Talk:Mike Godwin

Unprotection
Time to unprotect it yet? Duarmtime 01:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Godwin's Law
There is little to no information about his history with Godwin's law on here. I know that some of the information is on the page for Godwin's law, but this is one of the main reasons he is now famous. His name now floats all over the internet and beyond and yet the reference to this important contribution to internet pop culture is absent sans a small remark at the top.
 * As long as it is linked to in-context, all is well. This article should not go into great depth on that topic, since it has its own article. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 01:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Mikegodwin editing this page
Mr. Godwin, it is inappropriate for you to edit an article about yourself. Please do not remove content because you disagree or don't approve of listing it here. This is not your user page. - T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  18:29, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * That's certainly not a Wikipedia policy, although creating articles about yourself is discouraged (while not prohibited either). Even members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors seem to edit the articles about themselves. Welcome to Wikipedia, Mikegodwin! --Grouse 19:26, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Texture apparently has a problem with my correcting the mistaken impression that I hosted a panel at H2K2. I was booked to host that panel, but because of scheduling problems couldn't attend. --Mike
 * Would it be better if Mike posted suggested corrections to this Talk page and asked somebody else to do the edits for him? I don't have any problem with Mike's edits, but if you allow it to happen then you end up with the current problem of politicians replaced well written articles with their own sickeningly sycophantic drivel. Although I suppose any such policy could draw a distinction between fixing uncontroversial verifiable facts and the politicians just removing uncontroversial verifiable facts that they don't want publicised, such as their voting record. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 13:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * That's why the wiki-gods created reverts. If for some reason there were a page about you that had out-right factual errors, why should you not fix the errors?  I see no difference in a person editing details of his own life and a person editing details of an entry in which they have any other form of interest.--Smallwhitelight 17:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism Alert
This page has been vandalized by MCB and Calton operating in tandem. They deleted information about Mr. Godwin's elite undergraduate program and his Well membership. --RichardBennett 10:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The "unreliable" tag
Is there not a large amount of biographical information and claims that are unverified? Yes. So don't remove a tag calling for more citations. VanTucky (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If there's something you consider problematic, drive-by tagging is far inferior to actually flagging the problems on the talk page (I removed the tag because you hadn't), or even, ooh, looking up stuff on him and adding to the article - David Gerard 14:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I flagged the entirety of the article because most of it is just the bio section anyway, and there would be so many fact tags it would be absurd. But if that is the way you want it... VanTucky (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We have some people removing citations and others inserting lots of citation-needed tags. :-) VT, it's best not to add so many tags, as it's very disfiguring. You could have a look around yourself to find references, then let us know if there's anything you can't find support for. Tlesher, it's best to leave that citation in the lead where it's used after the first reference to the Wikimedia appointment, otherwise we'll have another fact tag added shortly; WP:LEAD says nothing about exceptions for leads. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 19:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In point, WP:LEAD says 'should be carefully sourced as appropriate'; I suspect this is based on the idea that it 'should be capable of standing alone'; but it's actually encouraged to be cited if needed. --Thespian 19:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Uh, I haven't intentionally removed any citations, so if I did it's my mistake. But I added the inline citation tags (even though I agree they are disfiguring) because David Gerard objected to pointing out that much of the biographical assertions in the article were unreferenced with an tag. Whichever we do, it needs to be pointed out that a large amount of factua assertions are uncited in the article, especially in the light of User:Mikegodwin editing his own bio.  VanTucky  (talk) 02:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear VanTucky, I think it's pretty well-established that the edits to this article about me that were complained about had to do with my removal of a factually inaccurate statement in the original stub. (It was stated that I had attended a conference that in fact I was too ill to attend. My correction of that error was deemed to be consistent with then-current Wikipedia policy. As a Wikipedian myself, it seemed appropriate to remove a false statement of fact.) I did not originate this article. I did not decide whether it was worth of inclusion. Nevertheless, so far as I can tell, what appears in the current article is factually accurate. If there are particular statements that you believe are false, please identify them so that they can be corrected and/or removed. As far as I can tell, literally every sentence in the article is documentable by some source or other, although not all are Web-based sources. I'm looking forward to your constructive criticism and to your personal commitment to improving the quality of this article. I hope to learn a lot from you. MikeGodwin 03:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably best for people who like to add tags to get some practice doing research. One good place for VanTucky to start would be to actually read the external links and read the actual books and articles cited. This of course might require actual labor.


