Talk:Inslaw

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Peter Videnieks[edit]

I created a stub on Peter Videnieks to fill the void which existed. It is now ready for as much additional information as we can find. I look forward to everyone's input.ThsQ (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job, ThsQ. I like how it fills in missing information for Inslaw, but I'm wondering if it will remain that way over time? Anway, until editors begin structuring it, and filling in more info, and that sort of thing, it's great to have it around. I'm going to discus something further with you. But not here. As soon as I figure out where (and what I really want to say), I'll get in touch. Stay tuned...:o) oi vie, Anne Teedham (talk) 14:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thumbs up, Theo! —Dixie Brown (talk) 17:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Rgr09: I saw the AfD article on this. If the article were properly sourced, it might pass based on WP:POLOUTCOMES #2. -Location (talk) 17:50, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV[edit]

As this page is very quiet, I've put my comments at WP:NPOVN. Dougweller (talk) 10:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dougweller: for future reference, your post and the reply by Ronz was archived in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 42#Inslaw. It looks like a closer examination of the sourcing for this article is still warranted. - Location (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Hanssen, Bin Laden, and Promis[edit]

The claim that Hanssen sold a "Promis-derivative" to the KGB came from a handful of news-stories in 2001. NONE of the numerous book-length studies of the Hanssen case (including Cherkashin, Havill, Schiller, Vise, and Wise), or the government reports on Hanssen's activities such as Fine, refer to this claim. Without much more solid sourcing, this claim should be removed.

The claim that Osama Bin Laden acquired a "Promis-derivative" which he used for "money laundering" has even less basis. It is sourced in the article to Michael Ruppert's website and to a single Fox news report by Carl Cameron in October 2001. Ruppert's website is not a reliable source, and the Cameron story is not adequate support for the claims made in the article. Again, in all the books and articles on Bin Laden and his various funding schemes since 2001 (a huge number), no reliable source has ever substantiated this claim, or even repeated it. This claim should also be removed until better support is available. Rgr09 (talk) 17:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gideon's Spies as a source[edit]

The book Gideon's Spies (GS) by Gordon Thomas is incorrectly characterized as an "authorized history" of Mossad. It was not authorized by Mossad; instead, it is a highly controversial book, with many reviewers observing that it is for the most part unsourced, and has frequent and obvious factual errors. It should also be noted that the book does not quote Rafael Eitan himself on the use of "Promis", it quotes Ari Ben-Menashe as making claims about Eitan's use of "Promis." Ben-Menashe is also a controversial figure; Hayden Peake, in his review of Thomas's book on Robert Maxwell, bluntly calls Ben-Menashe "a well-known liar." [1] I have revised the article to remove false claim that GS is "authorized", and to correctly attribute claims about Eitan to Ben-Menashe, not Eitan himself. Rgr09 (talk) 18:24, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Peake, Hayden B. (2003). "Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf (2003-3)". Studies in Intelligence. 47 (3). {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

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Complete rewrite needed[edit]

This article was largely put together by an editor who used a variety of sockpuppets, including Hag2, ThsQ, Anne Teedham, Merry Yellow, Dixie Brown, JiggleJog, and Mae Sendikson. Much of the information has problems of sourcing, accuracy, and pov. A number of subsidiary articles related to Inslaw were also created by the same editor; a couple of these lack notability on their own, and should be merged back into this article, the rest all need revision for s/a/p. I'll take a stab at it, but because of the complexity and chaotic state of the article, this is a long term project. Rgr09 (talk) 08:34, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with all of the sources, however, red flags go up whenever I see the names "Ari Ben-Menashe" or "Linda Pease". If you can list the other articles, I will at least put them on my watch list. I am assuming Earl Brian, Danny Casolaro, Michael Riconosciuto, and Peter Videnieks might be some of them. -Location (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those were the articles created or heavily edited by the sockpuppets. The puppeteer also worked on the Ted Gunderson article. Gunderson is also related to Inslaw, in that he worked as an investigator for Michael Riconosciuto. It doesn't look like there are any problems remaining in the Gunderson article from these edits.
The ThsQ sockpuppet also edited the James Orlin Grabbe article. Grabbe's website published much conspiracy oriented material, including stuff on Inslaw figures such as Riconosciuto and Charles Hayes. The ThsQ edits on Grabbe look to be mostly copy editing. Rgr09 (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article on Grabbe is one awful article. I'm tempted to nominate it for AfD. -Location (talk) 01:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would support that, even the non-conspiracy stuff it is utterly obscure. Rgr09 (talk) 23:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Section on FBI, ACS, and FOIMS[edit]

