Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/David F. Prenatt, Jr.

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David F. Prenatt, Jr.. Being banned from the ODP does not make someone notable. Neither does creating a, no longer active, Yahoo Group. The article is not verifiable beyond what David himself (User:Netesq) has written here. This was previously deleted as a redirect where even Netesq agreed to the deletion. Angela. 00:40, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. Editing three USENET FAQ's on Davis, California, Yolo County, California and Sacramento, California does not make him notable enough, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:48, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. I believe I nominated it on redirects for deletion and still believe it should be deleted -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:25, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete: Not notable. Geogre 03:36, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Insufficient claim for notability. Average Earthman 08:57, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable. Obviously verifiable as he is mentioned on Open Directory Project. anthony (see warning) 15:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Ambi 03:58, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Netesq added himself to the ODP article. Look at me! I'm clearly notable because I wrote about myself in some other article! Delete. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:03, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • If Prenatt is deemed to not be noteworthy, then this information should be removed from the ODP article. anthony (see warning) 16:29, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Vanity. — Gwalla | Talk 06:02, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Delete - For the obvious reasons above. --[[User:Allyunion|AllyUnion (Talk)]] 08:01, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Which of the reasons above are supposed to be the obvious ones? anthony (see warning) 20:36, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Undecided - As the subject of this article -- which I did *NOT* create -- I am quite ambivalent about its existence. Simply put, I do not want or need celebrity status, but I do understand that there are people who consider my activities as an XODP editor noteworthy, including the founders of ODP whom I met in person recently at the Search Engine Strategies Seminar in San Jose. After my removal from ODP, and my subsequent guest column for Traffick.com chronicling my ouster, a group of ODP meta editors used a fake pseudonym to set up a now defunct hate site entitled "Netesqsucks.com" which was subsequently indexed on ODP and used to persecute both me and other critics of ODP. Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch wrote a favorable review of my guest column for Traffick, and a number of reporters contacted me regarding XODP, including one from the Washington Post and one from Salon.com, but they never actually published any stories about me or ODP; during the last year or so, I was contacted as a possible expert witness in re ODP by two attorneys who had filed suit on behalf of their clients seeking redress for grievances against ODP. One of those cases has been settled; the other is still ongoing. Basically, my position is that I'd rather not have the Wikipedia article featuring me, but that position is based on privacy concerns and my desire to avoid enabling online stalkers such as those who set up the Netesqsucks.com Web site. -- NetEsq 21:29, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your genuinely informative comment. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:16, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to second the thanks for clarifying your position. Geogre 16:45, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The article on you is derived from the information you've published on your user page. I fail to see how there is a privacy issue, as you have chosen to make that information public. anthony (see warning) 16:26, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My privacy concerns arise from the fact that I have total control over the content on my Wikipedia user page, but very little control over content that might be published in a Wikipedia article about me. Take a look at the archives of Netesqsucks.com on Alexa's Wayback machine, and you will see that a (relatively small) group of would-be anonymous cowards published all sorts of lies and slander about me. I say "would-be anonymous" because one of the investigative reporters who was working on a story about ODP found out who most of these people were through various methods, including credit card authorization records that were used to pay for the Netesqsucks.com Web site; when said freaks attempted to hack into and vandalize the Web sites of some of my business associates, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies got involved. Meanwhile, I tolerated the lies and slander promulgated by my online critics as the price of free speech, observing with an appropriate amount of irony that said tolerance was rewarded by a certain notoriety that created all sorts of business opportunities. // NetEsq 18:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know, you have exactly the same degree of control over your Wikipedia user page as you do over any other Wikipedia page, no more and no less. But it appears as if your user page has been vandalized in the past and reverted by you, so you must know this already? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:34, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My experience has been that Wikipedians exert total control over the content on their user pages as well as total control over the content on their user talk pages. In striking contrast, if and when any Wikipedian attempts to control the content of any Web page in Wikipedia's article namespace, he or she quickly finds the article in question has been locked by a sysop. In other words, the difference between individual content control over Wikipedia articles (i.e., censorship) and individual content control over Wikipedia user pages (i.e., personal prerogative) is and should be self-evident to any Wikipedian, and the only people who would question whether that difference actually exists are either extremely confused about the nature of Wikipedia or are not particularly sincere in their convictions. // NetEsq 22:25, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how this has anything to do with privacy. If the article were vandalized to reveal private details about you, that would be a privacy issue. It would also be reverted, just like your user page. anthony (see warning) 22:59, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While you may not understand my privacy concerns, they seem self-evident to me. To be clear, I don't *like* the idea of an article about me being published on Wikipedia, but I can clearly see how some people would consider my activities as an XODP editor to be newsworthy. As such, I do not feel that I have a moral right to *object* to an article about me being published under the auspices of Wikipedia, privacy concerns notwithstanding. But given the fact that most people who have expressed an opinion here have jumped to the conclusion that the article about me is a vanity article -- which it is not -- my privacy concerns are probably moot. // NetEsq 23:23, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You don't have a moral right to object because there are no privacy issues with releasing this information. In fact, you have released the information yourself. If you have privacy concerns about this information, then you should list your user page for deletion as well. anthony (see warning) 12:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a categorical difference between biographical information that is published on a Wikipedia userpage and biographical information that is published under the auspices of a Wikipedia article, as evidenced by the way that people responded to your attempt to use my user page as a template for a Wikipedia article about me. To wit, as I am not a public figure, I would have both a legal and moral right to object to the creation of a Wikipedia article about me if I felt that such an article posed a clear and present danger to my privacy. As it is, the Wikipedia article about me has already been deleted, so my privacy concerns are totally moot, and will remain totally moot unless and until you can convince someone other than me that I am noteworthy enough to have a Wikipedia article written about me. However, since most people who have expressed an opinion about the article have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the article is a vanity article written by me, you clearly have your work cut out for you. Best of luck. // NetEsq 03:56, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Would you like to request that your user page User:Netesq be deleted as well? Based on your comments, my understanding is that you feel that Wikipedian social norms and policies will make editing of your user page by others a rare event, and that you are satisfied that you can monitor it well enough to exercise effective "control." It will certainly not be deleted without your request, but if you want a high degree of privacy you may wish to consider making such a request. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 12:46, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My privacy concerns do not extend to my user page, for the reasons that I stated above and that you recapitulated. Indeed, my privacy concerns didn't really extend to the Wikipedia article that was proposed. To wit, I was prepared to monitor the situation, see what happened next, and tolerate a certain amount of gossip and slander as the price of living in a free society. As it is, the problem that I now have is that Anthony DiPierro is advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater, ignoring the many shades of gray between the black and the white. // NetEsq 15:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It should also be noted that your user page is regularly copied into mirrors of Wikipedia, and you have zero control over most of those copies. anthony (see warning) 13:07, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Legally and morally, your right to object on the grounds of privacy are only legitimate when there is an actual violation of your privacy, not when there is merely a "clear and present danger" of a privacy violation. Furthermore, the existence of an article about you would not in itself pose a clear and present danger to your privacy anyway.

