Talk:Shiva Ayyadurai/Archive 1

Cleanup
Removed cleanup tag, because the article appears to have sectionsTheHappiestCritic (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Bordering on fraud
This guy has apparently convinced a few reporters that he invented e-mail.

The claim is, on the face, false based on dates alone: e-mail was in widespread use well before the 1978 date claimed by Mr. Ayyadurai; see for example the E-mail Wikipedia page.

JMForbes (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion
Keep this article. Only because I think it is important to keep a record of and clarify that this individual did NOT invent the concept of email or even the first implementation. It seems that there is some confusion which exists about this because he continues to suggest that he did invent it and some media outlets have picked it up. Keeping this article will provide a way to debunk these claims and ensure that media fact checkers can see what's going on. --BenFranske (talk) 02:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I would be happy with that outcome, although it would reduce the article to a discussion (and debunking) of his email claims, and only those other statements that can be reliably sourced. As it stands, the articles claims far too much apart from email, and we cannot have adequate confidence in this additional material to let much of it stand. Although our standards for objectivity should apply equally to all BLP articles, in this case we have a pressing need to actually enforce these standards, which means checking out claims and sources for reliability. As discussed already, too much of what's here now is either trivial, or not supported by a source that we can really trust.
 * Or we could just take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Keep. There has been so much analysis around the world on his claim (some examples:, , , ). He has become himself the main subject, we cannot just say that he is not notable.Z22 (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Keep. Notable due to exaggerated claims appearing in WP and Time. Scanlyze (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Should the discussion whether to delete or keep go here Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai instead? Z22 (talk) 17:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai Andy Dingley (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

EMAIL as a word
May 1981 on USENET group fa.human-nets. ,


 * Do you find any reference to Teletext itself that there was something called EMAIL (again they really like the all capital names, don't they?). All we know right now, the document that Ayyadurai submitted to the Westinghouse's committee which had many references to the word EMAIL was before January 1981. Z22 (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

email/EMAIL controversy
I've rewritten and expanded this section, while taking some material out. Reason: some of it is synthesis wp:synth. We can't patch in material that doesn't specifically reference the Ayyadurai controversy as a means of making an argument. There are plenty of references that do, and we're obligated to stay with those. Barte (talk) 19:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I've reverted this. I don't consider the term "whitewash" to be too strong.  To save time later I'll ask it bluntly now: Are you another sockpuppet of Shiva Ayyadurai?   Andy Dingley (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)


 * That accusation is completely unfounded: I'm clearly identified on my talk page, and I've been editing here two years longer than you have. The issue is not whitewash--its OR versus covering the controversy--and its synthesis: you simply can't make an argument using sources that don't reference the controversy.   The section as is is an an attempt to cover both sides.  If you think its incomplete, fix it.  If you are going to revert it--then *you* fix the wp:synth.Barte (talk) 20:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC)  Also--you reverted even before I was done editing.  Before brandishing terms like "whitewash", take a deep breath and let me finish. Barte (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Repercussions
This section claims that one of the repercussions of the controversy was that "MIT disassociated itself from Ayydurai's EMAIL Lab." If you read the Boston Magazine article sourced there, it says that Ayydurai "created" the lab himself. On the site for EMAIL Lab, it says "THE EMAIL Lab was first started in 2001 as the EMAIL Research Institute in Cambridge, MA." This lab was never created as an MIT affiliated research lab, so to say that MIT disassociated itself as a result of this controversy is a stretch, at best. From the looks of it (see paragraph "How Did Ayyadurai Make His Claim?"), he was simply misusing MIT branding to bolster the reputation of this unaffiliated lab and this branding was later removed. You can't disassociate from something with which you were never associated.Zippylong (talk) 04:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's the excerpt from the Boston Magazine article that the sentence is based on:
 * "But the geeks still weren’t done. They e-mailed the faculty, staff, and trustees at MIT, where many of them had been during their ARPANET days. Why, they asked, was Shiva promoting himself on his website as the head of the MIT EMAIL Lab — which Shiva created to “invent innovative solutions for addressing challenges faced in the field of communication by today’s organizations”? Why, they demanded to know, was the Institute affiliating itself with someone of such questionable character? Within days, MIT told Shiva that it no longer wanted to be associated with the EMAIL Lab" [italics mine]
 * Seems to me the article sentence accurately reflects the citation. Barte (talk) 05:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Controversial or False Claim?
The article leads with He is best known for his controversial claims to have 'invented' email (or EMAIL). This claim is obviously false, as supported by the increasing list of references. Therefore shouldn't it say false claim? And his use of EMAIL (in all caps) is already discussed in the article, so I propose this text: He is best known for his false claim to have invented email (without the quotes around email). Jpgs (talk) 07:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I would prefer "exaggerated" (less accurate, but also less blatantly controversial) and also "EMAIL" as that's all he claims.
 * We can then (and really, must) clarify that as (something like), "His recorded copyright over one form of capitalisation, describing a new system that he had developed, post-dated already existing email systems. This copyright represents the mode of spelling, but is no claim for invention although it has been assumed by several media sources to be so." Andy Dingley (talk) 09:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC) But note that the name of the program "EMAIL" was not subject to copyright; the name of a program could potentially be a trademark, but he didn't get one.  He filed for copyright registration on the program itself.  His "EMAIL" program was used at Rutgers Med, and didn't go much farther.  Also, copyright does not require registration; you just include the notice in the program and it's covered.  He just felt like getting a certificate. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * More on the controversial side than false. As mentioned in the article, he referred to 6 attributes to be called email. Also, most of them has a distinction for his claim like email as we know today, ... Cc:, Bcc:, ...and other features (implying it is more than just header fields), ... like Hotmail or Gmail. This is a controversial claim. There is a part in TIME Techland that he mentioned about Cc and Bcc with references to RFCs in the 80s. The Bcc part was false, but the reference to RFCs according to the details of the claim on his website, he referred to those RFCs as to the development of SMTP, but he did not mention specific RFC# (if I'm not mistaken, SMTP is RFC 821). So when we look at his claim, we need to look at it in the entirety, which is mostly controversial with only a potion that we can say false. Z22 (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Where's the controversy? Who is still refuting the debunking by TechDirt et al? He made false claims, these claims were debunked, there is no grey area left over which to raise a controversy. It is a falsehood, no longer a "controversy", to claim that he invented Cc: before RFC822, when this is so clearly preceded by RFC733 and others. It would be remarkable indeed if Ayyadurai has responded to TechDirt pointing him to the earlier RFCs and still claiming his own precedence.
 * I have no evidence that Ayyadurai has ever read an RFC, so I cannot claim the stronger "he lied" and only that "his claim was wrong" (which may indeed have been innocent). There is no question now though that these claims were wrong, and they were wrong when he made them. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no controversy, only false claims. He defines 6 "mandatory" attributes (of his own and arguable!) and there is evident prior art for everything he claims: header fields indeed, but also for other hidden mechanisms which are necessary for any email system to work (between offices like between continents), such as mailboxes, transport, archival, etc., and some of us are looking at it in its entirety and it comes from well before SMTP (which latest revision is RFC5321). The good thing is that everything is recorded in the RFCs!... No, even the USPTO would immediately refute his claims!...
 * VS Shiva doesn't deserve any care: he doesn't seem that embarrassed if we look at all the links on his selfish personal website that point to those misled articles presenting him as The inventor of electronic mail. He seems rather flattered.
 * If he was innocent, he should at least have noticed he was being mistaken by his interviewers and he should have made it clear he was talking about his EMAIL product. No, what he did was to let the game going, playing with the email/EMAIL confusion and hearing himself talk about the future of the internet and so...
 * Even Dave H. Crocker, former ARPANET researcher and coauthor of RFC724/733 (among others) just said VA Shiva is a conman!... Evoisard (talk) 00:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If you want to see prior art, look at the emails (and read them btw...) in this archive of the first ARPANET mailing list "MsgGroup". In 1975, when VA Shiva was 11, mail headers with To: and Cc: weren't that different than current ones, and there was a distribution mechanism perfectly capable of handling multiple recipients and multiple sites. There was email! Evoisard (talk) 00:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

