Talk:Donald Wayne Foster

Wanda Tinasky
19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)I commented out the last link. It's a raving Ramsey murder nutcase, and I don't think it appropriate even to link to. Find a more sedate and more believable critical link.

Tinasky=Pynchon was not almost universally believed.--192.35.35.35 18:56, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I've reinstated it. It's a lot more temperate and scholarly than your case against it ("raving Ramsey murder nutcase"?), and is the best assessment of Foster's failures I could find. In Foster's own words: "All I need to do is get one attribution wrong ever, and it will discredit me not just as an expert witness in civil and criminal suits but also in the academy." He did that royally with both the "Elegy" and his yo-yo Ramsey testimonies, and has aroused much controversy and criticism for both. If you have other sources, please add them; but censoring a widely-held POV because you happen to disagree with it violates the principle of NPOV. In your own words: "this is an encyclopaedia, not a fansite".


 * chocolateboy 12:50, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I've reinstated it. It's a lot more temperate and scholarly than your case against it ("raving Ramsey murder nutcase"?), and is the best assessment of Foster's failures I could find.


 * If the police call "jameson" a code six wingnut, I'm not going to disagree, and I'm not going to give him an ounce of credibility or honesty. As a simple example, he starts by citing an English professor who obviously does not understand Foster's technique. Foster expects some unusual words to match, not all of them.


 * I have been unable to find a single anti-Foster site except those by jameson.


 * In Foster's own words: "All I need to do is get one attribution wrong ever, and it will discredit me not just as an expert witness in civil and criminal suits but also in the academy."


 * A royally stupid thing to say. If he's got a 90% accuracy rating when it comes to identifying people to serve search warrants on, that is, I presume, good enough for the legal requirements. If a case involves multiple bits of evidence, that too should be enough--but a jury would have to decide.


 * As to what or what discredits him with the academy--that could be anything or everything. Just publishing a popular book is asking for trouble.


 * He did that royally with both the "Elegy"


 * No. Foster always hedged with "Elegy". (Be real: he saw others shoot their feet off badly with blatantly bad Shakespearian attributions, and played it close to the chest.) He gave pro and con arguments. A more aggressive computer search--which he always asserted could change the conclusions--confirmed Ford as a better match. It actually vindicated his methods, although few want to admit that. Although now there is the mystery of why "W. S.", so I suspect the story is not over.


 * and his yo-yo Ramsey testimonies, and has aroused much controversy and criticism for both. If you have other sources, please add them; but censoring a widely-held POV because you happen to disagree with it violates the principle of NPOV.


 * I did not do that. I did that because I think known code six wingnuts should not be brought in to side issues whatsoever. On the Ramsey page, he has made himself a relevant reference. Nor would I object to the link to the Foster letter jameson reproduces on the grounds of jameson's credibility, since the letter is objective. (I would object on grounds of good taste.)


 * In your own words: "this is an encyclopaedia, not a fansite".

chocolateboy 12:50, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Which means I expect some sort of editorial decision making to be made, based on standards of reliability.--192.35.35.35 19:24, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you're really interested in having a constructive discussion, I strongly suggest you learn to quote rather than vandalising my comments with interlineations.


 * Although now there is the mystery of why "W. S.", so I suspect the story is not over.

William Stanley? :-)

As for the link being the work of someone with an agenda: that's a) hardly surprising, and b) no reason to censor it. Wikipedia is full of links to labours of love and labours of hate, many of which, as is the case with this link, are also sources.

chocolateboy 13:19, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * There has been no vandalization. If you wish to have a constructive discussion, you will not lie so absurdly and pointlessly.


 * In numerous articles, links are removed because they do not really fit in with the article. Check out the recent history of college football coach Joe Paterno, where a recent link detailing his political contributions was quickly removed as irrelevant. The article mentions the fact that his career has recently nose dived badly, but it has not included a link to the Joe Must Go site, which would be relevant, but I suspect far too partisan for suitable encyclopedic reference.


 * Albert Einstein attracts a lot of kooks and crackpots, and "labours of stupidity" get reverted and unlinked regularly. I view jameson in the same boat.


