Talk:Internet Society

Hello! Here with a request to make History clearer. I am the Internet Society's official representative on Wikipedia. With this conflict of interest in mind, I will work with Wikipedia's dedicated community of volunteers to propose Wikipedia-appropriate improvements here on the discussion page.

Will editors review the draft History section here to replace the live version? This removes content that is either unsourced or relies solely on primary sources; adds sourcing where possible; eliminates some topics now covered in Activities to limit redundancy; and adds some new content (such as Facebook partnership and the MANRS Observatory).

Thank you. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Kvng: I do appreciate the time you have given in your previous reviews of updates I've proposed, thank you. If you are still interested in reviewing requested updates for this article, here is a draft History section to consider. Thanks. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 10:03, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I object to this edit and attempt at re-writing the history of the Internet Society. It is not acceptable for the Internet Society's communications department to seek to re-write this article.Ferdeline (talk) 01:52, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

Hello! I am posting this request to update the section in the Internet Society article on the proposed sale of the Public Interest Registry. I am the Internet Society's official representative on Wikipedia. With this conflict of interest in mind, I am requesting Wikipedia-appropriate improvements to the article here on the discussion page.

It is my hope that editors will consider this draft an improvement. It contains some minor copy edits and changes wording since the deal is no longer on the table; removes an unsourced sentence; adds the exact date ICANN halted its final decision; and adds a sentence saying that Internet Society President and CEO Andrew Sullivan said neither PIR nor any of its operations are for sale following the rejection of the proposal to sell PIR to Ethos Capital.

Thank you. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 09:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Neville at Internet Society, the changes requested here are mostly subtle and I don't like to change things unless there is a clear improvement. I did remove a couple of unneeded words as you suggested. The substantial part of the request is to add a statement from the president. I'm not sure what this adds for our readers and, due to the COI, the safe thing to do is leave it out. ~Kvng (talk) 00:55, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Kvng: My thoughts on adding the statement from the president and CEO was that it informed readers that PIR is no longer for sale. Would you support an abridged version to that effect? Neville at Internet Society (talk) 17:13, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

He said it was not for sale at this time. This was the case before all this went down so it does not seem to be a substantially reassuring statement. ~Kvng (talk) 14:12, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to consider, Kvng. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 10:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Neville at Internet Society: I agree with Kvng's assessment of the request and I prefer how it is currently worded in the article. I am going to close this ticket. If there is anything from the above request that is missing that you think should be in the article, please ping me below and I will assess the additions. If you would like to open a new edit request, please follow the instructions at Template:Request edit/Instructions. Thanks and happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Z1720: Neville is actually no longer at the Internet Society, but on behalf of those of us who work there and therefore have COI with this page, thank you for taking the time to read and respond to the request. I do agree with you and Kvng that the text there is fine as it is (after Kvng previously made a few tweaks. Thanks to both of you. - Dyork (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello! I hope editors will consider my draft introduction. While my draft intro does not contain major changes, it is a bit more precise and accurate. I am the Internet Society's official representative on Wikipedia. With this conflict of interest in mind, I am requesting Wikipedia-appropriate improvements to the article here on the discussion page.

The draft I put forward here changes "American nonprofit organization founded in 1992" to "a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1992 and incorporated in the U.S." as it is more specific. It also updates the mission statement quoted. Lastly, my draft includes a sentence on Internet Society's vision. When I first created my draft, that sentence was meant to update a sentence in the intro at the time that said "the Internet is for Everyone" was Internet Society's "motto". That sentence has since been removed from the intro, so I'll defer to editors if they think restating it correctly as Internet Society's "vision" is appropriate.

Thank you. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 11:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

? Hi all, would anyone be willing to help with this update suggestion? ⬆️ The current article text is inaccurate as it references an older mission statement. This new text would correct that. (Current mission statement at https://www.internetsociety.org/mission/ ) As Neville notes on his user page he is no longer an Internet Society employee and so is no longer monitoring this page. I am an Internet Society employee (although, unlike Neville, I am NOT specifically paid to do Wikipedia editing), and so have WP:COI to make this change myself. Thanks for considering this request. - Dyork (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi. The Infobox on this page says that the "Motto" of the organization is "The Internet is for Everyone". This is really the "Vision" of the organization, as outlined at: https://www.internetsociety.org/mission/ The organization does not refer to that as a Motto. Would someone please be open to changing the Infobox to say "Vision" instead of "Motto"? (I ask purely because I've been contacted by people who know of that phrase as our vision and wonder why Wikipedia calls it our motto.) I could make the change myself, but as noted elsewhere, I have WP:COI and so I won't. Thanks for the consideration, - Dyork (talk) 20:34, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

