Talk:Dennis Rawlins

Ban
The Wikipedia ban on autobiographies seems to have been ignored. Rawlins himself or a supporter seems to have written this favourable biography. It mostly consists of quotations from www.dioi.org, Rawlins's own site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.155.236 (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Kowal
Charles Kowal might be behind the material favourable to Dennis Rawlins. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Actually, it is in Rawlins' own style, not that of Kowal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.197.57 (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Kowal (2)
Kowal seems to have awarded a medal to himself. See the Talk page of the Kowal article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.11.103 (talk) 14:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

E. Myles Standish
Myles Standish seems to have done the same thing, awarded a medal to himself. Standish and Kowal are both friends of hero Dennis Rawlins. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.11.103 (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Religious Intolerance
Despite different IP#s the previous entries are all from a single source which claims to use twenty IP#s and so can be called Holy Hydra. While operating in the net universe HH prefers the advantages of anonymity without the disadvantages. HH wants to be taken seriously as a thinker but has frustratingly not been able to cut it in the intellectual world which may be related to HH's rages at those who can. Posing as a Catholic of the medieval type HH has morphed into an atheist-cabal-sniffing career-wikivandal in defense of geocentrism and the Inquisition. HH has volunteered to tip off a Catholic exorcism-expert, to the temporary injection of Luther's anti-heliocentrism into the Galileo Wiki article. HH regularly vandalizes the preface of the Wiki bio of courageous scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins, accusing him of promoting "murdering the unborn and perversion", as well as repeatedly encouraging vandals-in-arms who inject into the Dawkins bio obscene tritenesses calling him a "whore" and an "ass-licking terrorist" who "sucks dick". HH has engaged in equally delicate vandalism firsthand.

The Wiki bio of Rawlins has occasionally been questioned but in all cases found accurate. Its neutrality has been improved here and there and more such assists are welcome. These do not include injecting into its preface paranoiac slanderous lies about some of the most brilliant and respected astronomers in the history of the field. In the bio's many links Rawlins's fallibility is more than adequately documented and his regrettable weakness for "over the top" writing is duly noted.

In the interests of free speech and of illustrating the vandal mind at work HH's remarks on this page will not be immediately deleted. HH's further wisdom is invited though it will not be replied to. HH has established a history of demonstrating the futility of such interaction. HH's punitive vendetta against Rawlins and DIO began when a DIO-citing comparison was made in the Aristarchus of Samos article between establishment threats against Aristarchus and Galileo. Rather than enter into the article HH's own claim that non-jailer, non-burner Luther was no better than the Inquisition on heliocentrism or HH's unorthodox opinion that relativity negates geomobility (echoing later-Cardinal J. H. Newman) HH emulated Inquisitional mentality by deleting the offending heresy instead. When there was no reaction HH performed a net book-burning by day-by-day-extirpating from the article all traces of reference to Rawlins or DIO or DIO-admirer B. L. van der Waerden, including material cited to Rawlins papers delivered by invitation to the American Astronomical Society and the British Museum. When even that got no reaction HH began vandalizing the Rawlins Wiki bio and that of any colleague HH could trash.

Targets of such dedicated treatment by HH seem to include anyone embarrassing to the Catholic church, such as Luther, Armada-repellers Queen Elizabeth and John Hawkins, Galileo, atheist Dawkins and colleagues, atheist Rawlins and colleagues (some of whom are religious). The list will go on and on.

A more useful list can provide some among HH's various IP#s, which come and go on and on. 81.149.223.218, 81.149.255.133, 81.158.197.57, 81.158.207.0, 86.134.94.122, 86.139.212.97, 86.141.242.167, 86.143.5.205, 86.145.11.103, 86.145.152.142, 86.150.99.135, 86.152.174.243, 86.153.155.236, 86.155.236.246, 87.194.4.21 (oldest), 217.41.51.240, 217.44.111.24. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.212.173 (talk) 02:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * …complains the person behind an anonymous IP address and who doesn’t sign. CielProfond (talk) 16:26, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Nadir
Last winter's attempt to eliminate the Rawlins biography is merely one more chapter in a persistent history that has grown out of his various cultist critics' difficulty in convincingly answering his investigations and exposés. Blocking public access to his writings is therefore seen as the cleverest remedy. The winter censor's elaborate thespian simulation of a geocentrist Catholic deserves applause. But the March sixth and tenth threats against Wikipedia personnel constitute a new nadir in campaigns to suppress Rawlins and Dio's valued and eminent journal and website, though it is a more than compensating gift to sociologists of institutional pathology to now have on the record the exact language by which such suppression and shunning have been pursued for years, "It is not wise to get near Rawlins." Who would sink so low as to threaten a 16 year old Wikipedia Commons Administrator, just in order to prevent readers from seeing a website? It couldn't possibly be that the thug was an opposition associate whose scientific fumbling was exposed by something linked to the website? No. Too weird. By the way, students of weird might be interested in a link in the biography that was broken on March tenth following the censor's rages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.212.138 (talk) 00:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The self-apotheosis of Rawlins
This article is a scandal: a plain piece of self-adulation by its subject, who's also flooding this discussion page.

