Revision as of 00:20, 11 November 2016 editYatesByron (talk | contribs)75 edits →Contributions to Email Technologies← Previous edit | Revision as of 00:29, 11 November 2016 edit undoYatesByron (talk | contribs)75 edits →GM soyNext edit → | ||
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I've added a section to the article about his 2015 paper that claimed GM soy contained elevated levels of formaldehyde. It was widely debunked, including by the European Food Safety Agency, so I hope I have given appropriate weight to the differing opinions while also keeping it succinct. There are a few more sources ] in case anyone wants to add more information. Hopefully there is no need to, but just in case, this content falls under 1RR due to the ]. ] (]) 18:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC) | I've added a section to the article about his 2015 paper that claimed GM soy contained elevated levels of formaldehyde. It was widely debunked, including by the European Food Safety Agency, so I hope I have given appropriate weight to the differing opinions while also keeping it succinct. There are a few more sources ] in case anyone wants to add more information. Hopefully there is no need to, but just in case, this content falls under 1RR due to the ]. ] (]) 18:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC) | ||
== Organized Effort to Deny Facts of Ayyadurai's Invention of Email == | |||
Ayyadurai filed a lawsuit for the atrocious and defamatory content posted by reporters posing to be journalists. The Shiva Ayyadurai page appears to be controlled by a vocal minority dedicated to providing a one-sided narrative with people who are not qualified and not aware of what occurred in Newark, NJ. I suspect a number of people on this page are friends/colleagues/supporters of the ARPANET/GIZMODO/TECHDIRT revisionist narrative, and disinformation campaign. I will be presenting facts with citations per WP Policy. All of the material here can be used in litigation. And, any and all of you can be deposed. |
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This article was nominated for deletion on 24 February 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
Cleanup
Removed cleanup tag, because the article appears to have sectionsTheHappiestCritic (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
invented EMAIL, not e-mail
The section header "Invented EMAIL" has misled the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper?dt=2012-02-18&bk=A&pg=16) into thinking that Ayyadurai invented email, rather than merely inventing an email management system that he named EMAIL. Updating section header to be less misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andylatto (talk • contribs) 15:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- The extended mail command, known as mailx or Mail (with a capital M), was already in use at Berkeley when I arrived in 1978. It had an inbox and saved mail folders. It was compatible with the legacy mail software, which dated back to the 1st edition. -- Resuna (talk) 17:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- This link may be advisable as a reference: http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/mail -- Resuna (talk) 17:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- And by the time I arrived at IBM in 1980, tens if not hundreds of thousands of IBM employees used VNET email (I was JPS@RCHVM1 IIRC) on what at the time was one of the largest computer networks in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/IBM_VNET Jpgs (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- In high school in 1976, we "invented" email, too. It was a database-driven system with all the same features (and more) described by this guy (in this WP article, in the Post, etc.) This was easily accomplished, as all of it was well-known technology and practices, even to precocious high school freshman. In that same timeframe, I also used a commercial system (part of the APL*PLUS Timesharing services) that included email in exactly this way. And this stuff was by no means new in 1976. (This makes Ayyadurai's claims ridiculous and pathetic.) If anyone cared, I could produce hardcopy printouts from the era illustrating all of this. But I think it's too silly to bother, really. I think the WP article should be edited to reflect this common knowledge, and remove the (untrue) factual statements that he invented email. I mean, come on! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.131.250 (talk) 01:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Perhaps the wording should be changed to avoid the word "invented"? Here's my suggestion ... Wrote and copyrighted an electronic messaging system he called "EMAIL", incorporating or re-developing many features developed earlier by other programmers.
- There's nothing in the article to change. The word "invented" is used only in the context of describing his claims. Pinkbeast (talk) 03:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Notability?
Why is this guy notable? He wrote an early email program called EMAIL, but there were many email clients using databases for years on the ARPANET, other public networks, and corporate enterprise networks such as IBM VNET. The other aspect in the bio are not particularly notable either. Jpgs (talk) 16:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
This is the profile of, at best, a run-of-the-mill visiting lecturer and self-promoter. There is a whole paragraph on a paper he once presented on Biomimetics to an audience of people in the Hospitality Industry. If you've been to grad school, you'll know why it's not wikipedia-worthy to mention a paper you once presented, let alone a paper in a non-peer-reviewed conference, to a group of people outside your domain of expertise. Could someone please explain why this whole page is not just a vanity project?
- Maybe he also invented Astroturfing... Alan Davies (talk) 23:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed: I see no notability here; neither does the text argue why he is notable. ... richi (hello) 19:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Further coverage on Techdirt and Gizmodo. Various technical email lists (including the ex-BBN list on which I participate) have been abuzz with what hogwash this claim is. I strongly support deletion of this page. Jpgs (talk) 20:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Might be notable for his audacity and ability to perpetrate a fraud. Getting Time Magazine and the Washington Post to cite you as the creator of email is at least notable for hutzpah and self-promotion capabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.134.212 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Now that he is the subject of scrutiny around the world on his inventor of email claim, unfortunately, he became notable and we should remove the non-notable tag. Also the email section has been cleaned up with added info on critics, I think it is fair to keep this article. Z22 (talk) 01:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Most Harvard and MIT professors have their own page, and the initial iteration of his page contained a lot more of the other things he did before the tech community became so upset about the email controversy. His Fulbright trip to India uncovered a good deal of corruption in the Indian government. The Cytosolve computational model aggregator he developed during his PhD in Biology also has significant implications for the pharmaceutical industry. I think recent iterations of this page have become very biased through questionable edits from those too emotionally invested in the email PR battle. Arttechlaw • contribs) 16:14, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- If you see notable, verifiable material that is either missing or was deleted from previous versions, feel free to add or reinstate. But, as the editor who expanded the section on EMAIL (without deleting from any other section), I'd push on the idea that they were questionable edits. They are well-referenced, from notable secondary sources and attempt to give voice to both sides of the controversy. They pass the wp:v test and focus on the topic that, for better or worse, the subject of this article is best known for. If you think more balance is needed, just follow suit. Barte (talk) 05:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Is there evidence that he actually was an MIT professor? He is not one currently and while there are many sources calling him an MIT professor, I'm told he actually held the title of lecturer. Anyone have anything official either way? Jlick (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
- No, but the article itself doesn't make that claim. As was noted above, once the email inventor controversy erupted with coverage from Time, Washington Post, et. al., he was notable regardless. Barte (talk) 20:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
- My comment above was in response to Arttechlaw's comment and was formatted as such with a single indent. For some reason you have reformatted with two indents to make it appear that I was responding to your comment. I've taken the liberty of reformatting it back to a single indent to indicate that I am replying to Arttechlaw's comment. While this does fall in the Notability section, I make no comment as to the question of notability. I am merely commenting on Arttechlaw's calling the subject an "MIT professor" when it is not clear he ever held that title. Perhaps this can be split off in a separate section if it makes it clearer? Jlick (talk) 05:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Bordering on fraud
This guy has apparently convinced a few reporters that he invented e-mail.
The claim is, on the face, false based on dates alone: e-mail was in widespread use well before the 1978 date claimed by Mr. Ayyadurai; see for example the E-mail Misplaced Pages page.
JMForbes (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Deletion Discussion
Keep this article. Only because I think it is important to keep a record of and clarify that this individual did NOT invent the concept of email or even the first implementation. It seems that there is some confusion which exists about this because he continues to suggest that he did invent it and some media outlets have picked it up. Keeping this article will provide a way to debunk these claims and ensure that media fact checkers can see what's going on. --BenFranske (talk) 02:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- I would be happy with that outcome, although it would reduce the article to a discussion (and debunking) of his email claims, and only those other statements that can be reliably sourced. As it stands, the articles claims far too much apart from email, and we cannot have adequate confidence in this additional material to let much of it stand. Although our standards for objectivity should apply equally to all BLP articles, in this case we have a pressing need to actually enforce these standards, which means checking out claims and sources for reliability. As discussed already, too much of what's here now is either trivial, or not supported by a source that we can really trust.
- Or we could just take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Keep. There has been so much analysis around the world on his claim (some examples: , , , ). He has become himself the main subject, we cannot just say that he is not notable.Z22 (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Keep. Notable due to exaggerated claims appearing in WP and Time. Scanlyze (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Comment. Should the discussion whether to delete or keep go here Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai instead? Z22 (talk) 17:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai Andy Dingley (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Sections to be included
Someone removed all other sections than the Email claims section. I think, instead of removing everything else, we just need to rewrite his bio a bit in the format that reads better than the one before the removal. I will try to put together the new Early life, and Career sections. Definitely, CSIR controversy should be included (perhaps in the Career section). Anything else we should have? Also we should keep note to ourselves that when creating an article about a person, not all parts of the article must be all from notable events. Not very often that notable people will have their Early life section with full of notable events. Also, regardless of how we personally feel about the person, we should keep it objective and try the best to put a full article with interesting details about the person once the notability has been established. In this case, the notability is there, we just need to clean up and make a nice article to read. Z22 (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- My feelings too. I've made an effort. Snori (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Your edit was much better than the original article. I added some wording changes and added info on additional claims. Z22 (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is getting much better, but why is the Traditional Medicine section there? Many academics talk at international conferences (I'm at one right now and do several a year), but this doesn't deserve a section. In fact, it is not notable unless he has been invited to a long list of prestigious conferences. Jpgs (talk) 07:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not all sections of an article of a notable person must be notable in itself as long as it is not trivial. For example, an actor who like red color and has once aspired to be a doctor, we can have some contents about his inspiration to be a doctor but he changed his mind to be an actor. This helps broaden our knowledge about the person. However, we should not include that he likes red color because it does not help in anyway to gain the knowledge for the general public unless that person is so obsessed with red color such that it affects his behavior in an obvious way recognizable by the public. Of course, all parts (notable or not) must be from verifiable sources. For this instance, I won't feel bad if this section has been merged with something else in that just to know that he has been invloved in various fields and traditional medicine is one of them. My opinion is that we should totally remove that section as this is somewhat an unusual feature of a person who is interested in technology and modern biology, but also in traditional medicine (or maybe it is not that unusual, I don't know). Z22 (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- If we keep anything here, we might as well keep that section, as he appears to have been awarded a Fulbright grant to study it specifically. Noting the conference at which he presented afterwards is reasonable too (because the conference matters to the Fulbright-funded research, not because he was notable to the conference). However neither of these would support notability on their own - they're there to fill out the article, not to justify it. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I meant to say that we should not totally remove that section. I agree that the section is not for justifying his notability, just to fill out the article. Z22 (talk) 15:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- If we keep anything here, we might as well keep that section, as he appears to have been awarded a Fulbright grant to study it specifically. Noting the conference at which he presented afterwards is reasonable too (because the conference matters to the Fulbright-funded research, not because he was notable to the conference). However neither of these would support notability on their own - they're there to fill out the article, not to justify it. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- The Traditional Medicine section would benefit from being expanded to include his other contributions to the field of Medicine, such as his biotech research and the development of the Cytosolve computational model aggregator, which could have a significant impact on the possibilities of testing biopharmaceuticals in silica. The Traditional Medicine makes it sound like that's ALL he's done, rather than just a viewpoint he has on systems design and the way people conceptualize medicine. Arttechlaw (talk • contribs) 16:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- I just tried cleaning up that section. The problem seemed to go in the other direction, I thought: References to random talks at conferences, or claims not substantiated by the links. It seems like the big issue here is what you call "contributions." In brief, I haven't been able to find any independent sources substantiating claims that he's made any significant contributions. It seems like mostly self-promotion, etc. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
- Not all sections of an article of a notable person must be notable in itself as long as it is not trivial. For example, an actor who like red color and has once aspired to be a doctor, we can have some contents about his inspiration to be a doctor but he changed his mind to be an actor. This helps broaden our knowledge about the person. However, we should not include that he likes red color because it does not help in anyway to gain the knowledge for the general public unless that person is so obsessed with red color such that it affects his behavior in an obvious way recognizable by the public. Of course, all parts (notable or not) must be from verifiable sources. For this instance, I won't feel bad if this section has been merged with something else in that just to know that he has been invloved in various fields and traditional medicine is one of them. My opinion is that we should totally remove that section as this is somewhat an unusual feature of a person who is interested in technology and modern biology, but also in traditional medicine (or maybe it is not that unusual, I don't know). Z22 (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- The article would benefit from the inclusion of scientific publications similar to those on Deepak Chopra's page and the various media, biotech and non-profit companies and ventures he has founded (similar to those that can be found on Robert S. Langer's page. The inclusion would help fill out his academic and professional background and provide more of a context for subsequent events. Mattsabe (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
- I don't think there is much in the way of legitimate, reputable scientific material out there related to his work. I just revised some sections of the article, where it seems like many references more or less rely on (1) retracted news articles, (2) unsubstantiated claims by the subject himself (sometimes repeated but not verified in a secondary new source), and (3) references to a talk he gave somewhere, sometime. These do not seem to pass muster for expanding the article and suggest some sections should probably be cut. In the end, it seems like his claim to fame is being the EMAIL guy who convinced some newspapers and websites to propound the claim that he invented email, only to later see those articles retracted. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
- Pursuant to above and other comments. I am going to eliminate the puffy sections on his HarvardSquare website and the health stuff, as they don't seem to be part of any larger scientific or technological interest. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think there is much in the way of legitimate, reputable scientific material out there related to his work. I just revised some sections of the article, where it seems like many references more or less rely on (1) retracted news articles, (2) unsubstantiated claims by the subject himself (sometimes repeated but not verified in a secondary new source), and (3) references to a talk he gave somewhere, sometime. These do not seem to pass muster for expanding the article and suggest some sections should probably be cut. In the end, it seems like his claim to fame is being the EMAIL guy who convinced some newspapers and websites to propound the claim that he invented email, only to later see those articles retracted. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
EMAIL as a word
May 1981 on USENET group fa.human-nets. ,
- Do you find any reference to Teletext itself that there was something called EMAIL (again they really like the all capital names, don't they?). All we know right now, the document that Ayyadurai submitted to the Westinghouse's committee which had many references to the word EMAIL was before January 1981. Z22 (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Controversial or False Claim?
