Jump to content
The Education Forum

Wikipedia, Spartacus and the JFK Assassination


John Simkin

Recommended Posts

(2) Page moves happen all the time. They can be requested or contested at Wikipedia:Requested moves, if they are contentious. In other words, a forum is provided to discuss the point.

What I described was not a "page move." It was a significant title change to propagate a CIA fiction. Propaganda by redefinition of terms is also a CIA gimmick.

'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia. You can't edit titles. I'm using the correct terminology, and you are not. Can you support your contention?

As was pointed out in the discussion, there were many longer articles on Wikipedia at the time (on less controversial issues, of course), and it violated no hard and fast rules on length, so that was an entirely specious issue used as an excuse.
What was said was that the length put it in the top 100 articles. Therefore leaving 99.99% of articles shorter.
The issue of sources was aired: it was felt that the cited sources didn't adequately support the claims
Not a single actual example was given, only claims that the sources "didn't adequately support the claims." So post an actual example instead of simply repeating a false claim, and I'll be happy to discuss and document facts, not answer recitations of generalized and unsupported allegations. That's what injustice thrives on.

You don't want to champion such egregious injustices, surely.

I had a look. One book was cited 24 times, without a single page reference. That's creating a labyrinthine task for anyone. That was reference 94 cited.

and that the article was tarnished with 'original research' (WP term for synthesis going beyond the sourced material).

Another false and unsupported allegation. Repitition of false generalized charges don't make them any more true today than they did in Salem in the seventeenth century. Same tactics, different day.

Come now. I was merely summarising the relevant page and what was said there. I thought we had a truce on religious allusions, also. Looking at the article I see plenty of 'asides' that would likely count as OR.

But here are my personal opinions about that in general, and the Remote Viewing Timeline article specifically:
  1. [*]Generally, on certain controversial subjects there is a core of "Wikipedians" who can be counted on to industriously attack any article that strays from "The Official Story" that the government's Operation Mockingbird has invested millions in shoving down people's throats.

Looking into it, the nominator for the RVT article is interested in 'pseudoscience' deletions, not CIA-related material. So, in my view, you are barking up the wrong tree. Wikipedia is a diverse place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 157
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

(2) Page moves happen all the time. They can be requested or contested at Wikipedia:Requested moves, if they are contentious. In other words, a forum is provided to discuss the point.

What I described was not a "page move." It was a significant title change to propagate a CIA fiction. Propaganda by redefinition of terms is also a CIA gimmick.

'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia. You can't edit titles. I'm using the correct terminology, and you are not. Can you support your contention?

As was pointed out in the discussion, there were many longer articles on Wikipedia at the time (on less controversial issues, of course), and it violated no hard and fast rules on length, so that was an entirely specious issue used as an excuse.
What was said was that the length put it in the top 100 articles. Therefore leaving 99.99% of articles shorter.
The issue of sources was aired: it was felt that the cited sources didn't adequately support the claims
Not a single actual example was given, only claims that the sources "didn't adequately support the claims." So post an actual example instead of simply repeating a false claim, and I'll be happy to discuss and document facts, not answer recitations of generalized and unsupported allegations. That's what injustice thrives on.

You don't want to champion such egregious injustices, surely.

I had a look. One book was cited 24 times, without a single page reference. That's creating a labyrinthine task for anyone. That was reference 94 cited.

and that the article was tarnished with 'original research' (WP term for synthesis going beyond the sourced material).

Another false and unsupported allegation. Repitition of false generalized charges don't make them any more true today than they did in Salem in the seventeenth century. Same tactics, different day.

Come now. I was merely summarising the relevant page and what was said there. I thought we had a truce on religious allusions, also. Looking at the article I see plenty of 'asides' that would likely count as OR.

But here are my personal opinions about that in general, and the Remote Viewing Timeline article specifically:
  1. [*]Generally, on certain controversial subjects there is a core of "Wikipedians" who can be counted on to industriously attack any article that strays from "The Official Story" that the government's Operation Mockingbird has invested millions in shoving down people's throats.

Looking into it, the nominator for the RVT article is interested in 'pseudoscience' deletions, not CIA-related material. So, in my view, you are barking up the wrong tree. Wikipedia is a diverse place.

*********************************************************

"Wikipedia is a diverse place."

Obviously. :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ashton, why torture Charles? You didn't, by some small chance, write those articles yourself, did you?

P.S. Now how many Watergate figures doubted Hunt's creation of at least one false cable re the Diem coup? That's right. Zero. And how many figures doubted there'd been a break-in? That's right. Zero.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

P.S. Now how many Watergate figures doubted Hunt's creation of at least one false cable re the Diem coup? That's right. Zero. And how many figures doubted there'd been a break
-in? That's right. Zero.

And just how does this make it more true? My experience with convicted felons is that they lie

on a regular basis.

Dawn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This exchange has gotten to the point where any attempt to respond meaningfully hits the forum's arbitrary limits on quote blocks. I think the limitations are as useless as teats on a boar hog, but be that as it may, I have to resort to absurd conventions to "quote" previous exchanges:

CHARLES MATTHEWS: Page moves happen all the time. They can be requested or contested at Wikipedia:Requested moves, if they are contentious. In other words, a forum is provided to discuss the point.

ASHTON GRAY: What I described was not a "page move." It was a significant title change to propagate a CIA fiction. Propaganda by redefinition of terms is also a CIA gimmick.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: 'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia. You can't edit titles. I'm using the correct terminology, and you are not. Can you support your contention?

You just made my case for me conclusively. Thank you for stipulating that the title was changed. Allow me to read your sentence back to you: "'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia."

A title change was effected, period. I don't really care whether Wikipedia changed the title to fiction by "moving" the page, sprinkling it with fairy dust (which there seems to be no shortage of these days), or rattling gourds at it. As you have admitted, the original title of the article has been changed.

Since you've made an issue of this non-issue of how the title change was done, though, let's explore it further:

Of course, anyone can move a page from one directory to another on any server anywhere without effecting any slightest title change. Ipso facto, "moving" a page on the web does not equate to changing a title anywhere in cyberspace except in the Wikipedian universe and Wikispeak.

