Talk:Doug Dohring

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[edit] Newbie "contributing" to this Article

I don't know much about this topic or Wikipedia, but I do see some inconsistencies in this article compared to others. Please do correct me if I'm wrong! I would like to be a valued contributer someday. I need somewhere to start. Pozilla (talk) 03:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DIGL

Maybe we should indeed make the role of Dohring a bit smaller. He was an executive ("President and Director") only for a few months, and received a lot of shares for this work [1][2][3][4][5][6] --Tilman 21:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect and poorly sourced data in this article

I have made three attempts to correct information on this page only to have them reverted each time. I believe this needs attention.

The page as it stands infers that Doug Dohring was party to "numerous financial misdealings" at a company, Digital Lightwave, where he was an executive. The reference cited, however, makes no mention of Doug Dohring at all. It also clearly states that the alleged misdealings occurred in the second and third quarters of 1997. Per Dohring's own web site, the only existing reference I can find on his employment at Digital Lightwave, it states he was at the company until February 1997 -- meaning he was not even at the company when these "misdealings" were alleged to have happened. If he had been involved in them he would have been listed in the litigation. He is not.

The edits on the page also state that he "was a major shareholder and profited from the IPO". This is added with no citation and I have to question if this came from a credible published report or if it is speculation. And if it were true, what difference does this make, when per your own reference, the alleged misdealings occurred after the IPO?

The article also states that a company that Dohring was involved in, Speedyclick, was "linked with spamvertising". Again with no citation. There used to be a citation on this, which was simply an individual's entry on a forum complaining about seeing too much advertising for the company on their browser. This is not a credible source. And more importantly, it is not spamvertising, which is defined on Wikipedia as "the practice of sending E-mail spam advertising a website... It also refers to vandalizing wikis, blogs and online forums with hyperlinks in order to get a higher search engine ranking for the vandal's website." As far as I can find, Speedyclick has in fact never been linked with spamvertising.

The reference to Speedyclick stock being "later deemed worthless" omits the fact that the value of the stock went down years after the sale of the company, and two years after Doug Dohring had any involvement with the company. He helped to build a company and sold it to a company that was at the time listed on the Nasdaq. Per your own references, it was two years later, after the company had gone through a name change and who knows what else, that it was delisted and it's stocks went down. This has absolutely no relevance to this person's biographical article.

There is a wealth of positive information on Doug Dohring and his accomplishments, most notably with Neopets. On April 15 2007 I added more information about Neopets in the article -- citing both Wired Magazine and Media Matrix -- which refer to the site as having "25 million registered users and more than 2.2 billion page views per month" and noting that it "had been translated into 10 languages and had been named the "second-stickiest site on the Internet - ahead of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and eBay, according to Media Metrix." "-- neopets.html".

The same editor who has placed the emphases on the allegations regarding "Digital Lightwave" and "Speedyclick" in this article deleted this well sourced and accurate information entirely, saying in his comments that it "sounded like PR".

Also deleted was the fact that Dohring's market research firm is one of the top 100 market research firms in the nation, as noted by Advertising Age. This item, with the reference, was also deleted.

This is resulting in an article with a clearly negative -- and very inaccurate -- slant.

TashiD 06:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. No one says that Dohring was reponsible. However there's a pattern of involvement with dubious companies with inflated stock prices, than go down after he sells out. The article does not even say that, it just mentions the big picture.
That he was a major shareholder and profited from the IPO is sourced, I had corrected that link.
The Speedyclick thing is sourced in that article. If you disagree, discuss it there.
Yes, I deleted some PR. If I remember correctly, the source was Dohring himself. If Dohring consideres his companies to be "the fastest growing organisation" or whatever, it should be sourced independentently.
About Neopets - make another attempt to insert something again, in the spirit of having a "big picture". --Tilman 05:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Not responsible? Not even vaguely connected. He worked for a few months for this company and left. Half a year later they had alleged financial dealings. He was GONE. Again, if he had had some responsibility it these actions, he would have been named as a responsible party by the SEC. He was not.
You added that he was a major shareholder and profited from the IPO on May 28 2007 with no citation that I can see. Please either clarify where this data is coming from or take it out.
Speedyclick was sold to a reputable company -- ShopNow.com -- which was listed on the NASDAQ in 1999. In 2001, after the purchasing company (which Dohring had never been employed by) had changed names and who knows what else, they were delisted and their stock went down. Surprise -- practically the whole tech sector collapsed in 2001. This has zero relevance to Doug Dohring.
I believe this assumption of a "pattern" is very speculative and subjective. It does not have credible data behind it. It omits (in fact you deleted) the fact that while he was working at Digital Lightwave, and while he was an investor in Speedyclick, Dohring was the owner and CEO of the Dohring Company which was listed in the Advertising Age top 100 market reseach firms in the country -- a company that is still thriving today. You also deleted perhaps the most important piece of the big picture n Dohring -- that after the sale of Speedyclick he went on to take a tiny site called NeoPets from virtually nothing to one of the largest and most poplar sites on the Internet, that while most of the tech sector was collapsing Neopets expanded, in six years taking its worth to $160,000,000. This was very well covered, in the New York Times, Wired Magazine, Advertising Age, Business Week and other very reputable publications -- publications that were referenced when you deleted them. You may not have noticed this.
Your insistence on keeping unsourced contentious data up and deleting all positive references to this person's makes it appear that you are stretching negative insinuations and omitting the positive data about this individual to deliberately create a negative impression. For the sake of argument I will say that it may not have been clearly written on my part and I will give this another try. But I think you could do your part to improve the credibility of this article by taking out these references to things that happened at companies after Dohring was no longer there and no longer involved.