The article leads with He is best known for his controversial claims to have 'invented' email (or EMAIL). This claim is obviously false, as supported by the increasing list of references. Therefore shouldn't it say false claim? And his use of EMAIL (in all caps) is already discussed in the article, so I propose this text: He is best known for his false claim to have invented email (without the quotes around email). Jpgs (talk) 07:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- I would prefer "exaggerated" (less accurate, but also less blatantly controversial) and also "EMAIL" as that's all he claims.
- We can then (and really, must) clarify that as (something like), "His recorded copyright over one form of capitalisation, describing a new system that he had developed, post-dated already existing email systems. This copyright represents the mode of spelling, but is no claim for invention although it has been assumed by several media sources to be so." Andy Dingley (talk) 09:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC) But note that the name of the program "EMAIL" was not subject to copyright; the name of a program could potentially be a trademark, but he didn't get one. He filed for copyright registration on the program itself. His "EMAIL" program was used at Rutgers Med, and didn't go much farther. Also, copyright does not require registration; you just include the notice in the program and it's covered. He just felt like getting a certificate. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
- More on the controversial side than false. As mentioned in the article, he referred to 6 attributes to be called email. Also, most of them has a distinction for his claim like email as we know today, ... Cc:, Bcc:, ...and other features (implying it is more than just header fields), ... like Hotmail or Gmail. This is a controversial claim. There is a part in TIME Techland that he mentioned about Cc and Bcc with references to RFCs in the 80s. The Bcc part was false, but the reference to RFCs according to the details of the claim on his website, he referred to those RFCs as to the development of SMTP, but he did not mention specific RFC# (if I'm not mistaken, SMTP is RFC 821). So when we look at his claim, we need to look at it in the entirety, which is mostly controversial with only a potion that we can say false. Z22 (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Where's the controversy? Who is still refuting the debunking by TechDirt et al? He made false claims, these claims were debunked, there is no grey area left over which to raise a controversy. It is a falsehood, no longer a "controversy", to claim that he invented Cc: before RFC822, when this is so clearly preceded by RFC733 and others. It would be remarkable indeed if Ayyadurai has responded to TechDirt pointing him to the earlier RFCs and still claiming his own precedence.
- I have no evidence that Ayyadurai has ever read an RFC, so I cannot claim the stronger "he lied" and only that "his claim was wrong" (which may indeed have been innocent). There is no question now though that these claims were wrong, and they were wrong when he made them. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- There is no controversy, only false claims. He defines 6 "mandatory" attributes (of his own and arguable!) and there is evident prior art for everything he claims: header fields indeed, but also for other hidden mechanisms which are necessary for any email system to work (between offices like between continents), such as mailboxes, transport, archival, etc., and some of us are looking at it in its entirety and it comes from well before SMTP (which latest revision is RFC5321). The good thing is that everything is recorded in the RFCs!... No, even the USPTO would immediately refute his claims!...
- VS Shiva doesn't deserve any care: he doesn't seem that embarrassed if we look at all the links on his selfish personal website that point to those misled articles presenting him as The inventor of electronic mail. He seems rather flattered.
- If he was innocent, he should at least have noticed he was being mistaken by his interviewers and he should have made it clear he was talking about his EMAIL product. No, what he did was to let the game going, playing with the email/EMAIL confusion and hearing himself talk about the future of the internet and so...
- Even Dave H. Crocker, former ARPANET researcher and coauthor of RFC724/733 (among others) just said VA Shiva is a conman!... Evoisard (talk) 00:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- If you want to see prior art, look at the emails (and read them btw...) in this archive of the first ARPANET mailing list "MsgGroup". In 1975, when VA Shiva was 11, mail headers with To: and Cc: weren't that different than current ones, and there was a distribution mechanism perfectly capable of handling multiple recipients and multiple sites. There was email! Evoisard (talk) 00:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
While I personally have no doubt that Shiva has been intentionally misleading, he's also generally been very careful in his writing to only claim "EMAIL" - and to let the careless journalists make the "big claims". It's important that the article keep it's encyclopedic tone, as it makes the facts clear. Snori (talk) 08:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- OTOH, he's been quick to confuse copyright and the sort of novel invention that requires a patent to cover it. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, he hasn't! If you look at his web page, he lists himself prominently as the inventor of Email - *not* in all caps. He is intentionally lying. Jpgs (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC) And he calls himself "Dr. Email" on some web sites, including the one of his bulk-emailing company, EchoMail. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
- Not that I agree or disagree anything here in the context of whether to use the world EMAIL (all caps) will be less or more confusing, I just want to point out about how careful he is in term of using the word EMAIL. At least from what I have seen on his web site, only the words email that are not all capitals were written by someone other than himself (i.e. the press). Try google "email site:vashiva.com" and see the result. Unless you can point out to a specific page that you referred to when your made that comment. Z22 (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- OK, it is all over his main page, but they are the images from all the Web sites he posts to. He does usa all caps in the text on the page. But of course, he could not include all the big images that do have email not in all caps. Jpgs (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- That's right he carefully keeps using EMAIL everywhere. However in his (own) article The History of EMAIL, he calls prior systems not true EMAIL systems but "text messaging systems that only computer geeks could use". That's right in the early seventies, only scientists and computer nerds had access to computers, and GUIs didn't exist!
- Why his article really is crooked is because he places himself and his program in the middle ot the electronic mail history (where he omits RFC724 btw), like if it were a major event that led to modern email... He never mentions "email" but he refers to other email systems and technologies that actually are milestones in the evolution of electronic mail and he puts himself in the center, between the development of TCP/IP and the development of SMTP, not less. How to say it, he puts his "EMAIL" stuff in a deceptive context. It's wily. Evoisard (talk) 18:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- In Fortran, EVERYTHING was in all CAPS. It was the standard. You can check out Chomksy's statement at press release or just look up the copyright filing and some tech history. Arttechlaw • contribs 19:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
There is a Mea Culpa dated 03/01/2012 from the Washington Post and a blog post about their article that dates 02/24/2012 that I didn't notice... Evoisard (talk) 22:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
email/EMAIL controversy
I've rewritten and expanded this section, while taking some material out. Reason: some of it is synthesis wp:synth. We can't patch in material that doesn't specifically reference the Ayyadurai controversy as a means of making an argument. There are plenty of references that do, and we're obligated to stay with those. Barte (talk) 19:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
- I've reverted this. I don't consider the term "whitewash" to be too strong. To save time later I'll ask it bluntly now: Are you another sockpuppet of Shiva Ayyadurai? Andy Dingley (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
- That accusation is completely unfounded: I'm clearly identified on my talk page, and I've been editing here two years longer than you have. The issue is not whitewash--its OR versus covering the controversy--and its synthesis: you simply can't make an argument using sources that don't reference the controversy. The section as is is an an attempt to cover both sides. If you think its incomplete, fix it. If you are going to revert it--then *you* fix the wp:synth.Barte (talk) 20:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC) Also--you reverted even before I was done editing. Before brandishing terms like "whitewash", take a deep breath and let me finish. Barte (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Evidence he claimed to have invented email
The article does not provide evidence that he claimed to have invented email, which is rather important I would think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.236.9.32 (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
- "To the best of my knowledge, I was the first to design, implement, test and deploy these features in an everyday office situation. This was and is email as we know it today." Barte (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
- Wow, I know I'm coming in late, but that doesn't sound like what he's accused of at all! The key words in that statement are "in an everyday office situation." This was before public internet, before even FidoNet! Years before fidonet, actually. Not the first example of emails, of course not. The first in an everyday office situation? I don't know. The first that he knows of that was in an everyday office situation? Well, now it's probably true! If there was an honest controversy it would be over if use in a regular office is the defining characteristic of email, or if that is not actually any different than use in a university. I mean, it is a pretty weak claim, but also very subjective. The claim that it is actually false would itself seem to be false! The controversy as described in the article seems to be manufactured and dishonest.76.105.216.34 (talk) 06:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- The problem is that what he claims keeps changing, as his claims get disproven ... richi (hello) 10:06, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- Wow, I know I'm coming in late, but that doesn't sound like what he's accused of at all! The key words in that statement are "in an everyday office situation." This was before public internet, before even FidoNet! Years before fidonet, actually. Not the first example of emails, of course not. The first in an everyday office situation? I don't know. The first that he knows of that was in an everyday office situation? Well, now it's probably true! If there was an honest controversy it would be over if use in a regular office is the defining characteristic of email, or if that is not actually any different than use in a university. I mean, it is a pretty weak claim, but also very subjective. The claim that it is actually false would itself seem to be false! The controversy as described in the article seems to be manufactured and dishonest.76.105.216.34 (talk) 06:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Repercussions
This section claims that one of the repercussions of the controversy was that "MIT disassociated itself from Ayydurai's EMAIL Lab." If you read the Boston Magazine article sourced there, it says that Ayydurai "created" the lab himself. On the site for EMAIL Lab, it says "THE EMAIL Lab was first started in 2001 as the EMAIL Research Institute in Cambridge, MA." This lab was never created as an MIT affiliated research lab, so to say that MIT disassociated itself as a result of this controversy is a stretch, at best. From the looks of it (see paragraph "How Did Ayyadurai Make His Claim?"), he was simply misusing MIT branding to bolster the reputation of this unaffiliated lab and this branding was later removed. You can't disassociate from something with which you were never associated.Zippylong (talk) 04:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
- Here's the excerpt from the Boston Magazine article that the sentence is based on:
- "But the geeks still weren’t done. They e-mailed the faculty, staff, and trustees at MIT, where many of them had been during their ARPANET days. Why, they asked, was Shiva promoting himself on his website as the head of the MIT EMAIL Lab — which Shiva created to “invent innovative solutions for addressing challenges faced in the field of communication by today’s organizations”? Why, they demanded to know, was the Institute affiliating itself with someone of such questionable character? Within days, MIT told Shiva that it no longer wanted to be associated with the EMAIL Lab"
- Seems to me the article sentence accurately reflects the citation. Barte (talk) 05:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Added for future reference
Rebuttal to HuffPo's columns: --NeilN 21:58, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Systems Visualization - text mirrors that found on his sites. Also, not a real field?
This entire section sounds quite promotional. Much of it seems to directly mirror what's said on his site. Hardly an impartial reference. I've never heard of this field before, and I'm not finding any references to it online that aren't from sites selling his name or his course on it. It fell under the "Comparative Media Studies" umbrella at MIT according to his own site. Comparative Media Studies usually gives a lot of leeway for new courses, content and opinions without a lot of rigorous scrutiny (personal opinion). It doesn't seem to lend much credence to this being a "new field" as opposed to focusing on an aspect of an existing skill (presentation).
Reading the description, it sounds like you qualify as a Systems Visualization expert if you present a marketing pitch along with slides, such as a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation. I don't think it's a new field, and I don't think he introduced it, though I'm sure he'd love to coin a term for it and become an inventor. At most, it's a footnote in the art of promotion and presentation. Not something else for him to take credit for.
I'd prefer it all removed, but I'll just do this bit of legwork and let more invested editors debate it now that I've said my piece.
PassingCommenter (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- I don't disagree. As ever, the non-Ayyadurai sources don't actually seem to say very much of what's in the article. Pinkbeast (talk) 10:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree. It's not a distinct area of study. It seems more like the offhand name for a course or article and there's little evidence of it being a substantial research field, let alone one invented by the subject. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I removed the entire section. 1/2 of it was an airy description of the field and the other half was unrelated events strung together to give the reader the impression that Ayyadurai invented a burgeoning field. Protonk (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
CSIR Controversy
Seems like this section doesn't really meet WP:NPOV. It contains two sources that support him with direct quotes, but merely mentions that "unprofessional conduct" was the reason for his dismissal. There's no additional information provided, despite there being substantially more available.
He wasn't hired as a scientist, but as a business consultant. Apparently during his temporary employ as a business consultant, he never agreed to the terms of the position as an STIO and instead insisted on an "unreasonable financial package". So the bit about his position as an "Additional Secretary in the Indian government" seems a bit specious. Consultants aren't given official positions.
It also says that he " a draft report", but leaves out that in this report he criticized his direct supervisor of cronyism and incompetence and then he actually emailed it to ~4,000 scientists whose contact information was retrieved without authorization. Most likely this was not his assigned task. Furthermore, he started the paper with a poem that looks bizarrely like a manifesto. The corruption is arguable from the facts at hand, but it its much harder to make a case against the "unprofessional conduct".
The last paragraph of the CSIR section seems to be rather self-promotional, linking to his website and talking about his non-profit. The red text for the non-profit makes me question the legitimacy of its origin.
This section has worthwhile information, but I think there's far too much minutia and self-promotion within. His actual part in it is roughly a paragraph, with the details left in the cited references. Would some of the bits about corruption would perhaps be better suited on the CSIR page? That would clear out all the irrelevant backstory on CSIR. If we're going to keep it, this section needs to be more factual and neutral. Either present all viewpoints or just hand over the few facts and let people dig for the rest.
PassingCommenter (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- Be bold and take the hatchet to that section. Pinkbeast (talk) 11:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- Done. It's a lot easier to read, but please review. I am not an expert at this. - PassingCommenter (talk) 10:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
"Systems Health", USPS
The mention of Systems Health in the lead is cited only to the Chopra Center; self-promotion. The article itself (systems medicine was created by an Ayyadurai sock and was a complete mess, a mix of woo and a list of research groups who, one imagines, have no desire whatsoever to be associated with the woo. (It's still a bit of a mess, but I stripped the woo as best as I could). I suggest it be removed from the article.