I have no intention of trying to convince anyone that you are noteworthy. If Wikipedians want to destroy Wikipedia by removing information, I can't do anything about that. I only get one vote (when I'm not blocked for expressing my opinion, at least). anthony (see warning) 12:15, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what your legal background is, but I have spent quite a bit of time researching issues arising from defamation, slander, invasion of privacy, and related torts, and your understanding of said issues is remarkably incomplete and inaccurate. Indeed, one of my consulting clients (an attorney) recently won an award of one million dollars plus attorneys fees against another attorney for the very reasons that you are attempting to characterize as invalid. Simply put, I am a private person, not a public figure, and I have a legal right to prevent people from disseminating information about me if I choose to do so. As a private person, I have the further legal right to draw the line wherever I want. The only reason that I don't actively pursue these rights is because I tolerate a certain amount of gossip and slander being disseminated about me as the price of living in a free society. Personally, I think that my activities as an XODP editor are noteworthy, but I am just as happy to see them limited to a short blurb in the Open Directory Article rather than being expanded into an article about me personally. In other words, I agree with you in principle, but I am not prepared to sacrifice my privacy rights entirely for the sake of a moral principle. // NetEsq 15:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps your jurisdiction is different from mine. Here in Florida (which also happens to be the location of Wikipedia's servers), the determination of what is or is not a private fact is to be determined by the courts, not by the private person (i.e. you don't have the right to draw the line wherever you want). As you yourself have published these facts, there is no way a judge is going to find them to be private. Furthermore, as you are a lawyer, some of this information, such as your schooling records, are likely already a matter of public record, and all of it is a matter of public interest. But it seems to me you already know this. You said yourself that your "privacy concerns didn't really extend to the Wikipedia article that was proposed." anthony (see warning)

18:24, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

<< Perhaps your jurisdiction is different from mine.>>

Not likely. While every jurisdiction has its own idiosyncrasies, when it comes to defamation and related torts such as invasion of privacy, most common law jurisdictions in the United States follow the common law as it is set forth in the Second Restatement of Torts. To wit, invasion of privacy protects private individuals from unreasonable intrusion upon their seclusion, from appropriation of their name or likeness, from unreasonable publicity given to their private life, and from publicity which unreasonably places them in a false light before the public.

Publication of truthful information concerning the private life of a person that would be both highly offensive to a reasonable person and not of legitimate public concern is an invasion of privacy, and revealing private, sensational facts about a person's sexual activity, health, or economic status can also constitute an invasion of privacy. In both instances, the law seeks to protect the subjective feelings of the individual victim rather than examine the subjective intent of the tortfeasors. Affirmative defenses to tortious invasion of privacy include the fact that an otherwise private individual consented to the dissemination of his or her likeness and/or to the dissemination of otherwise private information. Needless to say, both of these affirmative defenses have limits, and if a private individual specifically says "I consent to having information about me being published on my Wikipedia userpage, but I do not consent to having an encyclopedia article about me being published on Wikipedia," then the publisher of a Wikipedia article about said private individual assumes the risk that said private individual may take offense at the subsequent disclosure of private information within the context of that article or a derivative work of that article.

<< [S]ome of this information, such as your schooling records, are likely already a matter of public record, and all of it is a matter of public interest. >>

I wholeheartedly disagree, and I defy you to find any public records about me that I do not want you to find. The proprietors of Netesqsucks.com tried very hard to dig up some real dirt on me that was a matter of public record, but failed, and one of them was a former NSA operative. That having been said, I understand and appreciate that some people may consider my activities as an XODP editor newsworthy, and I am willing to tolerate a certain amount of gossip, slander, and lies about me being spread by my critics as part of the price of living in a free society.

Please note that nothing in this post or any of my other Wikipedia contributions should be considered a legal opinion or as constituting legal advice. My personal opinions are my own. // NetEsq 21:06, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Delete - This could be a cut rom a satirical magazine like the opnion which regularly satirises geeks- warbeck
• Delete - Useless vanity page. -Joseph 17:53, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)
• Delete - vanity - Tεxτurε 00:24, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)