Rawlins is a worthwhile subject; and I don't doubt that his achievements are genuine and that much of the material in this article should remain. But it won't be trustworthy until it's had a thorough treatment from editors who are less in love with him than he is himself.

Mr Rawlins, I'm not hiding behind an anonymous IP (this is the only time I've commented here and I haven't made any edits to the article) - will you sign your own contributions to this page and your edits to the article? (Actually, since you're the subject of the article, I suggest you submit proposed changes for discussion before implementing them.)

Chris C (talk) 13:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yup, reverted the re-addition of refs to Rawlins site by User:Keithpickering who seems to have a WP:COI. Also re-instated the citation requests for incomplete refs. A reference that simply states Astronomical Journal, 1970 as an example, is woefully incomplete and must be fixed or removed (and I haven't the access no inclination to do the digging). I'm considering a bold scrap the junk and reduce it to a stub. If the subject is editing it anonomously then the article will need semi-protection. Vsmith (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality and Reliability
In carp after carp, selectively ignoring the centralness of anonymity to Wikipedia, the Rawlins biography has been called "garbage", "unencyclopedic", "sockpuppetry", "autobiography", "puffery", "a scandal", "self love", and "junk". The one thing it has not been called is inaccurate.

One of the DIO website questions asks religious people, if you aren't smart enough to understand God's plans, why are you so passionately convinced there is a God? Similarly if the succession of snipers don't know enough to undo the biography's alleged imbalance, why are they so adamantly sure that it is imbalanced? (The article is a lot more neutral and less pejorative-laden than its detractors' comments.) What other "puff-piece" cites and links to the subject's bunglings? (Ironically the main link was broken on March 10 by a complainer.)

The least defensible editing error is the insistent relegation of DIO to not Reliable. DIO's boards include international leaders in various field of scholarship. They hail from University of Cambridge, N. Y. U., Johns Hopkins, California Institute of Technology, British Museum, and include a past president of the History of Science Society. Such glossy Reliable entities as Scientific American are largely staffed by popular science writers and unlike DIO do not use peer-review.

Due to his years of exposes Rawlins is a target. Few popular journals will dare write well of him, so an open forum like Wikipedia creates a special problem since it doesn't look fixable. Thus the badgerings here will continue.

As for supposed COI, no one at DIO is paid. The journal is given away totally without charge, including mailing cost, to all subscribers which include libraries around the world such as Oxford and Cambridge, the Naval Observatory, the International Center of Theoretical Physics, the Royal Astronomical Society, and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.212.192 (talk) 20:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Calm down please!?
First, the ban on autobiographies has been abolished, so iff Dennis Rawlins is the originator, that in itself doesn't justify deleting the article. If his friend Charles Kowal did write it, the ban on autobiographies didn't apply before the abolishment. Independent editors should however take a look on the article to try to ascertain that the article doesn't just list trivial acheivements.

Secondly, I prefer/recommend that anonymous users that often edit and maintain articles go get themselves a real wikipedia account, if that is possible with respect to their relation to their mayhap employers. It is possible (and according to my moral, quite acceptable) to remain anonymous, if it is in any way impractical that the identity of the editor is revealed. The purpose is only to identify who wrote what.

Thirdly I think this article and its content is notable, by the skin of the teeth, or a little more. By studying some antiquarian star table sources, f.ex. a Tycho’s 1004-Star Catalog PDF (L8R!!), it seems that Rawlins has achieved some outstanding expertice in analysing and reconstructing old methods of star measurements for catalogue production, such as for example that Tycho’s Star Catalogs.

Fourthly, the article is messy. It is an incoherent list of achievements. A thematic text flow explaining how each achievement leads to another, and what expertices are gained on the way is needed. There's already themata that can be perceived by the sorting of the list elements, but in general wikipedia articles shouldn't be consisted of lists, unless explicit element comparison is called for by the discourse context. ... said: Rursus ( m b o r k³ ) 09:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Tycho’s 1004-Star Catalog, is a compendium on Tycho’s 1004-Star Catalog, where Rawlins occurs as often so as to get the abbr. DR (see B2/page 6, 5th line). ... said: Rursus ( m b o r k³ ) 10:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * My error. That PDF seems to be written by Dennis Rawlins, naming himself DR, which doesn't diminish the PDF very much... L8R. ... said: Rursus ( m b o r k³ ) 13:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * 1006 by the way. That compendium is missing Novae Stellae. ... said: Rursus ( m b o r k³ ) 10:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * And as a punishment for friends writing for friends we require the personal life, names of spouses and all children, birth dates (so that we may construct horoscopes and full future fate), shoe number, hat number, waist measurement, food preferences, and everything that makes living biography writing a very risky business. For both Rawlins and his all friends! ... said: Rursus ( m b o r k³ ) 10:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Nihil Obstat — Censorial Extortion Spectacle at Wikipedia — Godless Marine as God
This continues recent exchanges begun at User talk:Graeme Bartlett and User talk:Stuartyeates on the harassment of the WP biography of Dennis Rawlins, founder and publisher of DIO: The International Journal of Scientific History.