The large paragraph on the USPS is (a typical theme here) very short on sources that aren't Ayyadurai, the MIT Email Lab (and dead links), or people quoting Ayyadurai. As far as I can see the only really pertinent independently cited fact is that the USPS did indeed have a contract with the International Center for Integrative Systems. I suggest it be reduced to that fact. Pinkbeast (talk) 11:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- I removed the USPS section. Once you got down to it, it was a claim that one of Ayyadurai's companies entered into a contract with the postal service. That's it. Protonk (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
HuffPo series pulled
HuffPo has pulled the series on Ayyadurai's alleged invention of email, with a minimal note. See Talk:Email#Huffington Post removes series. We weren't using any of those refs, though. IRW0 (talk) 07:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Blogs as references
I have deleted certain references to historical material that used blogs written by people who are not documented as qualified experts in the field of history. I have given an explanation of this in Talk:Email --Zeamays (talk) 17:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- That would be the talk page that says "The overall tone of this page has been that Masnick is fine to source for certain information, such as pointing out inconsistencies in Ayyadurai's arguments (which isn't even being used as a cite.) That's the consensus I'm talking about"? And since when isn't Haigh a computer historian?
- Another thing I find there is you saying "Masnick did not distinguish between the achievement of sending text messages between computers (prior art) and the achievement of emulating a paper-based interoffice mail system". That's straight out of the Ayyadurai playbook.
- I'm putting most of this back; this is much too dramatic a change to make without discussion. Pinkbeast (talk) 17:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Apparently I'm not; someone else got there first. Pinkbeast (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry--I reverted without seeing this discussion. Obviously, I agree with Pinkbeast. Barte (talk) 18:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- You've given your opinion of Masnick's suitability as a source, but I don't think it is remotely convincing. The discussion itself didn't cover it in depth because as noted the Email article doesn't cite Masnick. Protonk (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Ayyadurai deserves a fair and balanced discussion on his bio page. Inclusion of biased blog writers who comment on him violates WP:BLP, as I have indicated on the Talk:Email page. Also, he is entitled to speak for himself, as described in that policy. --Zeamays (talk) 22:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- He is definitely entitled to speak for himself, but we will cover the controversy here, which includes the views of observers who disagree with him. WP:N isn't achieved by eliminating everyone with an opinion--what you are calling "bias"--but by representing those opinions proportionally. The idea that Ayyadurai invented email has just not gotten much traction beyond his immediate associates. If the article seems stacked against him, it is that supporters and sympathetic articles are almost impossible to find. Barte (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Balanced between what and what? The claims on his website that he invented email and the claims literally anywhere else that he didn't? I agree with some of the changes you've made to the page, as previous editors were too willing to insert (without quotes) assertions about the nature and motivations of his claims or the scope of the retractions. But I think we need to get something straight. For the past 2-3 years Ayyadurai has been claiming to anyone who would listen that he "invented email" (or variations on this claim). So far, any source which we would normally consider reliable who has bought that claim has retracted it in whole (HuffPo) or in part (WaPo, the Smithsonian magazine). We are not going to recapitulate those claims on this article and defend it on the basis that a BLP must be shielded from criticism. We will also not give undue weight to those claims by privileging the subject's version of events over others. Insofar as the article discusses Ayyadurai the person, I'm perfectly willing to exclude sources like Haigh, Masnick and Biddle as we would normally do. But insofar as it advances his claims that he invented email or trumps up the features of his email implementation while diminishing prior art in service of a claim that he invented "modern" email we will include sources which balance that extraordinary claim as need be. Protonk (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Protonk: When I first started editing Email on 31 August, I based my edits on the HuffPo series. I have modified my position because legitimate information from other editors has been convincing. So I am in favor of a circumscribed description of Ayyadurai's achiementment in 1979, and certainly admit it was without influence on programmers whose focus (and the focus of historians) was on the computer networking aspect of email. Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL", and literalistic legalists are offended by that shorthand. I don't think there's an editor on this page who doesn't know the difference. If Ayyadurai were in a court of law, now doubt the judge would not take it so lightly, but we live in a society where perfect adherence to exact technical-legal language is uncommon. My view is don't support such brash claims in WP, but also be fair to Ayyadurai and avoid use of sources who use over-the-top language in their opinion pieces.
- Criticism of the BLP subject by self-published, unedited, blogs is unacceptable, regardless of the claimed expertise of the writer, because they violate provisions of WP:BLP and WP:USERG when they are used to comment on the subject of the BLP. Furthermore, for a blog writer to be accepted as an expert in the specific field of interest, not an area of business tangentially related to the topic. In this case that expertise would be in the History of software or History of telecommunication.--Zeamays (talk) 23:56, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL", and literalistic legalists are offended by that shorthand.
Are you suggesting that he asserts the former but means the latter? Barte (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)- "Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL"" Brash is one word for it. I'll note (as I did on the email talk page) that you're the only editor advancing the claim that there's a legal distinction being made here. Regardless, it's not important. Insofar as this page advances the self published claim that Ayyadurai invented email it will include sources which refute that claim. As far as I'm concerned we'd be better off dropping or trimming the Biddle paragraph, but Haigh is a computer historian writing about the claim itself, so I don't see a reason to remove that. And if we're going to talk about the HuffPo series (or add claims to this page which were originally published in that series, e.g. Michelson) then Masnick is fine too. Protonk (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Barte: I am asserting he's using colloquial, inexact language and that people who are offended by that need to get a life or at least recognize that it's colloquial, not exact and legal. Ayyaduria made a definite achievement in 1979 and following years as an intern at the NJ medical school. That needs to be recognized without unreasonable standards being applied to it. --Zeamays (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Then you are obviously mistaken, to say nothing of the incivility in asserting that people (who aren't mistaken) need to "get a life". You're also dodging the question. Are you, or are you not, suggesting that Ayyadurai asserts he is "the inventor of email" but means he is "the author of EMAIL"?
- Ayyadurai - as I'm surprised you don't know, given your recycling of some of his arguments - has been to tremendous pains to justify the idea that every email implementation before EMAIL doesn't count as email. He absolutely is pushing the idea that he invented email.
- Ayyadurai does appear to have written a fairly sophisticated email system in about 1980, no mean achievement for a teenager. The article already clearly reflects that fact. However, part of what has brought Ayyadurai to notability is the assertion that he invented email. It is no surprise that the article focusses more on that; plenty of people have written MTAs and MUAs, but only one has claimed to have invented email. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Protonk: You need to clarify what you mean. I thought all of us in the active debate here understood the difference between copyright and patent claims and rights, but maybe not. I'm sorry, but your statement " it will include sources which refute that claim" is not appropriate for a collegial discussion on WP. I do agree that the article should contain suitable references to refute the claim or provide balance, provided they are consonant with WP policies. Balance is no excuse for inclusion of poorly-sourced, self-published materials that violate WP:BLP, WP:USERG and other WP policies, particularly when they come from non-experts. Rejecting Ayyaduai's self-published statements for bias, but including blogs and the like, written acidly and with clear contempt for the subject by non-experts, is not my idea of balance. --Zeamays (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- "I thought all of us in the active debate here understood the difference between copyright and patent claims and rights, but maybe not." I'm sure we all do. But the difference is immaterial to any claim this article is bound to make. Protonk (talk) 15:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Zeamays: There is no relationship between tone and credibility, and there are no Misplaced Pages guidelines that establish one. That's your standard, not this project's. But there is a requirement that the secondary sources we reference be notable and reliable. So if we think Gizmodo (which is not self-published, BTW--it has a staff) doesn't qualify, let's drop it. But your claim that EMAIL is an important contribution to the technology and must be recognized here: that also needs references that go beyond the claims of Ayyadurai himself writing on his own website--which is most definitely a self-published venue. The only reason we allow it, as opposed to in Email is that this is an entry about him and I think we all agree that his own argument should be represented here. Unfortunately, he seems to be one of the few who are making that argument, especially now that HuffPo has removed the blog posts from his colleagues in his support. Barte (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Barte: Please summarize what you consider lacking for Ayyadurai's work not to fulfill the criterion, "important contribution to the technology". I have already given an argument why 1979 Email should be considered an important contribution, based on the 2nd WaPo Ombudsman statment, the later Smithsonian statement, and the quotes of Noam Chomsky in Wired. I think that's enough. I wish there were discussion of this in actual peer-reviewed historical journals. As before, I have no objections to non-self-published sources. I have not specifically objected to Gizmodo. It's another blogger that I have discussed as unqualified as a WP:RS on this topic. --Zeamays (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Barte: I am asserting he's using colloquial, inexact language and that people who are offended by that need to get a life or at least recognize that it's colloquial, not exact and legal. Ayyaduria made a definite achievement in 1979 and following years as an intern at the NJ medical school. That needs to be recognized without unreasonable standards being applied to it. --Zeamays (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Balanced between what and what? The claims on his website that he invented email and the claims literally anywhere else that he didn't? I agree with some of the changes you've made to the page, as previous editors were too willing to insert (without quotes) assertions about the nature and motivations of his claims or the scope of the retractions. But I think we need to get something straight. For the past 2-3 years Ayyadurai has been claiming to anyone who would listen that he "invented email" (or variations on this claim). So far, any source which we would normally consider reliable who has bought that claim has retracted it in whole (HuffPo) or in part (WaPo, the Smithsonian magazine). We are not going to recapitulate those claims on this article and defend it on the basis that a BLP must be shielded from criticism. We will also not give undue weight to those claims by privileging the subject's version of events over others. Insofar as the article discusses Ayyadurai the person, I'm perfectly willing to exclude sources like Haigh, Masnick and Biddle as we would normally do. But insofar as it advances his claims that he invented email or trumps up the features of his email implementation while diminishing prior art in service of a claim that he invented "modern" email we will include sources which balance that extraordinary claim as need be. Protonk (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you see in the WaPo statement. I agree that Chomsky is a supporter, but he is countered by two computer historians and by the lack of mention in written accounts of email development and the computer industry in the 1970s, as well as by people involved with email development who say they never heard of EMAIL and disagree it represented anything substantially new. The Smithsonian statement clearly says that EMAIL was accepted mainly for two reasons having nothing to do with email. There is that last paragraph, which I think you properly added mention of to the article here. So....I think we've made as much of a case as we can in this article. And we've mentioned EMAIL in the email article on the strength of the Smithsonian collection . But in terms of EMAIL being important, influential, a benchmark in the history of the technology--it's hard to pull out much more of a ringing endorsement than what we've got without further evidence. Re: Gizmodo: thanks for the clarification. Barte (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- As an historian of technology, here's my take: important contribution to technology typically means, contributing in a way that meaningfully changes the historical development of some kind of technology or industry. There are also meaningful exceptions to this aforementioned rule, for example, when a particular innovation shows an alternate, unrealized technological method. So some people argue that Konrad Zuse offers an alternate model for computing that developed in the German context but wasn't fully developed because of postwar circumstances in Germany. The same goes for histories of, say, cybernetics in the Soviet Union, as shown by Slava Gerovitch. As far as I can tell, Ayyadurai developed a pretty exciting system for a local college, and the fact that he did so as a teenager is a testament to his precocious talent. The Smithsonian accepted his paper on the grounds of being an interesting artifact in American cultural history (not in the history of technology, per se) as it seems to show something about an emerging experience or challenge in the American landscape of its time. But I don't see any claims or evidence that the Ayyadurai work is a significant contribution to the history of technology, either in terms of developing the technologies of networked communication & email, nor in terms of showing an alternate, unrealized logic. As far as I can tell, neither the Smithsonian nor the WaPo Ombudsman really claimed it made a significant contribution in these regards. And finally, the Ombudsman statements don't really claim any specific authority (he actually downplays his expertise in one of his statements, before ultimately apologizing for the haste and supeficiality of earlier stories). In brief, Ayyadurai's story is an interesting story about an individual's exciting experiment. The controversy itself over the innovativeness of his work is "the real story" here. It goes something like this: A few sources at some point in time credited him with a technological innovation. Gradually those claims by independent sources were debunked, retracted, or seriously qualified. What is left is an exciting look into how debates and controversies surrounding technological development and originality. But no independent, serious source of scientific, technological, or historical expertise is really crediting Ayyadurai with making a significant contribution to the history of technology. Only Ayyadurai himself, and maybe his professor Chomsky (who himself claims no especial expertise, and seems to imply in the Wired article that he didn't look into the case deeply but instead read Ayyadurai's clams and thinks they deserve a fair hearing), seem to think there's something worth considering here. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Betweenfloors: Thanks. Have you read my comparisons on Talk:Email of this situation with the contributions of Gregor Mendel to the field of genetics? I see a strong parallel, although there are also differences that I noted. --Zeamays (talk) 18:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- I just took a peek. I see what you're getting at though there are a few key differences (as you point out). First, Mendel seems to have worked decades in advance of other researchers, so he has a clear and different kind of "priority." Second, his work was later revived and replicated by major scientists in this field. By contrast, Ayyadurai doesn't have any kind of clear cut priority. As I understand the summaries, the major features of contemporary email had already been embodied in earlier systems (no one except for Ayyadurai seems to contest this). Second, I haven't seen any evidence that his copyright or techniques were picked up or revived by disinterested scientists in the years or decades to follow. He himself has claimed that his work languished for decades in a box in his mother's possession, only to be found again by him (not other scientists or engineers, as in the case of Mendel). Betweenfloors (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Betweenfloors: The now-deleted HuffPo articles, and Ayyadurai's own website and book have a different take on your point about the state-of-the art in 1979. According to those articles, Ayyadurai's distinctive achievement was a system to emulate all the features of a paper-based interoffice mail. From what I've been able to read, the state-of-the art then consisted of the ability to send messages between computers, with to: from: cc: and (possibly) attachments, not a fully integrated user-friendly system. According to the David Crocker quote, the well known programmers of that era didn't try to create a user-friendly system, but rather depended on the expertise of the user with system-based services, such as sorts, to make things work. It was a system by and for expert programmers. If someone can dispute this with facts, and not angry arguments, I will be glad to listen. --Zeamays (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Why don't you read Haigh instead of wasting everyone's time by asking the same questions over and over again. It's ABSURD that we're being asked to debunk a piece which has been retracted as though it presents some reliable, meaningful contribution to the debate. The extraordinary claim is that Ayyadurai invented email or that he made a novel and important contribution to the field. It's a claim that nobody on this talk page except you is putting forth. It's not our job to convince you of the baselessness of the claim. It's your job to convince us of the existence of any verifiable evidence that comes from somewhere other than the subject. Do that. Don't lecture us about how we haven't been convincing enough for your tastes. It's getting tiresome. Protonk (talk) 22:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Betweenfloors: The now-deleted HuffPo articles, and Ayyadurai's own website and book have a different take on your point about the state-of-the art in 1979. According to those articles, Ayyadurai's distinctive achievement was a system to emulate all the features of a paper-based interoffice mail. From what I've been able to read, the state-of-the art then consisted of the ability to send messages between computers, with to: from: cc: and (possibly) attachments, not a fully integrated user-friendly system. According to the David Crocker quote, the well known programmers of that era didn't try to create a user-friendly system, but rather depended on the expertise of the user with system-based services, such as sorts, to make things work. It was a system by and for expert programmers. If someone can dispute this with facts, and not angry arguments, I will be glad to listen. --Zeamays (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- As an historian of technology, here's my take: important contribution to technology typically means, contributing in a way that meaningfully changes the historical development of some kind of technology or industry. There are also meaningful exceptions to this aforementioned rule, for example, when a particular innovation shows an alternate, unrealized technological method. So some people argue that Konrad Zuse offers an alternate model for computing that developed in the German context but wasn't fully developed because of postwar circumstances in Germany. The same goes for histories of, say, cybernetics in the Soviet Union, as shown by Slava Gerovitch. As far as I can tell, Ayyadurai developed a pretty exciting system for a local college, and the fact that he did so as a teenager is a testament to his precocious talent. The Smithsonian accepted his paper on the grounds of being an interesting artifact in American cultural history (not in the history of technology, per se) as it seems to show something about an emerging experience or challenge in the American landscape of its time. But I don't see any claims or evidence that the Ayyadurai work is a significant contribution to the history of technology, either in terms of developing the technologies of networked communication & email, nor in terms of showing an alternate, unrealized logic. As far as I can tell, neither the Smithsonian nor the WaPo Ombudsman really claimed it made a significant contribution in these regards. And finally, the Ombudsman statements don't really claim any specific authority (he actually downplays his expertise in one of his statements, before ultimately apologizing for the haste and supeficiality of earlier stories). In brief, Ayyadurai's story is an interesting story about an individual's exciting experiment. The controversy itself over the innovativeness of his work is "the real story" here. It goes something like this: A few sources at some point in time credited him with a technological innovation. Gradually those claims by independent sources were debunked, retracted, or seriously qualified. What is left is an exciting look into how debates and controversies surrounding technological development and originality. But no independent, serious source of scientific, technological, or historical expertise is really crediting Ayyadurai with making a significant contribution to the history of technology. Only Ayyadurai himself, and maybe his professor Chomsky (who himself claims no especial expertise, and seems to imply in the Wired article that he didn't look into the case deeply but instead read Ayyadurai's clams and thinks they deserve a fair hearing), seem to think there's something worth considering here. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Protonk: I am sorry I offend you so. Betweenfloors has a position very congruent with my own. I was discussing the one matter where we differ. If you want to address the full Crocker quote, and the state of the art in 1979, please do so with facts. The complete Crocker quote makes it clear what he meant. I welcome factual information that would clarify this point. Patient exposition, based on facts, is what we need here, not rhetoric. --Zeamays (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC) As you suggesed, I had a look at the Thomas Haigh reference I confess that I had not paid serious attention because it's an unedited blogspace, but it makes a difference is he is actually a published historian of the field. He author clearly doesn't accept any of Ayyadurai's claims, even the one on which I have focused. So that point is also debatable. But this is Misplaced Pages, not a courtroom with a zero-sum process. --Zeamays (talk) 00:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- Zeamays: No--Betweenfloors' position re: EMAIL's importance is in the mainstream of opinion here and appears incongruent with yours. Barte (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- Barte: I wrote sincerely that my position is congruent with that of Betweenfloors expressed above. I have had to adjust my position after the HuffPo articles were withdrawn, I admitted that earlier. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- Are you saying that through the entire discussion on Talk:Email and here, you hadn't read the Haigh reference that several different editors kept pointing you to and referencing? Since I'm still going to WP:AGF, my conclusion is that you are displaying a lack of WP:COMPETENCE. As for Crocker (here's the actual source ), please point to the page number(s) backing your claim. Are you talking about the "no attempt is being made ..." quote that Masnick debunks? IRW0 (talk) 02:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- IRW0: Please relax, try not to attack other editors, and stick to the discussion of Ayyadurai. You are incorrect. I had, in fact, read the Haigh reference when it was first cited in opposition to some of my points. However, as I wrote above, I didn't give it serious attention because it is a blog. Even Haigh does not give sufficient detail for the reader to know exactly the full list of features present in earlier programs that would dispute Ayyadurai's claim for a full emulation. The Crocker document you cite is a WP:Primary source. I did read it after your suggestion, and the relevant pages that were quoted by Ayyadurai and the now-withdrawn HuffPo articles are on pdf pages 21 and 24, separated by several pages of figures (computer printouts). In the following pages there is also a lengthy discussion of the use of an auxilliary program, MAP, to process files. It is the dependence on use of operating system level commands and auxilliary programs that is the heart of the issue with the Crocker quote. Let's not try to use Masnick to support your argument, please? It's not credible, as I discussed earlier. Betweenfloors comment below (19:23, 12 September 2014) supports not using blogs are sources. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- @Zeamays: I'll ask again. Is there a single verifiable source which is independent from the subject (i.e. not solely published on his site, not retracted when it was published elsewhere and not an interview with the subject) which corroborates those claims? Protonk (talk) 17:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- In the interest of making progress, please be more specific about "those claims". Do you mean 1979 Email as an emulation of paper-based interoffice mail (supported by WaPo/Smithsonian refs.), or do you you mean Ayyadurai's colloquial claim, which I do not take literally, to be "inventor of email"? If the latter, we agree. --Zeamays (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'd prefer one which directly corroborates the notion that EMAIL was the first to offer "email as we know it today" specifically "the first of its kind -- a fully integrated, database-driven, electronic translation of the interoffice paper mail system derived from the ordinary office situation" but as we're starting from 0, any reliable, independent source will do. Protonk (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- The Smithsonian statement makes just that point in the last paragraph. --Zeamays (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- The smithsonian statement is best treated as a primary source on the acquisition of the collection (See here for my comments on it). Whatever my complaints about the corresponding blog post I'll treat it for our purposes as a secondary source. Ok. Name one other. Protonk (talk) 20:25, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- The Smithsonian statement makes just that point in the last paragraph. --Zeamays (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- To briefly recap some of what's discussed below: First, I think there's an emerging consensus that the Haigh post is not a blog (see discussion below). It is a statement by a representative of an internationally recognized society for the history of informatics, itself a subgroup of the prestigious and long-standing Society for the History of Technology. So it is basically fair scientific game. Moreover, it is substantiated by a peer-reviewed article by Haigh published by the ACM, the leading scientific organization for computing. That article is available for free download here: http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/CACM-SevenLessons.pdf . But finally, I do think the Crocker statements retain validity as a kind of expert testimony that seriously undermines Ayyadurai's claims. Sure, Ayyadurai disagrees, but I think at this point the onus is really on him to provide compelling counter-evidence. Pretty much every expert that has weighed in seems to reject Ayyadurai's claims, and Ayyadurai hasn't offered any substantial counter-argument. Mostly he's just advertised his cause to credulous culture and lifestyle reporters at HuffPo or puff-piece online publications like theverge.com. In short, I think we've reached closure-of-scientific-controversy here. Betweenfloors (talk) 20:23, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- Betweenfloors: You and I come to a different conclusion from reading Crocker. I read it as strong support for Ayyadurai's point about a system emulating paper-based interoffice mail, rather than a, incomplete, cumbersome command-line program that requires the use of operating system commands and auxillary programs to execute many functions per Crocker's document. --Zeamays (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'd prefer one which directly corroborates the notion that EMAIL was the first to offer "email as we know it today" specifically "the first of its kind -- a fully integrated, database-driven, electronic translation of the interoffice paper mail system derived from the ordinary office situation" but as we're starting from 0, any reliable, independent source will do. Protonk (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- In the interest of making progress, please be more specific about "those claims". Do you mean 1979 Email as an emulation of paper-based interoffice mail (supported by WaPo/Smithsonian refs.), or do you you mean Ayyadurai's colloquial claim, which I do not take literally, to be "inventor of email"? If the latter, we agree. --Zeamays (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- @Zeamays: I'll ask again. Is there a single verifiable source which is independent from the subject (i.e. not solely published on his site, not retracted when it was published elsewhere and not an interview with the subject) which corroborates those claims? Protonk (talk) 17:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- And there on page v, as Masnick noted, is Crocker's 1977 reference to "electronic mail" as an ARPANET capability. Barte (talk) 02:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- Barte: Please refer to my earlier statements regarding multiple inventors, each adding something. I must be missing something that you are pointing to as significant, so what is it that you think the Crocker reference to "electronic mail" means? --Zeamays (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- IRW0: Please relax, try not to attack other editors, and stick to the discussion of Ayyadurai. You are incorrect. I had, in fact, read the Haigh reference when it was first cited in opposition to some of my points. However, as I wrote above, I didn't give it serious attention because it is a blog. Even Haigh does not give sufficient detail for the reader to know exactly the full list of features present in earlier programs that would dispute Ayyadurai's claim for a full emulation. The Crocker document you cite is a WP:Primary source. I did read it after your suggestion, and the relevant pages that were quoted by Ayyadurai and the now-withdrawn HuffPo articles are on pdf pages 21 and 24, separated by several pages of figures (computer printouts). In the following pages there is also a lengthy discussion of the use of an auxilliary program, MAP, to process files. It is the dependence on use of operating system level commands and auxilliary programs that is the heart of the issue with the Crocker quote. Let's not try to use Masnick to support your argument, please? It's not credible, as I discussed earlier. Betweenfloors comment below (19:23, 12 September 2014) supports not using blogs are sources. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- A few points. First, the HuffPo pieces were (1) retracted, and (2) blogger-generated, so I think we need to disqualify them as sources. I think we've all basically agreed that blogger-generated materials are out of bounds. Second, I think we've agreed that Ayyadurai gets to have some say, which is why there's any discussion at all. It seems to me that his claims have been given a substantial hearing, along with the various criticisms of his claims. But if he claims in his book or on his blog that he's a major figure in the history of email, that doesn't make it so. Uninterested, impartial sources from a wide range of domains have challenged that claim and offered concrete evidence to counter his claims. Third, I think it's inaccurate to characterize the Haigh material as "an unedited blogspace." It's content on the web presence of an international community of historians of informatics, a group that meets for conferences annually around the globe, and they operate as a group within the most prestigious society for technology history, namely The Society for the History of Technology SHOT. Haigh weighed in on the SIGCIS web domain as part of a broader discussion within this community of specialized historians. In this regard, Haigh's comments seem to me a more reliable source than even Ayyadurai's website, on the grounds that Haigh is subject to constraints of other members in his group, SHOT, and in principle his comments there become part of the academic record that shapes his evaluation for things like tenure and so on. In this regard, it's not an unedited blog; it's the instrument of an international community of historians, with Haigh acting as one of their voices. Similarly, if the spokesperson for the Governor's Association in the USA or the president of the Modern Literature Association (also in the USA) made a statement on these organization's webpages, it wouldn't be part of an unedited blogspace--I would see it as an expression of that organization and its values, regulated by their internal procedures. And all of these groups have more or less democratic procedures to remove spokespersons and leaders, so I consider statements made by members in an official capacity as approximate expressions of the group, or at least expressions allowed by that group. Finally, as far as sources go, Haigh has made his claims in a peer-reviewed journal published by the ACM, which I think is the world's largest and most reputable scientific society for computing. The article is online here: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/9/154586-seven-lessons-from-bad-history/abstract . So even though the initial posting from Haigh doesn't seem to be a blog in any typical sense of the term, his major claims are reiterated and validated in alternate form in a peer reviewed scientific context vetted by engineers, historians, and so on. This leaves us with a basic situation where Ayyadurai has made some very public and insistent claims that have been given a lot of attention here and in the mass media. The mass media has largely retracted or revised major stories and groups like the Smithsonian have qualified their claims on his behalf. Except for one or two poorly sourced professors with a personal relationship to Ayyadurai, no notable figures in science and technology have supported his claims. On the contrary, representatives and members in the obvious groups for evaluating his claims-- ACM, Society for the History of Technology, and SIGCIS -- have weighed in against Ayyadurai's claims. So in summary: What's the controversy here? The current article allows for Ayyadurai to make his claims, it lets experts (including Haigh) counter in forums of scientific and scholarly evaluation, and the remaining task is basically to whittle back some of the poorly sourced claims. But I don't see any argument for saying that Ayyadurai has made a major contribution that has been neglected. If members of Misplaced Pages feel that is in fact the case, that should be put forward under their proper names in a scientific journal, such as the Proceedings of the ACM or something of that ilk. As a community editors of Misplaced Pages, all we can go is give a summary of the dominant conversation. I don't think we can decide for ourselves, and against dominant scientific and technological opinion, that in fact he did do something major that needs to be better acknowledged. I think the current trend in revisions moves towards this qualified and contested presentation of Ayyadurai's claims. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- I will defer to your position on Haigh. I would have liked to see a more exact statement of the state of the art prior to Ayyadurai in Haigh's SIGIS article (the Communications of the ACM article requires a subscription). But I will accept your major points, given the evidence now available. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- A few points. First, the HuffPo pieces were (1) retracted, and (2) blogger-generated, so I think we need to disqualify them as sources. I think we've all basically agreed that blogger-generated materials are out of bounds. Second, I think we've agreed that Ayyadurai gets to have some say, which is why there's any discussion at all. It seems to me that his claims have been given a substantial hearing, along with the various criticisms of his claims. But if he claims in his book or on his blog that he's a major figure in the history of email, that doesn't make it so. Uninterested, impartial sources from a wide range of domains have challenged that claim and offered concrete evidence to counter his claims. Third, I think it's inaccurate to characterize the Haigh material as "an unedited blogspace." It's content on the web presence of an international community of historians of informatics, a group that meets for conferences annually around the globe, and they operate as a group within the most prestigious society for technology history, namely The Society for the History of Technology SHOT. Haigh weighed in on the SIGCIS web domain as part of a broader discussion within this community of specialized historians. In this regard, Haigh's comments seem to me a more reliable source than even Ayyadurai's website, on the grounds that Haigh is subject to constraints of other members in his group, SHOT, and in principle his comments there become part of the academic record that shapes his evaluation for things like tenure and so on. In this regard, it's not an unedited blog; it's the instrument of an international community of historians, with Haigh acting as one of their voices. Similarly, if the spokesperson for the Governor's Association in the USA or the president of the Modern Literature Association (also in the USA) made a statement on these organization's webpages, it wouldn't be part of an unedited blogspace--I would see it as an expression of that organization and its values, regulated by their internal procedures. And all of these groups have more or less democratic procedures to remove spokespersons and leaders, so I consider statements made by members in an official capacity as approximate expressions of the group, or at least expressions allowed by that group. Finally, as far as sources go, Haigh has made his claims in a peer-reviewed journal published by the ACM, which I think is the world's largest and most reputable scientific society for computing. The article is online here: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/9/154586-seven-lessons-from-bad-history/abstract . So even though the initial posting from Haigh doesn't seem to be a blog in any typical sense of the term, his major claims are reiterated and validated in alternate form in a peer reviewed scientific context vetted by engineers, historians, and so on. This leaves us with a basic situation where Ayyadurai has made some very public and insistent claims that have been given a lot of attention here and in the mass media. The mass media has largely retracted or revised major stories and groups like the Smithsonian have qualified their claims on his behalf. Except for one or two poorly sourced professors with a personal relationship to Ayyadurai, no notable figures in science and technology have supported his claims. On the contrary, representatives and members in the obvious groups for evaluating his claims-- ACM, Society for the History of Technology, and SIGCIS -- have weighed in against Ayyadurai's claims. So in summary: What's the controversy here? The current article allows for Ayyadurai to make his claims, it lets experts (including Haigh) counter in forums of scientific and scholarly evaluation, and the remaining task is basically to whittle back some of the poorly sourced claims. But I don't see any argument for saying that Ayyadurai has made a major contribution that has been neglected. If members of Misplaced Pages feel that is in fact the case, that should be put forward under their proper names in a scientific journal, such as the Proceedings of the ACM or something of that ilk. As a community editors of Misplaced Pages, all we can go is give a summary of the dominant conversation. I don't think we can decide for ourselves, and against dominant scientific and technological opinion, that in fact he did do something major that needs to be better acknowledged. I think the current trend in revisions moves towards this qualified and contested presentation of Ayyadurai's claims. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Chomsky
An edit that was lost was this one, where a reference to the Chomsky statement had become a missing link. Now, it's not like there's any lack of other copies of that statement; I suggest here.
