Talk:Glenn McGee

First Attack by Unsigned Individual (of dozens)
Edited the post to remove the incorrect statement that Albany Medical College is a part of Union University. The confusion probably came from the fact that Union and AMC offered an online Master of Science in Bioethics, but this partnership was dissolved within the last few months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loiosh (talk • contribs)

Actually Albany Medical College is a part of Union University. As is Union College, Albany Law School, Albany College of Pharmacy, and the Union Graduate College, formerly Graduate College of Union University, formerly Union College's Graduate School. Union University has always been the University home of Albany Medical College. The edit is incorrect because the author mistakes Union College with Union University. The masters program of which the edit speaks still exists, until 2009, and Albany Medical College's Alden March Bioethics Institute, part of Albany Medical College, is part of Union University as much as any element of Union College or the unaffiliated Union Graduate College, which, again, is just Graduate College of Union University with a rebranding.

The masters program of Albany Medical College's Alden March Bioethics Institute (AMBI) is no longer affiliated with Union Graduate College, except inasmuch as both institutions are part of Union University. AMBI's Master of Science in bioethics program is among the largest distance learning programs in the world, operated in conjunction with Apple Inc. utilizing the iTunes University technology. The Union Graduate College partnered with Mt. Sinai to continue the old masters program. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk • contribs) — 74.76.183.8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Pursuant to the above: "This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard," Dr. McGee edited the page to remove two edits posted from IP address 72.224.19.243, a Road Runner account in Schnectady, New York, home to the competitive program to that previously run by Dr. McGee and posted anonymously despite its extremely provocative content. Rather than ask this person to provide their identity through any other method available within the context of remedies for false or misleading statements made on the web, and since there are perhaps three people in all of Schenectady, New York, home only to bioethicists engaged in a program directly competitive with the one that I ran, right up until the program located in Schenectady suddenly encountered a major advantage due to the dismantling of leadership of AMBI - this is a correction of two misstatements in edits, each significant, and it is clear that the person making this false edit should identify him or herself in the interest of not only ethics but "due process" within the Wikipedia universe. - Glenn McGee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Change asserting that references are inadequate for the following: "McGee is a member of the ethics bodies of the World Association of Medical Editors, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Council of Science Editors. McGee serves on the following editorial boards: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Law & the Human Genome Review, Cambridge Quarterly in Healthcare Ethics, New Genetics and Society, Human Reproduction and Genetics, Stem Cells, Bioethics, Politics and the Life Sciences, The New Review of Bioethics, Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Christian Bioethics, Contemporary Pragmatism, Accountability in Research & The Scientist." is without grounding and is false. - Glenn McGee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Allowed for claim that conflict of interest may be present, since obviously as the subject of this article making corrections I am in fact conflicted in the true sense of that term. HOWEVER, the statement in the box that the author of much of the article is conflicted is simply false since I am not the author of the majority of the article but have made corrections. Moreover COI exists in any important sense only until any edit made is demonstrably unverifiable. Further, it was asserted by McGee that there is conflict of interest in all likelihood on the part of those authoring the original offending and potentially libelous changes.- Glenn McGee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk • contribs) — 74.76.183.8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Corrected false, anonymous, damaging and perhaps libelous claim that "McGee was not Chief of the Office of Bioethics of the Wadsworth Center, replacing text even more extensively to read: "He was named by Lawrence Sturman M.D., director of the Wadsworth Center of New York State Department of Public Health, as chief of the office of bioethics, a division of Sturman's office and based in an office in the Wadsworth building in Corning Plaza, which was accompanied by McGee's being given certain clear responsibilities that are, as best McGee can identify, are the first assigned to a bioethics scholar working on benchside bioethics issues within a state government's labs. McGee also served on the Newborn Screening committee and on a special group convened by Dr. Sturman and others dealing with ethics and newborn screening." Sturman signed these papers, created appropriate phone and email arrangements, recruited Dr. McGee to work in Wadsworth rather than Albany Medical College, and was present when Dr. McGee's badge was created, so as to speed the process."