This section is outside the original Inslaw law suit, and is either unsupported or supported only by statements of William Hamilton. The main quote is apparently something that was printed in a Polish language magazine, Wprost. This does not give the issue or date of the magazine in which the quote appeared. Other than the Hamilton quote from Wprost, the section primarily relies on an article by David Dastych, who is described as a Polish CIA operative. The article appeared at a website called Canada Free Press, which is run by a Canadian journalist, Judi McLeod. There is no reason to think this is RS material (it is also worth noting that Dastych's article relies primarily on claims by Hamilton again). The section also includes a reference to the Lee Wen Ho case. This has nothing to do with the Inslaw law suit. It also has a quote from a July 2003 column by Michelle Malkin in the Washington Times, which seems to repeat some of the Hanssen claims. As noted above, after the initial stories there was never any further support for, or even discussion of, this claim. I will try to integrate the column reference into the section on later developments, but the rest of this material is non-notable and non-RS.

Origins section[edit]

The origins section contains the following claim:

On January 1, 1978, amendments to the Copyright Act of 1976 took effect, automatically conferring upon Inslaw as the author of Promis five exclusive software copyright rights, none of which could be waived except by explicit, written waiver. The federal government negotiated licenses to use but not to modify or to distribute outside the federal government some but not all versions of Promis created after the January 1978 effective-date of the copyright amendments.

The reference cited for this was a ruling of Court of Federal Claims (95-338X). This ruling is also cited in the section "Inslaw Affair divides into two separate issues," where it is discussed more clearly. Both of these sections seem to mischaracterize the ruling. The 1978 amendments of the Copyright Act are not mentioned in the ruling at all. More specifically, the section discussing the effect of copyright does NOT state that the federal government's license does not allow it "to distribute outside the federal government some but not all versions of Promis" and gives NO reference at all to a January 1978 date. I'll take a harder look at this, but right now it looks like someone may have taken Inslaw's argument and attributed it to the Court that ruled against Inslaw. Rgr09 (talk) 07:23, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

House and Senate Bills[edit]

A bill was introduced in the House in 1994 that would have referred Inslaw's claims to the Court of Federal Claims, but apparently it failed to pass the Committee of the Whole. The next year (1995) another bill was introduced in the Senate, again referring Inslaw's claims to the COFC, but this one passed. The original description of these two bills and their significance in the article was confused, and conspiratorial significance was attached to the failure of the House bill to pass, but in fact the main effect of both was the same; after the Bankruptcy Court's ruling in favor of Inslaw was vacated the Court of Appeals, a Congressional reference to the COFC was their best/only chance to gain financial compensation for the monetary losses they claimed. The article is complex enough without going through every maneuver in the case, successful and unsuccessful, major and minor, so I dropped the description of the 1994 bill, which failed, and kept the description of the Senate bill, which passed. You can view the article's history for the original descriptions. Rgr09 (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources for the article[edit]

There are no reliable second-hand sources for the Inslaw law suit. (The two books listed in the article are from non-RS publishers.) The newspaper and magazine stories are mostly from around 1992 and focus on the House investigation. The Bua report has newspaper coverage, but little discussion of the complex details; the 1994 DOJ review of the report has very little coverage, and the Court of Federal Claims finding of facts and ruling seem to have no coverage at all.

Given the lack of reliable second-hand coverage, the article will have to be built with the congressional and judicial reports. The current version already uses these extensively. I will put links to all these in the article's external links section, here'll I just post about possible sourcing issues. The Senate and House reports are available on Hathitrust, the Bua report and the DOJ review are available from governmentattic.com, which got them from the DOJ's OIP; all of these are reliable enough to use. The ruling of the Bankruptcy Court came in two form, oral, given in the Senate report, and written, available from Justia.com. The Inslaw claims are sometimes not available even in reliable first hand forms. For example, the Inslaw analysis and rebuttal of the Bua report is only available in a text-file version posted on pinknoiz.com; there is no guarantee that this is reliable enough for use here. Inslaw's 1994 Addendum is available in what looks to be the original form, but its source is not clear. These should be cited from sparingly, at least until someone can come up with better sourced versions. The COFC ruling is available from the COFC website; it is unfortuate that there is no reliable second-hand source on this. The article contains claims about this ruling that the COFC website version does not seem to support. I'm not a lawyer, perhaps someone with legal knowledge could double check this part. Rgr09 (talk) 01:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with references grouping[edit]