 * Also, I should have said previously, NPOV issues do not apply to external links.


 * Since you raised the question elsewhere, in what possible sense is Foster's Ramsey testimony yo-yo?--192.35.35.36 20:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

jameson
I don't know how to enter this as a discussion - to post a comment of my own. I do hope this works and is allowed to stand.

To the moderator of the site - if you read the Ramsey books, you will see I am a serious poster. Feel free to email me with any concerns you have on my additions to this forum. jameson245@aol.com

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.190.158.181 (talk • contribs)

Information restored
I went back to an earlier version because I think some of the recent edits were too focused on conveying a particular slant. In particular, I'm not sure what basis there is for defending the removal of information regarding the Ramsey case, along with the source that supported the passage in question. That smacks of whitewashing. If more context is wanted, by all means offer additional sources to provide it.

As for the Elegy, I'm happy to have the article say more explicitly that Foster was tentative about the identification, so I've incorporated some of the changes into the old version. But I thought the newer version was overly defensive of the subject, rather than remaining neutral. --Michael Snow 20:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * And on the other hand, the article seems to have a long-running effort to slant the article in a contrary direction with a particular account of his involvement in the Ramsey case. Relying on an amateur website (from someone with a personal agenda against Foster over a separate case) as a source is quite dubious, and even linking to it without qualifications about its provenance is not an appropriately neutral approach. Editorializing about a "hoax" or a "controversy" is also inadvisable and unnecessary. Rather, the better approach is usually to provide additional information from reputable sources and let readers draw conclusions from that themselves. This is what I will continue to insist upon, and I plan to add some material from a few more such sources shortly. --Michael Snow 21:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I largely agree, and the article looks fine, but this comment is a red herring:


 * Relying on an amateur website (from someone with a personal agenda against Foster over a separate case) as a source is quite dubious

The mirror of the Jameson page is the first thing that comes up on a Google search for Donald Foster, outranking the Lingua Franca article, Foster's faculty page, and news reports of the Ramsey and Hatfill stories.

It's hardly non-notable in this context, and there is, of course, no policy against representing different points of view on a subject, whether they be pro or anti.

Also, it's not accurate to suggest that the Jameson article is about a "separate case". The site that includes it as a subpage is about Bari, but the article itself only mentions that case in passing.

chocolateboy 21:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you misparsed my reference about what was a separate case. The separate case is the Bari matter, because the link being added was from Sweeney's website, so he's the "someone" in question. But it was being used as a kind of source in the context of the Ramsey murder, which is the original case, so to speak.


 * I don't see that the Google results have much significance, although I would note that's a search that deliberately excludes Wikipedia. In reality, this article is the first result for his name (or was, but Google is temporarily thrown off by my recent disambiguation cleanup). Anyway, that still doesn't transform an agenda-driven amateur website into a reliable source, especially when there are plenty of reputable sources being used. But most news reports are buried in archives that don't show up in Google, period. --Michael Snow 04:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

If Wikipedia doesn't come up on the first page of a Google search of anything, it typically means the Wikipedia article is broken.   Of course it was excluded from the search above as Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Wikipedia articles.

As mentioned above "agenda driven" is a red herring ("amateur" may be "dubious", but "amateur" and "notable" is not: "amateur" could apply to Snopes, Ain't it Cool News &c. They're saved by the "notable" bell.) NPOV applies to articles, not external links. See the partisan links in (for instance):


 * Criticism of Coca-Cola
 * Criticism of Family Guy
 * Criticism of George W. Bush

- and the parent articles they were broken out of for more "agenda driving".

The "jameson" article is a source for this article. However "agenda driven" that article may be, it contains numerous citations of reputable print sources that discuss Foster's scholarship, as well as being, of course, the primary source of Foster's Ramsey letter. One alternative would be to plunder those references and pass them off as the scholarship of diligent Wikipedians. That wouldn't fall under the rubric of original research as the sources are all reliable and verifiable. However, it would fall under the rubric of "redundant ripoff".

chocolateboy 19:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

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