Statements to the contrary must be verified by more than "it isn't on the website" when it was not claimed in this article that McGee still serves in that capacity, nor would it necessarily or even likely have EVER been the case that such would appear there. There is no reference for example to the other ethics bodies of Wadsworth, consecrated in the wake of the demise of the Office of Bioethics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.183.8 (talk • contribs) — 74.76.183.8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * The onus is on editors to provide citations for claims of this sort, the positive as well as negative. In addition, I would urge you to read this article before making any further edits here. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  21:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to disagree with anything you are saying. I've met that burden.  I certainly assert no ownership.  These claims are not in dispute as I framed them.  I was merely correcting a libelous claim that I was not Chief because it was not on a website where it would never appear.  --74.76.183.8 (talk) 22:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional attempts at cleanup
I was concerned that way too much prominence was being given to the Dr. McGee's controversial departure, so I greatly reduced its mention while keeping the verifiable citations. The article is being actively editing as I write, and there have been a number of citations added. I removed some of them as being violatiive of policy (a direct link to Google scholar) or requiring original research such as entering information in a database to confirm certain quotes. I also removed a mention of the subjects supervisor. It has since been replaced, so I'll raise it here for now rather than get into any edit warring. The paragraph, which is reproduced below, did not seem to be terribly relevant to a biography, especially one as short as this. It had the feel of a premptive strike to make certain that a certain set of facts is publicized. While I understand the sentiment, I don't think that's the point of the article. The paragraph follows indented below. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  22:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * He was named by Lawrence Sturman, director of the Wadsworth Center of the New York (state) Department of Public Health, as chief of the Office of Bioethics, a division of Sturman's office, which was accompanied by McGee's being given certain clear responsibilities that are, the first assigned to a bioethics scholar working within/with a state government's research programs at the level of their planning and execution, including newborn screening. McGee also served on the Newborn Screening committee and in its group on ethics and newborn screening.


 * I have no problem with the claim regarding the cleanup, since it is a matter of discussion in a recent Scientific American article as to whether or not I served as Chief of Bioethics for the State of New York Wadsworth Center, which this paragraph was indeed intended to clarify; while the facts in the statement above are accurate, and the position was the first of its kind, and anyone looking at bioethics as a subject area who searched for bioethics and states or bioethicists would be interested - period - regardless of controversy, I will cede that if this is to be posted it should be posted by someone else, but it MUST be noted that reference to this position was ALWAYS in the article, and that the above language was posted only after someone posted a libelous deletion of ANY reference to this position (not "sponsor" - which itself is relevant because of who the sponsor IS, but is fine to delete I suppose if the editor has some special knowledge about why Dr. Sturman, one of the most prominent government science directors in any state if not the most important, is not important in the creation of that role) on the grounds that they "could not find the position on the Wadsworth website," which was a ridiculous claim, given that it has been clearly established that this position existed, that I held it, and that it was the only one of its kind.  Again though this deletion is somewhat controversial given that states and bioethics is 1) one of the things for which I am best known and oft cited, including in numerous magazines and newspapers, and 2) that this is a unique position at a unique time when for example states are paying more for stem cell research than is the federal government.  As to the first part, far be it from me to comment on whether my departure from that position is overplayed in the article.  I certainly view that overemphasis as being clearly established as coming directly from competitor organizations to the one I established.  But again I will cede a COI claim, provided this person who made the original claims identifies themselves (which they have not - because I am right that this was simple malignment of character).  --74.76.183.8 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

--74.76.183.8 (talk) 05:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

comment on sourcing
copied from the BLP noticeboard: The anon was, among other things, trying to remove perfectly reasonable statements of his editorship of journals, and so one--they can when seriously challenged  be cited from the journal home pages, & I will do so to remove all doubt, but when vbaseless objections are made to material such as this,  there is  reason to doubt  that the challenges to material are made in good faith. I see nothing much wrong with the tone ofthearticle as it stands, bt I'll add someof the things usual in scientist bio articles, such as key papers & reviews of his books. DGG (talk) 04:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * All the above negative statements have been more than restored. Even though it is CLEAR all were made by anons with a grudge.  Balance is no longer a goal.  And no one is listening.  The intonation "Scientific American is reliable" when there was no story in Scientific American, just its sponsored website, and by a journalist whose credibility has been attacked in at least 10 places, is the sole rationale for the new attacks by Wikipedians.  It is amazing.  Jéské PLEASE take note of this page...