This article originally used a very elaborate reference structure, similar to the system in articles such as Pericles, with 'explanatory notes' in one section and 'citations' in another section. This is very unwieldy to edit, and makes it unnecessarily difficult to figure out which sources support which claims. My revisions to the article don't use this system, and so as I work my way through the remaining sections, the explanatory material will either be incorporated into the article or dropped. Much of the remaining material at this point deals with conspiratorial claims, that is often sourced to listserv postings. These are simply not good sources (how do you know the text file is a complete and accurate version of the source?) and I intend to drop all of them. Rgr09 (talk) 07:52, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Most of those notes are unnecessary, and some seem to highlight innuendo and/or speculation of a conspiracy. Good job! -Location (talk) 14:44, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New sources[edit]

I added a little but theres more from this year https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/06/doj-promis-part-1/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/08/doj-promis-part-2/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/may/16/FBI-promis-part-1/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/may/18/FBI-promis-part-2/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/may/30/fbi-octopus-murders/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jul/26/doj-casolaro-missing-file/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/may/08/fbi-Danny-Casolaro/

Although Muckrock sometimes undertakes FOIA requests, it is essentially a blog and by no means a reliable source for analysis of FOIA material. Nor is raw material from FOIA actions usually suitable for inclusion, since Wikipedia strongly prefers secondary sources rather than primary source material. Rgr09 (talk) 22:12, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
MuckRock is not essentially a blog, it's a non-profit that recently received a 440,000$ grant. It's also responsible for CIA's archives being released. Archives: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/cia-released-documents.html Nonprofit: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jun/15/muckrock-granted-501c3-non-profit-status/ Grant: http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/10/with-440000-in-funding-muckrock-is-expanding-its-mission-to-improve-access-to-public-records/

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Revised lead[edit]

The lead paragraph was revised recently. I have reverted these revisions and offer the following comments.

The revision changed the name of Inslaw and Promis software to use all caps. Although this was the preferred usage of the plaintiffs in the case, it is inconsistent with the remainder of the article, and more to the point, it is inconsistent with most of the news coverage and legal documents.

The main point of the recent revisions was to provide a critique of the Federal Claims Court ruling against Inslaw, arguing that "the refusal in 1998 of that court's appellate authority to allow INSLAW to re-open discovery" was not "in accordance with the correct litigation standard of copyright infringement." This critique should not be in the lead and requires a reliable source to substantiate it. Please first provide and discuss the sources for this claim before adding it into the article again. Do not add it into the lead.

The lead revisions also removed the ultimate resolution of the case, and in its place reiterated the plaintiffs' version of the litigation and investigation of the case, including complaints about the Court of Appeals ruling against Inslaw and the special counsel's investigation of various aspects of the case. I have reverted this as failing NPOV. Rgr09 (talk) 22:33, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Court of Federal Claims ruling[edit]

There was very little news coverage of the CFC ruling on the Inslaw case. The article therefore cites the ruling itself; although this is a primary source, as long as it is just stating or summarizing the conclusions, this is acceptable WP practice. However, the citation of the ruling in the article was later revised to offer an interpretation of the ruling which seems to claim, inter alia, that the CFC found that "Inslaw had never granted the government a license to "modify Promis to create derivative software" although Inslaw was automatically vested with the exclusive copyright rights to Promis." The phrase "Inslaw was automatically vested with the exclusive copyright rights to Promis" does not appear in the text of the ruling; this seems to be a later claim of the plaintiffs that is here incorrectly attributed to the CFC. I have deleted this problematic interpretation of the ruling. Also, the text of the ruling is sourced to a file on Archive.org. It would be strongly preferable to source to official or commercial on-line court records if possible; I will check to see whether I can find an alternative source. Rgr09 (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Later developments: allegations of Israeli involvement[edit]

A recent addition to the section on "later developments" referenced several posts on the Muckrock website. The first of these Mudrock posts discussed Inslaw's claim that Israel acquired its Enhanced Promis program and re-engineered it to serve as a Trojan horse in a vast number of foreign intelligence operations.