Getting past the Wikispeak to the real world effects of what was done, I'll thank you again for admitting that the title of the article was changed, thereby supporting my contention for me. You did a fine, fine job.

What you haven't yet admitted, though, is that the title it was changed to is a gross fiction, which is the seminal issue—not Wikipedia's doublespeak nomenclature.

So let's get down to bedrock and find out directly and specifically: do you contend that there actually was a "first break-in" at the Watergate on Memorial Day weekend 1972?

Turning to the discussion of the gang-bang WikiWhacking of the Remote Viewing Timeline:

ASHTON GRAY: As was pointed out in the discussion, there were many longer articles on Wikipedia at the time (on less controversial issues, of course), and it violated no hard and fast rules on length, so that was an entirely specious issue used as an excuse.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: What was said was that the length put it in the top 100 articles. Therefore leaving 99.99% of articles shorter.

Thank you again for stipulating my point: there were as many as 100 articles on Wikipedia that were as long as, or longer than, the Remote Viewing Timeline. Ipso facto, the complaints against its length were an infamous double standard used as one more bludgeon in a travesty of "due process" in order to suppress the information the timeline contained and eradicate it from Wikipedia.

If you keep making my case so well for me, I may have to nominate you for whistleblower status.

So what steps will be taken to close the door on the possibility of any future such abusive double standards at Wikipedia?

CHARLES MATTHEWS: The issue of sources was aired: it was felt that the cited sources didn't adequately support the claims

ASHTON GRAY: Not a single actual example was given, only claims that the sources "didn't adequately support the claims." So post an actual example instead of simply repeating a false claim, and I'll be happy to discuss and document facts, not answer recitations of generalized and unsupported allegations. That's what injustice thrives on. You don't want to champion such egregious injustices, surely.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: I had a look. One book was cited 24 times, without a single page reference. That's creating a labyrinthine task for anyone. That was reference 94 cited.

That wasn't the issue being discussed. You're attempting to change the subject. The issue being discussed was false, generalized, and unsupported accusations against the Remote Viewing Timeline falsely claiming that the cited sources "didn't adequately support the claims." (Couched in the passive generalized terms, "it was felt.")

You still haven't given a single valid example to support any such accusation. I'm not going to be finessed by you into changing the subject, but I am going to address your attempt to change the subject.

In that attempt, you didn't disclose the following from Wikipedia's own references on sources and cites for articles:

First, from Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style:

Formatting of a Wikipedia article reference list is a
secondary detail
, and there is currently
no consensus on a precise prescribed citation format
in Wikipedia.

And from Citation:

Citations to a book generally include at least
author(s), book title, publisher and date of publication.

So in fact, there's not a single firm requirement anywhere in the entire length and breadth of Wikipedia that a book reference include page numbers, is there?

And in fact, there are plenty of books referenced in Wikipedia articles where no book page numbers are supplied, aren't there? (I am prepared to list examples if you want to continue down this path with me. I wouldn't advise it if I were advising you, but I'm not, so you do what you think best.)

Therefore the "issue" that you attempted to change the subject to is a non-issue, and just another infamous double standard, isn't it?

So back to the actual issue: you still have not supplied even a single example wherein the sources cited in the Remote Viewing Timeline "didn't adequately support the claims," have you?

Here's my opinion on why you haven't, and why you won't: because at all relevant time such accusations were never anything more than the most scurrilous falsehoods hurled like chum into a feeding frenzy without a shred of integrity or truth, and with the sole malicious intent of discrediting a very well researched and well cited artcle that exposed dirty truths utterly destroying the party line of fictions about Remote Viewing that Wikipedia represents and propagates.

I mean, that would seem to me, on its face, to be the most obvious reason why you don't post a single example backing up the accusations that you posted here as being "felt," and instead tried to change the subject. Maybe you have another explanation? I'd be happy, of course, to hear it.

I next addressed your claim that the Remote Viewing Timeline "was tarnished with 'original research.'" (Gotta' love that Wikispeak. Where else in the world can you find a sentence that contains "tarnished with original research"?):

ASHTON GRAY: Another false and unsupported allegation. Repitition of false generalized charges don't make them any more true today than they did in Salem in the seventeenth century. Same tactics, different day.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: Come now. I was merely summarising the relevant page and what was said there. I thought we had a truce on religious allusions, also.

I had correctly predicted you would attempt to muzzle me once in a discussion of Wikipedia censorship, but I have to admit that I didn't think anybody could have reservoirs of chutzpah deep enough to try it a second time in a discussion on censorship. You continue to amaze me, and not only with your candid admissions.

Allow me, though, to recommend that you do a refresher course on early American history: in the first place, witchery was extra-religious. I think you'll find that was the crux of the problem leading to the tactics so in evidence at Wikipedia in the instant matter.

In the second place, the warrants were issued by the secular county magistrate.

In the third place, the secular Governor, Sir William Phips, is the one who set up the "court of oyer and terminer" where the accused witches were tried.

Is there anything else you'd like to try to censor me from saying?

CHARLES MATTHEWS: Looking at the article I see plenty of 'asides' that would likely count as OR.

Oh, good! Then it should be nothing for you to quote a few examples here. (Of course, I hope you have a copy of the original Wikipedia article, because the webbed version has since been expanded and added to with quite a lot of images and captions, as well as new timeline entries. You wouldn't want to be building a "case" on material that wasn't even in the Wikipedia version, I just know in my heart. That would be the intellectual equivalent of jumping from a high ledge, and nobody wants to see that.)

And now to the last matter you've raised, which has amazed me most of all:

ASHTON GRAY: But here are my personal opinions about that in general, and the Remote Viewing Timeline article specifically:
  1. Generally, on certain controversial subjects there is a core of "Wikipedians" who can be counted on to industriously attack any article that strays from "The Official Story" that the government's Operation Mockingbird has invested millions in shoving down people's throats.

CHARLES MATTHEWS:Looking into it, the nominator for the RVT article is interested in 'pseudoscience' deletions, not CIA-related material. So, in my view, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Well, well. At last we drill down far enough through layers of false accusations and non-issues to hit the nerve. At last we find out what was at work all along: a crusade to protect the world from "pseudoscience" by a group of self-appointed, self-annointed High Priests of the Cult of Final Arbitration on Science vs. Pseudoscience.