This Talk page was getting way too long and it was challenging to figure out what open issues still needed resolution. It had many discussions on it that were either implemented or resolved. Following the manual process on H:ARC I created a first archive page at Talk:Internet_Society/Archive_1. All of that historical information about past implemented/resolved discussions can now be found on that page as well as in the Talk header at the top of this page. I have tried to keep all of the open / unresolved issues here on this page - if you think I archived too much, please leave a comment and sections can always be brought back from the archive page. - Dyork (talk) 20:57, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi all. Would someone be willing to please update the intro paragraph to have the current mission of the Internet Society? The organization mission stated in the introduction paragraph is out-of-date. That was the mission up until 2017 when the organization's board worked with the community to arrive at a new mission statement. While the full mission statement is quite long, an abbreviated version that would be more in line would be this:

Note that I'm also suggesting changing the text to be more specific about being a 501(c)(3) and also clarifying that the organization's main office are in Reston and Geneva (it has other offices). Frankly I don't care as much about those changes - I would just like an updated mission there as members of our community have asked why this Wikipedia page is out-of-date.

As I am an employee of the Internet Society, I have COI and will not edit the page. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could please make this change.

Secondly, as I noted earlier on this page, is it possible to change the infobox to say "Vision" instead of "Motto"? When I hear "motto" I think of New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die!" or some statement like that. We don't ever talk about "The Internet is for everyone" as our "motto". It's our "vision". If there is no standard to use "motto" in an infobox, I would love it if it could be changed to "vision".

Thank you for your consideration on both of these points. - Dyork (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

It is unusual to quote an organization's mission statement in the lead of an article. I really think that needs to be removed rather than updated. 501(c)(3) is technical so better left to the body. The lead is already too short to summarize the article. That needs to be fixed too. ~Kvng (talk) 15:31, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Kvng - Ah, okay. Looking around right now at other organizations I see what you mean about not including the mission statement. That's fine by me - my point was more that if there IS going to be the mission statement, it should be the current one. I also see what you mean that the lead paragraph is very short. Probably a few of the points in the "Organization" or "History" section should be pulled the lead paragraph to truly give a summary. Thanks for the feedback. I'll see about working on a suggestion.. unless some other (non-COI) editor wants to go ahead with it before I come up with a suggestion. - Dyork (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that directly quoting the organization's mission statement would not be appropriate. However, the current version of the article has no information about the organization's purpose or goals. I propose to update the article's lead as follows:

Current version: The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. It has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States, and Geneva, Switzerland.

New version: The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American non-profit advocacy organization whose purpose is to promote an open and safe internet. Founded in 1992, it has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States, and Geneva, Switzerland, with local chapters around the world.

I purposefully kept the wording brief and simple. More details should be added to the body of the article.

Josef Horáček (talk) 16:23, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

@Josefhoracek, your new version is a modest improvement and I would support adopting it. There is plenty of room for further improvement and @Dyork's suggestion of summarizing some information in Organization and History sections sounds promising. ~Kvng (talk) 16:37, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

@Kvng, thank you for your note. I added the edit to the article. Hopefully, other editors will further improve it. Josef Horáček (talk) 15:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Hello! In the infobox I noticed that the date of formation is listed as "December 11, 1992". Per the referenced source the organization's formation date was January 1, 1992.

Could someone please update that? Or agree that I can go in and make that edit directly myself? Thank you - Dyork (talk) 22:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The source you reference is WP:PRIMARY and indicates paperwork was filed on 10 December. I think this would be the first obviously externally verifiable date. The Internet Society doesn't give any indication why we should consider 1 January the founding date. The source cited in the infobox is a 2016 tax filing that just indicates 1992 as the year of formation. ~Kvng (talk) 14:56, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@Kvng - Ah, of course. I understand. I'll have to see if there is a RS somewhere that substantiates the Jan 1. Thank you for the time you took to look at it. - Dyork (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2022 (UTC)