While I personally have no doubt that Shiva has been intentionally misleading, he's also generally been very careful in his writing to only claim "EMAIL" - and to let the careless journalists make the "big claims". It's important that the article keep it's encyclopedic tone, as it makes the facts clear. Snori (talk) 08:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * OTOH, he's been quick to confuse copyright and the sort of novel invention that requires a patent to cover it. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, he hasn't! If you look at his web page, he lists himself prominently as the inventor of Email - *not* in all caps.  He is intentionally lying.  Jpgs (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)  And he calls himself "Dr. Email" on some web sites, including the one of his bulk-emailing company, EchoMail. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Not that I agree or disagree anything here in the context of whether to use the world EMAIL (all caps) will be less or more confusing, I just want to point out about how careful he is in term of using the word EMAIL. At least from what I have seen on his web site, only the words email that are not all capitals were written by someone other than himself (i.e. the press). Try google "email site:vashiva.com" and see the result. Unless you can point out to a specific page that you referred to when your made that comment. Z22 (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, it is all over his main page, but they are the images from all the Web sites he posts to. He does usa all caps in the text on the page.  But of course, he could not include all the big images that do have email not in all caps.  Jpgs (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * That's right he carefully keeps using EMAIL everywhere. However in his (own) article The History of EMAIL, he calls prior systems not true EMAIL systems but "text messaging systems that only computer geeks could use". That's right in the early seventies, only scientists and computer nerds had access to computers, and GUIs didn't exist!
 * Why his article really is crooked is because he places himself and his program in the middle ot the electronic mail history (where he omits RFC724 btw), like if it were a major event that led to modern email... He never mentions "email" but he refers to other email systems and technologies that actually are milestones in the evolution of electronic mail and he puts himself in the center, between the development of TCP/IP and the development of SMTP, not less. How to say it, he puts his "EMAIL" stuff in a deceptive context. It's wily. Evoisard (talk) 18:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * In Fortran, EVERYTHING was in all CAPS. It was the standard. You can check out Chomksy's statement at press release or just look up the copyright filing and some tech history. Arttechlaw • contribs 19:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a Mea Culpa dated 03/01/2012 from the Washington Post and a blog post about their article that dates 02/24/2012 that I didn't notice... Evoisard (talk) 22:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Added for future reference
Rebuttal to HuffPo's columns: --Neil N  talk to me 21:58, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Notability?
Why is this guy notable? He wrote an early email program called EMAIL, but there were many email clients using databases for years on the ARPANET, other public networks, and corporate enterprise networks such as IBM VNET. The other aspect in the bio are not particularly notable either. Jpgs (talk) 16:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This is the profile of, at best, a run-of-the-mill visiting lecturer and self-promoter. There is a whole paragraph on a paper he once presented on Biomimetics to an audience of people in the Hospitality Industry. If you've been to grad school, you'll know why it's not wikipedia-worthy to mention a paper you once presented, let alone a paper in a non-peer-reviewed conference, to a group of people outside your domain of expertise. Could someone please explain why this whole page is not just a vanity project? [unsigned 67.255.1.24 20:04, February 19, 2012 (UTC)]
 * Maybe he also invented Astroturfing... Alan Davies (talk) 23:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed: I see no notability here; neither does the text argue why he is notable. ... richi (hello) 19:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Further coverage on Techdirt and Gizmodo. Various technical email lists (including the ex-BBN list on which I participate) have been abuzz with what hogwash this claim is. I strongly support deletion of this page. Jpgs (talk) 20:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Might be notable for his audacity and ability to perpetrate a fraud. Getting Time Magazine and the Washington Post to cite you as the creator of email is at least notable for hutzpah and self-promotion capabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.134.212 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Now that he is the subject of scrutiny around the world on his inventor of email claim, unfortunately, he became notable and we should remove the non-notable tag. Also the email section has been cleaned up with added info on critics, I think it is fair to keep this article. Z22 (talk) 01:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Most Harvard and MIT professors have their own page, and the initial iteration of his page contained a lot more of the other things he did before the tech community became so upset about the email controversy. His Fulbright trip to India uncovered a good deal of corruption in the Indian government. The Cytosolve computational model aggregator he developed during his PhD in Biology also has significant implications for the pharmaceutical industry. I think recent iterations of this page have become very biased through questionable edits from those too emotionally invested in the email PR battle. Arttechlaw • contribs) 16:14, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If you see notable, verifiable material that is either missing or was deleted from previous versions, feel free to add or reinstate. But, as the editor who expanded the section on EMAIL (without deleting from any other section), I'd push on the idea that they were questionable edits. They are well-referenced, from notable secondary sources and attempt to give voice to both sides of the controversy.  They pass the wp:v test and focus on the topic that, for better or worse, the subject of this article is best known for. If you think more balance is needed, just follow suit.  Barte (talk) 05:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Is there evidence that he actually was an MIT professor? He is not one currently and while there are many sources calling him an MIT professor, I'm told he actually held the title of lecturer. Anyone have anything official either way? Jlick (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * No, but the article itself doesn't make that claim. As was noted above, once the email inventor controversy erupted with coverage from Time, Washington Post, et. al., he was notable regardless. Barte (talk) 20:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * My comment above was in response to Arttechlaw's comment and was formatted as such with a single indent. For some reason you have reformatted with two indents to make it appear that I was responding to your comment. I've taken the liberty of reformatting it back to a single indent to indicate that I am replying to Arttechlaw's comment. While this does fall in the Notability section, I make no comment as to the question of notability. I am merely commenting on Arttechlaw's calling the subject an "MIT professor" when it is not clear he ever held that title. Perhaps this can be split off in a separate section if it makes it clearer? Jlick (talk) 05:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