Notable
I have never heard of Dr. McGee so I have nothing for or against him. However, the sources of the article only seem to talk about the one incident when he was fired from his job. WP policy says not to have an article about a person only notable for one thing.Steve Dufour (talk) 06:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Steve, how would you establish the notability of a bioethicist? That you have heard of them?  Will you be deleting the others listed in Wikipedia on the basis of the Dufour standard of whether you have heard from him apart from having read this article and noticing that (as a result of edits) there was AT THAT TIME more mention of departure than other issues?  If you apply your standard to bioethics scholars, perhaps you would want to do slightly more research.  No offense, nor any taken by your comment, presuming that you will now do research.  If you have trouble establishing "notability" then I assume you'll be deleting all but two or three people on the bioethicists' list.  Good luck with that.  --74.76.183.8 (talk) 22:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)   - Glenn McGee [subject of article]


 * Sorry for the misunderstanding. My reason for saying that I have never heard of you was to establish my neutrality, not to give a reason to delete the article. I probably have not heard of 90% of people who have WP bios. The article still needs more sources, according to WP policy on notability. Steve Dufour (talk) 01:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Continuing Libel and Accusations of COI
Those who edit this article should be aware that the continuing negative, libelous editing of this article is the subject of discussion in a number of places but most importantly that the subject of the article - myself - is simply unwilling to allow a barrage of negative edits to flow in weekly under the dark of night from anonymous editors who simply misstate the facts and/or assert that I am an "anonymous" editor with a "conflict of interest." To repeat what I said elsewhere: I am Glenn McGee. I am the subject. I have a conflict only where it is demonstrable that my edits reflect such conflict. That has not been demonstrated to ANYONE's satisfaction anywhere. The article was just tested for deletion, and coincidentally IMMEDIATELY before a piece in sciam.com made a point of saying so and attributing that test to the question of whether the article is important enough to exist. I don't care about that. I didn't write this article. But if you are going to libel me, do it with your name out there. --74.76.183.8 (talk) 05:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It surprises me that a professional ethicist would be unaware of the problems involved in turning this article into an autobiography. The content of an article such as this must (by our policy on neutrality) fairly represent the reliably sourced information out there about the subject, both positive and negative. Shunting all the recent negative publicity into footnotes to a single sentence that has been stripped of all actual content is a misrepresentation of those sources, and I remain unconvinced that an article so heavily rewritten by its subject can possibly be appropriately neutral. I've asked for help from WP:COI/N to keep the article more neutral; that also includes policing it against overly negative rewrites (I believe that at least one participant in the AfD was a single-purpose account negatively inclined towards the subject) but that is not the issue with today's edits. And as for your liberal use of the word "libel", please read our policy regarding legal threats: the short version is that you can continue to edit Wikipedia yourself, or you can use legal means to attempt to influence Wikipedia, but not both. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Your points are well taken, particularly given that you should notice that the article, is one I did not write and which is not autobiographical in that sense or any other, in that the only changes I've made - as has been noted several times - have been to replace material that was simply deleted in order to turn the article into a screed, eliminating any of the previous references to my work and making of me a mockery for no reason other than to continue what, yes, is the libel that Wikipedia professes not to tolerate and urges be reported. I made several such reports.  More though and more important, my only (and tedious) task has been to simply prevent the continuing deletion of my work - which occurred to such a degree that people began to argue that there was nothing on the article of consequence that wasn't negative and that by extension the entire article and I myself were not worthy of an entry.  In addition, constant changes are made to increase the presence of a tiny parcel of negative publicity about myself without the slightest critical or contextual commentary about those - even though each of the critical articles was accompanied by a blistering array of attacks on the author of the article and on facts alleged in it.  And more important, the continuing change most notable is that both positive or neutral commentary on my work was being deleted at such a pace that I was *forced* to become involved in editing my own entry here because otherwise it would be used as a weapon, rather than fulfilling anything like the Wikipedia mission.  So your points and your observations are well taken but I did nothing to shunt negative publicity of the sort you describe and in fact quite the opposite; the metastatic nature of conflicted edits grew these articles' presence in the Wiki entry at an alarming and obvious pace and my only interference was to try to restore the text originally present or come close, and to stop the constant repetition of citations to a tiny number of articles (set against perhaps 10 times more articles of a different view, and set against the near deletion of references to the role of scholarly work formerly associated with me in the previous Wikipedia entries).  No one would be more pleased to have this task fall to someone else than me.  But the level of libel here is precisely what Wikipedia militates against and encourages subjects to report.  Thanks, Glenn.  --74.76.183.8 (talk) 04:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note that subject hides nothing about identity.