Aren't we all fortunate to have such benign protection through censorship.

Let me express, though, just personally, one tiny little reservation I have about such a noble crusade: that crusading "nominators" should not be countenanced who are so tree-stump stupid that they don't know the difference between an article on history and an article on science.

Tell me, please, that you and I at least agree that this is a reasonable dividing line on levels of stupidity and ignorance: able to tell the difference between history and science. Work for you?

The Remote Viewing Timeline is, and always was, a history of the development of CIA's remote viewing program. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with being an article on either "science" or "pseudoscience." It has everything to do with being an account of historical events that actually happened, laid out in chronological order.

So I'm not sure why you raised this point at all, given that it's totally irrelevant. Did you think that perhaps I was so tree-stump stupid that I don't know the difference between an article on history and an article on science? If so, I'm sorry if I've disappointed you.

In fact, a simple search on the long timeline only turns up a grand total of five uses of the word "science" in any form, and two of those are in the titles of cited references, so couldn't be avoided under any circumstances.

The remaining three instances where the word "science" turned up at all are as follows (the word "science" put in bold):

  1. (An entry regarding the slang name of a Soviet facility): "Special Department No. 8" is established at the Institute of Automation and Electrometry in Academgorodok, ("Science City"), near Novosibirsk, Siberia.
  2. (An exact quote from a publication of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]): "The Soviet Union is well aware of the benefits and applications of parapsychology research. The term parapsychology denotes a multi-disciplinary field consisting of the sciences of bionics, biophysics, psychophysics, psychology, physiology and neuropsychology."
  3. (An entry from an article in a CIA publication that includes the name of a CIA department): Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ brief senior CIA officials at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia on their remote viewing research. The officials include Office of Technical Services (OTS) chief John McMahon and Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett.

That's it.

That's the totality of uses of the word "science" in any form or context in the entirety of the Remote Viewing Timeline. It is an article exclusively on the HISTORY of CIA's remote viewing program. It makes not a single claim about anything being "science" or not.

And yet your "nominator" had to save the world from "pseudoscience" by mounting an hysterical (and maliciously false) crusade for eradication of an article that was exclusively on HISTORY related to CIA and its remote viewing program?

Does Wikipedia allow, support, condone, and defend "nominators" who are too ignorant to know the difference between an article on history and an article on science? Is that really what this boils down to?

If so, it makes "1984" read like a bubble gum comic.

If so, it makes Joseph Goebbels look like a sophomore high school newspaper editor.

If so, I personally think that Wikipedia, with its worldwide reach and impact, has managed to plumb a stunning new nadir in the annals of censorship and suppression of knowledge, one that I hope will find eternal life ;) in the infamy it richly deserves.

That's just how I see it.

Ashton Gray

Edited by Ashton Gray
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This exchange has gotten to the point where any attempt to respond meaningfully hits the forum's arbitrary limits on quote blocks. I think the limitations are as useless as teats on a boar hog, but be that as it may, I have to resort to absurd conventions to "quote" previous exchanges:
CHARLES MATTHEWS: Page moves happen all the time. They can be requested or contested at Wikipedia:Requested moves, if they are contentious. In other words, a forum is provided to discuss the point.

ASHTON GRAY: What I described was not a "page move." It was a significant title change to propagate a CIA fiction. Propaganda by redefinition of terms is also a CIA gimmick.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: 'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia. You can't edit titles. I'm using the correct terminology, and you are not. Can you support your contention?

You just made my case for me conclusively. Thank you for stipulating that the title was changed. Allow me to read your sentence back to you: "'Title changes' are only carried out by 'page moves' on Wikipedia."

A title change was effected, period. I don't really care whether Wikipedia changed the title to fiction by "moving" the page, sprinkling it with fairy dust (which there seems to be no shortage of these days), or rattling gourds at it. As you have admitted, the original title of the article has been changed.

Since you've made an issue of this non-issue of how the title change was done, though, let's explore it further:

Of course, anyone can move a page from one directory to another on any server anywhere without effecting any slightest title change. Ipso facto, "moving" a page on the web does not equate to changing a title anywhere in cyberspace except in the Wikipedian universe and Wikispeak.

Getting past the Wikispeak to the real world effects of what was done, I'll thank you again for admitting that the title of the article was changed, thereby supporting my contention for me. You did a fine, fine job.

What you haven't yet admitted, though, is that the title it was changed to is a gross fiction, which is the seminal issue—not Wikipedia's doublespeak nomenclature.

So let's get down to bedrock and find out directly and specifically: do you contend that there actually was a "first break-in" at the Watergate on Memorial Day weekend 1972?

Turning to the discussion of the gang-bang WikiWhacking of the Remote Viewing Timeline:

ASHTON GRAY: As was pointed out in the discussion, there were many longer articles on Wikipedia at the time (on less controversial issues, of course), and it violated no hard and fast rules on length, so that was an entirely specious issue used as an excuse.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: What was said was that the length put it in the top 100 articles. Therefore leaving 99.99% of articles shorter.

Thank you again for stipulating my point: there were as many as 100 articles on Wikipedia that were as long as, or longer than, the Remote Viewing Timeline. Ipso facto, the complaints against its length were an infamous double standard used as one more bludgeon in a travesty of "due process" in order to suppress the information the timeline contained and eradicate it from Wikipedia.

If you keep making my case so well for me, I may have to nominate you for whistleblower status.

So what steps will be taken to close the door on the possibility of any future such abusive double standards at Wikipedia?

CHARLES MATTHEWS: The issue of sources was aired: it was felt that the cited sources didn't adequately support the claims

ASHTON GRAY: Not a single actual example was given, only claims that the sources "didn't adequately support the claims." So post an actual example instead of simply repeating a false claim, and I'll be happy to discuss and document facts, not answer recitations of generalized and unsupported allegations. That's what injustice thrives on. You don't want to champion such egregious injustices, surely.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: I had a look. One book was cited 24 times, without a single page reference. That's creating a labyrinthine task for anyone. That was reference 94 cited.