HuffPo series pulled
HuffPo has pulled the series on Ayyadurai's alleged invention of email, with a minimal note. See Talk:Email. We weren't using any of those refs, though. IRW0 (talk) 07:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

CSIR Controversy
Seems like this section doesn't really meet WP:NPOV. It contains two sources that support him with direct quotes, but merely mentions that "unprofessional conduct" was the reason for his dismissal. There's no additional information provided, despite there being substantially more available.

He wasn't hired as a scientist, but as a business consultant. Apparently during his temporary employ as a business consultant, he never agreed to the terms of the position as an STIO and instead insisted on an "unreasonable financial package". So the bit about his position as an "Additional Secretary in the Indian government" seems a bit specious. Consultants aren't given official positions.

It also says that he "[submitted] a draft report", but leaves out that in this report he criticized his direct supervisor of cronyism and incompetence and then he actually emailed it to ~4,000 scientists whose contact information was retrieved without authorization. Most likely this was not his assigned task. Furthermore, he started the paper with a poem that looks bizarrely like a manifesto. The corruption is arguable from the facts at hand, but it its much harder to make a case against the "unprofessional conduct".

The last paragraph of the CSIR section seems to be rather self-promotional, linking to his website and talking about his non-profit. The red text for the non-profit makes me question the legitimacy of its origin.

This section has worthwhile information, but I think there's far too much minutia and self-promotion within. His actual part in it is roughly a paragraph, with the details left in the cited references. Would some of the bits about corruption would perhaps be better suited on the CSIR page? That would clear out all the irrelevant backstory on CSIR. If we're going to keep it, this section needs to be more factual and neutral. Either present all viewpoints or just hand over the few facts and let people dig for the rest.

PassingCommenter (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Be bold and take the hatchet to that section. Pinkbeast (talk) 11:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Done. It's a lot easier to read, but please review. I am not an expert at this. - PassingCommenter (talk) 10:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Systems Visualization - text mirrors that found on his sites. Also, not a real field?
This entire section sounds quite promotional. Much of it seems to directly mirror what's said on his site. Hardly an impartial reference. I've never heard of this field before, and I'm not finding any references to it online that aren't from sites selling his name or his course on it. It fell under the "Comparative Media Studies" umbrella at MIT according to his own site. Comparative Media Studies usually gives a lot of leeway for new courses, content and opinions without a lot of rigorous scrutiny (personal opinion). It doesn't seem to lend much credence to this being a "new field" as opposed to focusing on an aspect of an existing skill (presentation).

Reading the description, it sounds like you qualify as a Systems Visualization expert if you present a marketing pitch along with slides, such as a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation. I don't think it's a new field, and I don't think he introduced it, though I'm sure he'd love to coin a term for it and become an inventor. At most, it's a footnote in the art of promotion and presentation. Not something else for him to take credit for.

I'd prefer it all removed, but I'll just do this bit of legwork and let more invested editors debate it now that I've said my piece.

PassingCommenter (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't disagree. As ever, the non-Ayyadurai sources don't actually seem to say very much of what's in the article. Pinkbeast (talk) 10:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. It's not a distinct area of study. It seems more like the offhand name for a course or article and there's little evidence of it being a substantial research field, let alone one invented by the subject. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I removed the entire section. 1/2 of it was an airy description of the field and the other half was unrelated events strung together to give the reader the impression that Ayyadurai invented a burgeoning field. Protonk (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

"Systems Health", USPS
The mention of Systems Health in the lead is cited only to the Chopra Center; self-promotion. The article itself (systems medicine was created by an Ayyadurai sock and was a complete mess, a mix of woo and a list of research groups who, one imagines, have no desire whatsoever to be associated with the woo. (It's still a bit of a mess, but I stripped the woo as best as I could). I suggest it be removed from the article.