Introduction of "Neutrality" Tag
I have been following this continuing intervention on the Glenn McGee article by David Eppstein and someone named Crusio, and both of them seem to do a great job on science articles. Neither of them know jack squat about bioethics and both have made it quite clear that they do not care that their edits on this article are demolishing a major scholar's wikipedia page. The most recent post by Eppstein calls the page a "biography of saints". This guy is either totally without scruples - in that he doesn't care to do any research at all, not that it would be hard to do research on a scholar with 21,000 web pages about him, or he loves the website for scientific american so much that he can't see past it. I wouldn't care but this is the sort of thing that destroys people - and in this case the person being attacked just spoke at my university, and I google him and this is what I find. It's amazing. Epstein MUST be put up on some kind of Wiki charge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.217.123.54 (talk) 05:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment on content, not on the contributor. No_personal_attacks  Guyonthesubway (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Now there's some irony. Read your own comments on this page.  Then invoke that claim.  Look at the personal attacks here YOU make.  Accusing someone of "shilling"?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.191.81 (talk) 17:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The recent editing by anonymous IPs
I have posted an account of the history of this article here. --Crusio (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * From a first look at the article the controversy section is very poorly sourced, and reads like it was written by someone with a personal stake in the matter. The Editorship also needs a ton of references if it will stand as is.  Guyonthesubway (talk) 20:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Given what Guyonthesubway has found out (see ANI thread), I am going to revert the article back to its earlier version. Dr. McGee, if you are interested in contributing to this article, please create an account and post comments here on the talk page (the accepted way of contributing to your own biography, to avoid COI). --Crusio (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Found out? A quick check demonstrates that his claims are false. There's no Verizon edit.  The claims are claims - he "found out" nothing.  Please re-investigate because it is clear from the record that Crusio has acted in bad faith (in the non-insulting sense of that claim).  There was no reason to revert to the short version and the ANI thread doesn't address that at all.


 * I've put in a request for semi-protection in WP:RFPP. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course you have. When all else fails, lock it down.  It's like doing research, only without doing research.


 * I wonder, will anyone notice that you two are tag teaming and have done no research nor enlisted anyone to help? Some encyclopedia entry!  A simple invocation of power to lock in a negative set of claims.  I encourage ANYONE to go back in this discussion - it is incredible what both these users have posted about McGee.  Early on both say negative things FAR before criticizing "self-authorship" and beginning their assassination.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.191.81 (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

COI Tag
I've added a conflict of interest tag as it seems pretty obvious that 74.76.191.81 is Glenn McGee. At least one of other anon IP's appears to be him as well. Guyonthesubway (talk) 23:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have protected the article for one week. Any more users that come to whitewash or astroturf this article after the prot will be swiftly reverted and blocked if they start edit-warring. -  Jéské   Couriano  ( v^_^v ) 05:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Jéské, is there ANY evidence of whitewash in the version you quashed? It has a whole section, all with citations, attacking McGee.  And the notion that edit-wars are entirely a function of McGee is incredible.  Please review the record rather than just accepting this one-sided account.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.191.81 (talk) 17:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

An open letter to the 'Berkeley Bioethics Group'
While you appear to be shilling for Mr McGee, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.