That wasn't the issue being discussed. You're attempting to change the subject. The issue being discussed was false, generalized, and unsupported accusations against the Remote Viewing Timeline falsely claiming that the cited sources "didn't adequately support the claims." (Couched in the passive generalized terms, "it was felt.")

You still haven't given a single valid example to support any such accusation. I'm not going to be finessed by you into changing the subject, but I am going to address your attempt to change the subject.

In that attempt, you didn't disclose the following from Wikipedia's own references on sources and cites for articles:

First, from Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style:

Formatting of a Wikipedia article reference list is a
secondary detail
, and there is currently
no consensus on a precise prescribed citation format
in Wikipedia.

And from Citation:

Citations to a book generally include at least
author(s), book title, publisher and date of publication.

So in fact, there's not a single firm requirement anywhere in the entire length and breadth of Wikipedia that a book reference include page numbers, is there?

And in fact, there are plenty of books referenced in Wikipedia articles where no book page numbers are supplied, aren't there? (I am prepared to list examples if you want to continue down this path with me. I wouldn't advise it if I were advising you, but I'm not, so you do what you think best.)

Therefore the "issue" that you attempted to change the subject to is a non-issue, and just another infamous double standard, isn't it?

So back to the actual issue: you still have not supplied even a single example wherein the sources cited in the Remote Viewing Timeline "didn't adequately support the claims," have you?

Here's my opinion on why you haven't, and why you won't: because at all relevant time such accusations were never anything more than the most scurrilous falsehoods hurled like chum into a feeding frenzy without a shred of integrity or truth, and with the sole malicious intent of discrediting a very well researched and well cited artcle that exposed dirty truths utterly destroying the party line of fictions about Remote Viewing that Wikipedia represents and propagates.

I mean, that would seem to me, on its face, to be the most obvious reason why you don't post a single example backing up the accusations that you posted here as being "felt," and instead tried to change the subject. Maybe you have another explanation? I'd be happy, of course, to hear it.

I next addressed your claim that the Remote Viewing Timeline "was tarnished with 'original research.'" (Gotta' love that Wikispeak. Where else in the world can you find a sentence that contains "tarnished with original research"?):

ASHTON GRAY: Another false and unsupported allegation. Repitition of false generalized charges don't make them any more true today than they did in Salem in the seventeenth century. Same tactics, different day.

CHARLES MATTHEWS: Come now. I was merely summarising the relevant page and what was said there. I thought we had a truce on religious allusions, also.

I had correctly predicted you would attempt to muzzle me once in a discussion of Wikipedia censorship, but I have to admit that I didn't think anybody could have reservoirs of chutzpah deep enough to try it a second time in a discussion on censorship. You continue to amaze me, and not only with your candid admissions.

Allow me, though, to recommend that you do a refresher course on early American history: in the first place, witchery was extra-religious. I think you'll find that was the crux of the problem leading to the tactics so in evidence at Wikipedia in the instant matter.

In the second place, the warrants were issued by the secular county magistrate.

In the third place, the secular Governor, Sir William Phips, is the one who set up the "court of oyer and terminer" where the accused witches were tried.

Is there anything else you'd like to try to censor me from saying?

CHARLES MATTHEWS: Looking at the article I see plenty of 'asides' that would likely count as OR.

Oh, good! Then it should be nothing for you to quote a few examples here. (Of course, I hope you have a copy of the original Wikipedia article, because the webbed version has since been expanded and added to with quite a lot of images and captions, as well as new timeline entries. You wouldn't want to be building a "case" on material that wasn't even in the Wikipedia version, I just know in my heart. That would be the intellectual equivalent of jumping from a high ledge, and nobody wants to see that.)

And now to the last matter you've raised, which has amazed me most of all:

ASHTON GRAY: But here are my personal opinions about that in general, and the Remote Viewing Timeline article specifically:
  1. Generally, on certain controversial subjects there is a core of "Wikipedians" who can be counted on to industriously attack any article that strays from "The Official Story" that the government's Operation Mockingbird has invested millions in shoving down people's throats.

CHARLES MATTHEWS:Looking into it, the nominator for the RVT article is interested in 'pseudoscience' deletions, not CIA-related material. So, in my view, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Well, well. At last we drill down far enough through layers of false accusations and non-issues to hit the nerve. At last we find out what was at work all along: a crusade to protect the world from "pseudoscience" by a group of self-appointed, self-annointed High Priests of the Cult of Final Arbitration on Science vs. Pseudoscience.

Aren't we all fortunate to have such benign protection through censorship.

Let me express, though, just personally, one tiny little reservation I have about such a noble crusade: that crusading "nominators" should not be countenanced who are so tree-stump stupid that they don't know the difference between an article on history and an article on science.

Tell me, please, that you and I at least agree that this is a reasonable dividing line on levels of stupidity and ignorance: able to tell the difference between history and science. Work for you?

The Remote Viewing Timeline is, and always was, a history of the development of CIA's remote viewing program. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with being an article on either "science" or "pseudoscience." It has everything to do with being an account of historical events that actually happened, laid out in chronological order.

So I'm not sure why you raised this point at all, given that it's totally irrelevant. Did you think that perhaps I was so tree-stump stupid that I don't know the difference between an article on history and an article on science? If so, I'm sorry if I've disappointed you.

In fact, a simple search on the long timeline only turns up a grand total of five uses of the word "science" in any form, and two of those are in the titles of cited references, so couldn't be avoided under any circumstances.

The remaining three instances where the word "science" turned up at all are as follows (the word "science" put in bold):

  1. (An entry regarding the slang name of a Soviet facility): "Special Department No. 8" is established at the Institute of Automation and Electrometry in Academgorodok, ("Science City"), near Novosibirsk, Siberia.
  2. (An exact quote from a publication of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]): "The Soviet Union is well aware of the benefits and applications of parapsychology research. The term parapsychology denotes a multi-disciplinary field consisting of the sciences of bionics, biophysics, psychophysics, psychology, physiology and neuropsychology."
  3. (An entry from an article in a CIA publication that includes the name of a CIA department): Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ brief senior CIA officials at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia on their remote viewing research. The officials include Office of Technical Services (OTS) chief John McMahon and Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett.