Inslaw's allegations that Israel intelligence stole its software were dealt with at length in the 1994 Dwyer review of the Bua Report (pp. 74-80). Dwyer states that Joseph Ben Orr, an Israeli lawyer working for DOJ in 1982-83, said he met William Hamilton in February 1983 to discuss Promis. After this discussion, Ben Orr requested a copy of the Promis program from the DOJ. Ben Orr told Dwyer that DOJ had provided a copy of the program on magnetic tape, which he took back to Israel. When Dwyer asked if Ben Orr still had the tape, Ben Orr had the tape delivered to the U.S. Embassy. The tape turned out to be the PDP-11 public version of Promis, not the disputed Enhanced Promis.

Inslaw owner William Hamilton, however, had claimed that the person whom he spoke to was not identical to the picture of Dr. Ben Orr the he was later shown. Instead, he identified the person that visited him in 1983 as Rafi Eitan, an Israeli intelligence officer. This claim was later repeated in books by writers Ari Ben-Menashe and Gordon Thomas.

The recent addition stated that "The Department of Justice denied these allegations, stating that they gave a copy of the software to Dr. Ben Orr. However, Department of Justice files show that Ben Orr was out of the country when the Department of Justice claims to have met with him."

Muckrock's new information consists of a file of Dwyer's correspondence detailing his efforts to retrieve Ben Orr's copy of Promis. This FOIA document confirms the details of Dwyer's request for the tape. It does not in any way confirm the claims of Hamilton, Ari Ben-Menashe, or Gordon Thomas that Rafi Eitan met with Hamilton posing as Ben Orr. Per the Dwyer review, Ben Orr told Dwyer in 1994 that HE met Hamilton. He denied knowing Rafi Eitan, and called Hamilton's claims "sheer lies and invention."

The FOIA material Muckrock cites also includes a note from Dwyer that Ben Orr stated his passport had visas to the US for September 1982 to April 30, 1983, and July 15 1983 to September 15 1983. The Muckrock post claims that for some reason this means Ben Orr couldn't have received the tapes from DOJ, and in a leap of logic implies that Ben Orr's visa dates confirm that Eitan, not Ben Orr, met Hamilton in February 1983. This specious post is not worth citing in the article and I have removed the reference. Rgr09 (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Later developments: status of case[edit]

A recent edit to the "Later developments" section claims that "In 2017, the FBI and Department of Justice confirmed they still had an open investigation into the PROMIS affair." A closer look shows that this claim is based on the FBI's denial of a Muckrock FOIA request. The FBI denial cited the b7A exemption to the FOIA law. Muckrock interprets this to mean specifically that the "Promis investigation" is still 'open'. A Muckrock interpretation, however, is not equivalent to an FBI confirmation. I have therefore deleted the claim. Rgr09 (talk) 05:44, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Later developments: claims on Meese and the House Judiciary Committee[edit]

Recent edits to the "Later developments" section added claims that "In 2017, it was revealed that FBI's sources indicated Edwin Meese's guilt in the PROMIS affair. The files also showed that leads were dropped in the Congressional investigation and that some evidence disappeared." These claims are sourced to two posts on Muckrock. These posts are based on heavily redacted FBI files that are not otherwise identified in the posts. This is far from acceptable sourcing. Rgr09 (talk) 08:40, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New section on "Deaths allegedly related to Inslaw"[edit]