The large paragraph on the USPS is (a typical theme here) very short on sources that aren't Ayyadurai, the MIT Email Lab (and dead links), or people quoting Ayyadurai. As far as I can see the only really pertinent independently cited fact is that the USPS did indeed have a contract with the International Center for Integrative Systems. I suggest it be reduced to that fact. Pinkbeast (talk) 11:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed the USPS section. Once you got down to it, it was a claim that one of Ayyadurai's companies entered into a contract with the postal service. That's it. Protonk (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Sections to be included
Someone removed all other sections than the Email claims section. I think, instead of removing everything else, we just need to rewrite his bio a bit in the format that reads better than the one before the removal. I will try to put together the new Early life, and Career sections. Definitely, CSIR controversy should be included (perhaps in the Career section). Anything else we should have? Also we should keep note to ourselves that when creating an article about a person, not all parts of the article must be all from notable events. Not very often that notable people will have their Early life section with full of notable events. Also, regardless of how we personally feel about the person, we should keep it objective and try the best to put a full article with interesting details about the person once the notability has been established. In this case, the notability is there, we just need to clean up and make a nice article to read. Z22 (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My feelings too. I've made an effort. Snori (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your edit was much better than the original article. I added some wording changes and added info on additional claims. Z22 (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This is getting much better, but why is the Traditional Medicine section there? Many academics talk at international conferences (I'm at one right now and do several a year), but this doesn't deserve a section.  In fact, it is not notable unless he has been invited to a long list of prestigious conferences. Jpgs (talk) 07:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not all sections of an article of a notable person must be notable in itself as long as it is not trivial. For example, an actor who like red color and has once aspired to be a doctor, we can have some contents about his inspiration to be a doctor but he changed his mind to be an actor. This helps broaden our knowledge about the person. However, we should not include that he likes red color because it does not help in anyway to gain the knowledge for the general public unless that person is so obsessed with red color such that it affects his behavior in an obvious way recognizable by the public. Of course, all parts (notable or not) must be from verifiable sources. For this instance, I won't feel bad if this section has been merged with something else in that just to know that he has been invloved in various fields and traditional medicine is one of them. My opinion is that we should totally remove that section as this is somewhat an unusual feature of a person who is interested in technology and modern biology, but also in traditional medicine (or maybe it is not that unusual, I don't know). Z22 (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If we keep anything here, we might as well keep that section, as he appears to have been awarded a Fulbright grant to study it specifically. Noting the conference at which he presented afterwards is reasonable too (because the conference matters to the Fulbright-funded research, not because he was notable to the conference). However neither of these would support notability on their own - they're there to fill out the article, not to justify it. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I meant to say that we should not totally remove that section. I agree that the section is not for justifying his notability, just to fill out the article. Z22 (talk) 15:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The Traditional Medicine section would benefit from being expanded to include his other contributions to the field of Medicine, such as his biotech research and the development of the Cytosolve computational model aggregator, which could have a significant impact on the possibilities of testing biopharmaceuticals in silica. The Traditional Medicine makes it sound like that's ALL he's done, rather than just a viewpoint he has on systems design and the way people conceptualize medicine. Arttechlaw (talk • contribs) 16:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I just tried cleaning up that section. The problem seemed to go in the other direction, I thought: References to random talks at conferences, or claims not substantiated by the links. It seems like the big issue here is what you call "contributions." In brief, I haven't been able to find any independent sources substantiating claims that he's made any significant contributions. It seems like mostly self-promotion, etc. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The article would benefit from the inclusion of scientific publications similar to those on Deepak Chopra's page and the various media, biotech and non-profit companies and ventures he has founded (similar to those that can be found on Robert S. Langer's page. The inclusion would help fill out his academic and professional background and provide more of a context for subsequent events. Mattsabe (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is much in the way of legitimate, reputable scientific material out there related to his work. I just revised some sections of the article, where it seems like many references more or less rely on (1) retracted news articles, (2) unsubstantiated claims by the subject himself (sometimes repeated but not verified in a secondary new source), and (3) references to a talk he gave somewhere, sometime. These do not seem to pass muster for expanding the article and suggest some sections should probably be cut. In the end, it seems like his claim to fame is being the EMAIL guy who convinced some newspapers and websites to propound the claim that he invented email, only to later see those articles retracted.   betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Pursuant to above and other comments. I am going to eliminate the puffy sections on his HarvardSquare website and the health stuff, as they don't seem to be part of any larger scientific or technological interest. betweenfloors (talk) 10:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky
An edit that was lost was this one, where a reference to the Chomsky statement had become a missing link. Now, it's not like there's any lack of other copies of that statement; I suggest here.

But (I realise this is mere speculation)... did Chomsky really write that? Chomsky allegedly made an earlier statement that appears here. The first one reads more like him, and is plausible given that Chomsky might not have looked into it in any detail, the usual confusion between EMAIL and e-mail, etc., although it is odd it appears nowhere on the Web save on Ayyadurai's website.

But the second? Blatant plug for one of Ayyadurai's websites. Not in particularly good English (eg "Note Shiva, received his formal Copyright registration in 1982." with its spurious comma and capital), where Chomsky's writing is essentially completely devoid of such errors. With the byline of The International Center for Integrative Systems on as well as Chomsky, even though the piece itself purports to be by Chomsky. Sudden focus on "replicate electronically the interoffice, inter-organizational mail system" (the Ayyadurai trick where "email" is defined as being a system with precisely the features of EMAIL)... "These are indisputable facts, as I have referred to in my earlier statement", but in fact the earlier statement makes no mention of that.

Neither statement (or any related material) appears on. Nothing related on Chomsky's Facebook page. I think the closest we get to a definitive statement that he was actually involved is the Wired article where they contact him by email and "What I found out seemed to confirm his story," Chomsky tells Wired. "I read his documentation, the counterarguments, his responses, and his position seemed to me plausible." That - "seemed plausible" is a long way from the vehement language of the second statement.