 * Please remember to sign your talk posts with four tildes (~).
 * External links are not properly cited footnotes to specific assertions of biographical facts. Read WP:CITE. There are uncited claims in the article, thus the tag saying so is correct. VanTucky  (talk) 02:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably best for you to actually research a subject before making pronouncements about it, VanTucky. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.156.160.219 (talk • contribs)

You realize that both of you have violated the three-revert rule, don't you? And no, and I don't want to hear any nonsense about "reverting vandalism" as an excuse, just to head that off.

It so happens that I agree that this is drive-by tagging, given the vagueness of VanTucky's claims and the lack of actionable points, so I've removed the tag. VanTucky, be specific about what you find wrong and how your qualms can be addressed, or you're just edit-warring for no good reason. --Calton | Talk 03:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's pretty fucking simple. Too many uncited facts exist in the article for inline fact tags, so a banner tag calling for citations needs to be in place. I looked for references (external links to blogs and interviews are not references) for the following facts, and I could not find any. Thus, the article or the specific facts (inline tags were objected to by SlimVirgin bc of the quantity required) that uncited should be tagged as such. It has nothing to do with thinking any already cited facts are "wrong", but that many facts are simply uncited.
 * From education, "Godwin graduated in 1980 from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Plan II Honors program. Godwin later attended the University of Texas School of Law, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree in 1990. While in law school, Godwin served as editor of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper, from 1988 to 1989."
 * From Career, Godwin's early involvement in the Steve Jackson Games affair led to his being hired by the EFF in November 1990, when the organization was new. Shortly afterwards, as the first EFF in-house lawyer, he supervised its sponsorship of the Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service case. Steve Jackson Games won the case in 1993.


 * "As a lawyer for EFF, Godwin was one of the counsel of record for the plaintiffs in the case challenging the Communications Decency Act in 1996. The Supreme Court decided the case for the plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds in 1997 in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union. Godwin's work on this and other First Amendment cases in the 1990s is documented in his book Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age (1998), which was reissued in a revised, expanded edition by MIT Press in 2003."


 * From 2003 to 2005 Godwin was staff attorney and later legal director of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based non-governmental organization concerned with intellectual property law. In recent years, Godwin has worked on copyright and technology policy, including the relationship between digital rights management and American copyright law. While at Public Knowledge, he supervised litigation that successfully challenged the Federal Communications Commission's broadcast flag regulation that would have imposed DRM restrictions on television broadcasting.


 * "From October 2005 to April 2007, Godwin was a research fellow at Yale University, holding dual positions in the Internet and Society Project at Yale Law School and at Yale's computer science department. He was hired as general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation in July 2007."


