Talk:Registered agent/Archive 1

Topic: Unregistered user keeps vandalizing article, deleting article citations and inserting "National Corporate Research"

The article cites the below links as materially relevant references to the article. Are they SPAM? or are they references? (Ironically, I notice that the one page lists names "National Corporate Research").

The first link, is a resident agent informational site (not commercial except for support banner ads) that is registered to Terry Berger in Maryland. There are banner ads on this site for a couple of process servers, an attorney and a registered agent. The site was registered in March 2001 and looking at the Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20031026134825/http://www.residentagentinfo.com/ it was apparently operating for years without ads. Advertisements to support bandwidth on a public information site are not uncommon. The types of ads on the site are not uncommon given the site informational content. The site is cited specifically as "Reference for section "How To Find Who is the Registered Agent for any Business Entity". Specifically, what states do not allow you to get agent information online and if there are any costs and idiosyncracies of different jurisdictions. The only other way to cite these would be to put links to all 51 Secretary of State statute sites or offices - and then you would have to go to each site to research which would be pretty retarded. To say that it is not a citation when it specifically states it is a citation - and for what section is also questionable (LOL).

e-SecretaryOfState.com is similar, but has links directly to the statutes in each state as well as email addresses for contacting said agencies. The information is not as specific, but is different, relevant and a much cleaner alternative than to put each of these hundreds of links in the article which would render it unreadable. I know that when I was writing parts of the article that I would use this site as a hub to get information from different states. WHOIS reveals that it is registered to incorp services, however their name only appears in a small link stating "brought to you as a free public service by incorp services, inc." with no logo. To say this is a SPAM or commercial site based on that would be stretching it. The site could be easily cited as a reference for the entire article by the statute links alone which would have taken me hours to find otherwise.

- WHOIS: registered to Grant Interprises Inc. in Florida. It looks pretty purely informational to me and does not show preference for one registered agent over another. This is a reference for pricing since it lists prices of a bunch of disparate agents. The only ads are occasional google ads that are hard to even find. To say this is a commercial site and not informational is also a stretch of the imagination.

- WHOIS: registered to - Incorp Services, however there is not one single ad for Incorp on the site, so I would have to classify it as not commercial. It actually says "non-commercial site." It looks as though every single agent is on this page including all of the big four - it looks like 100 or something. If this is SPAM, it is very poorly done SPAM. It names every service company I am aware of. - Yes, it is registered to incorp services, but there is not a single marketing link - nor is there any apparent bias. incorp services doesn't even have a favorable position on that page. On this page, anyone can apparently add reviews about agents making it very "open source" since anyone can write the relevant content. ALL sites have to be owned by someone - this is just not a biased site.

[Nevada Resident Agent Association] - WHOIS: registered to Derek Rowley of (CSC) who it turns out is the President of the Nevada Resident Agent Association (big surprise there - lol). I used this as a reference for the FINCen section as well as the Model Registered Agents Act section. Again, it does not appear to favor any one agent company over another and there are 10's of them listed (I'm not going to count them).

So... what I see is a handful of sites I personally used when writing the article. I was really expecting some sort of smoking gun with the whois after all the hype from the guy removing the links, but I'm really underwhelmed. Where's the SPAM? Dougieb 13:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You are spammer. The fact that you have to write all of this nonsense to justify your links PROVES it. Find another resource to reference. Why are these specific ones so important? There are plenty of others out there to reference. THE FACT, that you constantly remove others additions and keep placing your own back is proof that you're a spammer and you're simply hijacking this article. Don't worry. A buddy of mine who works at Google is in the process of removing the links from Google to this wiki article. That will shut down your flow of traffic 206.221.211.145 05:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