A lengthy new section on "deaths allegedly related to Inslaw" was added in January 2023. This section is drastically short on references and sources. I will be taking a hard look at this over the next month and either adding sources or deleting text when no sources are available. 07:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC) Rgr09 (talk) 07:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted the paragraph on 'Vali Delahanty.' Not one source is cited for this paragraph. Checking on Google books, it seems that the claims in the paragraph may have come from a book by Rodney Stich (Defrauding America, Vol 2). Stich's books are all self-published and in no way reliable sources for anything in Wikipedia. Rgr09 (talk) 10:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted the paragraph on 'Alan David Standorf.' No sources are cited for this paragraph either. The only sources seem to be Prison Planet, an emphatically non-RS website, and self published books with titles like Ultimate Psychopolitics and Inside the Gemstone File. Rgr09 (talk) 06:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The lengthy paragraph on "escrow agent Charles Morgan" is also problematic. The paragraph relies on two newspaper articles and an episode of the television show "Unsolved Mysteries." Details in the paragraph which were sourced to the 1977 newspaper article are either inconsistent or missing. I have not found the 1990 article, which is based on an "Unsolved Mysteries" story. "Unsolved Mysteries" is very much non-RS, including things such as stories on paranormal phenomena. There is at least one more "Unsolved" episode on Morgan which adds the claim that a "Mysteries" reporter was contacted by Danny Casolaro asking for info on the Morgan case. According to the reporter's on-camera claims, Casolaro died before he sent any information to him. There is also at least one other news article from the Arizona newspaper, dating to 2010, which neither confirms the details in the paragraph nor adds new information.
If these are the only sources for this paragraph, it should go, since there is virtually no tie between Morgan and Inslaw, except for the mention of Casolaro's name. I will keep looking for further information for now. Rgr09 (talk) 14:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Rgr09: I noticed that, too. Before I saw your comments I was wondering if there should be separate articles for Inslaw (which would be a relatively short article primarily about the company) and Inslaw affair (which would be primarily about the development of PROMIS, relevant litigation, and investigations). The company is primarily known for PROMIS, so maybe PROMIS (software) should merge/redirect to Inslaw affair. The material regarding conspiracy theories could go into Inslaw affair, or into The Octopus (conspiracy theory) if there is too much of it. The stand alone article on Michael Riconosciuto could also merge/redirect to Inslaw affair. Thoughts? -Location (talk) 17:06, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Location: Hello Location! thanks for your comments and recent work on the vexing promis/inslaw/riconosciuto/casolaro/whatever issue. Your suggestion sounds good. Promis is now a separate article, I still think there are basic problems with it, I will comment there later maybe. Inslaw the company could be a short stub article, no problem. Inslaw Affair sounds okay, but I would reserve such an article for the part of the story that has real sources, congressional and DOJ reports and legal documents. Everything else could get thrown into an "Octopus" article. Riconosciuto belongs there, much of the Danny Casolaro article could go there too.
Going back to the Charles Morgan paragraph mentioned above, it is tied to the Octopus story so loosely that I doubt it belongs there. It is a popular internet tale and could perhaps stand alone as a stub. Right now, however, this whole section on "Deaths allegedly related to Inslaw" is a conspiracist coatrack and should not be in the Inslaw article. My take, anyway. Interested in your comments and research as always. Rgr09 (talk) 03:09, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One of David Corn's articles is cited in this section, but it certainly doesn't reflect the gist of what Corn was saying about Casolaro. Corn wrote:
"Like any good investigative reporter, Casolaro sucked up information from everywhere — and with it a lot of garbage. His notes show that he was influenced by the silly “secret team” theory of the Christie Institute. He also chased down material fed to him by a reporter who works for Lyndon LaRouche, the grandmaster of conspiracy theories. He regularly called a computer junk dealer in Kentucky who slyly hints that he is well wired in intelligence circles. Casolaro’s papers contain plenty of material from Richard Brenneke, a discredited arms dealer who claimed to have participated in the supposed October Surprise scheme."
I think this section needs to be reworked are retitled as "The Octopus". If it grows too big, the a move to The Octopus (conspiracy theory) might be warranted. -Location (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are two "Unsolved Mysteries" episode related to Charles Morgan: Season 2, episode 19 and Season 4, episode 30. The Season 2 episode, broadcast on Feb 7, 1990, is the primary source for most of the information on the case in the paragraph. The Season 4 episode is mostly about the Doug Johnston murder, but this is the episode where the reporter, Don Devereux, claims that he was contacted by Danny Casolaro. The article incorrectly states that this was broadcast in March 1993, it was in fact broadcast on May 6, 1992. The paragraph apparently confused this with the Season 5, Episode 24 story on Casolaro's death, which does not feature Devereux or any claims about Johnston's murder.