 * Does anyone get the "benefit of the doubt" with you? Clearly not.  You say you do, but then trash these poor guys.  Anti-intellectual attacks in which factual information is presented, but then trashed because it makes a professor appear to be an expert is UNACCEPTABLE no matter who posts it.  But that isn't enough for you.  You have to claim that the ethics professor is WRITING HIS OWN RESPONSES, with zero evidence.  How cute.  Guess if it is good enough to describe as "a reliable source" a story on a website that couldn't get its scut gossip published in Scientific American, edited by someone with a plain COI, which has been noted many places - McGee's former editor at The Scientist - and written by a 24 year-old who lists among his areas of interest taking down scholars - but not acceptable to link to things like, um, the COURT FILINGS posted in the same sciam.com website - it's fine for you to trash a professor of ethics on ethics grounds as though you are doing cleanup work instead of being a wiki assassin.

Perhaps you -are- in fact a couple of scholars, selflessly seeking to improve this article.

Assume_good_faith

Conflict_of_interest


 * Perhaps you are interested in accuracy. If so, do your research.  These guys did.  Anti-intellectual bias presented as "he's at it again" to cover for what you deleted, or support of same, well, hmm, sure seems more aggressively, severely inappropriate - particularly when your "cover" is to add an accusation about the subject that he's ten different editors and thus that cited information on the page is bad.  Perhaps you should cite [this article about Wiki's key person http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69880] when you write these pieces...

If so, great! Welcome aboard!


 * How about rats off the ship first. And no that isn't rude or pejorative.  It's a metaphor.  Rude is the comments in your history commentary.  How you pulled those off we can't figure out.  Anything goes when you go after a professor.  Perhaps this is why you only read the sciam stuff.

First off, it would help your case if you were to sign up for an account. This helps everybody know who everybody else is talking to.


 * Yeah, that's the key. Not integrity.

I would point out to you that you have no more credentials here than I do. If I were to claim to be an expert in bioethics, would you take that at face value? Certainly shouting it, and calling for 'charges' and 'firings' and generally yelling at everyone with a different opinion than you that they're uninformed etc is no great start.


 * I'm sorry. You know nothing about bioethics at all.  You added nothing to the article.  Your work is assassination only and based on nothing.  Zero.  The idea that because an article is about a person and an ethicist at that, that you are as qualified as anyone to edit using your "power" (in philosophy, another discipline you don't know, we call this informal falacy Argumentum ad Verecundiam, appeal to power).  Ethicists are measured not by how ethical they are - no ethicists claims to be an expert in being ethical.  It is a field of STUDY in which people try to help with public education and research so that all of us - because everyone has morals and ethics of some kind (even if not so savory) - can draw our own conclusions.  So here's this person who is a scholar solely in that, who has done nothing his whole career but research and public outreach, and your rationale for doing no research about him or bioethics is that anybody with a different opinion should be immune to claims of expertise.  Would you write this if you were editing an article about a quantum physicist?  I'm thinking you probably don't think so highly of yourself as to fall back on the cowardly excuse that you are just as credentialed as yourself.  In an encyclopedia of bioethics, where by the way McGee has written perhaps 15 entries, e.g., in Encarta, and a half-dozen Nature (you may not know them - they are the #2 science journal publisher, maybe even #1) / MacMillan entries, and is now the editor for bioethics for the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, I'm thinking that your claim that "you have no more credentials here than I do" might just be subjected to a comparison of resumes, unless you are an expert in bioethics research?  Or is it just the existence of 2 gossipy articles in sciam that is enough to make you an expert; now you can decide that someone's whole career is nothing because you read 2000 words (but skipped the comments that indicted the article up and down)?  Seriously.  You are actually appealing to the fact that "no great start" by the poster is a justification for your being so aggressive.  I don't expect you to seriously defend yourself, respond to the facts of this reply, or try for balance.  I expect that you will continue with this behavior on the McGee page.  But really, seriously, it's so egregious that you should be ashamed that you don't do ANY research about a topic before editing it.  Maybe just TRYING to compare the subject with others or even enlisting someone FROM BIOETHICS to read the different versions - the one that got cut by 8,000 words versus the prior version - in the interest of what you'd call honest and balance.  Attacks like yours based in your own admission that the attitude of the poster is a factor in your actions - those are incredible for wikipedia.  It isn't mercy being requested.  It's balance.  How many groups will have to ask for it before you care?