1. I wrote the above because you keep deleting the article citations and replacing content with SPAM links. Someone suggested that I check the WHOIS on the sites, so I did and there is the report - big woo. I invite you to find another source for the same information and it can be used instead. Suggestions? Let me guess... "National Corporate Research?" (LOL). 2. These specific links are "important" because they are the citations I used for many of my contributions to the article (Duh). 3. I do not remove others additions (unless vandalizm or SPAM) - and note that SEVERAL wikipedians and SPAM tools have removed your constant vandalizm. Note that there have been a myriad of large contributions to this article that have not been reverted because they are valid article content. 4. Hijack the article? OMG... this is an article about "registered agent" - not some political or religious idealogy. I find it difficult to get passionate about "registered agent" (LOL) and while I did create the original article, I regret doing so. 5. "Flow of traffic?" Um... WTF? Flow of traffic? 6. Have your friend at Google do whatever he likes. It is irrelevant to Wiki. You and your "friend" must be tight though since Google has a very interesting inter-company policy on modifying content for friends such as yourself. My college roommate is a VP at Google. I will be sure and pass your comments on so they can see what changes your friend makes and if they violate this policy. My friends that work at Google really like working there. Does yours? (LOL) 7. 75.128.199.33 - Your anger seems to be focused on the incorp company. If you have a grudge against the incorp company - or any of the other companies, then this is not the place to vent that. If you have something specific and constructive and notable about the incorp company and you care enough do so, then by all means, write and article about that company! It is the only service company where I did not write a company article, so if you have somehting to share, write an article about them. I note that you contribute nothing whatsoever to Wikipedia besides vandalism, article defacement and SPAM that I and other Wikipedians have to clean up constantly, so an actual contribution would be a refreshing change. Finally, if you wish your company, "National Corporate Research" to be recognized, I suggest that you have someone write an article about them for whatever they are notable for - or go make inroads in your industry. 8. Is there some sort of rivalry between the incorp company and national corporate research? Former business partners? Former lovers? (LOL) If so, if you are a competitor of incorp, then this actually might be good content or trivia for the article, but not in the way that you are presenting it. Dougieb 15:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

67.52.240.202, 1., if you have something to add to talk pages, show some common courtesy - do not stick it in the middle of other people's comments - put whatever you have to say at the end. 2. No name calling. There are many things I wish to call you at this point, but I show restraint. 3. There is no debate that RAL is regsitered to incorp services - this may come as a shock to you, but ALL domains are registered to someone or some entity. The question is... is the site informational? Yes. Is it biased in fac? No. Does it favor any agent over any other? No. Is there another contiguous source for the same (relatively benign) information? No. If there was, would you erase the citation anyway? Probably. If you erase a citation, then a fact tag goes up - then we have to substantiate it with a citation - which you then erase. I don't know what your personal fixation is either with the site, or National corporate research or incorp services, but take it out on whomever you're pissed at, not on Wiki. Also, personal attacks are not tolerated. Seriously... what is your vendetta with this article?Dougieb 02:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

4.159.168.165, if you have something to contribute, add to end of talk page - do not write over my talk - also, this investigation is done and your accusations been proven false. Also, sign your comments.Dougieb 13:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've looked at these citation pages AGAIN - they are clearly informational, relevant, and no matter who administers them (and it is all different people apparently), there is no bias I can see towards incorp - or anyone else. On the pages, the citations information is there - and I see no bias towards incorp - or any agent at all. I don't understand what benefit you think that can be made for incorp (or anyone else). What is the benefit? Why do you care so much to vandalize this article daily? If you care so much about incorp, write an article about them as I have about CSC, NRAI, and CT. Dougieb 13:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Third opinion

Coming from the 3O page, I won't say much on the exact nature of the links, but rather on the content that they reference. IMHO (and I am not subject matter expert) the three sections

1. Jurisdiction filing fees to record a change of registered agent
2. Registered agent service fees
3. How to find who is the registered agent for any business entity