There are two newspaper articles cited in the Morgan paragraph: "Investigators baffled by Morgan death clues", Arizona Daily Star, June 22, 1977, and "'Mysteries' takes on Tucson case of escrow agent's bizarre death", Arizona Daily Star, February 7, 1990, which is basically an article on the Season 2 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The 1977 story is not the source for most of the details in the paragraph, despite being cited as such. Devereux's interviews on Unsolved Mysteries is the main source.
There is virtually no information in any of these interviews to connect either story to Inslaw. There is no information in any of the newspaper stories regarding Morgan's death to connect him in any way to Inslaw. Even conspiracist books on Inslaw and Casolaro such as The Last Circle and The Octopus fail to tie Morgan to Casolaro's death. This paragraph is clearly just another prong on the conspiracist hatrack introduced in this section. I have therefore removed it. Rgr09 (talk) 00:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the uncited paragraph about the death of Paul Morasca. There are no reliable secondary sources that discuss this aspect of the conspiracy theory. WP:FRIND applies. -Location (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bringing the talk page up to date on edits to the section on "Alleged Deaths", removed paragraph on Dennis Eisman, no sources for any relationship to Inslaw. Rgr09 (talk) 10:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Removed paragraph on Doug Johnston from "Alleged Deaths", no RS for any relationship to Inslaw case. Rgr09 (talk) 10:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Removed paragraph on Anson Ng Yong from "Alleged Deaths", no RS for any relationship to Inslaw case. Rgr09 (talk) 10:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rgr09, I've been a user of Wikipedia for literally 20 years now but it was this that finally made me make an account. The Inslaw Affair is probably the scandal most purged from the internet in my 24 years with broadband. I don't like to ascribe motives to people but precisely why are you in the threads purging every potential conspiracy theory related to the CIA that actually has any teeth to it? The Inslaw Affair has hundreds of pages of documentation from congressional hearings, FOIA requests (which are almost impossible to get) and court transcripts. If the suspicious deaths portion gets purged, I'll work to get primary sources on it, even though I've never edited it before, but why the fixation on this topic, one in which somehow Youtube only has sparse clips from TV shows in the 90's? TheJesterKing (talk) 00:18, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheJesterKing: If you have been reading but not editing, you may not be familiar with all of the policies and guidelines behind the scenes that help form the content that appears in the articles. Reviewing this talk page, it does appear that Rgr09 has tried to provide rationale for the removal of content. In this instance, most of those changes are related to lack of reliable secondary sources discussing a particular "suspicious death" in context of the Inslaw affair (see WP:RS). Primary sources need to be selected and used carefully to avoid running afoul of WP:PRIMARY/WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. -Location (talk) 04:16, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The alleged deaths section, as created, was basically unsourced. I looked my best for sources, and came up with very little, almost all of it non-RS material. I removed the claims with no sources and non-RS sources.
I am very familiar with the Inslaw story, the congressional material, the special prosecutor reports, and some, thought not all, of the court documents. A lot of ink was spilled on this case.
None of the people mentioned in the alleged deaths section appear in any of that material. All these "allegations" are much later accretions to the Inslaw story. I would of course be interested to learn if I have missed RS material. Rgr09 (talk) 13:01, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will admit, via laziness I didn't go into linking each death individually to Inslaw, as even if I perfectly evidenced it you would nuke it. I know actual skeptics who comment on conspiracy theories. You are the only person who parks themselves on actual, real, conspiracies on Wikipedia. Notably I don't find you on Sept !!. or Moon landing hoaxes, because those things are actually real. Again, I question the motive, of, even from a skeptical perspective, someone who continuously purges this article in a way that even Bard, Bing Sydney, and Facebook's Llama AI find suspicious.
As someone who works in machine learning, AI finds these edits odd. The open source AI even joked with me that for this edit I should ask for the weather in Langley.
Again, I'm not saying anything, that's AI telling me to say that, only as a joke. Never know though, the Wall of Fog is coming in 2028 per Geoffrey Hinton, might as well listen to some Ghost Stories for the End of the World. TheJesterKing (talk) 08:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I had to pop in one more time here. You and I both know there are no more RS's on Inslaw and you and I both know why. I read up on Wikipedia's policies on primary v. secondary sources and realized it would literally be impossible, under the current guidelines, to make this article more thorough. Since no living person "Reliable" will touch this case with a 10 foot pole, there's no way to update the article.
I'm a history buff, especially military history (including Spycraft), and in history, early on you learn that the most important sourcing is primary sourcing, but Wikipedia barely allows that. Convenient, isn't it? I can't add analysis of the congressional hearings or of the court cases even if I tried, because I'm not "Reliable". Well, many of the people who could be "Reliable" met unpleasant ends, so maybe I should avoid the topic, but I don't care at this point.
Regardless, this nonsense is ending. I'll make a bold claim here, I think The S.A.D. (or whatever it's called now) has refused to act on American soil ever again. TheJesterKing (talk) 06:41, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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