That's it.

That's the totality of uses of the word "science" in any form or context in the entirety of the Remote Viewing Timeline. It is an article exclusively on the HISTORY of CIA's remote viewing program. It makes not a single claim about anything being "science" or not.

And yet your "nominator" had to save the world from "pseudoscience" by mounting an hysterical (and maliciously false) crusade for eradication of an article that was exclusively on HISTORY related to CIA and its remote viewing program?

Does Wikipedia allow, support, condone, and defend "nominators" who are too ignorant to know the difference between an article on history and an article on science? Is that really what this boils down to?

If so, it makes "1984" read like a bubble gum comic.

If so, it makes Joseph Goebbels look like a sophomore high school newspaper editor.

If so, I personally think that Wikipedia, with its worldwide reach and impact, has managed to plumb a stunning new nadir in the annals of censorship and suppression of knowledge, one that I hope will find eternal life ;) in the infamy it richly deserves.

That's just how I see it.

Ashton Gray

************************************************************

That deserves a commendatory

BRAVO!!!

to you, Ash.

Ditto and unabashedly 'attaboy-ing ;):up:clapping

Edited by Terry Mauro
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This exchange has gotten to the point where any attempt to respond meaningfully hits the forum's arbitrary limits on quote blocks.

Try concision. Works wonders. It certainly beats bloat.

Does Wikipedia allow, support, condone, and defend "nominators" who are too ignorant to know the difference between an article on history and an article on science? Is that really what this boils down to?

Strangely enough, anyone is allowed an opinion on anything at Wikipedia. We don't, for example, require them to plough through the neokantian works of Rickert, Windelband or others of that school of late-nineteeth century philosophy, that stated that historical facts were different in kind from scientific fact, before editing the site.

Wikipedia has procedures that allow it to operate with an open door. The fact that you clearly do not accept the result of one instance of the application of those procedures does not invalidate them.

Edited by Charles Matthews
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Stephen Turner
."

A title change was effected, period. I don't really care whether Wikipedia changed the title to fiction by "moving" the page, sprinkling it with fairy dust (which there seems to be no shortage of these days), or rattling gourds at it. As you have admitted, the original title of the article has been changed.

Ashton Gray

Zip idey do dah. Quote of the week, "Follow only Gods holy Gourd" Gonna use this as a signature if thats Jake with you Ash old bean....Steve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Guardian reported yesterday that Jimmy Wales has “declared that every outgoing link from Wikipedia should have a ‘no follow’ tag.” It is claimed that the reason for this is that spammers have tried to exploit Wikipedia by placing links in order to increase search-engine rankings. This is clearly not true. Editors can deal with spammers. If links provide useful information, they should be allowed to remain. Links should also be used to substantiate information in the narrative as references.

The real reason that Wikipedia does not want to use these links is that it shows the way the encyclopedia steals information from other websites. When I have tried to expose this activity by placing links to my pages, they have been removed and I have been accused of being a spammer. As we have seen on this thread, when others have attempted to do this, they have been banned from editing Wikipedia.

Wikipedia have now got their position at the top of all search-engines for virtually any search. For example, take the case of former CIA operative “Theodore Shackley”. If you do a search at Google, Wikipedia, comes first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Shackley

Compare the detail of the Wikipedia with my page that appears in 7th place.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm

Note the number of links that I give in the page, including several links to Wikipedia. What page would a student find most useful?

More importantly, look at the page that appears in 4th place.

http://www.answers.com/topic/theodore-shackley

This is a complete copy of the Wikipedia page. The only difference is that this page contains adverts. Is this an example of Jimmy Wales making money from the many people who created the original Wikipedia article?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Guardian reported yesterday that Jimmy Wales has “declared that every outgoing link from Wikipedia should have a ‘no follow’ tag.” It is claimed that the reason for this is that spammers have tried to exploit Wikipedia by placing links in order to increase search-engine rankings. This is clearly not true. Editors can deal with spammers. If links provide useful information, they should be allowed to remain. Links should also be used to substantiate information in the narrative as references.

The real reason that Wikipedia does not want to use these links is that it shows the way the encyclopedia steals information from other websites. When I have tried to expose this activity by placing links to my pages, they have been removed and I have been accused of being a spammer. As we have seen on this thread, when others have attempted to do this, they have been banned from editing Wikipedia.

Wikipedia have now got their position at the top of all search-engines for virtually any search. For example, take the case of former CIA operative “Theodore Shackley”. If you do a search at Google, Wikipedia, comes first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Shackley

Compare the detail of the Wikipedia with my page that appears in 7th place.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm

Note the number of links that I give in the page, including several links to Wikipedia. What page would a student find most useful?

More importantly, look at the page that appears in 4th place.

http://www.answers.com/topic/theodore-shackley

This is a complete copy of the Wikipedia page. The only difference is that this page contains adverts. Is this an example of Jimmy Wales making money from the many people who created the original Wikipedia article?

************************************************************

"This is a complete copy of the Wikipedia page. The only difference is that this page contains adverts. Is this an example of Jimmy Wales making money from the many people who created the original Wikipedia article?"

Not only that, but it's a prime example of what a truly capitalistic pig this Jimmy Wales really is!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
Further trouble brews over the Wikiwookies and their propensity for getting things wrong.

The following are recent pieces from Canada's newspaper of record, The Globe & Mail:

Zoeller sues over Wikipedia entry

Associated Press

Miami -- Pro golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is suing to track down the author who posted what he considers a defamatory paragraph about him on the Internet reference site Wikipedia. The suit alleges someone used a computer at Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami education consulting firm, to add the information to Zoeller's Wikipedia profile. The paragraph in question has been removed, but the information has been picked up by other websites. The lawsuit said it alleged Zoeller abused drugs, alcohol and his family with no evidence to back up the statements.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wikipedia to seek proof of credentials

Associated Press

New York — Following revelations that a high-ranking member of Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a professor of religion, the free Internet encyclopedia plans to ask contributors who claim such credentials to identify themselves.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in interviews by phone and instant message Wednesday from Japan that contributors still would be able to remain anonymous. But he said they should only be allowed to cite some professional expertise in a subject if those credentials have been verified.