Contacting you offline doesn't fix the problem either, what proof does anyone else here have that I contacted you? Wikipedia is a tertiary source, if you want it to be in the article you have to back it up with sources. You may not like Scientific American, but it is considered a reliable source. The Times Union probably is too.


 * Scientific American published nothing. NOTHING.  The Times Union "probably is"?  Nice research methodology.  It is amazing you are able to do this.

Verifiability Reliable_sources

No_original_research

What you've done so far is walk into a library and yell that everybody is less knowledgeable than you and that you're outraged, tone it back a bit.


 * I suppose the Berkeley people aren't familiar with the "personality requirements" that the Wiki attackers (best known from their attack on Wiki's own lead) are using to conceal even their (Crusio/Eppstein's) least offensive initial questions about McGee, back when they recognized that McGee was being attacked by a chain of 10 or more anon attackers.  Crusio and Eppstein publish ad hominem comments in the history and talk pages, lock down articles, refuse to contact the posters on direct invitation, and then say that those who added new content 1) don't exist, and 2) are yelling and angry at what the other encyclopedias (the ones with PEER review) say is true, merely because the tone is wrong.  The idea that it is McGee writing on McGee is the new weapon to prevent anyone at high level Wikipedia from investigating Crusio and Eppstein's claims. 74.76.191.81 (talk) 17:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Guyonthesubway (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

A little example:

[] say that Glen was 'McGee, 40, of Guilderland, was fired as director of the College's Alden March Bioethics Institute and stripped of the John A. Balint Endowed Chair on May 14, though he is still considered a tenured professor.'. So we can say (without knowing a lick of bioethics) that he was 'fired'. He didn't depart and he didn't quit, he was fired. And yes it does say that he's still an tenured professor. Guyonthesubway (talk) 18:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but remaining a tenured professor is the DEFINITION of not being fired. You say so yourself, "He didn't depart and he didn't quit, he was fired.  And yes it does say that he's still an tenured professor."  And frankly Albany Medical College has never, ever said McGee was stripped of anything.  They have point-blank denied that anything was not mutual.  It is obvious in the court filing you didn't read that McGee had another side to it, which was as much part of the controversy as anything else.  And your conclusion that torching McGee by eliminating 60% of Berkeley's fair appraisal - which was no whitewash by any means, in fact (actually) it was meaner, with much more attack on McGee (a whole SECTION) - because of what you see as his attitude -- it is just not ok.  PLEASE be fair and stand up for this.
 * Gosh, for a totally univolved party you sure have tons of unpublished, unsourced and unusable and yet very detailed information...it sure is a shame we can't use it.  I'm sure you don't have an intimate involvement in the matter.   These are the words of the Times Union, please feel free to get them to print a retraction. Guyonthesubway (talk) 12:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