But (I realise this is mere speculation)... did Chomsky really write that? Chomsky allegedly made an earlier statement that appears here. The first one reads more like him, and is plausible given that Chomsky might not have looked into it in any detail, the usual confusion between EMAIL and e-mail, etc., although it is odd it appears nowhere on the Web save on Ayyadurai's website.
But the second? Blatant plug for one of Ayyadurai's websites. Not in particularly good English (eg "Note Shiva, received his formal Copyright registration in 1982." with its spurious comma and capital), where Chomsky's writing is essentially completely devoid of such errors. With the byline of The International Center for Integrative Systems on as well as Chomsky, even though the piece itself purports to be by Chomsky. Sudden focus on "replicate electronically the interoffice, inter-organizational mail system" (the Ayyadurai trick where "email" is defined as being a system with precisely the features of EMAIL)... "These are indisputable facts, as I have referred to in my earlier statement", but in fact the earlier statement makes no mention of that.
Neither statement (or any related material) appears on . Nothing related on Chomsky's Facebook page. I think the closest we get to a definitive statement that he was actually involved is the Wired article where they contact him by email and "What I found out seemed to confirm his story," Chomsky tells Wired. "I read his documentation, the counterarguments, his responses, and his position seemed to me plausible." That - "seemed plausible" is a long way from the vehement language of the second statement.
Of course, there's not much we can do about this at present; supposedly reliable sources say Chomsky wrote that. But it's worth keeping one's eyes open... Pinkbeast (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Subject's website as a primary source
Is the subject's webpage valid or not for citing here? At this writing, some material from the article has been taken out on the grounds that the cite is not neutral. Some material citing the same source remains. My preference is to go easy here, this being a BLP. For the sake of balance, I'd think we should be flexible in letting the subject have his say. Obviously, secondary sources are preferred for this purpose, but where that's not possible, a primary source (his website) could being used here without interpretation. We are excerpting, not interpreting. Barte (talk) 19:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- I can't really keep up with the recent changes to this article, but I'm basically OK with using the subject's website for certain claims. There are some basic problems we should be aware of. First, we're not really worried about uncontroversial claims which haven't been reported elsewhere (I think a previous edit removed the birthdate cited to his website, that kinda stuff should really be restored). We're worried about presenting claims about live controversies (e.g. EMAIL) against those of third parties. This is an especially problematic situation as the content on Ayyadurai's site is often heavily promotional and makes the sort of claims we traditionally demand a great deal of evidence for. In those cases we're often moving beyond extending a BLP courtesy to inserting claims which when made in reliable sources have been retracted (see WaPo and HuffPo). That's a problem. Second, I think I removed a claim from Michelson sourced to the subject's website which you reinserted. I'm not mad and I don't think you did anything wrong, but I feel we have to be really careful with these sorts of sources. The specific claim "it was the electronic interoffice, inter-organizational mail system, the first of its kind, an integrated platform that provided all the recognizable elements of the email, we all know and use today." is identical to the claim in the second HuffPo article (google cache). If the only venue Michelson can find for that claim is the subject's website, we need think about how willing we should be to cite it and how to cite it without giving the impression that the claim is materially independent from the subject. Because it's not, really. Protonk (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- I removed some of the references to the author's website, including the Michelson (apparently like the person above, too). My concern was that he was presenting lengthy statements by others, without external evidence of their truthfulness. For example, elsewhere he has made claims about what others said or did, to have them contradicted by said persons (for exapmle, see the Arianna Huffington stuff on https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-all-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-he-threatens-to-sue-his-critics.shtml ). Likewise, though a press release on his website offers a lengthy text purportedly from Noam Chomsky, when I googled what Chomsky said, his statements to Wired seemed much more hedged and cautious (Chomsky says I read his documentation, the counterarguments, his responses, and his position seemed to me plausible") than the larger claims currently offered in the article, based on a press release from the subject. There was another lengthy quote from a teacher along the same lines, albeit framed with a lot of discussion with how the laboratory work--again, it seemed odd that this was presented on the subject's website and taken at face value, especially after allegations that the "History of Email" piece on HuffPo was plagiarized or ghostwritten by the subject. The whole swirl of allegations at present makes it difficult to figure out what's what. So for unverified comments purportedly from third parties, it seems that it would be helpful to use sources other than the subject's website. So anyway, the point is yes, as stated above, the subject should have his say and I think the current entry allows for that. But it is questionable when he uses his site to speak on other's behalf, especially when the article is not attributing those quotes to the subject but rather to Chomsky, Michelson, etc. Betweenfloors (talk) 22:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- If the rule of thumb here is that his site is a fair reference here for his views, but not others: I can see the point--and it's useful to spell it out here. In an attempt to restore Michelson's comments, I did a search to see if his views are given anywhere else, as Chomsky was quoted in Wired. I came up empty. Even the lengthy Boston Magazine piece, while mentioning his lab, does not quote him contemporaneously. Barte (talk) 21:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Ayyadurai deserves a fair and balanced discussion on his bio page. Inclusion of biased blog writers who comment on him violates WP:BLP, as I have indicated on the Talk:Email page. Also, he is entitled to be quoted, as described in that policy. --Zeamays (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Did you just repeat the same comment from a different thread? Protonk (talk) 23:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- The point is important, and some editors don't appear to be paying attention. --Zeamays (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- So you felt that repeating the same statement verbatim in a section which discusses something completely different would educate these unnamed editors? Protonk (talk) 13:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- I am sorry I offended you. --Zeamays (talk) 14:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- So you felt that repeating the same statement verbatim in a section which discusses something completely different would educate these unnamed editors? Protonk (talk) 13:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- The point is important, and some editors don't appear to be paying attention. --Zeamays (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Just to be clear--I think we're all basically in accord, Zeamays. There was a lot of material referenced back to Ayyadurai's blog, without independent verification. The original intervention was to say that Ayyadurai's blog can't be used to propound unverified statements attributed to third parties. That was the original problem with Michelson and Chomsky--the sources traced back to a blog from Ayyadurai. These are two accomplished scientists with publications, public visibility and so on, so it was odd that the only supporting statements from them appeared on Ayyadurai's blog. In fact, an independent piece of reportage from Wired reported statements from Chomsky that showed more nuance and caution than the press release offered by Ayyadurai on his personal website. On top of that, the one "independent" statement from Michelson that appeared on HuffPo was (1) blogger-generated, (2) accused of not really being authored by Michelson, and partially in response to that claim, (3) retracted by HuffPo. So the point is, we're not arguing against anyone having their say. The original concern was in fact to ensure that people have "their own" say, with suggested edits to get the kinds of reliable sourcing you advocate for above. Therefore the aforementioned changes are, as far as I can tell, uncontroversial. I think we're reaching productive consensus, here. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- FWIW, I think I can agree with keeping the Wired cite to Chomsky while removing the press release about Chomsky on Ayyadurai's site. Protonk (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Done. I also added The Verge ref. Barte (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- FWIW, I think I can agree with keeping the Wired cite to Chomsky while removing the press release about Chomsky on Ayyadurai's site. Protonk (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
- Did you just repeat the same comment from a different thread? Protonk (talk) 23:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Ayyadurai deserves a fair and balanced discussion on his bio page. Inclusion of biased blog writers who comment on him violates WP:BLP, as I have indicated on the Talk:Email page. Also, he is entitled to be quoted, as described in that policy. --Zeamays (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
- Another point along the same lines: The entry currently says that "Ayyadurai won a Westinghouse Science Talent Search award for high school seniors in 1981." Support for this claim comes from a scan of a program on the subject's page. First, it would be worthwhile to get some kind of independent verification for this. Second, the program it links to lists the subject as belonging to an "Honor Group" that seems to include 5 or 10 students from each state ( http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/inv02.asp ). This is not without significance but it's not the same thing as winning the Westinghouse award. The current phrasing is ambiguous. Third, other pages on Ayyadurai's website substantiate his claims via retracted or withdrawn articles from HuffPo etc. Ayyadurai seems to have saved screen shots from these withdrawn articles and is presenting them as current. It's the misleading character of this practice, as well as the misleading characterization of Ayyadurai as an award winner, that leads me to think some kind of independent sourcing is necessary. Betweenfloors (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Sources for email section
Since there's been some concern about the quality and nature of sources in the email section, I propose we stick to (mainly) the following sources, many of which are in the article already:
- The smithsonian statement on accepting the EMAIL materials (more on this in a bit)
- The boston magazine article describing the controversy
- The wired article noting Chomsky's comments (I prefer them over the verge who basically just rephrases the press release from Ayyadurai's site)
- This LA Times article from Michael Hiltzik (who has written a book on email history)
- This history of email from Dave Crocker
- The email history page from Haigh
- One source (maybe the same one we have now) from Ayyadurai on his response to the criticism (more on this as well)
For the remainder which are in the article now I propose we either remove them or trim down their use a bit. For example, we cite Gizmodo in this BLP despite BLP being quite clear about blogs like Gizmodo being treated with scrutiny. We can hem and haw over whether or not they have a "staff" or whatever, but the same author published this just this year so it's not exactly a high water mark for sober journalism. While the original Gizmodo article does the legwork of talking to Tomlinson and Crocker, there's nothing in it which isn't found elsewhere. If we're intent on keeping it we should focus on the Tomlinson quote cited by Biddle and not the remainder of the article.
We also cite (and quote extensively) retractions by various papers. It's important for us to note the retractions here but not as important to hammer the point home with a blockquote where it isn't really needed.
For the smithsonian statement, take a look at what I posted on the Email talk page. In short, I think the statement is fine as a primary source on the museum's acquisition but that's it. We should treat it as we do any other primary source and be careful not to interpret too much from it. Sometimes on BLPs we get into the habit of conflating "primary" and "non-independent", in this case I mean primary in the canonical sense. It's a statement about a material acquisition from an institution. We should be careful that it isn't doing too much work in a BLP.