"We always prefer to give a positive incentive rather than absolute prohibition, so that people can contribute without a lot of hassle," Wales wrote.

Wales suggested such a plan two years ago, but the idea suddenly gained currency after the recent discovery that a prolific Wikipedia contributor who wrote under the pen name "Essjay" and claimed to be a professor of theology turned out to be a 24-year-old college dropout, Ryan Jordan.

Jordan's fraud came to light last week when The New Yorker published an editor's note stating that a 2006 Wikipedia profile in the magazine had erroneously described Essjay's purported academic resume. The New Yorker said a Wikipedia higher-up had vouched for Essjay to the author of the piece, Stacy Schiff, but that neither knew Essjay's real identity.

In addition to contributing thousands of articles to the sprawling Web encyclopedia, Jordan had recently been promoted to arbitrator, a position for trusted members of the community. Arbitrators can overrule an edit made by another volunteer or block people who abuse the site.

Jordan also was hired in January by Wikia Inc., a for-profit venture run by Wales. He has since been dismissed.

Jordan has not returned an e-mail seeking comment from The Associated Press. But in a note on his Wikipedia "user page" before it was officially "retired," he apologized for any harm he caused Wikipedia.

"It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible (sic) publication would print it," he wrote.

Wikipedia is full of anonymous contributors like Essjay, whose user page also once proclaimed: "My Wikipedia motto is `Lux et Veritas' (Light and Truth) and I believe more individuals should contribute with an intention to bring light to the community and truth to the encyclopedia."

The anonymity of the site is a frequent cause of mischief — from juvenile vandalism of entries to the infamous case involving journalist John Seigenthaler Sr., who was incorrectly described as a suspect in the Kennedy assassinations. And that has raised concerns about the credibility of the site.

But anonymity is also considered one of the main forces behind Wikipedia's astonishing growth, to nearly 1.7-million articles in English and-millions more in dozens of other languages. Wales has said he is an "anti-credentialist" — because anonymity puts a reader's attention on the substance of what people have written rather than who they are.

Wales said Wednesday that belief is unchanged. But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they don't want to give their real names, they shouldn't be allowed to tout credentials. Had that policy been in place, Wales said, Jordan probably would not have gotten away with claiming a Ph.D. in religion.

"It's always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials," Wales said, "and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wikipedia deletes bogus editor

Jack Kapica

Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopedia written and edited by anyone who wants to contribute, has fallen victim to its own myth.

One of their most prolific contributors, a volunteer editor and fact-checker who listed his credentials as a tenured professor with doctorates in theology and canon law, turned out to be a fraud. He is in reality a 24-year-old Kentucky college dropout called Ryan Jordan.

Identified online as Essjay, he was smart enough to fool The New Yorker, which published a long feature on him last July, hailing his crack fact-checking skills on a level with the magazine’s own renowned editors.

But someone who knows him outed Essjay, and the current issue of The New Yorker published an editor’s note at the end of the article saying that “At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name. Essjay’s entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia administrators and contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from those he had ruled against online.”

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales then asked for Jordan’s resignation, and got it. And he asked members of Wikipedia to treat Jordan with a “calm loving approach,” insisting that “Wikipedia is built on … twin pillars of trust and tolerance. The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and forgiveness of errors.”

Wales sounded regretful in letting Jordan go. “It is not good, obviously, but the interesting thing is that Mr. Jordan was an excellent editor, credentials or no. His work was extremely positive for Wikipedia.”

Wikipedia, which has 1.6 million articles in it, making it far larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica, worked on the assumption that taken globally, the combined knowledge of contributors would somehow arrive at the truth. In many ways it did — Wikipedia entries have been referred to in criminal trials. Sometimes Wikipedia would get things wrong, but eventually someone would correct the information, and the idea of a single global body of knowledge having a good heart continued.

But what the Jordan case underlines is not the rightness of the information provided by Wikipedia, but the one thing the Wikipedia took for granted: credibility. The Wikipedia philosophy assumed that accuracy alone would give it that credibility.

But Wikipedia did not count on two things. First was the dubious concept that it could publish something dreadfully wrong (such as the statement that the prime minister of Norway was a pedophile) and leave it up until someone corrected it. If The New York Times or The Globe and Mail adopted that practice, we’d be out of business the next day. Why should an online publication be any different?

Next was the magnitude of Jordan’s deception, which has been called “a fraud.” He was bluntly asking people to believe his credentials as a full professor. If he didn’t have those awesome credentials, then he was creating a fraud, one that undermines everything he did that was good.

A parallel example is that of plagiarism. Many writers have been summarily dispatched for stealing other people’s work, without accuracy even entering the argument. What plagiarists do is undermine the readers’ faith in their work.

I’ve been waiting for this issue to arise online for a number of years. And it has, many times, but not on such a scale as large as this.

Wikipedia must now face a decision it never imagined it had to make: How to protect its credibility, the way other news and information outlets protect theirs.

It’s a costly process, and one that might outstrip the budget of a “free” site.

But if Wikipedia wants to continue, it must do more than simply point to its accuracy as its main product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Further trouble brews over the Wikiwookies and their propensity for getting things wrong.

The following are recent pieces from Canada's newspaper of record, The Globe & Mail:

Zoeller sues over Wikipedia entry

Associated Press

Miami -- Pro golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is suing to track down the author who posted what he considers a defamatory paragraph about him on the Internet reference site Wikipedia. The suit alleges someone used a computer at Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami education consulting firm, to add the information to Zoeller's Wikipedia profile. The paragraph in question has been removed, but the information has been picked up by other websites. The lawsuit said it alleged Zoeller abused drugs, alcohol and his family with no evidence to back up the statements.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wikipedia to seek proof of credentials

Associated Press

New York — Following revelations that a high-ranking member of Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a professor of religion, the free Internet encyclopedia plans to ask contributors who claim such credentials to identify themselves.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in interviews by phone and instant message Wednesday from Japan that contributors still would be able to remain anonymous. But he said they should only be allowed to cite some professional expertise in a subject if those credentials have been verified.