 * All of this needs citing, thus it needs a tag pointing that out. It's not an attack on the veracity of the facts. VanTucky  (talk) 03:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * VanTucky, have you read my book, CYBER RIGHTS? Or Bruce Sterling's book, THE HACKER CRACKDOWN?  Or any of the other articles or books documenting cyberliberties work in the 1990s?  Have you looked at the Public Knowledge website? The EFF website?  The CDT website? It seems clear that most of the material you're trying to cast doubt on here is also available in any reasonably sized library. There are other books and articles that source this material as well, including many of the ones listed as external links in the article before your decision to engage in drive-by tagging. See for example this one: . MikeGodwin 03:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't be so suspicious. They are almost certainly true. But according to simple Wikipedia citation style guidelines, these facts are not cited properly. One of the books you speak of are not even in the References section, and even for the one that is the above facts aren't cited at all. If you want to make it clear that these books prove what the article says, then cite them properly. But don't just say on the talk page that they do and assume it's okay to ignore the proper citation format. That's what I care about. The article has large chunks of facts that need proper citing according to the WP:CITE style guidelines. It's not that they are lies or nonsense, they just need simple citing. As I couldn't just run out to the library and quickly cite something on the fucking 4th of July immediately, I could only tag the article to make it clear that they do need it. VanTucky (talk) 03:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * VT, if you think the material is "almost certainly true," then you're engaged in a WP:POINT by continuing to add tags. We can track citations down in the course of time if necessary; you could even help with that effort. And please, no more 3RR violations. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 03:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me make this clear again. I. AM. NOT. TRYING. TO. MAKE. ANY. POINT. ABOUT. THE. TRUTH. OF. THE. FACTS. All I am saying is that if the books are good references to those currently uncited facts, them a footnote or Harvard reference to those books needs to be made according to the style guidelines of WP:CITE. It's not a content issue in terms of real verification, it's that the facts are not properly cited stylistically VanTucky  (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * VanTucky, since I take you to be sincere at wanting to improve this article, I'd be happy to arrange to have a copy of CYBER RIGHTS sent to you so you could provide any footnotes you think are necessary. Thanks for volunteering.  MikeGodwin 03:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * And I'm sure references will be added in due course, perhaps by you. In the meantime, we don't need citation tags, because the material isn't contentious. WP:V says that citations are needed for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. But you're not challenging it; you agree it's probably correct. So please leave things as they are, or find citations. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 03:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

What you are doing, VanTucky, is engaging in a sterile edit war over a trivial point. If you're going to stop, fine, but I've already filed a 3RR, so someone else may wish to deal with that. --Calton | Talk 04:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If everyone but me is in consensus that major uncited facts in a biography of a living person do not at least need a single tag, then by all means I will desist. I don't understand why there was such a backlash against a simple tag requesting proper citations that goes uncontested on uncited articles all over Wikipedia. VanTucky  (talk) 04:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * (Outdent, as I'm replying to the thread as a whole) I agree with SlimVirgin that over-peppering an article with inline tags is a bit annoying and a major readability problem. I also understand the strong negative reaction to "unreliable" - that's a pretty harsh tag to put on a well-done-so-far, long-standing article. It is much more suitable for a suspicious one, where you are fairly certain that some of it is utter rubbish.  A far more suitable template in this case would be Refimprove.  If anyone still finds it onerous at the top, then put it at the top of the "References" section.  Simple solution either way, and I think that would probably chill everyone out a bit.  I hope. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 13:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to (belatedly) concur with VanTucky. The fact that a source exists for something, even if it is blatantly obvious to you (or to me, of course, given that I worked 20 feet away from you during that era) does not mean that the article is as it should be. The sources have to be cited. Fact tags indicate that a citation is missing, nothing more. They are not equivalent to dubious, etc., in suggesting that an alleged fact is suspicious. They only indicate that a (probably correct) fact is simply asserted without a reference citation. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 01:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

American Lawyer
This is silly, but.

American Lawyer has a seriously broken website, and eventually, I just went outside and searched their site from google, producing this.

It proves that he did columns for American Lawyer, but it's actually pretty useless, as both of those pages just give a Title and 2 lines, and the one that says 'read online' leads to a horrendously broken page. So while the proof that he was a columnist is there, it'd actually be a serious disservice to link to that. Opinions? --Thespian 19:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Archive.org? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 01:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Overuse of "Godwin"
Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin Godwin. Sheesh! That name is used a million times. We know who the article is referring to. It's not like I would think the sentence on his University education was referring to Bill Gates if it used a pronoun instead. SadanYagci (talk) 11:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 18:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The Hero of the Internet
Possible source for article: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:525513 in which he is described as "The Hero of the Internet". Mike R (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow I didn't know that Mike Godwin works for Wikipedia! Cool! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bloodbottler (talk • contribs) 00:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this a bio stub?
Shouldn't it have married, kids, etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.215.43 (talk) 06:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It should also mention Godwin's Law, which there are articles about Godwin/Godwin's Law. In some FA's there are pictures of related people. This is permitted. In the Madonna (entertainer) article, there is a picture of Eva Peron. So a picture of Hitler is permitted here. This is part of a mention of Godwin's Law. Nobody is comparing Godwin to Hitler! Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:05, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