This is my personal preference but I'd like not to cite the Time Techland piece on claims about email unless we're clearly citing the interview and Ayyadurai's statements in it. The interview is softball after softball and the claims made in it are similar to those which have not sustained publication in the Washington Post, the New York Times (in their case just a tweet) or even HuffPo.
As for statements on Ayyadurai's site, I think we should qualify or curtail their use. We normally allow some latitude for BLP subjects to "speak out" on their page, but as it is written right now we're using his "personal statement" to advance claims about the nature of prior art in email which we know not to be true and which more importantly are directly addressed and dismissed by reliable sources. In this case the statement is both a primary source and not independent from the subject, so we need to be careful when presenting them. If that sounds harsh, consider the flow of the article as it is right now. We start with the claim that the subject "invented" email, note the various claw-backs on that claim from sources which reported it, offer some color on the history of email in context of those claims and then let stand the modified (but still problematic) claim from the subject that he basically invented modern email, including statements of fact which we know to be wrong (e.g. the headers used, which were proposed in RFC 561 in 1973).
I don't think we need to cite Masnick (the current revision of the article doesn't, AFAIK). While he covers the history fairly well he's mostly writing about the journalistic malfeasance at Huffington Post in allowing their email series to be presented as reported fact. Since the huffpo series has been completely retracted (and doesn't appear in the article) we probably don't need to bring him into the debate. If we want to add a comment on the huffpo series I'm ok with using Masnick to support a short claim that the Huffington Post ran a series on the "invention of email" which it later retracted, but that's a discussion for another time.
By and large this proposal basically just suggests we remove the gizmodo and verge cites, trim down the quotes or usage of the Post's retraction statement and lessen our reliance on the smithsonian statement. Other than that, most of the above citations are already in the article. Since it is unlikely that EMAIL will get an article and very unlikely that the controversy over EMAIL will see a larger overview elsewhere, this article represents the space to tell the reader about the controversy. We should treat that as a responsibility to be fair, direct and proportionate in our coverage of verifiable claims. We don't want to bag on Ayyadurai in the voice of the encyclopedia or grant undue weight to retractions where we can instead discuss the history. But we also don't want to repurpose BLP to degrade this article into "he said/she said" claims where we present the controversy as a difference of opinion between equally well represented views. It's not. Ayyadurai invented neither "email" nor "email as we know it today"--until and unless we find considerable sourcing to support these extraordinary claims we should be judicious in granting space to them. Protonk (talk) 13:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'm fine with your list, including omitting Masnick ( in the absence of any HuffPo mention) and Biddle and including Hiltzik. And I agree about the scope of the Smithsonian statement as a primary source. But I don't think we can exclude Time Techland on the basis of softball questions--because our purpose here is to cover a controversy, not resolve Ayyadurai's place in computer history. We've done that in the Email article--the verdict is a single mention. Here, we are covering what appears to be the single event that justifies a Shiva Ayyadurai Misplaced Pages article in the first place: the controversy over his claim and the counter-claims that follow. That controversy, as far as I can tell, began with the Time Techland interview: "The Man Who Invented Email". (Which BTW has never been retracted.) I don't know if the personal website came before or after, but the Smithsonian acquisition, Washington Post coverage and retraction, David Pogue NYT coverage and retraction (Hiltzik mentions and links) and general brouhaha all followed Time Techland. In the sequence of things, that interview appears to be the ignition. As for his personal website, that now remains the only place where Ayyadurai spells out why he thinks he invented email. So it is inevitable if we are going to cover your last bullet point. Barte (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yeah, the techland bit is probably going to stay. As for the last point, I think it's more about editing than sources. As I mentioned above, I'm uncomfortable ordering the section as "claim to invent email" -> debunked/retracted -> claimed to have invented modern email -> nothing. Protonk (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- The ordering could be inverted: claim (website+Time Techland)-> debunked/retracted. Barte (talk) 18:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yeah, the techland bit is probably going to stay. As for the last point, I think it's more about editing than sources. As I mentioned above, I'm uncomfortable ordering the section as "claim to invent email" -> debunked/retracted -> claimed to have invented modern email -> nothing. Protonk (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Systematic Difficulties with Sourcing, Reframing Article as Controversy, not Bio
- I've intermittently been looking into sources of this article the last week and there seem to be pervasive problems. For example, the source cited as "Laxminarayan, Swamy (1 January 2011). Future Visions on Biomedicine and Bioinformatics 1. Springer" is actually a fluffy memoir-type piece authored by Ayyadurai. I think as a source it's better than a lot of other material -- it's more or less a real book, not overt propaganda based on a first glance, not a blog -- but obviously misattributed. Were this the only issue, I wouldn't comment at all but this fits into a more systematic pattern where sources that appear independent are in fact part of the self-promoting or soapboxing apparatus of Ayyadurai. Now as discussed in sections above, it's good to let Ayyadurai have his say, and since there is a controversy of sorts here, I think it's important that Ayyadurai is given his due, in his own voice. But the fact that references to Westinghouse, Michelson, and Chomsky, among others, have often been listed as independent but actually been poorly sourced statements hosted by Ayyadurai's website is troubling. The fact that Ayyadurai is currently using that same website to distribute discredited & retracted blogger-generated articles from the Huffington Post, as if they were current and unimpeachable news sources, compromises that site's reliability and suggests that all material from his site should get extra scrutiny. This is against the backdrop, touched on above and alluded to by the HuffPo, that texts such as the Michelson statement and perhaps the Chomsky statement may in fact have been authored or ghostwritten by Ayyadurai. I have no idea if anything like that is true or likely. I'm not qualified to make that determination. It's also worth noting that all these controversies developed in the wake of comments first made here on Misplaced Pages itself where after getting banned from editing for aggressive practices, Ayyadurai declared that he would not relent on revisions etc until his rightful place was recognized (http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Vashiva). It was in this context that he first said he would consider going to a museum such as the Smithsonian to archive his materials, thereby strengthening his sources or verifiability, an undertaking which seems to be what set off the whole series of public statements and retractions by the Smithsonian, Washington Post, etc., about whether or not he had invented email. Point being: There is a controversy, it's pretty interesting, Ayyadurai is an essential voice to making that controversy clear, Misplaced Pages is a vital source for encapsulating the history of that controversy, but I get the feeling our sources are inadequately distinguishing between, on the one hand, verified scientific/historical determinations and, on the other hand, Ayyadurai-generated commentary and evidence. I don't want to go through the site and prune or verify all the sources because the list of full edits will make it look as though I went on a hack and burn mission, inviting retractions and so on. But I want to at least explain my concern, so that other editors can take note and consider ways of improving the citations. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- If the consensus here is that Ayyadurai's self-reported info is not reliable, and bio-related material keeps getting deleted, this article will no longer be about the person but the controversy, and should be renamed as such--like these. Given the amount of non-related bio material already deleted here recently, that point may have already been reached. Barte (talk) 18:36, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I admit to being so focused on the email section that I hadn't spent enough time on the remainder of the article. I'll try to take a look. To Barte I think we can avoid that outcome by cleaning up and tightening the controversy section so it doesn't appear as dominant as it does now. Protonk (talk) 18:43, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- That would probably mean reintroducing some of the material recently deleted .Barte (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I think the point is that most of the material that was deleted was not of broader scientific and technological interest, or alternately, it was difficult to source reliably. I am unambiguously in favor of seeing this entry as about the controversy over Ayyadurai's contribution to email. As far as I can see, there is no broadscale scientific or technological interest in Ayyadurai. He has a startup or two, an article or two, but there are literally tens of thousands of graduates from Carnegie, MIT and CalTech that equally fit that description and don't have their entries. What is interesting and different here is Ayyadurai's claim to have invented email, and the varied responses it has invited. To look at this page of "talk" alone, no one is quibbling about the dozens of websites he's registered, nor about the status and fate of echomail. All the interest is focused on the claims surrounding the invention email. In other words, refocusing the article on the controversy is not necessarily something "to be avoided" but perhaps, instead, the logical result of the cumulative discussions that have taken place on this page. betweenfloors (talk) 22:06, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree. As I mention above the email section can be tightened considerably but I don't see a reason to avoid the notion that it is his main claim to notability. I don't think the solution to 'balance' the article is to reintroduce deleted material. Protonk (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- So given the above, I just want to consider. It sounds to me (from the above) that the subject may not qualify as a notable academic. Consider the criteria here: WP:PROF. But perhaps he is notable for one event, which then, per WP:1E, begs the question: how notable is the event?
Another issue arises when an individual plays a major role in a minor event. In this case, it is not generally appropriate to have an article on both the person and the event. Generally in this case, the name of the person should redirect to the article on the incident, especially if the individual is only notable for that incident and it is all that the person is associated with in the source coverage.
Is that where we're at? Barte (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2014 (UTC)- I think it's valuable to note that PROF is a heuristic for the GNG, which the subject meets pretty handily. 1E may apply if we're being very liberal, but we'd also have to stretch it to the "event" spanning ~2 years. Protonk (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- OK, but if this is going to be a biography, then it should be a real biography, not WP:PSEUDO:
An article under the title of a person's name should substantially be a full and balanced biography of that person's public life.
I think that's a fair criteria, especially for a BLP, and distilling this one down to the email controversy won't achieve it. Barte (talk) 04:51, 14 September 2014 (UTC)- To get us all on the same page, I'd like to quickly quote the relevant criteria: "'1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. 2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level. 3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g., a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g., the IEEE). 4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions. 5. The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research (or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon). 6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society. 7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity. 8. The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major well-established academic journal in their subject area. 9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g., musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC'." As far as I can tell, the subject meets none of these criteria. I am aware these are not hard and fast determinations, just guidelines, for eligibility. The major impact he seems to have had is on some short-lived articles in the popular press, which were (for the most part) later retracted. It seems like one or two editors are really excited about his work but that the world scientific and technological practice has largely ignored or dismissed his significance. If this is the case, it seems like this is material for a controversy article, not material for a bio. Is there a explicit argument against my analysis, substantiated by some sources that attest to the subject's notability as a person (rather than actor in a controversy)? I might be missing something because the posts have gotten so numerous, but I don't see any solid source (besides materials generated as part of Ayyadurai's own self-promotional PR campaign) that justify the article. betweenfloors (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- The subject (in the first sentence) is described as being a scientist, inventor and entrepreneur, but notability is not substantiated in any of these. Unless the article is broadened considerably, I think this is a controversy masquerading as a biography. Barte (talk) 14:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with the idea of a title change and refactoring around the spurious claim to have invented email. (Picking a title is left as an exercise for the reader...) The previous AFD discussion for the page may be pertinent. Some good came of this anyway; I checked the contribs for the Ayyadurai shill who created the page and managed to junk some of his spam elsewhere on Misplaced Pages. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- The subject (in the first sentence) is described as being a scientist, inventor and entrepreneur, but notability is not substantiated in any of these. Unless the article is broadened considerably, I think this is a controversy masquerading as a biography. Barte (talk) 14:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- To get us all on the same page, I'd like to quickly quote the relevant criteria: "'1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. 2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level. 3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g., a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g., the IEEE). 4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions. 5. The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research (or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon). 6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society. 7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity. 8. The person is or has been the head or chief editor of a major well-established academic journal in their subject area. 9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g., musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC'." As far as I can tell, the subject meets none of these criteria. I am aware these are not hard and fast determinations, just guidelines, for eligibility. The major impact he seems to have had is on some short-lived articles in the popular press, which were (for the most part) later retracted. It seems like one or two editors are really excited about his work but that the world scientific and technological practice has largely ignored or dismissed his significance. If this is the case, it seems like this is material for a controversy article, not material for a bio. Is there a explicit argument against my analysis, substantiated by some sources that attest to the subject's notability as a person (rather than actor in a controversy)? I might be missing something because the posts have gotten so numerous, but I don't see any solid source (besides materials generated as part of Ayyadurai's own self-promotional PR campaign) that justify the article. betweenfloors (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- OK, but if this is going to be a biography, then it should be a real biography, not WP:PSEUDO:
- I think it's valuable to note that PROF is a heuristic for the GNG, which the subject meets pretty handily. 1E may apply if we're being very liberal, but we'd also have to stretch it to the "event" spanning ~2 years. Protonk (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- So given the above, I just want to consider. It sounds to me (from the above) that the subject may not qualify as a notable academic. Consider the criteria here: WP:PROF. But perhaps he is notable for one event, which then, per WP:1E, begs the question: how notable is the event?