Of course, there's not much we can do about this at present; supposedly reliable sources say Chomsky wrote that. But it's worth keeping one's eyes open... Pinkbeast (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Subject's website as a primary source
Is the subject's webpage valid or not for citing here? At this writing, some material from the article has been taken out on the grounds that the cite is not neutral. Some material citing the same source remains. My preference is to go easy here, this being a BLP. For the sake of balance, I'd think we should be flexible in letting the subject have his say. Obviously, secondary sources are preferred for this purpose, but where that's not possible, a primary source (his website) could being used here without interpretation. We are excerpting, not interpreting. Barte (talk) 19:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I can't really keep up with the recent changes to this article, but I'm basically OK with using the subject's website for certain claims. There are some basic problems we should be aware of. First, we're not really worried about uncontroversial claims which haven't been reported elsewhere (I think a previous edit removed the birthdate cited to his website, that kinda stuff should really be restored). We're worried about presenting claims about live controversies (e.g. EMAIL) against those of third parties. This is an especially problematic situation as the content on Ayyadurai's site is often heavily promotional and makes the sort of claims we traditionally demand a great deal of evidence for. In those cases we're often moving beyond extending a BLP courtesy to inserting claims which when made in reliable sources have been retracted (see WaPo and HuffPo). That's a problem. Second, I think I removed a claim from Michelson sourced to the subject's website which you reinserted. I'm not mad and I don't think you did anything wrong, but I feel we have to be really careful with these sorts of sources. The specific claim "it was the electronic interoffice, inter-organizational mail system, the first of its kind, an integrated platform that provided all the recognizable elements of the email, we all know and use today." is identical to the claim in the second HuffPo article (google cache). If the only venue Michelson can find for that claim is the subject's website, we need think about how willing we should be to cite it and how to cite it without giving the impression that the claim is materially independent from the subject. Because it's not, really. Protonk (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed some of the references to the author's website, including the Michelson (apparently like the person above, too). My concern was that he was presenting lengthy statements by others, without external evidence of their truthfulness. For example, elsewhere he has made claims about what others said or did, to have them contradicted by said persons (for exapmle, see the Arianna Huffington stuff on https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140907/06302728447/huffington-post-finally-removes-all-articles-about-fake-email-inventor-meanwhile-he-threatens-to-sue-his-critics.shtml ). Likewise, though a press release on his website offers a lengthy text purportedly from Noam Chomsky, when I googled what Chomsky said, his statements to Wired seemed much more hedged and cautious (Chomsky says I read his documentation, the counterarguments, his responses, and his position seemed to me plausible") than the larger claims currently offered in the article, based on a press release from the subject. There was another lengthy quote from a teacher along the same lines, albeit framed with a lot of discussion with how the laboratory work--again, it seemed odd that this was presented on the subject's website and taken at face value, especially after allegations that the "History of Email" piece on HuffPo was plagiarized or ghostwritten by the subject. The whole swirl of allegations at present makes it difficult to figure out what's what. So for unverified comments purportedly from third parties, it seems that it would be helpful to use sources other than the subject's website. So anyway, the point is yes, as stated above, the subject should have his say and I think the current entry allows for that. But it is questionable when he uses his site to speak on other's behalf, especially when the article is not attributing those quotes to the subject but rather to Chomsky, Michelson, etc. Betweenfloors (talk) 22:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * If the rule of thumb here is that his site is a fair reference here for his views, but not others: I can see the point--and it's useful to spell it out here. In an attempt to restore Michelson's comments, I did a search to see if his views are given anywhere else, as Chomsky was quoted in Wired. I came up empty.  Even the lengthy Boston Magazine piece, while mentioning his lab, does not quote him contemporaneously. Barte (talk) 21:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ayyadurai deserves a fair and balanced discussion on his bio page. Inclusion of biased blog writers who comment on him violates WP:BLP, as I have indicated on the Talk:Email page. Also, he is entitled to be quoted, as described in that policy. --Zeamays (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Did you just repeat the same comment from a different thread? Protonk (talk) 23:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The point is important, and some editors don't appear to be paying attention. --Zeamays (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * So you felt that repeating the same statement verbatim in a section which discusses something completely different would educate these unnamed editors? Protonk (talk) 13:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I offended you. --Zeamays (talk) 14:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear--I think we're all basically in accord, Zeamays. There was a lot of material referenced back to Ayyadurai's blog, without independent verification. The original intervention was to say that Ayyadurai's blog can't be used to propound unverified statements attributed to third parties. That was the original problem with Michelson and Chomsky--the sources traced back to a blog from Ayyadurai. These are two accomplished scientists with publications, public visibility and so on, so it was odd that the only supporting statements from them appeared on Ayyadurai's blog. In fact, an independent piece of reportage from Wired reported statements from Chomsky that showed more nuance and caution than the press release offered by Ayyadurai on his personal website. On top of that, the one "independent" statement from Michelson that appeared on HuffPo was (1) blogger-generated, (2) accused of not really being authored by Michelson, and partially in response to that claim, (3) retracted by HuffPo. So the point is, we're not arguing against anyone having their say. The original concern was in fact to ensure that people have "their own" say, with suggested edits to get the kinds of reliable sourcing you advocate for above. Therefore the aforementioned changes are, as far as I can tell, uncontroversial.  I think we're reaching productive consensus, here. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I think I can agree with keeping the Wired cite to Chomsky while removing the press release about Chomsky on Ayyadurai's site. Protonk (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. I also added The Verge ref. Barte (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Another point along the same lines: The entry currently says that "Ayyadurai won a Westinghouse Science Talent Search award for high school seniors in 1981." Support for this claim comes from a scan of a program on the subject's page. First, it would be worthwhile to get some kind of independent verification for this. Second, the program it links to lists the subject as belonging to an "Honor Group" that seems to include 5 or 10 students from each state ( http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/inv02.asp ). This is not without significance but it's not the same thing as winning the Westinghouse award. The current phrasing is ambiguous. Third, other pages on Ayyadurai's website substantiate his claims via retracted or withdrawn articles from HuffPo etc. Ayyadurai seems to have saved screen shots from these withdrawn articles and is presenting them as current. It's the misleading character of this practice, as well as the misleading characterization of Ayyadurai as an award winner, that leads me to think some kind of independent sourcing is necessary. Betweenfloors (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Sources for email section
Since there's been some concern about the quality and nature of sources in the email section, I propose we stick to (mainly) the following sources, many of which are in the article already:


 * The smithsonian statement on accepting the EMAIL materials (more on this in a bit)
 * The boston magazine article describing the controversy
 * The wired article noting Chomsky's comments (I prefer them over the verge who basically just rephrases the press release from Ayyadurai's site)
 * This LA Times article from Michael Hiltzik (who has written a book on email history)
 * This history of email from Dave Crocker
 * The email history page from Haigh
 * One source (maybe the same one we have now) from Ayyadurai on his response to the criticism (more on this as well)

For the remainder which are in the article now I propose we either remove them or trim down their use a bit. For example, we cite Gizmodo in this BLP despite BLP being quite clear about blogs like Gizmodo being treated with scrutiny. We can hem and haw over whether or not they have a "staff" or whatever, but the same author published this just this year so it's not exactly a high water mark for sober journalism. While the original Gizmodo article does the legwork of talking to Tomlinson and Crocker, there's nothing in it which isn't found elsewhere. If we're intent on keeping it we should focus on the Tomlinson quote cited by Biddle and not the remainder of the article.

We also cite (and quote extensively) retractions by various papers. It's important for us to note the retractions here but not as important to hammer the point home with a blockquote where it isn't really needed.

For the smithsonian statement, take a look at what I posted on the Email talk page. In short, I think the statement is fine as a primary source on the museum's acquisition but that's it. We should treat it as we do any other primary source and be careful not to interpret too much from it. Sometimes on BLPs we get into the habit of conflating "primary" and "non-independent", in this case I mean primary in the canonical sense. It's a statement about a material acquisition from an institution. We should be careful that it isn't doing too much work in a BLP.

This is my personal preference but I'd like not to cite the Time Techland piece on claims about email unless we're clearly citing the interview and Ayyadurai's statements in it. The interview is softball after softball and the claims made in it are similar to those which have not sustained publication in the Washington Post, the New York Times (in their case just a tweet) or even HuffPo.

As for statements on Ayyadurai's site, I think we should qualify or curtail their use. We normally allow some latitude for BLP subjects to "speak out" on their page, but as it is written right now we're using his "personal statement" to advance claims about the nature of prior art in email which we know not to be true and which more importantly are directly addressed and dismissed by reliable sources. In this case the statement is both a primary source and not independent from the subject, so we need to be careful when presenting them. If that sounds harsh, consider the flow of the article as it is right now. We start with the claim that the subject "invented" email, note the various claw-backs on that claim from sources which reported it, offer some color on the history of email in context of those claims and then let stand the modified (but still problematic) claim from the subject that he basically invented modern email, including statements of fact which we know to be wrong (e.g. the headers used, which were proposed in RFC 561 in 1973).

I don't think we need to cite Masnick (the current revision of the article doesn't, AFAIK). While he covers the history fairly well he's mostly writing about the journalistic malfeasance at Huffington Post in allowing their email series to be presented as reported fact. Since the huffpo series has been completely retracted (and doesn't appear in the article) we probably don't need to bring him into the debate. If we want to add a comment on the huffpo series I'm ok with using Masnick to support a short claim that the Huffington Post ran a series on the "invention of email" which it later retracted, but that's a discussion for another time.

By and large this proposal basically just suggests we remove the gizmodo and verge cites, trim down the quotes or usage of the Post's retraction statement and lessen our reliance on the smithsonian statement. Other than that, most of the above citations are already in the article. Since it is unlikely that EMAIL will get an article and very unlikely that the controversy over EMAIL will see a larger overview elsewhere, this article represents the space to tell the reader about the controversy. We should treat that as a responsibility to be fair, direct and proportionate in our coverage of verifiable claims. We don't want to bag on Ayyadurai in the voice of the encyclopedia or grant undue weight to retractions where we can instead discuss the history. But we also don't want to repurpose BLP to degrade this article into "he said/she said" claims where we present the controversy as a difference of opinion between equally well represented views. It's not. Ayyadurai invented neither "email" nor "email as we know it today"--until and unless we find considerable sourcing to support these extraordinary claims we should be judicious in granting space to them. Protonk (talk) 13:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with your list, including omitting Masnick ( in the absence of any HuffPo mention) and Biddle and including Hiltzik. And I agree about the scope of the Smithsonian statement as a primary source. But I don't think we can exclude Time Techland on the basis of softball questions--because our purpose here is to cover a controversy, not resolve Ayyadurai's place in computer history. We've done that in the Email article--the verdict is a single mention.  Here, we are covering what appears to be the single event that justifies a Shiva Ayyadurai Wikipedia article in the first place:  the controversy over his claim and the counter-claims that follow.  That controversy, as far as I can tell, began with the Time Techland interview: "The Man Who Invented Email".  (Which BTW has never been retracted.)  I don't know if the personal website came before or after, but the Smithsonian acquisition, Washington Post coverage and retraction, David Pogue NYT coverage and retraction (Hiltzik mentions and links) and general brouhaha all followed Time Techland.  In the sequence of things, that interview appears to be the ignition. As for his personal website, that now remains the only place where Ayyadurai spells out why he thinks he invented email. So it is inevitable if we are going to cover your last bullet point.  Barte (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the techland bit is probably going to stay. As for the last point, I think it's more about editing than sources. As I mentioned above, I'm uncomfortable ordering the section as "claim to invent email" -> debunked/retracted -> claimed to have invented modern email -> nothing. Protonk (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The ordering could be inverted: claim (website+Time Techland)-> debunked/retracted. Barte (talk) 18:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Blogs as references
I have deleted certain references to historical material that used blogs written by people who are not documented as qualified experts in the field of history. I have given an explanation of this in Talk:Email --Zeamays (talk) 17:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * That would be the talk page that says "The overall tone of this page has been that Masnick is fine to source for certain information, such as pointing out inconsistencies in Ayyadurai's arguments (which isn't even being used as a cite.) That's the consensus I'm talking about"? And since when isn't Haigh a computer historian?


