Talk:Cloudflare/Archives/2020

"Technical Support" vs "Monitoring"

These are two very different things, and as far as I know, the citations don't support the latter. In my opinion, monitoring something would be much harder if your company was not hosting it in a way that allows plaintext access, like Cloudflare does, if I'm not mistaken. Vecr (talk) 17:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

@JamalBe: I looked at the sources more, and the ones that mention "monitoring" appear to do so in reference to groups who's goal is to monitor hate on the Internet, not Cloudflare itself, can you explain your reasoning? --Vecr (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Logo

The logo of Cloudflare is considered copyrightable, that is, it is not "too simple" to be copyrightable. As such, it is not allowed on Wikimedia Commons (deleted three times there), but it is allowed on English Wikipedia under its fair-use policy. This policy however requires that the depiction be the primary subject of the article (okay), and of low resolution. Typically 300px or less. As such, SVGs are rarely seen. If those were allowed here, due to the logo not being copyrightable or otherwise under a free license, then it should be uploaded to Commons instead.

@Andrew nyr: I'll wait a few days, but let me know if this makes sense. --Krinkle (talk) 20:27, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

@Krinkle:It is under my understanding that photos do have to be low resolution. In the non free logo rationale it states

"This is an SVG vector image of a registered trademark or a copyright-protected logo, seal or computer icon. This image should not be rendered any larger than is required for the purposes of identification and/or critical commentary. The default rendering of this image is of a size and resolution sufficient to maintain the quality intended by the company or organization, without being unnecessarily high resolution."

The default render for this SVG is 512 × 128 pixels which is low enough to qualify. Yes you can upscale this logo, but the default rendering is low.

Thanks, Andrew nyr (talk, contribs) 21:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

DRAFT: Cloudflare Products

Using this area to outline a new header section about their primary products. It seems that almost all similarly-sized public software companies have headers about their products: Cloudera, MongoDB, LogMeIn, HubSpot, DocuSign, etc.

DDoS Protection

This is what they are most famous for, originally...

CDN

I assume they have the most (free) users here

Magic Transit

This is the product used to help Wikipedia and Wikimedia from the massive DDoS attack. Wonder if it should be a sub under DDoS.

Cloudflare for Teams

Hard to understand their whole product line, TBH, so would appreciate any help about what their most important products are. Their website lists about 20.

Cloudflare Workers

This one is important because it is an example of edge computing, where Cloudflare has an advantage.

Nickgray (talk) 01:26, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Comments about the draft

This looks excessive to me. If people want to learn about the company's "primary products" and to "understand their whole product line", they can use Cloudflare's web site. Pls see: Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:56, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Also, I would suggest using the sandbox or a user sub-page for drafting content. The extra sections on the Talk page make the discussion harder to follow. Then the link can be provided here for discussion. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Good idea, I will try to use a sandbox or user sub-page. I am unfamiliar how to do that, how to make a sandbox or user sub-page, but I imagine some quick research can show me how. I will research this weekend.

I have reviewed Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory and I disagree with your comment that "this looks excessive" and simply refer to any number of other public $10B+ market cap companies with thousands of employees. For example, check the Wikipedia pages for Akamai, Mimecast, Cloudera, MongoDB, LogMeIn, HubSpot, DocuSign, etc who all have lots more product information. Some even with very extensive lists and sub-sections! My goal is to build out this page at least as much as several of those are. This was merely a draft outline, I'll do more research to see what makes sense to add and make sure it is unbiased and factual and comparative to other company pages. Open to any suggestions! Nickgray (talk) 02:09, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Sept 2020: My planned upcoming edits to help improve this page

UPDATE -- With apologies for using this page to broadcast my work. Going forward, I will be sandboxing my future updates to the Cloudflare page on this user page, based on suggestion from someone (I forget who, apologies). Then I will only use this Talk page to discuss and solicit input. I will use that page to brainstorm how to improve the article, cite sources, etc before I push anything live. Nickgray (talk) 10:43, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi there! I'm new on this page so figured I'd drop some notes here about what I'm thinking to make this page better. I'll come back in a few days to see if others have feedback and continue to tinker.