MOS violation
The Wikipedia manual of style requires that the lead be an introduction. There is mention of Godwin's Law in the lead but not in the article. I have fixed this. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

FBI logo dispute
Is Godwin's role in this minor kerfuffle worth mentioning here? It's a fairly small incident (at least, so far), but I can see two arguments in favor of its inclusion in Godwin's bio: 1) the media coverage may be significant enough to merit a brief mention in the bio, and 2) Godwin's letter to the FBI is awesome. :) Thoughts? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Too recent to know how it will play out, but it's not a minor event in this BLP's life.  It's notable, as you have 3 major sources there.   It should be included, but someone should keep this watchlisted and update the information as it evolves.  Minor4th  05:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I've added a sentence, with the relevant citations. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the FBI letter is the only reason I ended up on this page. Phenylphree (talk) 08:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

"EFF"
As a casual reader, I am not certain what "EFF" refers to and would appreciate a more certain link/cite. The Wiki link leads to a disambiguation page with many EFFs listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phenylphree (talk • contribs) 07:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Its Electronic Frontier Foundation--Salix (talk): 09:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Legal citation?
This sentence is confusing to me: "The Supreme Court decided the case for the plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds in 1997 in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union" as the plaintiff is normally listed first in a citation, which would make the plaintiff Janet Reno (the executive.)  Should the article clarify whether Godwin won or lost this case? --InfantGorilla (talk) 22:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you looked at the Wikipedia article on the case? The plaintiff was ACLU, which won in the lower court. Reno appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and when that happens, the appellant party is listed first. So a case that started as ACLU v. Reno ended up as Reno v. ACLU. At any rate, we won the case. MikeGodwin (talk) 16:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

intro wording
Putting "personnel issue" into the intro is positing it as being one of the absolutely most important things there is about Mike Godwin. This is fairly obviously undue weight IMO - David Gerard (talk) 16:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's also a misparsing of the announcement of his departure. Read correctly, the announcement states that the fact of his leaving is a confidential personnel issue, therefore the reasons will not be discussed. The previous version conflated these two ideas. As there is no information about the reasons, it's inappropriate to characterize them here in any way. To suggest that the reasons involve any kind of issue would encourage erroneous speculation. --Michael Snow (talk) 16:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Mike Godwin June08 B recrop 5 to 7.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Mike Godwin June08 B recrop 5 to 7.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on September 23, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-09-23. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

rescued EL

 * August 2008 interview with Godwin in SuperLawyers

Just culled the ELs. This is the one I couldn't see an obvious reference use for, feel free to restore it as one - David Gerard (talk) 20:09, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Mike Godwin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080820054218/http://research.yale.edu/isp/people_fellows.html to http://research.yale.edu/isp/people_fellows.html#godwin

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 19:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

BLPN Discussion
A discussion involving this article has been opened at WP:BLPN. That discussion may be found here. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:35, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been settled. Tvoz / talk 20:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Owen Wilson addition
Dear Wikipedians, Some brand-new editor has added some false information regarding my association with Owen Wilson. To wit, the article states that I took "courses" with Owen Wilson, which is a false statement of fact. As the source material indicates clearly, I was briefly enrolled in one summer Shakespeare course with Owen Wilson; he dropped out after a couple of days. I don't think the brief intersection of our respective careers is encyclopedic, but even if you disagree with me about that, I hope you will agree that the factual inaccuracies ("courses" versus "a course" and "taken" in reference to a course Wilson dropped out of) need to be corrected. They're not supported in the linked source. MikeGodwin (talk) 03:41, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ Jorm (talk) 04:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

62.132.86.53 does not actually have any connection to Mike Godwin
The talk page header says this IP is connected to the article but all it has done is claim that Mike Godwin died and remove references. The IP in question has been blocked twice before and Godwin is very much still alive today. Even though it's been four-five years since, should that connection alert be removed? 172.112.210.32 (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for you note. I have taken the liberty of removing the tag. A five-year-old series of vandalism edits doesn't come close to justifying the tag. --Calton &#124; Talk 23:34, 15 January 2022 (UTC)