"We always prefer to give a positive incentive rather than absolute prohibition, so that people can contribute without a lot of hassle," Wales wrote.

Wales suggested such a plan two years ago, but the idea suddenly gained currency after the recent discovery that a prolific Wikipedia contributor who wrote under the pen name "Essjay" and claimed to be a professor of theology turned out to be a 24-year-old college dropout, Ryan Jordan.

Jordan's fraud came to light last week when The New Yorker published an editor's note stating that a 2006 Wikipedia profile in the magazine had erroneously described Essjay's purported academic resume. The New Yorker said a Wikipedia higher-up had vouched for Essjay to the author of the piece, Stacy Schiff, but that neither knew Essjay's real identity.

In addition to contributing thousands of articles to the sprawling Web encyclopedia, Jordan had recently been promoted to arbitrator, a position for trusted members of the community. Arbitrators can overrule an edit made by another volunteer or block people who abuse the site.

Jordan also was hired in January by Wikia Inc., a for-profit venture run by Wales. He has since been dismissed.

Jordan has not returned an e-mail seeking comment from The Associated Press. But in a note on his Wikipedia "user page" before it was officially "retired," he apologized for any harm he caused Wikipedia.

"It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible (sic) publication would print it," he wrote.

Wikipedia is full of anonymous contributors like Essjay, whose user page also once proclaimed: "My Wikipedia motto is `Lux et Veritas' (Light and Truth) and I believe more individuals should contribute with an intention to bring light to the community and truth to the encyclopedia."

The anonymity of the site is a frequent cause of mischief — from juvenile vandalism of entries to the infamous case involving journalist John Seigenthaler Sr., who was incorrectly described as a suspect in the Kennedy assassinations. And that has raised concerns about the credibility of the site.

But anonymity is also considered one of the main forces behind Wikipedia's astonishing growth, to nearly 1.7-million articles in English and-millions more in dozens of other languages. Wales has said he is an "anti-credentialist" — because anonymity puts a reader's attention on the substance of what people have written rather than who they are.

Wales said Wednesday that belief is unchanged. But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they don't want to give their real names, they shouldn't be allowed to tout credentials. Had that policy been in place, Wales said, Jordan probably would not have gotten away with claiming a Ph.D. in religion.

"It's always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials," Wales said, "and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wikipedia deletes bogus editor

Jack Kapica

Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopedia written and edited by anyone who wants to contribute, has fallen victim to its own myth.

One of their most prolific contributors, a volunteer editor and fact-checker who listed his credentials as a tenured professor with doctorates in theology and canon law, turned out to be a fraud. He is in reality a 24-year-old Kentucky college dropout called Ryan Jordan.

Identified online as Essjay, he was smart enough to fool The New Yorker, which published a long feature on him last July, hailing his crack fact-checking skills on a level with the magazine’s own renowned editors.

But someone who knows him outed Essjay, and the current issue of The New Yorker published an editor’s note at the end of the article saying that “At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name. Essjay’s entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia administrators and contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from those he had ruled against online.”

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales then asked for Jordan’s resignation, and got it. And he asked members of Wikipedia to treat Jordan with a “calm loving approach,” insisting that “Wikipedia is built on … twin pillars of trust and tolerance. The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and forgiveness of errors.”

Wales sounded regretful in letting Jordan go. “It is not good, obviously, but the interesting thing is that Mr. Jordan was an excellent editor, credentials or no. His work was extremely positive for Wikipedia.”

Wikipedia, which has 1.6 million articles in it, making it far larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica, worked on the assumption that taken globally, the combined knowledge of contributors would somehow arrive at the truth. In many ways it did — Wikipedia entries have been referred to in criminal trials. Sometimes Wikipedia would get things wrong, but eventually someone would correct the information, and the idea of a single global body of knowledge having a good heart continued.

But what the Jordan case underlines is not the rightness of the information provided by Wikipedia, but the one thing the Wikipedia took for granted: credibility. The Wikipedia philosophy assumed that accuracy alone would give it that credibility.

But Wikipedia did not count on two things. First was the dubious concept that it could publish something dreadfully wrong (such as the statement that the prime minister of Norway was a pedophile) and leave it up until someone corrected it. If The New York Times or The Globe and Mail adopted that practice, we’d be out of business the next day. Why should an online publication be any different?

Next was the magnitude of Jordan’s deception, which has been called “a fraud.” He was bluntly asking people to believe his credentials as a full professor. If he didn’t have those awesome credentials, then he was creating a fraud, one that undermines everything he did that was good.

A parallel example is that of plagiarism. Many writers have been summarily dispatched for stealing other people’s work, without accuracy even entering the argument. What plagiarists do is undermine the readers’ faith in their work.

I’ve been waiting for this issue to arise online for a number of years. And it has, many times, but not on such a scale as large as this.

Wikipedia must now face a decision it never imagined it had to make: How to protect its credibility, the way other news and information outlets protect theirs.

It’s a costly process, and one that might outstrip the budget of a “free” site.

But if Wikipedia wants to continue, it must do more than simply point to its accuracy as its main product.

**********************************************************

From Len Osanic:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070307...enation/1172344

But what was even more interesting, after clicking on the link and scrolling down to the bottom of the page to the MOST VIEWED section, was the Wikipedia article quoted from The Christian Science Monitor:

Opinion

Wikipedia's sticky wicket

The Monitor's View Fri Mar 9, 3:00 AM ET

Students in history classes at Middlebury College this spring may have to change the way they do research for papers or tests. Although they can consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for background, they are not allowed to cite it as a source.

Professors who drafted the new policy at the Vermont college praise the free website as a "wonderful innovation." They note the more than 1.6 million entries, the up-to-date bibliographies, and the links to relevant, often more reliable sites. But they caution that its open-editing system, which allows anyone to write or edit entries anonymously, carries a risk of error.

Just this month a dark cloud fell over Wikipedia's credibility after it was revealed that a trusted contributor who claimed to be a tenured professor of religion was actually a 24-year-old college dropout. He was also one of the appointed "arbiters" who settled disputes between contributors.