- I agree. As I mention above the email section can be tightened considerably but I don't see a reason to avoid the notion that it is his main claim to notability. I don't think the solution to 'balance' the article is to reintroduce deleted material. Protonk (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
"Controversy over the inventor of email"? Per Haigh, this is almost certainly the only one. Barte (talk) 14:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- Suggest "invention" not "inventor", since the facts actually are that there is no one "inventor of email", but it was invented. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd rather we not get lost in a hedgerow over whether or not the subject meets a specific notability guideline. I think it is highly unlikely that this article would be deleted at AfD unless someone made an incredibly convincing case that the various controversies which sparked news interest represented an exceptionally drawn out "one event". I'm not convinced by that case thus far. Protonk (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- This is a discussion about a potential move, not a deletion. If the idea is controversial, perhaps we should formalize the discussion to invite broader comment. Barte (talk) 16:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- If the article is moved (and presumably these links removed or redirected) that's tantamount to a deletion (and the discussion above about PROF indicates this characterization isn't far off). I'd recommend instead writing a new article on the email controversy, stubbing this article down to a summary of the personal details and the 2 major events of concern, then linking to the new article in a hatnote. Protonk (talk) 17:06, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- I had no idea so many articles linked to this one. I think your idea is worth considering. Barte (talk) 17:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the best solution is, haven't been witness to enough editorial decisions in the past. What I can say is that I suspect this entry was, one way or another, generated by Ayyadurai as part of an attempt to gain himself some legitimacy. Even now, a careful scrutiny shows that more than a few of the claims are dubious or falsely cited to mask the fact that they come from Ayyadurai's puffing himself up. For example, when he was a kid working at the university office where his mom was a secretary, was he really a "research fellow"? What would that even mean, to have a 14 year old kid who was a research fellow? (I say this as someone who is currently a fellow at a research institute, and gets a decent salary for that, but am more or less unsure what this claim means for Ayyadurai. And as noted above, the source cited is "Laxminarayan, Swamy" even though the article it links to is signed by Ayyadurai. In the end, all sources and publicity for this article seem to lead back to Ayyadurai by 1 or 2 degrees, with the exception of a few critical sources. In the end, the only things we know about Ayyadurai are 1) what he himself has said (and he's been shown to be untruthful on a number of occasions) 2) and what various retracted newspaper articles stated and then retracted. Apart from that there's not much public interest or verifiable fact about this guy, let alone scientifically or technologically verifiable concerns. I suspect references to him in other articles were inserted by interested parties. As mentioned above, I take Ayyadurai's at his word when we stated on another wikipedia page that he "will not relent" until this site reflects his interpretation of reality. Anyway, I defer to collective wisdom. betweenfloors (talk) 19:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
- I support aggressively stubbing the article down until it is limited to sources we can rely upon. My point about AfD above (or moving the article to just be about the controversy and removing the biographical elements entirely) is just a cautionary note. I think absent some very considerable research and a well reasoned nomination, this article would be kept at AfD (maybe after some strong debate). Whether that's an outcome driven by wisdom is up for debate, but it's my rough prediction. Protonk (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'm all in favor of limiting the article to reliable sources and agree that we need to stay vigilant. The dilemma is that in any biography of a contemporary human, most sources lead back to their subject by one or two degrees. The Boston Magazine ("Return to Sender") article we cite is probably the closest thing to a profile by a reliable secondary source, but it's a safe bet that the reporter relied at least in part on material from Ayyadurai himself. I don't have a good answer here except that, on Misplaced Pages, reliable secondary sources are generally not second-guessed. Barte (talk) 06:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC) And to be clear, I don't think this article should be moved without something close to editor unanimity. We don't have that: I take Protonk's objections seriously. So my concern going forward is that while we look at the sourcing and verifiability of the various claims in the article, that we still strive to make this a standard-issue BLP, which means including, where we can, other areas of the subject's public life. Barte (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
- I support aggressively stubbing the article down until it is limited to sources we can rely upon. My point about AfD above (or moving the article to just be about the controversy and removing the biographical elements entirely) is just a cautionary note. I think absent some very considerable research and a well reasoned nomination, this article would be kept at AfD (maybe after some strong debate). Whether that's an outcome driven by wisdom is up for debate, but it's my rough prediction. Protonk (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
- If the article is moved (and presumably these links removed or redirected) that's tantamount to a deletion (and the discussion above about PROF indicates this characterization isn't far off). I'd recommend instead writing a new article on the email controversy, stubbing this article down to a summary of the personal details and the 2 major events of concern, then linking to the new article in a hatnote. Protonk (talk) 17:06, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"a system emulating paper-based interoffice mail"
I'm not sure where to put this, so here it is. This idea that Ayyadurai's EMAIL was a significant innovation because it was the first to emulate paper-based interoffice mail, "like the email we use today", is fairly pervasive.
First of all, it doesn't. Some features of interoffice mail (eg easy colour highlighting and the ability to send arbitary documents) would take years to emerge in email implementations. Conversely, some of Ayyadurai's list like an integrated UI have nothing to do with interoffice mail; in a traditional email system the user uses a separate text editing program of their choice, which is much more akin to an interoffice mail system where the user can type or write or print (etc) their document but the system itself provides no document composing support. Much of the remainder (eg the Bcc: field) we know wasn't innovative at all.
Essentially (and we've seen this with the ever more specific lists of features from Ayyadurai) the claim is that EMAIL was the first email system to implement the exact features of EMAIL. That is unremarkable.
Secondly, it may be more like the email clients most people use today, but that doesn't make it more like email. People still use text-mode clients (I do) or even the command-line "mh"; they are, just as much, using email. (This isn't just polemic; it could be easily cited to RFCs, because of course what determines that it is email is the message, not the client).
So we've reduced this to Ayyadurai writing an early email system with a client with some sort of UI integration (but we don't know exactly what because it's all self-cited). But even first for that? Before Ayyadurai stretched his claims, he started in 1978 and finished in 1980 - a year after Compuserve's home email service (for which they trademarked "Email", rendering it quite unclear that he even coined the term). Pinkbeast (talk) 13:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, ha, Haigh's Communications of the ACM paper () says "Xerox had built a modern, mouse-driven graphical email system for office communication", and he's an authority. So even the idea the UI was innovative is citably false. Pinkbeast (talk) 13:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
- Haigh's ACM paper is as yet uncited in the article. Feel free to do so--it certainly qualifies as a reliable secondary source. (I checked to see if the article is available from the Communications of the ACM website itself, but the full article is behind a pay wall.) As long as it's Haigh's reasoning you're adding, not yours alone. Barte (talk) 14:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
- To be honest, this was more to bat off fresh uses of that phrase on the talk page from Ayyadurai fans, but I've inserted a quote from the paper. If the idea that the UI maketh email seems to be getting traction, I'll dig up cites to counter that. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:02, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Married?
So, http://www.etonline.com/news/150856_fran_drescher_marries_shiva_ayyadurai/ says they are married. http://tamilnadu.com/entertainment/personalities/interview-with-dr-v-a-shiva-ayyadurai-the-inventor-of-email-and-systems-scientist.html has Ayyadurai saying "Though we did not have a formal wedding or marriage", but on the other hand he is not a very reliable source. https://twitter.com/frandrescher/status/508781239877128194/photo/1 says they are married (also https://twitter.com/frandrescher/status/509175812629618688) but that could just be usage, like how we tended to refer to same-sex civil partnerships as "marriage". http://www.frandrescher.com/about-the-show/ doesn't even mention him, albeit it's partly promoting a specific TV show, albeit one about marriage.
I'm happy with what we have now, but I'm putting this here in case the issue comes up with new sources. It's less than clear. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
- As far as I can tell, Drescher and Ayyadurai have provided different descriptions of the same event, with Drescher's tweet being widely picked up. Here's the Los Angeles Times coverage, for example, based entirely on the tweet and her assistant's account. I'm uncomfortable making the determination. How about: "On September 7, 2014, the actress Fran Drescher and Ayyadurai participated at a ceremony at Drescher's beach house among close friends and family. Accounts differed between the two participants over whether the event was a wedding or a celebration of their love and friendship." Barte (talk) 14:47, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
- If anything I guess that inclines me towards "yes, married", since Drescher is not known to be an unreliable source. Rather than the implication that someone's being economical with the truth, how about "a ceremony (which Ayyadurai described later as "a celebration of their love and friendship") at Drescher's beach house among close friends and family. Drescher tweeted afterwards that she was "married" to Ayyadurai." Pinkbeast (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
- How about: "On September 7, 2014, the actress Fran Drescher and Ayyadurai participated at a ceremony at Drescher's beach house among close friends and family. Drescher later tweeted that the couple had gotten married. Ayyadurai later said it was not "a formal wedding or marriage", but a celebration of their "friendship in a spiritual ceremony with close friends and her family." Again, I don't think we should sit in judgement about whom is the more reliable source. We should treat both descriptions with equal deference. Barte (talk) 16:53, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'm happy with that, yes, although I think we have sat in judgement on whether Ayyadurai is a reliable source in the past. :-)
- If no-one else interjects, stick it in the article? I think we've got all the cites above... Pinkbeast (talk) 17:13, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
- I've played with the wording some more, added sources, and put it in the article. Further edits welcome. Making this more confusing is the fact that the full Los Angeles Times article also quotes Ayyadurai, in a tweet: "I married my warrior princess @frandrescher who my mom in God's great Heaven sent". Barte (talk) 18:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Heads up
Ayyadurai's bogus claims are being added to University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; could use eyes on that. Pinkbeast (talk) 19:46, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
- Noted. Barte (talk) 04:44, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
- See also: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mattsabe. The investigation also potentially affects edits made here. Barte (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
- They were nearly all confirmed. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether anything they've added here needs removing. There were other near-SPAs I came across that are stale so there wasn't much point including there e.g.:
- DGRichard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Arttechlaw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Rockonomics (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- I've removed a lot of poor content already that was linking here, but more checks on the articles that link here to ensure that the content is verifiable and not undue would be appreciated. SmartSE (talk) 13:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- @SmartSE: I'll look over the linked articles over the next few days. Thanks for your work on this. Barte (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- I've made and am suggesting a bold stroke--reverting this to a 7/9/15 version, which IMO was around the last version that reflects strong community consensus. This article received much scrutiny circa September 2014 after Huffington ran, and then retracted, a series of articles on Ayyudurai. And a bit more when Pinkbeast and I worked on the subject's marital status. Beyond that, I think it's hard to vouch for. In any case, it might be easier to re-insert material than to surgically remove snippets. Barte (talk) 15:17, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- I would not object. Pinkbeast (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- The article in its current form shows the revert. Barte (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- Having checked the SPIs, yes, that was for the best. Thank you. Pinkbeast (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
- The article in its current form shows the revert. Barte (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- I would not object. Pinkbeast (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
- They were nearly all confirmed. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether anything they've added here needs removing. There were other near-SPAs I came across that are stale so there wasn't much point including there e.g.:
- "Bogus claims"?! Where is all this bias and vitriol coming from. The guy got 4 degrees from MIT, including his Ph.D., has published in Nature, CELL, did create a system with 50,000 lines of code, did get a copyright, did call it "email," Where is all this prejudice coming from? Who is Sam Biddle? Who called him an asshole and dick. I reviewed the history. That article led to people calling Ayyadurai a "nigger Indian" on blog sites and other racist nonsense. It's time to reflect on truth here. Perhaps because I'm a minority I see things a bit differently YatesByron (talk) 22:38, 6 November 2016 (UTC)YatesByron
References
- Crocker, David. Framework and Function of the "MS" Personal Message System. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, December 1977.
- Did V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai Invent Email?
CSIR controversy revisited
Per the section above, I've been revisiting the articles linked here. In two of them, I've removed the CSIR/Ayyudarai-related sections entirely because they appear to have been added by the socks with no obvious attempt to cover the controversy. At the same time, I've also revisited that subject here, and seems to me, the section does not reflect the reporting of its most notable sources: the NYT and Nature. Particularly the Nature article shows that Ayyudurai's critique of CSIR is corroborated by colleagues and not refuted in detail by anyone. (The biggest question is not whether he was justifiably sacked, but whether his sacking will discourage other expats from taking similar posts, though I'm not sure that fits here.) I've pared the section down to those two sources. It can be expanded, of course, but given this is a BLP, we should error on the side of caution. Barte (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
"Known for..." in infobox
I think the Known for "incorrect claim to invent email" in the infobox is a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. We present the controversy. We don't resolve it. Barte (talk) 20:35, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
- I agree. It's over the top to have that in the infobox so I've removed that part entirely for now. SmartSE (talk) 14:51, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
And I think the rewrite of the intro is even more misleading. I don't see much credible evidence that computer historians or industry experts believe the subject invented email. And that stance has been the consensus here from other editors. At this point, the intro is at odds with the rest of the article. Barte (talk) 06:41, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- Yep, it looks to me as if the socks are back. I've reverted the edits as they severely misrepresent the later sources which state categorically that he didn't invent email. SmartSE (talk) 14:51, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with the revert. I'm uncomfortable with the term "incorrectly" in the first sentence, per my reasons above. Barte (talk) 19:45, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Disagree. He's not known for the claim, so much as being known for a laughably-incorrect claim. Now, it would be non-NPOV to say it's laughable, but absolutely encyclopedic to use the word "incorrect". Please do not remove this word until we have consensus. ... richi (hello) 20:45, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I think it is highly inappropriate to reduce Ayyadurai to this and should be removed as it is libelous. Also, Ayyadurai beyond his 1970s creation did do many things in email which was earlier referenced and has been deleted. He is a pioneer in email technologies. Was interviewed by NY Times, was commissioned to write the 125th anniversary essay for The Wall Street Journal. In 2000, Deborah Shapley did do a feature article on him in the eminent MIT Technology Review. There are many credible references to this. In addition, he has been cited as Inventor of Email, Man Who Invented Email, Email Inventor by CBS, TIME, NDTV, and others. The prejudices and bias I am witnessing seem inappropriate and vindictive.... I am researching this case more closely in light of the $750,000 lawsuit win. YatesByron (talk) 22:32, 6 November 2016 (UTC)YatesByron
I assume this is the talk page for this. The first sentence has been recently inserted by an anonymous person clearly to be libelous and vindictive. He is not "best known" for this and it is clearly against WP guidelines and should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by YatesByron (talk • contribs) 22:42, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- If your sources are as you say, this article could indeed be expanded and perhaps should to give a more even-handed picture. But you have to do it first in the body of the article, not just the summary. Regarding "best known for"--that's really a matter of coverage in secondary sources, which are the prime resource for Misplaced Pages articles. Is there another aspect of his career that has gotten more coverage? Barte (talk) 22:57, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
the "copyright" claim should not receive so much prominence
Copyright has nothing to do with first use or invention! nor with the names of things! There could have been a preceding program named EMAIL and he would still have been allowed to call his program the same thing. While it is a point of interest that his work was copyrighted--because it provides a record that the work exists, a point which nobody is disputing--it has nothing to do with establishing a claim of uniqueness, firstness, etc. If you get a trademark or a patent, that WOULD indicate that you were in some regard "first". Since laypeople do not understand the finer points of such intellectual property distinctions, I think that the constant stressing that "HE GOT A COPYRIGHT!!!" in the article serves to confuse the issue. Please, either explain that it is not an important factor, or decrease its importance in the article. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html 199.83.222.137 (talk) 23:12, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- I take your point. Will self-revert. Barte (talk) 23:18, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- The statement by the anonymous person is clearly wrong --- intended to strip Ayyadurai of any of his rights to invention of email. Copyright at the time of his invention MEANT EVERYTHING. To diminish the Copyright and its importance either shows ignorance or a deliberate attempt to support prejudicial comments of "Internet Pioneers" not subject matter experts. I have reviewed the facts. It appears following Ayyadurai's recent victory, there is once again a concerted effort to defame him on this Wikipage. Each time, in reading the history, his facts come out, a gang of bullies appear to run rampant and delete, facts, citations, and reference with prejudice. I want to remind everyone this is against WP policies and basic ethics.
