snapshot of a marginally notable subject, which seems appropriate to me. I hope it's apparent that I was trying to be careful with what I removed. --- tqbf 17:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Would you be willing to accept a compromise of including information about his family, parentage, and the name/date of his high school graduation? In other words, add: "the oldest of three children. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a secretary and homemaker. Because his family moved a great deal, he attended multiple schools, but finally graduated from Oldham County High School in Buckner, Kentucky in 1989. He then moved on to the University of Kentucky ..." --Elonka 18:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't feel like there's a dispute we need to compromise on here. My issues with this article are twofold, and I think you'll agree with at least one of them:

1. David Blake is, at best, marginally notable (I don't concede that he's notable at all, and will eventually AfD this article again when/if my removal of unsupportable references and details are complete and stand for a few months), so I think any coverage of the subject comes at a cost to the clarity of the WP --- this is my reading of WP:NPF, and why I'm hoping to scrub the article down to notable facts.
2. Notwithstanding the above, David Blake's coverage in the WP is unbalanced compared to the stub-like coverage that security experts of far more notability have received. The extensive biographic treatment Blake is given here leaves a WP reader with the impression that his bio was written by friends as a favor, not crafted by serious editors with an eye to WP's coverage of computer security.

I offer what I think is a productive response to your compromise:

1. We take the language you have proposed
2. But only after we mutually select N (say, 4 each) other people in the the "security experts" category and provide them with comparable biographical detail.

This addresses my concern (2) from above, improves the WP drastically, and "improves" the David Blake article for you.

We don't have to do this right this minute (although I'm willing to). --- tqbf 18:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, a hit list:

Elias Levy

H D Moore

Steve Bellovin

Avi Rubin

David Litchfield

Whitfield Diffie

Adi Shamir

Matt Blaze

--- tqbf 19:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Gesture of good faith: tracked down Bellovin, he was born in 1950 and went to Stuy (also, UNC, also not in the article --- that's right, the WP knows that David Blake got an associates degree from UKY, but not that Bellovin was at UNC when he invented Usenet. Go WP! Starting to see my point? --- tqbf 19:34, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You also prove the point that wikipedia is missing data and here you want to remove more of it. Your example proves that soem data is missing from other entries, but that does not justify removing it from this entry. You admitted that you are deleting information on this article so that you can nominate it for deletion again later after you have ruined it. Stop being so destructive. It is completely obvious that you have a vendetta against this guy and you need to knock it off. This is not what wikipedia is about. Don't you have anything better to do? Go add missing colleges and other information to other entries on WP. Go add entries for people who you think are more worthy than StankDawg, but stop trying to remove information when it has been clearly stated that this information should stay. Bad Monk3y 04:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Two points: (1) it has not been made clear that any of the information removed from this article belonged. If you disagree, make a case. Repeated assertion is not a case. (2) WP:CIV applies, even on talk pages, even when you don't like who you're talking to. I'll be the judge of where my time is best spent. --- tqbf 20:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I am happy to help you expand other articles (I do this routinely in hundreds of other areas on Wikipedia) if this will help us reach a compromise. --Elonka 20:39, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Awesome. Want to track down Avi Rubin? He's someone you should know anyways. Avi went to UMich, but I don't know if he grew up in Michigan. --- tqbf 20:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I think its already been beaten fair enough, as mentioned before I will put my two cents in. I think if the value your trying to accomplish User:tqbf is to push notable people (in your opinion) forward, then their data needs to be actively pursued instead of destructively going after every page that you do not personally find notable. There are many in the industry of networking, computers, security, and yes, even the underground dark shadows of it, that can help you gainfully update the information contained in the above notable names. Zapperlink 06:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing. Either the edits stand, or they don't, on their own merits. WP:AGF aside, my intentions aren't important. If you think I've made "destructive" edits, revert them, and then make a case here for why you did so. I'm confident my edits will stand, but not pigheaded about them. --- tqbf 20:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, your bad. You are being pig-headed about it. --Othtim 00:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Please abide by WP:CIV. If you disagree with an edit, make a case. What was the point of even making this comment? --- tqbf 16:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Should this be added

https://www.ncrsusa.com/cgi-bin/store/hope6-B14.html Should this be added to this article in the links section? --75.153.172.237 23:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• This is the presentation at HOPE that is already in the PRESENTATION section of the article. Bad Monk3y 00:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• After checking, it appears that this presentation was removed from the PRESENTATIONS section of the entry. This was verifiable and confirmed content for this entry and there is no valid reason for it to be removed. Bad Monk3y 00:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Rationale: (1) a live podcast is not the same thing as a presentation at HOPE. A presentation has a subject. For similar reasons, I'd object to someone claiming a panel appearance as a "presentation". (2) This wasn't a David Blake-credited appearance. It belongs on the binrev page, not padding the article here.

I'm prepared to be wrong about this, but it's certainly not as simple as "no valid reason for this to be removed". --- tqbf 16:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Replace biographical information

Looking back through recent edits, there was quite a bit of biographical information removed that appears to be based on one persons opinion. I think this is highly out of line especially considering that this entry had passed the biographical ranking system without incident. According to WP:BLP under "criticism" you need to show evidence and reference for your removals. your opinion alone is not enough to justify the destruction that you have made to this entry. Perhaps you should add a "criticism" section in the entry itself which is WP standard, but make sure that you source the claims you make there (which I have not seen you do). I propose that the biographical material be added back to this entry from previous deletes, possibly with a "needs citation" note so that the proper citations and evidence can be added. This one-man rampage on this article needs to stop. Bad Monk3y 00:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

You haven't made a case. There's a WP policy governing this: WP:NPF. Data in the article must be relevant, verifiable, and NPOV. Data in articles about marginally famous people must be directly relevant to what makes them notable.