1. Sub-sections for the Controversies section
2. DONE -- Link to the recent huge Wired feature on one of the Cloudflare founders DONE // Nickgray (talk) 11:20, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
3. Break out recent History from overall History - perhaps in a PRODUCT OFFERINGS or something?
4. More product info or services info: Generally it looks like 90% of the content of the page is about Controversies and Hackers, which is fine for a security-related company. But considering Cloudflare powers 10% of the internet, or at least proxies it (which BTW is that the most accurate description of Cloudflare? a reverse proxy?) (another BTW: is there a third-party independent source to verify that 10% claim? I have seen them make it) -- just seems like this page is disproportionately focused on controversy while they're a $10B company servicing and helping dozens of companies in the Fortune 100 (shrug).
5. Competitors - Would it be helpful to list their competitors, like Fastly, CrowdStrike, Akamai, etc? Do other tech company pages do that?
6. STARTED -- Acquisitions - I saw that the page for Fastly lists theirs, so we could add some here for Cloudflare. // STARTED TODAY // Nickgray (talk) 11:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
7. Competitor pages have these additional main sections, consider adding: Technologies (HUGE section w/sub sections on Akamai page), Customers (Wikipedia is a customer of Cloudflare, I believe), Funding (meh - little value to reader I think? tho they did go public last year), Accolades (CrowdStrike had this), etc. I'll probably start w/Technologies bc can mention additional Cloudflare products there and move existing copy from History which IMHO is not "History," per se. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickgray (talk • contribs) 13:46, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
8. Infobox updates - add their COO since she was a Co-founder, change Services or just add something like Cloud computing like Akamai has (I don't think "reverse proxy" represents where the majority of Cloudflare revenue comes from, but perhaps it represents majority of their traffic? Technical term so I must research) or Edge computing, add Founders to Infobox and add Lee Holloway, try to find number of employees to cite and add --Nickgray (talk) 13:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Overall, looking back at this Talk page history, it seems there is a TON of controversy over their controversies -- so I won't go anywhere near editing that and make sure to keep a NPOV. I do strongly believe that adding sub-sections here, which should get reflected in the TOC, would benefit the reader.

My bias is that I'm a happy Cloudflare user. I've used Cloudflare's free services on my website for a few years, and I recently upgraded to their $20/mo paid account. To be clear: I don't work for Cloudflare, I don't have any friends of family who work for Cloudflare, I've never met the CEO, to my knowledge I'm not friends w/any employees of Cloudflare on Facebook, and they're not paying me to make these edits. Feels like I have to say those things based on based COI complaints from 2019. I've made a lot of similar edits on Wikipedia for companies and people that I'm passionate about - please see my edit history if you're curious.

OK that's all I got! Hope this isn't inappropriate to type out before I start editing. Considering all the controversies on this page I figured it was the best place to start.

--Nickgray (talk) 13:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

We will be leaving the controversies in the lede. I think your post here reads like an advertisement. Why do you think it is important to include how much money you're paying for the service here? --Jorm (talk) 14:38, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Copy that RE: controversies and leaving them in the lede. RE: why mention how much I pay, I wanted to indicate that while I'm a paying customer, I'm at the lowest possible tier -- not paying $200/mo or an Enterprise client (shrug). Happy to remove but I'm new to advanced Wikipedia edits (tho a very old user) and trying my best to be upfront about any COI. Perhaps it was not necessary for me to include that. I'd be happy to get your future feedback on my edits as I help improve the Cloudflare page. Overall I just think it skews towards too much Controversial coverage and doesn't represent the bigger picture of their tech, contributions to the internet (thanks for saving Wikipedia from a DDoS attack in 2019), etc. What do you think? --Nickgray (talk) 15:37, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I've objected to the recent changes, as undue focus on minor acquisitions (plus a random factoid about a founder's illness). The acquisitions were added with the rationale that "Other competitor pages on Wikipedia like Fastly and Akamai list acquisitions either as a sub-head or a full head": [1]. In re: Akamai Technologies, it's a publicly traded company with $3 Bln of revenue, so the comparisons are not apt.

Regarding other points, they do not look like improvements either. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:04, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Good input, thank you K.e.coffman!! I also appreciate you cleaning up the Fastly page to remove all of those acquisitions if you did not see them fit here. One question: I disagree with your removal of the Wired article reference on the "random factoid" of the co-founders illness. The fact that Wired magazine wrote a feature article of over 6,000 words to highlight this illness and the importance of it and Cloudflare... I think it is worth mentioning! I'll go ahead and add it back and perhaps we can discuss if you disagree after reading the article (please read the Wired article before you remove it again). Nickgray (talk) 22:55, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

frontotemporal dementia

I read the Wired article and it's mostly about the disease and its impacts. It's not about Cloudflare. There's no need to bring up a debilitating disease of an otherwise non-notable individual here. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

K.e.coffman How strongly do you feel about not including this? I’d argue that Lee Holloway was a co-founder, one of three, and was a core piece of the company. He was CTO of a software company and supposedly wrote a ton of their core code, right? And you feel that is non-notable in the context of the Cloudflare article? Not a hill I want to die on but it seemed like a huge article and was worth including in my attempt to link non-DDoS controversy.

