The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
This article is part of WikiProject Websites, an attempt to create and link together articles about the major websites on the web. To participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page.WebsitesWikipedia:WikiProject WebsitesTemplate:WikiProject WebsitesWebsites
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of internet culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Internet cultureWikipedia:WikiProject Internet cultureTemplate:WikiProject Internet cultureInternet culture
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Companies, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of companies on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CompaniesWikipedia:WikiProject CompaniesTemplate:WikiProject Companiescompany
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Internet on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.InternetWikipedia:WikiProject InternetTemplate:WikiProject InternetInternet
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative viewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative viewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative viewsAlternative views
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
Before requesting any edits to this protected article, please familiarise yourself with reliable sourcing requirements.
Before posting an edit request on this talk page, please read the reliable sourcing and original research policies. These policies require that information in Wikipedia articles be supported by citations from reliable independent sources, and disallow your personal views, observations, interpretations, analyses, or anecdotes from being used.
Only content verified by subject experts and other reliable sources may be included, and uncited material may be removed without notice. If your complaint is about an assertion made in the article, check first to see if your proposed change is supported by reliable sources. If it is not, it is highly unlikely that your request will be granted. Checking the archives for previous discussions may provide more information. Requests which do not provide citations from reliable sources, or rely on unreliable sources, may be subject to closure without any other response.
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Epik article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
This page is not a forum for general discussion about Epik. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Epik at the Reference desk.
The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which has been designated as a contentious topic.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
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)[reply]
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.
@Amigao: There have been a few edits recently to remove Dan Keen as the "owner" of Epik. I have no strong opinion on the edits trying to remove a portion of a sentence that Keen owns Registered Agents Inc. (which seems easily verified by RS, though maybe isn't necessary to mention in the lead), but it does seem weird to list Keen as Epik's "owner" when he is in fact the owner of a company that provides a registered agents service. It seems likely, as is supported by the sources, that the actual new owner of Epik is a client of Registered Agents, rather than Keen himself. I think listing him as the owner in the infobox is potentially misleading to readers. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like it would be clearer to just omit the field from the IBX and address it in-text, since operationally he likely has nothing to do with Epik. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's fairly common that an owner is separate from the operational management. I would think that operational management tends to go in the infobox as 'Key People' and the 'Owner' is, well, the owner. - Amigao (talk) 04:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems odd you're fixed on listing an individual as owner, even though in the first Wired article, the company says that Dan Keen is not the owner of Registered Agents Inc. In the second one, he's listed as "founder," and you say he's "beneficial owner." After reading through that story and all the aliases, I'm not even sure if Dan Keen is real :) If he's an alias, then he'd be a key person, but seems like speculation/ambiguity around beneficial ownership, however, there's no ambiguity around legal ownership. So why not list Registered Agents Inc. as owner? Dunkinidaho (talk) 22:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to the Feb 8th Wiredarticle, "[T]he founder and owner of Registered Agents...is a man named Dan Keen." The March 5th Wiredarticle is a more in-depth investigation of Dan Keen and the company he founded, Registered Agents Inc. - Amigao (talk) 23:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair. Hey, I came in on this page way too hot and didn’t understand the ramifications of my initial edit that kicked this off. That was foolish. My apologies. That said, the additional fields you mentioned in your reply led me to look more so into the company template infobox parameters and I now understand the full context of what @GuerillaWarfare was saying in her initial comment (also thanks to @grayfell for prompting me to the talk page). Albeit a noob, I think for reader clarity it’s cleaner to update the pages' infobox with parent company being Registered Agents Inc., in accordance with the "owner" fields' parameter where it states: “If the company is majority-owned by a single entity and as such is a subsidiary or division, omit the owner field and use the parent field instead. Do not use the owner field to indicate top-level ownership if it differs from the direct parent.”
After reading the sources, I think User:GorillaWarfare is right and that listing Dan Keen in the infobox is likely misleading. The Wired articles do not appear to establish that he is the current owner of the company, and Wired quotes the company attorney saying Keen is neither the owner nor an employee. I see that the company's About page discloses that its ownership is held in both a trust and a foundation. While a primary source cannot be the sole reference, the description aligns with the attorney's statement in Wired. The Epik article currently states that the company is beneficially owned by Keen, which appears to be a stretch as none of the articles cited state this - I believe this may fall under WP:NOR and the writer of the sentence seems to telegraph that they are themselves insecure about it with their citation overkill. I believe the info box should report that Registered Agents is the parent company without mentioning an owner, as it did earlier.
As a tangent, it feels like there is a related campaign to try to make the Registered Agents company look bad, or worse than facts represent, because the company acquired the controversial Epik registrar (which provided platforms to awful hate groups). I don't have any issue with facts presented neutrally, nor with articles that merit inclusion, but there is an effort to intimidate me from calling into question the Registered Agents article's notability and insisting upon balance, accuracy, and neutrality. I'm not particularly convinced there is sufficient notability for there to be an article about Registered Agents - that article likely ought to be replaced with a paragraph here on the Epik page as it is too thin currently. (See: Talk:Registered Agents Inc.) CapnPhantasm (talk) 05:23, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
.svg){kind=icon}
Done GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)