Instead of complaining about the edits, figure out what you want to be in the article, reconcile it with WP policies, and put it in. If it's more stuff like "went to high school in XXX, Mississippi", I'm going to revert it unless you make a case that Blake is famous for going to high school in Mississipi. Best of luck to you. --- tqbf 16:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I agree with tqbf's interpretation of WP:NPF. I realize no agreement on my part is neccessary, as the policy stands on it's own feet, but yeah, just thought I'd chip that in if it'll help to avert more conflict. --Othtim 21:11, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Blake is a hacker, I feel that adding information on his CEH completion is relevant. --Othtim (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Interz0ne and NPF

Interz0ne isn't notable, and this is an article describing a marginally-notable founder of a now-defunct podcast. Hence my removal of the content, several months ago. Willing to be wrong about this, as always, but I do kindly request that you make a case. --- tqbf 00:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

why isn't interz0ne notable? --Othtim (talk) 01:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Generally, I'll push back on the idea that any third-tier venue is notable, and point out that it doesn't seem to have a WP page, and that it gets news hits for what appears to be precisely one presentation in the history of the conference. I'll leave it up to you whether you think this breaks NPF, I'm fine either way. --- tqbf 01:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I find it highly ironic that a deletionist uses the defense that it "doesn't have a WP Page" as a defense for notability. Of course it doesn't have a page if people like you delete everything. The more you delete, the less information there will be and nothing will be valid in your world. Is it your goal to rollback wikipedia to nothing but an "index.html" page? Wikipedia itself wouldn't be notable if people didn't contribute and everything was constantly deleted. 70.121.251.36 (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Things that aren't notable get deleted. If you don't want them deleted, assert notability, and cite sources. Then, it doesn't matter what I think; an AfD won't succeed. Easy! --- tqbf 04:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, plenty of conference pages in don't bring up any hits on Google News either. Some of them do, of course. But many don't. And many bring up a few, and many bring up far fewer hits than Interz0ne. I wouldn't judge the notability of something just based on Google news, but that's a pretty good start IMO. Either way, I'd include interz0ne stuff, since it is part of what he presented at.

Btw, just using "doesn't have a wikipage" isn't a good enough reason to delete a reference to a convention that someone presented at. Whether it has a wikipage or not, it still happened. For example, the FISSEA conference doesn't have a wikipage, but it still happened. Also, great personal wikipages (such as [Angela_Orebaugh]) use references to conferences that don't have a wikipage. personally I wouldn't revert an edit just because someone used a conference without a wikipage.

Also, if you'd stop reverting edits, you might discover this page turns into something good eventually. If you keep removing content that's added, it's definately never going to progress. Even if it's sketchy for now, give it some time. --Othtim (talk) 02:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Just so we're clear on where I stand --- short of some yet-to-be-reported accomplishment of this person coming to light, this page will never turn into something good. I think the sourcing on the page and the notability is poor enough that it won't survive an AfD, and while I'm not going to nominate it soon (I just lost the AfD on it), I will eventually.

I'd prefer that NN conferences not be used as references for people of dubious notability, but I know you believe otherwise, and I'll take your word for it. If you create a Interz0ne, I might challenge that.

FISSEA doesn't have a page because it doesn't merit one. Anybody can create a "conference" any time they want. Many of them are nothing but "continuing education" mills for open enrollment training. Why should WP advertise for them?

Personally, I think there's a plague of WP:WG-style "who's who" vanity pages. Maybe there should be a "who's who" wiki for security people. I promise, I won't go disrupt it. But here, it's a distracting joke. --- tqbf 03:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

To quote tqbf from a few lines higher in this conversation, "I'll be the judge of where my time is best spent." so thanks for the advice. 70.121.251.36 (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Back on topic, interz0ne is notable in the hacking community. You can find several results on Google for it many of which made headlines such as the "Blackboard" case for example. It is clearly notable in the hacking community.

It'd be nice if you sign your name. Also, the point isn't whether or not Interz0ne is notable. That's not a discussion for this talk page. The point is whether or not it should be used as a reference in this article. So I guess *you* shold stay on topic :P --Othtim (talk) 03:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

cleanup time

I actually had some time this weekend and tried to clean up this entry. I tried to take all of the comments in this page to heart and only added verifiable things. I saw that the DDP article is nominated for deletion, but there were a couple of things there about StankDawg specifically that seemed to fit better here. I moved them over here and tried to format them to be a little bit more clear. I removed the "references" section since references should be added using the proper notation which I have done. Bad Monk3y 05:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I also added a controversy section. I do not know if wikipedia attacks should count as controversy or not, so I DID NOT ADD THEM showing good faith that they are irrelevant to the article, although it may be worth noting that this entry has been attacked shortly after all 3 episodes where he made some comment on the show about wikipedia which drew out the trolls to tamper with the article. The timing seems notable to me and worth mentioning, but I would like to hear from others before adding something like this. I would like to hear from an unbiased reader whether that is notable as a controversy or not. Bad Monk3y 05:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

1. In a WP:BLP article, you cannot cite "controversy" and "negative comments" without providing sources that explicitly say that. I struck this section. We don't mess around with negative comments on BLP articles.
2. Good luck trying to cite an AfD as "controversy". --- tqbf 05:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that as amusing as the proposed section would be, you are explicitly not permitted to cite Wikipedia in WP:BLP articles, which you might consider rereading. --- tqbf 05:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)