TashiD 06:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


1) He is indeed "vaguely connected". Despite having an own company with a job to do, he did an "internship" at DIGL for a few months, and took tons of money and stocks. 2) That he profited from the IP is sourced. I mentioned the source both in the article and in discussion. You should click on stuff like "[1]". this points to links with details. And here it is: [7]. 3) That Speedyclick.com was sold to a company that collapsed is relevant. Yes, many companies collapsed. The reason is that there were many inflated stocks, with companies made of hot air. Obviously, Speedyclick.com and ShopNow.com were such companies, while ebay, amazon and yahoo were not. Dohring was smart enough to sell out at a time that people were buying anything with a ".com" name. 4) I will now try to find out what you deleted and what you added, and whether it is properly sourced. 5) Once again, I ask you to review WP:COI. Wikipedia is not an advertising platform for company marketing. --Tilman 11:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


Would you kindly stop inferring, as you have done twice now (once on your own discussion page) that I have a conflict of interest in editing this article.
I do not and have never worked for Doug Dohring. I am not his PR. I work in the field of peace building and human rights. I have edited professionally for eleven and a half years. I have edited for Nobel Peace Prize winners and Presidents of countries. My work has run in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the International Herald Tribune.
I know of Doug Dohring from his support of two key human rights activities, I have met him once. I was absolutely appalled at the write up you have created on Wikipedia, which has now propagated to other major sites on the Internet. It creates an entirely false picture of a man who is indeed a business leader and the creator of one of the real success stories on the Internet.
You have stretched facts horrendously to attempt to create a picture of him as unethical and involved in illegalities which in fact he was never party to, and more, detailed above.
You have deleted positive well sourced references and refer to any attempt to put factual positive data in this article as "PR" or “company marketing”. You link to an attack site on his religion and in fact per your own user page you run an attack site on his religion yourself. How this could be construed by other editors on Wikipedia as anywhere near a Neutral Point of View is beyond me. This being allowed to occur is, in my view, a poor reflection on Wikipedia and on their stated standards of neutrality and credibility. In my field a person is free to practice whatever religion they wish, without being defamed for it.
TashiD 05:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
What "human rights activities"? I never heard of any, nor did your version of the article allege any. (Anti psychiatry PR is not a "human rights activity)
He is definitively not a "business leader". He did finance one successful company, yes. This is mentioned. Although that company, too, is controversial. And he is, too.
I am not the only editor here. There were many before me. I'm trying to keep the work of the people before. --Tilman 10:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I'm very confused on the direction this conversation is taking. I don't expect that you would have heard of my work. There is nothing about it posted in this article. And I don't know how psychiatry (or anti-psychiatry?) has anything to do with this article or anything we are talking about.
All we need to be discussing here is correcting incorrect data in this article. The rest is irrelevant. You obviously don't like this person. Why that is is your business, not mine. But let's keep that to one side, and speak as editors, about facts, and data that has been published from reputable sources.
The only reason I mentioned the fields I work in is because you have more than once insinuated that I have some conflict of interest in editing an article on this person, and I wanted to clarify that I don't work for him and I work in a different field. To start some kind of argument on the details of this is just going way off track. Let's just stick to the article, and the facts.
I suggest we go to the next step of resolving disputes and disengage for a bit from this article.
TashiD 07:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
You forgot to show evidence for your claim of his support of two key human rights activities. This is very relevant to this article. --Tilman 17:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)