are too detailed and out of scope for an encyclopedic article. It is clear that some fees apply depending on what you do and where, but there is no need to list fees in detail here. (Unless these fees are themselves the subject of systematic studies this might be original research.) Neither is Wikipedia a how-to that should explain how to find a registered agent. I will make an attempt (only one) to take the sections out. As far as I see this would also resolve the problem of the contested links. If you, however, retain that the fee content is important, the issue should be raised somewhere else again. --Tikiwont 14:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, I think all three points add relevant information to the article and they summarize the information on the sites nicely. Maybe the removal of the paragraphs can be justified, but since you say that you aren't familiar with the content, having read those, do you feel they add anything? Seriously. If you wanted to know these things, how would you find them out? These are things I asked myself - and finding these answers aren't easy. Ironically, if these sections were removed, then I think the citations in question would DEFINITELY then qualify for a relevant external link, but that does not matter since the REAL issue is why is this unregistered user (who contributes NOTHING to Wiki sans defacing this sole article) vandalizing the page daily by removing the citations and inserting "National Corporate Research" in the article. Then also occasionally inserting what appears to be a copywritten nonsensical POV diatribe. For whatever reason, I am certain that until the article is completely erased and replaced with "National Corporate Research", that it will continue to be vandalized by this IP. So, if you think that the info doesn't add anything, that is one thing, but that isn't the real issue here otherwise I would have removed this article from my watchlist a LONG time ago. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dougieb (talk • contribs) 18:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Clarification: Let me just clarify that I entered this discussion here since it was listed as an edit warring about external links by Discospinster on Wikipedia:Third opinion (See [1]). The 3O project is an informal approach. If it doesn't help, each part can invoke further dispute resolving processes, but deletion of a potentially useful article is not a good option. So I would ask all parties to (1) rather edit than simply reverting to older versions and (2) measure comments on talk pages and edit lines. And may maybe make some other improvement on the article in between. We already know that one side considers certain links as 'spammming' and the other their removal as 'vandalism'. The other incursions mentioned above are a rather straightforward case of non-constructive editing, and should be treated accordingly, if they actually happen again. --Tikiwont 08:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand, but this isn't an edit war in the traditional sense. The vandal in this case is an unregistered user that contributes nothing but defacement, libel, uncleared material, citation removal, POV and SPAM - to ONE article (LOL). He/She does nothing but vandalize this article daily. Were it an actual Wiki editor, this would be different - and more relevant. Discospinster attempted to mitigate at my request, but this didn't work either because maintaining this article from this vandal is a chore. Citations were removed, then the fact tags went up - then the citations were reinserted - over and over and over again. Dougieb 12:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Every edit war looks special to the ones involved. What is not so typical here is that the disputed links are inserted by a registered and removed by an unregistered editor; More common is the other way round. But I realize that the links themselves still need to addressed in more detail.--Tikiwont 09:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion: Leaving the fee related and currently removed sections apart, there remain two external links / possible sources that I'd like to comment on, thus concluding this third party opinion. I may still continue to edit and discuss in the usual sense (see below).

• e-SecretaryOfState.com

This is in no case a source or reference. As an external link it would provide maybe some more links and e-mail addresses, but the current article links both to the main secretary of state sites as well has a list of specific direct links. The practical advantage on having this link is limited (and yes I even tried it), but WP:Convenience is not a guideline here. WP:External links, however, is such a guideline and the link in question is visibly sponsored by one resident service provider (Incorp) and contains a number links of the type "If you need a registered agent or resident agent in any of these jurisdictions, Click Here!", leading the reader to the comay's site which i would call an objectionable amount of advertsing per WP:EL.

I don't care anymore. To say it isn't a source or a reference is stupid since I used it extensively in the creation of the article - and I think I know what my source material was. I didn't see the "If you need a registered agent" links - I guess because they were buried in the page - I was looking for banner ads or something. Still I don't think this negates it as an authority since as above, I assume all sites have to be paid for somehow. Dougieb 11:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if it sounded stupid. WhatI menat is thte it is not a source in the sense that you can site it for specific statements, even though it may have been a vulable research tool for you. In the same sense Google and Yahoo are useful and point a possible soures but not a source themselves. Tikiwont 12:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• ResidentAgentInfo.com

This site has been mentioned a possible source for

• • The question "How To Find Who is the Registered Agent for any Business Entity" and specifically, what states do not allow you to get agent information online and if there are any costs and idiosyncracies of different jurisdictions.
  • The “Big Four” Registered Agents

However it is not a published reference and it is heavily advertised, most prominently for Incorp, and then also for its owner Terry A. Berger and others.