 * Another thing I find there is you saying "Masnick did not distinguish between the achievement of sending text messages between computers (prior art) and the achievement of emulating a paper-based interoffice mail system". That's straight out of the Ayyadurai playbook.


 * I'm putting most of this back; this is much too dramatic a change to make without discussion. Pinkbeast (talk) 17:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Apparently I'm not; someone else got there first. Pinkbeast (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry--I reverted without seeing this discussion. Obviously, I agree with Pinkbeast. Barte (talk) 18:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * You've given your opinion of Masnick's suitability as a source, but I don't think it is remotely convincing. The discussion itself didn't cover it in depth because as noted the Email article doesn't cite Masnick. Protonk (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ayyadurai deserves a fair and balanced discussion on his bio page. Inclusion of biased blog writers who comment on him violates WP:BLP, as I have indicated on the Talk:Email page. Also, he is entitled to speak for himself, as described in that policy. --Zeamays (talk) 22:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * He is definitely entitled to speak for himself, but we will cover the controversy here, which includes the views of observers who disagree with him. WP:N isn't achieved by eliminating everyone with an opinion--what you are calling "bias"--but by representing those opinions  proportionally.  The idea that Ayyadurai invented email has just not gotten much traction beyond his immediate associates.  If the article seems stacked against him, it is that supporters and sympathetic articles are almost impossible to find. Barte (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Balanced between what and what? The claims on his website that he invented email and the claims literally anywhere else that he didn't? I agree with some of the changes you've made to the page, as previous editors were too willing to insert (without quotes) assertions about the nature and motivations of his claims or the scope of the retractions. But I think we need to get something straight. For the past 2-3 years Ayyadurai has been claiming to anyone who would listen that he "invented email" (or variations on this claim). So far, any source which we would normally consider reliable who has bought that claim has retracted it in whole (HuffPo) or in part (WaPo, the Smithsonian magazine). We are not going to recapitulate those claims on this article and defend it on the basis that a BLP must be shielded from criticism. We will also not give undue weight to those claims by privileging the subject's version of events over others. Insofar as the article discusses Ayyadurai the person, I'm perfectly willing to exclude sources like Haigh, Masnick and Biddle as we would normally do. But insofar as it advances his claims that he invented email or trumps up the features of his email implementation while diminishing prior art in service of a claim that he invented "modern" email we will include sources which balance that extraordinary claim as need be. Protonk (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Protonk: When I first started editing Email on 31 August, I based my edits on the HuffPo series. I have modified my position because legitimate information from other editors has been convincing. So I am in favor of a circumscribed description of Ayyadurai's achiementment in 1979, and certainly admit it was without influence on programmers whose focus (and the focus of historians) was on the computer networking aspect of email. Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL", and literalistic legalists are offended by that shorthand.  I don't think there's an editor on this page who doesn't know the difference.  If Ayyadurai were in a court of law, now doubt the judge would not take it so lightly, but we live in a society where perfect adherence to exact technical-legal language is uncommon.  My view is don't support such brash claims in WP, but also be fair to Ayyadurai and avoid use of sources who use over-the-top language in their opinion pieces.
 * Criticism of the BLP subject by self-published, unedited, blogs is unacceptable, regardless of the claimed expertise of the writer, because they violate provisions of WP:BLP and WP:USERG when they are used to comment on the subject of the BLP. Furthermore, for a blog writer to be accepted as an expert in the specific field of interest, not an area of business tangentially related to the topic. In this case that expertise would be in the History of software or History of telecommunication.--Zeamays (talk) 23:56, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL", and literalistic legalists are offended by that shorthand. Are you suggesting that he asserts the former but means the latter? Barte (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "Ayyadurai has taken the brash approach of using coloquial language to describe himself as the "inventor of email", rather than the more correct, "author of EMAIL"" Brash is one word for it. I'll note (as I did on the email talk page) that you're the only editor advancing the claim that there's a legal distinction being made here. Regardless, it's not important. Insofar as this page advances the self published claim that Ayyadurai invented email it will include sources which refute that claim. As far as I'm concerned we'd be better off dropping or trimming the Biddle paragraph, but Haigh is a computer historian writing about the claim itself, so I don't see a reason to remove that. And if we're going to talk about the HuffPo series (or add claims to this page which were originally published in that series, e.g. Michelson) then Masnick is fine too. Protonk (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Barte: I am asserting he's using colloquial, inexact language and that people who are offended by that need to get a life or at least recognize that it's colloquial, not exact and legal. Ayyaduria made a definite achievement in 1979 and following years as an intern at the NJ medical school.  That needs to be recognized without unreasonable standards being applied to it. --Zeamays (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Then you are obviously mistaken, to say nothing of the incivility in asserting that people (who aren't mistaken) need to "get a life". You're also dodging the question. Are you, or are you not, suggesting that Ayyadurai asserts he is "the inventor of email" but means he is "the author of EMAIL"?
 * Ayyadurai - as I'm surprised you don't know, given your recycling of some of his arguments - has been to tremendous pains to justify the idea that every email implementation before EMAIL doesn't count as email. He absolutely is pushing the idea that he invented email.