For the many "wiki"-type sites – ones that compile knowledge with volunteers – such an ethical misstep would be a test of their ability for internal correction. But it also reinforces educators' warnings to students to be "informationally literate" in how to use the six-year-old Wikipedia and to rely more on the thousands of more-scholarly databases online.

Wikipedia not only challenges the concept of what an encyclopedia is; it also raises an intriguing question: What qualifies as intellectual authority in an age of information overload, when society relies increasingly on the Internet?

Some critics are troubled by what they regard as a tendency on the Web to value anonymous, collective thought over individual intellect. Some claim Wikipedia devalues traditional scholarship. Supporters counter that the online encyclopedia's constant and easy revision of articles only strengthens their credibility. Fans also praise Wikipedia for "democratizing" knowledge, pitting pedigreed academics against amateur scholars.

Globalization and technology are creating other sociocultural changes that challenge old notions of expertise. When people can now more easily, say, sell a house, write a will, or file a complex tax return, they defer less to authorities, among them lawyers, clergy, teachers, and other professionals.

The Internet's ability to empower individuals with an illusion of infinite knowledge challenges even notions of reality. Like Pontius Pilate's question – What is truth? – supporters of Wikipedia are asking "Whose truth?"

Is information on the site absolute fact or simply a matter of group consensus? Is any information accurate only by agreement of those with extensive credentials using peer review, or do the masses have a voice?

If other schools follow Middlebury's lead, the collective effect could encourage Wikipedia to raise its standards. Scholars, too, might benefit from using "wiki" practices, such as open access and wider input.

Middlebury's policy serves as a reminder about the need to carefully sift any information on the Internet. Over time, users will force sites like Wikipedia to build up the same trust and reputations now granted to established institutions such as universities or old-style encyclopedias. Truth, like truthfulness, must be demonstrated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
I agree with Bill's assessment of Wikipedia as a tool for lazy students. That is exactly what it is. If I were to cite Wikipedia as a source for an essay in College I would immediately be failed, no questions asked.

I see no problem with linking or citing from spartaucs, given that everything that John puts up is footnoted and reference from published works or is a dirct quote from the person concerned.

We have already discussed the problems with google and intelligence agencies, Wikipedia is just as susceptable to this kind of manipulation.

To think that 5,000 words of script on Wikipedia could satisfy years of debate is folly, the existence of a page on the Kennedy assassination is simpy asking for amateur manipulation.

Historical events such as the invasion of 1066 seem to draw more scholarly types to write them, some being school history teachers, however, topics such as the JFK assassination naturally attract those that think highly of themselves and have no real expertise in the matter. I have seen, and indeed been involved in, information struggles on Wikipedia. The only method of stopping such feuds is to lock the article, to suspend an involved party or to deem a source unreliable. No other recourse can be used as there is no settlement available.

There has been no concerted effort to present both sides of the case side by side in a much larger article, as I presume Wikipedia would prefer a more concise account, given that it models itself upon encyclopedias and targets lazy students. No satisfaction will be derived frm this article unless a full account is written by many people, which could run into a piece as long as the warren commission itself.

John

Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia

by Brian Bergstein | AP | March 25, 2007 02:43 PM EST

The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial _ Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder.

Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.

Sanger has assembled many links at his Web site _ _ that appear to put the matter to rest. Among the citations are early news stories and press releases that say Wikipedia was founded by Wales and Sanger. It was an offshoot of Nupedia, an encyclopedia project for which Wales hired Sanger to be editor-in-chief, and there is evidence that it was Sanger who proposed augmenting Nupedia with flexible, open Wiki software. http://larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html

The Wikipedia entry on Wales also holds that Sanger played a sizable role, even giving Wikipedia its name. Without a doubt, Sanger was an early community leader on Wikipedia.

But Wales insists that Sanger was a subordinate employee of his, and by that measure, 20 other people would deserve co-founder status. Wales claims Sanger wrote those early news releases to inflate his role; Sanger responds that Wales approved the releases.

Wales has repeatedly tried to address this _ even going so far as editing his own Wikipedia biography to tone down credit for Sanger. Such autobiographical contributions are frowned upon in Wikipedia's community, and Wales apologized after his changes were noticed and publicized by blogger Rogers Cadenhead in 2005.

In a lengthy instant-message exchange about Citizendium and other topics, Wales raised the subject of Sanger's role: "When you write this up please do not uncritically repeat Sanger's absurd claim to be the co-founder of Wikipedia."

"I know of no one who was there at the company at the beginning who would think it anything other than laughable," he added.

Yet a few moments later, Wales asserted that he didn't really care: "I am not bent out of shape about it," he wrote. "The facts are on my side, which is why I bother so little about it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/2...ipedia-founders

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wikipedia has already removed my statement from this page. I wonder if Jimmy Wales will be pleased with the publicity this case will get in the UK media?

I for one am staggered by this turn of events. John Simkin's history resources are just about the most used and most valued resources amongst UK school teachers and their students. John was one of the pioneers moving school history away from an establishment sanctioned highly biased narrative of the past towards the source and skills based approach much UK practice is now happily informed by.

I find it extraordinary that a visitor to his site may see some sources on something controversial or contested and then assume that the author necessarily shares the views of the person(s) who wrote the source(s).

I find it bewildering, hugely disappointing and utterly philistine and totally anti educational that Wikipedia appear to wish to create an "approved" version of any history and presumably then intend to dress this "narrative" up as "fact".

I manage to convince 11 year old school girls that history is constructed reconstructed and contested in about 6 months of teaching. I then concentrate for the rest of the year on giving them the skills to evaluate interpretations and to develop their own interpretations of past events. Perhaps I would have less success with adult Americans? Given the evidence of the behaviour of these Wikipedia muppets I would certamly need more time B)

Andy,

You would have little success trying to teach anything to Americans that leaves them feeling "uncomfortable".

We have been brainwashed into believing nothing our country does, has done, or will do is wrong.

We have God on our side. We are a free country. And so on and so forth.....

We really could use a wake up call over here.

What we truly are is a country in decline without the ability to see the truth for what it is.

Reality, no matter how stark and unpleasant, is what we need to deal with. The sooner the better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...