By itself, it cannot qualify as reliable source for the concept of there being The “Big Four” Registered Agents. Nor is it acceptable to refer to original sources (Secretary of State sites) inviting the reader to some original research to verify some claims of Berger herself. If there were other and better sources such as an independent article or a market analysis, there would be still no need to also refer to a statement, that might be interpreted as serving a specific interest.

As for the idiosyncracies of different jurisdictions, I thought that was interesting and added it. As for the advertisers, last time I looked at the site, it said, "If you would like to advertise here, email us" - and I note now that there are some new sponsors I didn't see before. I'm sure that if incorp weren't advertising there, another one of the big four would. If it were only Incorp advertising there, then that might be of interest as well, but as you say, there are a bunch of different companies - and incorp isn't apparently advertising on every state. Even Google and Yahoo have ads, but this does not negate them as a credible reference. As for the big 4 (LOL), well I think everyone in law knows about the Big 4, so the "existence" of the big 4 isn't really in question any more than the existence of the sun. I don't think that reference was about the existence of the big four, but maybe more to say who they actually were. I just googled "Big four" and that popped up. I don't remember writing the big 4 portion of this article anyway - I think it was someone else, so I don't know what the original source was. I have read an article on the big four, but can't remember where, so that doesn't help. I did not see anything or recall writing anything inviting the reader to do original research. When some of the facts were questioned, I did verify on my own just to be sure. Also, I included links to a couple of state search pages after the statement, "if you search for "Ford" or "IBM" or "Merck" (not sure what companies I used) then it is going to be represented by one of these firms" or something like that - not as an invitation for the reader to do research, but I included the link to the state site as a reference and example to try typing in well known company names to demonstrate the statement.Dougieb 11:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

In any case this partcular site is self-published so it is not suited as citation for the Big four issue no matter how obvious their existence is to an insider. Googling I found mostly the same site and wikipedia clones, but what to with this section and how else to source is a different editorail question. Tikiwont 12:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

As regards the first point, I am not sure how relevant the question of comparing different states is anyway. Once again, as we now refer to the state sites, we can omit overly practical details, especially if we do not have a better and less advertised source.--Tikiwont 10:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the relevance is educating and giving complete information. All sources are advertised in one way or another. Rather than discounting the information as unreliable, why don't you independently verify the information on the site. For example, "2 states charge to get this information online - Indiana and New Jersey" - this sounds reasonable enough. Why not ring up IN and NJ and find out if it is true - and if it is, how would this benefit an advertiser anyway? I think that most of the people reading the article probably aren't looking for a registered agent for themselves, but how to find out who a company's registered agent is. I think it would be fair to assume that a company that was looking for a registered agent probably wouldn't be reading an article on it in Wiki (LOL), so I think they would be wasting their advertising dollars anyway.Dougieb 11:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't find it ineresting enough to call (nor do I undertsnd the wiki approach that way) and as you say most people may want to know something about a specific company which refers to a specific state.--Tikiwont 12:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyway above is an opinion and it amounts to saying that I would not make use of the two mentioned sites/sources. As alreadys said I will continue a little to edit in that sense. Tikiwont 12:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Current State

I've done some major revision in the order and the like. Pleas heave a look. Some open points:

1. Sources: There are no reliable sources or citations for large sections
2. Fee related sections: As pointed out above these two really do not seem to add a much value but rather attract controversy.
3. Links to SOS sites: There is in Wikipedia a nice list of Secretary of State (U.S. state government) sites than is now linked.
4. Registered agent information: I've consolidated some practical information in this section
5. Model Registered Agents Act: This section has some in-line citations that need to be converted into footnotes
6. Registered agent service companies: I changed for the moment only the title. The concept of the Big four does not seem to so universal as the current wording suggests. Moreover, the links to search mask are not useful. Is there no reliable source on this market segment?
7. Government listings: This information can now be reached via the Secretary of State links as mentioned also in the section Registered agent information. Do we really need this list?

--Tikiwont 10:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

See responses to above you know where. Also, yes, the old topic info was a lot of research and useful - and probably good to properly archive, but I don't feel that it is being properly considered anyway.Dougieb 12:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)