I also feel it is a rare disease and is worth noting to generally help bring attention to it. Would appreciate hearing your take. As compared to some of the other items on this page, I think it is at least equally significant. Nickgray (talk) 01:26, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

It's inappropriate to raise awareness of a rare disease at the expense of a living individual and his family. It did not have impact on the company and it's not a "non-DDoS controversy" either. I suggest getting consensus at WP:BLPN first. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:39, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Hm, I hadn't thought about that perspective. You're probably right. Thanks for clarifying then and giving me a second thought on it. I'd argue that it did have an impact on the company - if you read the entire Wired article, it seems like there was strife around his exit? But, yeah, I'm nit-picking: in the grand scope of my quest to improve the article, this really doesn't matter. I will consider the issue resolved and focus my time on a more productive effort. Nickgray (talk) 02:02, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Having slept on this and now reading over the Cloudflare story, I think we should acknowledge that Lee Holloway left the company. I'll try to ask WP:BLPN their thoughts on including the early-onset dementia note. I won't make any changes until I ask them and get consensus. Nickgray (talk) 14:14, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Controversies in lede?

I was surprised to see that the lede section of controversies is longer than the section above it. No other article on the Wiki is like this and I think that this section should be at least summarized in the lede. This does not look like a npov edit. I will probably try to change it. Andrew nyr (talk, contribs) 14:46, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Andrew nyr Yes please! If you are saying that the Controversies section feels too big and too long, I 100% agree with you and will support you on this. And yet it seems there are a LOT of "Cloudflare haters" out there who are, or have been, disproportionately focusing all the attention on the company's "freedom of speech"-type policy. In my opinion, it does not make it a better article by having all of that additional info. LMK if I can help. I imagine we'll need to get some sort of third-party approval here from more senior editors if/when your edits get contested? I am a recently active member of the community here and still learning how this all works. Nickgray (talk) 17:34, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Role in 2020 Elections RE: Security

Considering all of the focus that the current article has RE: news coverage, would adding a link to this or mentioning it benefit the Wikipedia article?

Cloudflare CEO: Dozens of U.S. states are using Athenian Project for election security

• More than half of U.S. states are using Athenian Project from Cloudflare, which is offering free website security services to state and local governments and political campaigns.
• Athenian Project offers local and state governments free enterprise products to defend election infrastructures, including voter data and election return information, from cyberattacks, a critical component in a fraught political environment.

Or maybe we could note about the Athenian Project somewhere on the article? It appears to be a service or product of Cloudflare. I'm not sure it would warrant a sub-head under Products. Any help or advice would be appreciated!

Nickgray (talk) 12:32, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Help request: Product Offerings (Oct 2020)

Hello Wikipedia editors, I could really use some help from someone more technically-minded to update this article to better describe what Cloudflare offers RE: their more advanced products. Could you comment here or update the article?

First, to head off claims of wp:promo -- I know. I'm not a marketing troll, and I'm not a Cloudflare corporate shill. I'm a consumer user of their product and follow their announcements.

Here's why this isn't wp:promo -- Today's Wikipedia page for the company does not accurately reflect reality of what they offer and what their thousands of employees actually do. This is a fast-moving tech company who has evolved beyond this legacy article.

Example: The recently announced Cloudflare One. I kind of don't really understand WTF it is, and there are no external news sources covering it, so we don't want to include it on the article. But increasingly it seems that THIS type of stuff is what Cloudflare "really" does, not just their CDN and DDoS (which I fairly understand and have already included on the article).

Here's what one analyst said about Cloudflare One, which we can't include on the article b/c I can't cite the source but perhaps you'll get what I'm looking for help on:

Cloudflare One is the combination and culmination of the multiple products (WARP, Magic Transit, CNI, Access, Gateway, Magic Firewall) Cloudflare has introduced over the past 12-18 months as well as some new offerings to be launched this week and in the near future (browser isolation, Magic WAN, Magic Firewall).

Conclusion: I'd appreciate any insight from more technically-minded folks about what other Products should be included in the article. Cloudflare has dozens on their company home page and I can't make heads or tails of the higher-level... some examples of additional Products sub-heads could be: VPN? Security? Magic Transit?

Nickgray (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)