USER:74.76.191.81
Geolocates to Glenns Falls and roadrunner, the same as the anon IP that claimed to be Gelnn McGee. Seems pretty likely its the same person. Guyonthesubway (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Guy, the same anonymous IP just now attempted to remove your comment. I pointed him to WP:RFO but I'm skeptical they will do anything, as if he wished to be less identifiable he could and should log in. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Slate retraction
Thanks Guillaume2303 for removing the link to the retracted Slate story — I'd just come here to do the same thing but found it was already done. There's more background about what happened at http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/slate-retracts-story-on-glenn-mcgee-and-celltex-as-mcgee-resigns-from-company/ but I don't think we can use it as a source in the article (it's a blog). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, some blogs are considered to be reliable sources and Retractionwatch might be one of it, as I think it is quite highly regarded (they have a monthly column in Lab Times). (It is, by the way, the only blog that I subscribe to and together with that of my wife, one of only two that I regularly read... But that's besides the point, of course :-) We could check at the RS noticeboard to see what others think (but I have at the moment no time for that). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Seriously. Retraction Watch is edited by Ivan Oransky, who has made no bones about his animosity toward McGee, was McGee's editor at The Scientist, and commissioned the Borrell articles at scam.com when Oransky moved there. Either way the retraction was the first in the history of bioethics, and the second in the history of Slate. It is absolutely amazing that you get away with these flatly political edits and feel no accountability for them. I'm sure you'll do it again. But on the record the omission, and the statements inserted about claims about COI as editor that were in fact the reason for the Slate retraction according to countless sources who AREN'T McGee's former editor (whether your wife loves his blog or not). Citation: Lawrence McCullough, Baylor College of Medicine, in Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/send-lawyers-guns-and-stem-cells/44448#comment-457085462 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.76.55.4 (talk) 07:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Once again, an SPA with such intimate knowledge of unpublished details of the subject... hmmm... Guyonthesubway (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't start with more fallacious nonsense about who is writing. The "SPA" is right.  Your agreed upon - and that is suspicious - design to edit the Slate withdrawal would be misleading and biased.  The retraction of an article in Slate about McGee caused, pace McCullough, at least 10 major blog entries in places like Chronicle of Higher Education, Pharmalot, Inside Higher Ed, and Nature, which devoted quite a bit of discussion to the retraction.  Nature, Guillaume2303's wife will know, is one of the top 3 most read journals in all of science.  If they thought the Slate retraction was significant, is it really your place to decide otherwise??  In the history of the publication of Slate no article had been retracted.  That is public knowledge, should be in this article, but isn't.  In the history of bioethics, to my knowledge, no major scholar has ever had an article retracted from a major magazine.  That has been alleged in major public sources, but is not noted in the Wikipedia article.  Why?  Retraction Watch's commentary is by Ivan Oransky, which is cited but without any reference to the public discussion of the fact that Oransky is McGee's former editor, or the person behind the article about McGee at SciAm.com??  I find it appalling that you believe that it is your prerogative to continue to commit this logical fallacy of flipping the burden of proof every time your edits are corrected by *anyone* who is not on a vendetta to attack McGee.  I suspect that Guyonthesubway, Guillaume2303, and/or David Eppstein are acting from financial reward or political connection and encourage someone to investigate it.  This Wikipedia article is a laughing stock because it reflects a witch hunt by three people, "heavily armed," over a period of years.    Even if that doesn't happen - and I'm going to try to see that it does - you must either accept that it was a valid edit by the "SPA" or revert to your version based solely on your power to do so, since you have no content area knowledge at all and have made no defense of your edit in the face of all the public sources available  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.94.195.202 (talk) 05:23, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a silly debate. Edit has been re-added with a reference. Next time you want to make an edit and don't want the people working on the page to delete it, CITE the source, don't just claim it exists. SPA is right the issue is major. Reference added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.62.244.51 (talk) 06:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh look, a bunch of IP editors with a common voice. I'm sure there's no connection between them.  That might be unethical.  I like the rant about getting paid, though.  For the record, I have no financial, political or personal connection with the content, subject, or editing of this article.  Can the IP's state the same?   One might wonder what an ethicist would say about such a thing?  Guyonthesubway (talk) 20:46, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

As for the sourcing the IPs want to add for the Slate retraction: one of the two supposed sources (the one in Nature) doesn't mention Slate at all, and the other (in the Chronicle of Higher Education) appears to be an opinion piece by the author of the retracted Slate piece defending himself. As such, WP:NEWSORG suggests that it is not a good source for statements of fact. And there is absolutely no support for the claim that the retracted Slate article is the "most notable" of the multiple sources discussing the controversy over his Celltex move. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 16:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)