The foregoing provides a compact taste of the harassment, threats, slanderous lies (about world famous astronomers Standish and Kowal on the DIO board: above), even fake people ("Chris Cooper", above) that the WP biog of Rawlins inspires because of DIO's unanswerable scientific exposures of embarrassed and enraged institutions and their academically incompetent hitmen and smearmeisters. A few months after Rawlins shot down John Wall's childishly bungled 2007 attack on Rawlins, an establishment vandal whom DIO calls Stall Wall began dedicating himself with a fanatic's fervor to slashing at articles related to Rawlins for ever after, also posting lies (e.g., above and at Kowal's WP bio) about DIO board members. Failing in having the biog entirely removed, he vandalized it repeatedly and then resorted to threats (cited above) at anyone "near" Rawlins thus by implication those WP administrators who had stoically defended the biog and Rawlins's colleagues. His March 10, 2008 threat was followed the same day by fellow anti-occultist Vsmith, martinet Marine and WP administrator, who did Stall Wall's dirty work for him by ripping out of the Rawlins biog dozens of references to DIO on the asinine ground that the journal was not Reliable, though it is known — and feared — as the most scientifically reliable history of astronomy journal on earth. (Is this the only case of WP vandalism in which the referee took the vandal's side?)

Wall and Vsmith are both members of the "rationalist" cult that still seethes over Rawlins's 1981 sTARBABY which — though Rawlins is just as atheistic and anti-occult as CSICOP — exposed CSICOP (now CSI) blunders and attempts to cover them up by denigrating and threatening the messenger, the same tactics Vsmith is using. When DIO Editor Keith Pickering attempted to restore some particularly accurate and useful material Vsmith not only reripped it on July 25, 2008 but 89m later deleted a Pickering-DIO reference in WP's Plana Cays article as revenge and to extort submission to his decree.

Six years of further Stall Wall harassment of anything to do with Rawlins followed, plus biog deletions instigated by Vsmith's 2008 mass rip having left some sections of the biog with no reference at all. On August 29, 2014 WP administrator Graeme Bartlett was asked to help stop extortion. He instead tipped off Vsmith who naturally tried threatening anyone exposing his extortion by simply committing more extortion: he had fellow CSICOPper-WP administrator Drmies rip out the entire Rawlins biog two weeks later, replacing it with a CSICOP-saturated, demeaning stub based on sources grossly inferior to those in the original biog, and deleting the word "publisher" so as to pretend that DIO does not exist. The original full biography can and should be accessed via the biog's History.

As an antipodean Nihil Obstat extra that even the other Holy See never thought of, New Zealander Stuartyeates has been brought in to ensure around-the-clock that any revert could be taken down so instantly that no readers' tender minds can possibly be placed even for a moment into mortal danger of being sullied by exposure to material on Bishop Vsmith's Index of Prohibited Journals.

An ironic circularity has escaped the perpetrators. While loyally attempting to assist Vsmith's coverup, have none amongst them realized the possibility that they will in future want to cover up their present activities?

Have you chaps gone bonkers from a sense of impunity? Do you really think that anyone is going to be fooled by Vsmith's delegating his latest destruction to a fellow CSICOPper? Do you think that, after 2000 days of the original substantial biog's approximate survival, anyone will think that it's merely a coincidence that it was killed just 14 days after a protest against your admired Vsmith? What will observers make of a pack of conspirators so blatantly clumsy? Also what will they think of a gang so upside-down deluded that it thinks destroying a painstakingly accurate and massively secondary-source backed biog is not vandalism instead (I'm-not-making-this-up) tagging the scholarly biog's restoration as "possible vandalism". (It's right there in the biog's History at September 29, 2014.) You guys are stoutly maintaining the same level of CSICOP competence, neutrality, and ethics that Rawlins documented so thoroughly in sTARBABY — 33 years ago. The very fact that you trust that you can get away with such vengeance tells plenty about Wikipedia.

Both versions of the biog will be reedited shortly but not with the intent of starting an edit war. The aim will be to find out what the holy rationalists want to convince ringsiders is their purely high minded aim — and to more exactly reveal what they are really up to.2thedef (talk) 05:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC) Three minor errors in the foregoing are now corrected.2thedef (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC) One more.2thedef (talk) 17:33, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Firing or Coverup?
Someone posing as a neutral editor injected the implication that Rawlins only wrote STARBABY in 1981 because he was "fired," something less biographical than speculative and ad hominem. For many years prior to his non-re-election to the CSICOP council in an unannounced election, Rawlins repeatedly objected to CSICOP's tactics for not admitting loss of its astrology test. This was disruptive to the council, especially non-astronomer Kurtz, so Rawlins was eliminated. Left unsaid is any cause of "firing". Unreliable scientific advice? Miscalculated reportage? CSICOP ultimately admitted that Rawlins's warnings and math were accurate but still will not agree that it covered up anything at all. If booting a whistleblower and forty years later continuing to control Rawlins's biography don't count as coverup, then CSICOP's plea is valid. CALMeQuit (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2017 (UTC)