Here are the facts concerning Copyright and why it is important, historically:
1) Neither Copyright nor Patent protection werr available at the time of Ayyadurai's invention. 2) To be specific, the Courts were not recognizing software patents 3) Only in 1980 did the Copyright Act of 1976 be amended to support the use of Copyright for protecting software inventions --- It was called the Software Act of 1980 -- Go read it "anonymous" 4) In 1981, as I have heard on various interviews, after Ayyadurai spoke to Dr. Paul E. Gray the President of MIT, did he get advice from Dr. Gray, to Copyright his 1978 invention to protect it. 5) Only in 1994 did the Federal Court of Appeals recognize software patents. 6) Therefore if Ayyadurai, did attempt to protect it later using patents, Prior Arte of his Copyright artefacts in the Library of Congress would have prevented it.
THEREFORE, Copyright was the only mechanism to protect his software invention. This is not minor. To say this is "nothing" is absolutely ignorant, defamatory and disinformation to prejudice and misinform the public. The naysayers and defamers of Ayyadurai seek to diminish the Copyright as their argument for attacking the signficance of his work.
This is simply wrong, on so many levels.
As a minority, I am deeply appalled by what I'm reading on these Talk pages and the deliberate and organized work to delete facts, and present him as self-promotional, when he is simply attempting to get the credit he rightfully deserves. This has got to end. I will be proactively adding facts, with citations to this page, and I expect them to be honored and respected. If I am adding them in violation of some REAL policy, let me know. If they are removed arbitrarily, we threaten WP and the Foundation.
It is clear that Ayyadurai was the first to create and invent email, the system which was the replica of the interoffice mail system and he got legal protection for it. If some of you cannot accept this, then you must look in the mirror and ask why you are making such illogical and irrational statements. Sam Biddle or writers of TechDirt are not the adjudicators of history. The facts are --- many of them are up on www.inventorofemail.com. If you don't like the evidence and react irrationally, then you don't belong on Misplaced Pages.
Again, I'm disgusted by what I've read. I've also reviewed the analysis of Thomas Haigh, who is biased and has thanked people of Raytheon for his biased analysis, and never has contacted Ayyadurai --- so much for a historain. In reading his page, he seems more upset that his "eminence" as being the adjudicator of email history as been subverted by truth. More to come on that. Moreover, David Crocker was also exposed by Dr. Debbie Nightingale in her report.
Both Crocker and Haigh have participated in actively pressuring publications using disinformation to pull down articles on Huffington Post and others. All of this is documented. It's time on these pages of WP, we honor truth and Wiki policies. Something terribly unjust is going on. Ayyadurai's victory of $750K doesn't do justice as I understand to the racist name calling that took place after Biddle's article. I've seen the facts --- he was called a "nigger Indian" and "Indian" who should be hanged.
In short, Copyright of his 1978 invention does mean a lot.
Let me also remind everyone, the guy has 4 degrees from MIT, is a PhD and provided other major contributions to Email Technology. I notice all of them have been removed by somebody. I ready the history. Yes he is best known for email technology. That should also be replaced. I will be starting a talk topic on that. Thank you for hearing my concerns. YatesByron (talk) 01:22, 7 November 2016 (UTC)YatesByron
- It is clear that he was not the first to create and invent email because email already existed well before 1978, a readily citable - and cited - fact. He may be a Doctor, but he's not Doctor Who.
- The guff about "the replica of the interoffice mail system" is a common rhetorical tactic of his; essentially, he asserts that he was the first person to create an email system exactly like the one he created. That is not remarkable. Pinkbeast (talk) 01:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- I think you'll find that questioning the motives of Ayyadurai's critics and casting accusations of racism will not buy you much here. But if you believe there are other experts in the history of email and the internet who support Ayyudurai's claim, by all means add them. The same is true for the description of the lawsuit settlement and detailing Ayyadurai's other accomplishments. You just need to conform to the guidelines in WP:V and cite reliable sources. Barte (talk) 02:36, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Contributions to Email Technologies
A few days ago, I added several sentences with clear citations showing evidence of Ayyadurai's contributions to Email technologies beyond his 1970s invention of email. This was arbitrarily deleted. The deletion was concomitant with an attempt to characterize him as merely being responsible for falsely claiming to have invented email. I would like to add the following statements that provide the complete picture of this individual.
Since 1980, Ayyadurai is best known for his pioneering work in email technologies including by such organizations as MIT, the United States Senate, Unilever, as well as the United States White House, and has been widely credited as the inventor of email and referred to as "Dr. Email" and an email pioneer by publications such as The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, and The Wall Street Journal .
References which I added: 9) Shapley, Deborah (January 1, 2000). "Dr. Email Will See You Now". MIT Technology Review. 10) Shane, Scott; Schimdt, Michael S. "Hillary Clinton Emails Take Long Path to Controversy". The New York Times. ...Shiva Ayyadurai, an email pioneer who has designed email systems for both government and large corporations. 11) Reidy, Chris (June 4, 1999). "As far as the Senate is concerned, Dr. Email is in" (PDF). Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media Partners. 12) Farrel, Greg (April 17, 2000). "Software helps Senator, firms mine, refine e-mail" (PDF). USA Today. 13) Conover, Kirsten A. (March 12, 1996). "CHEERING ON THE INGENUITY OF TODAY'S AND TOMORROW'S INNOVATORS". The Christian Science Monitor. Shiva Ayyadurai, founder of Millennium Productions, and inventor of the White House Encryption System. When President Clinton needed a reliable encryption system for his electronic mail, he turned to Mr. Ayyadurai, whose classification system beat those of industry leaders. 14) Miller, Joanne (September 2, 1981). "The Class of 1985 arrives to meet the Institute". Tech Talk. MIT. One designed an electronic mail system now being used at the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry 15) Staff Writer (October 30, 1980). "Livingston Student Designs Electronic Mail System". West Essex Tribune. West Essex Tribune. 16) Ayyadurai, V.A. Shiva (July 7, 2014). "V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai on the Future of Email: It Gets Better - Email's Inventor Says Future Systems Will Have Artificial Intelligence to Help You Manage the Flood". The Wall Street Journal. 17) Bulkeley, William M. (November 15, 2001). "Echomail Provides an Answer For the Avalanche of E-Mail". The Wall Street Journal.Deonikar (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)Deonikar
Can someone comment on why these references were deleted? from 1999 to 2014, over 15 years separate from the email invention --- he seems to have made major contributions. I noticed that his book The Email Revolution has case studies of his effort, and vandals have gone to his site in the midst of the email invention issue and posted all sorts of expletives including "fraud" similar to the dialog I see on these Talk pages. This is disconcerting and clearly a biased effort to destroy his reputation as a serious scientist and engineer. I would suggest the following to Deonikar:
"In addition to his 1970s work, Ayyadurai's work in email includes pioneering work starting in the mid-1990s on email management technologies used by organizations such as the United States Senate, Unilever, as well as the United States White House, and referenced in publications such as The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, and The Wall Street Journal."
OR we start a whole new section on this. He worked on the email invention for a few years, but email management he clearly worked on longer, and not including this on his page would be limiting for the reader.YatesByron (talk) 21:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)YatesByron
- There is no doubt that he developed an early email system, and at an amazingly young age. However, he was never well-known for that fact because (a) it wasn't groundbreaking in any sense, (b) it had no impact or influence on the email we now use. There is also no doubt that he was heavily involved in later email filtering companies (using "the email we now use"). In the normal course of events, this would be a simple footnote to email history (as it is in the email article), and to his own career, where he has a wide range of interests away from email.
- However, in 2011 and 2012 he misled Time, the Smithsonian and the Washington Post. It's human nature for some individuals to "push" their own agenda, so frankly the fault was largely with those organisations, (and later HuffPo) who seem to have taken no efforts to check what were clearly "extraordinary claims". Of course what has fanned the flames is that fact that Ayyadurai has gone on to "double down", when these claims were rubbished - first by quibbling over specifics of what is email, and then by bringing race and caste into the mix - and now getting a lawsuit funded by Peter Theil (notice that Ayyadurai is careful to say that he is “totally unaware of any behind-the-scenes financial arrangements involving my attorneys and anyone else”). Snori (talk) 22:05, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- That's a good summation of the sources Snori. The problem I have with the suggested text above is that it is name-dropping large organisations to infer importance and also very vague as to what he actually did. We should definitely include WSJ's article on Echomail, but that details how Echomail had competitors (so was it pioneering?) and that Ayyadurai refers to himself as Dr. Email (very different from others coining this about him, as the above text infers. SmartSE (talk) 11:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- As a biographical entry, this one deserves to be broadened beyond the email controversy, including other areas of Ayyadurai's career, and not every item need be pioneering or influential to be included. That said, the EMAIL controversy is by far the most notable in terms of reliable secondary sources. It is central here to establishing notability. What I would not like to see repeated is what happened at one point to this article: what seemed like an attempt to bury the controversy section with other material. (Most of it was removed after Huffington Post ran its multi-part special, then withdrew it.) Barte (talk) 16:16, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- Yep. I wasn't suggesting that things have to be pioneering to be included, just that the text suggested above was inaccurate. SmartSE (talk) 16:41, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- As a biographical entry, this one deserves to be broadened beyond the email controversy, including other areas of Ayyadurai's career, and not every item need be pioneering or influential to be included. That said, the EMAIL controversy is by far the most notable in terms of reliable secondary sources. It is central here to establishing notability. What I would not like to see repeated is what happened at one point to this article: what seemed like an attempt to bury the controversy section with other material. (Most of it was removed after Huffington Post ran its multi-part special, then withdrew it.) Barte (talk) 16:16, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- That's a good summation of the sources Snori. The problem I have with the suggested text above is that it is name-dropping large organisations to infer importance and also very vague as to what he actually did. We should definitely include WSJ's article on Echomail, but that details how Echomail had competitors (so was it pioneering?) and that Ayyadurai refers to himself as Dr. Email (very different from others coining this about him, as the above text infers. SmartSE (talk) 11:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- YatesByron, no-one is going to take you seriously on this talk page if you keep repeating the claim that Ayyadurai invented email. Email existed in 1973; it was not physically possible to invent it in 1978. It just makes you look like a shill for the man. Pinkbeast (talk) 05:26, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'd put it somewhat differently. The entry has references to a number of people with expertise in internet history who disagree with Ayyadurai's claim. On the other side, we have Ayyadurai, himself, including now, his accusations of racism on the part of his critics, and a brief reference to Noam Chomsky, whose broad CV does not include that of internet historian. (Chomsky repeated Ayyadurai's assertion, but did not further the argument.) To shift the balance, we need more references to independent experts who have weighed in on Ayyadurai's side. Barte (talk) 20:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'm slightly torn here because of course you are completely correct about Misplaced Pages policies and I am wrong; it's not for me to decide what is self-evidently false. On the other hand, it is self-evidently false all the same. :-/ Pinkbeast (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'd put it somewhat differently. The entry has references to a number of people with expertise in internet history who disagree with Ayyadurai's claim. On the other side, we have Ayyadurai, himself, including now, his accusations of racism on the part of his critics, and a brief reference to Noam Chomsky, whose broad CV does not include that of internet historian. (Chomsky repeated Ayyadurai's assertion, but did not further the argument.) To shift the balance, we need more references to independent experts who have weighed in on Ayyadurai's side. Barte (talk) 20:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
- What is self-evident is that there is nonsense.YatesByron (talk) 00:20, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Trim
It will have to be done carefully, of course, but the "EMAIL controversy" section has become very bloated. The history and the issues should be able to be outlined in much less space, leaving the references to provide the detail. Snori (talk) 23:10, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks I agree that it needs condensing as well. SmartSE (talk) 11:05, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
- I also agree. Thanks for having at it. Barte (talk) 16:22, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
GM soy
I've added a section to the article about his 2015 paper that claimed GM soy contained elevated levels of formaldehyde. It was widely debunked, including by the European Food Safety Agency, so I hope I have given appropriate weight to the differing opinions while also keeping it succinct. There are a few more sources here in case anyone wants to add more information. Hopefully there is no need to, but just in case, this content falls under 1RR due to the Arbcom ruling. SmartSE (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Organized Effort to Deny Facts of Ayyadurai's Invention of Email
Ayyadurai filed a lawsuit for the atrocious and defamatory content posted by reporters posing to be journalists. The Shiva Ayyadurai page appears to be controlled by a vocal minority dedicated to providing a one-sided narrative with people who are not qualified and not aware of what occurred in Newark, NJ. I suspect a number of people on this page are friends/colleagues/supporters of the ARPANET/GIZMODO/TECHDIRT revisionist narrative, and disinformation campaign. I will be presenting facts with citations per WP Policy. All of the material here can be used in litigation. And, any and all of you can be deposed.
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