 * Ayyadurai does appear to have written a fairly sophisticated email system in about 1980, no mean achievement for a teenager. The article already clearly reflects that fact. However, part of what has brought Ayyadurai to notability is the assertion that he invented email. It is no surprise that the article focusses more on that; plenty of people have written MTAs and MUAs, but only one has claimed to have invented email. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Protonk: You need to clarify what you mean. I thought all of us in the active debate here understood the difference between copyright and patent claims and rights, but maybe not. I'm sorry, but your statement " it will include sources which refute that claim" is not appropriate for a collegial discussion on WP. I do agree that the article should contain suitable references to refute the claim or provide balance, provided they are consonant with WP policies.  Balance is no excuse for inclusion of poorly-sourced, self-published materials that violate  WP:BLP, WP:USERG and other WP policies, particularly when they come from non-experts.  Rejecting Ayyaduai's self-published statements for bias, but including blogs and the like, written acidly and with clear contempt for the subject by non-experts, is not my idea of balance. --Zeamays (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "I thought all of us in the active debate here understood the difference between copyright and patent claims and rights, but maybe not." I'm sure we all do. But the difference is immaterial to any claim this article is bound to make. Protonk (talk) 15:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Zeamays: There is no relationship between tone and credibility, and there are no Wikipedia guidelines that establish one. That's your standard, not this project's.  But there is a requirement that the secondary sources we reference be notable and reliable. So if we think Gizmodo (which is not self-published, BTW--it has a staff) doesn't qualify, let's drop it.  But your claim that EMAIL is an important contribution to the technology and must be recognized here: that also needs references that go beyond the claims of Ayyadurai himself writing on his own website--which is most definitely a self-published venue. The only reason we allow it, as opposed to in Email is that this is an entry about him and I think we all agree that his own argument should be represented here.  Unfortunately, he seems to be one of the few who are making that argument, especially now that HuffPo has removed the blog posts from his colleagues in his support. Barte (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Barte: Please summarize what you consider lacking for Ayyadurai's work not to fulfill the criterion, "important contribution to the technology".  I have already given an argument why 1979 Email should be considered an important contribution, based on the 2nd WaPo Ombudsman statment, the later Smithsonian statement, and the quotes of Noam Chomsky in Wired.  I think that's enough.  I wish there were discussion of this in actual peer-reviewed historical journals. As before, I have no objections to non-self-published sources.  I have not specifically objected to Gizmodo.  It's another blogger that I have discussed as unqualified as a WP:RS on this topic. --Zeamays (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you see in the WaPo statement. I agree that Chomsky is a supporter, but he is countered by two computer historians and by the lack of mention in written accounts of email development and the computer industry in the 1970s, as well as by people involved with email development who say they never heard of EMAIL and disagree it represented anything substantially new. The Smithsonian statement clearly says that EMAIL was accepted mainly for two reasons having nothing to do with email. There is that last paragraph, which I think you properly added mention of to the article here. So....I think we've made as much of a case as we can in this article. And we've mentioned EMAIL in the email article on the strength of the Smithsonian collection. But in terms of EMAIL being important, influential, a benchmark in the history of the technology--it's hard to pull out much more of a ringing endorsement than what we've got without further evidence. Re: Gizmodo: thanks for the clarification. Barte (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * As an historian of technology, here's my take: important contribution to technology typically means, contributing in a way that meaningfully changes the historical development of some kind of technology or industry. There are also meaningful exceptions to this aforementioned rule, for example, when a particular innovation shows an alternate, unrealized technological method. So some people argue that Konrad Zuse offers an alternate model for computing that developed in the German context but wasn't fully developed because of postwar circumstances in Germany. The same goes for histories of, say, cybernetics in the Soviet Union, as shown by Slava Gerovitch. As far as I can tell, Ayyadurai developed a pretty exciting system for a local college, and the fact that he did so as a teenager is a testament to his precocious talent. The Smithsonian accepted his paper on the grounds of being an interesting artifact in American cultural history (not in the history of technology, per se) as it seems to show something about an emerging experience or challenge in the American landscape of its time. But I don't see any claims or evidence that the Ayyadurai work is a significant contribution to the history of technology, either in terms of developing the technologies of networked communication & email, nor in terms of showing an alternate, unrealized logic.  As far as I can tell, neither the Smithsonian nor the WaPo Ombudsman really claimed it made a significant contribution in these regards. And finally, the Ombudsman statements don't really claim any specific authority (he actually downplays his expertise in one of his statements, before ultimately apologizing for the haste and supeficiality of earlier stories). In brief, Ayyadurai's story is an interesting story about an individual's exciting experiment. The controversy itself over the innovativeness of his work is "the real story" here. It goes something like this: A few sources at some point in time credited him with a technological innovation. Gradually those claims by independent sources were debunked, retracted, or seriously qualified. What is left is an exciting look into how debates and controversies surrounding technological development and originality. But no independent, serious source of scientific, technological, or historical expertise is really crediting Ayyadurai with making a significant contribution to the history of technology. Only Ayyadurai himself, and maybe his professor Chomsky (who himself claims no especial expertise, and seems to imply in the Wired article that he didn't look into the case deeply but instead read Ayyadurai's clams and thinks they deserve a fair hearing), seem to think there's something worth considering here. Betweenfloors (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Betweenfloors: Thanks. Have you read my comparisons on Talk:Email of this situation with the contributions of Gregor Mendel to the field of genetics?  I see a strong parallel, although there are also differences that I noted. --Zeamays (talk) 18:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I just took a peek. I see what you're getting at though there are a few key differences (as you point out). First, Mendel seems to have worked decades in advance of other researchers, so he has a clear and different kind of "priority." Second, his work was later revived and replicated by major scientists in this field. By contrast, Ayyadurai doesn't have any kind of clear cut priority. As I understand the summaries, the major features of contemporary email had already been embodied in earlier systems (no one except for Ayyadurai seems to contest this). Second, I haven't seen any evidence that his copyright or techniques were picked up or revived by disinterested scientists in the years or decades to follow. He himself has claimed that his work languished for decades in a box in his mother's possession, only to be found again by him (not other scientists or engineers, as in the case of Mendel). Betweenfloors (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Betweenfloors: The now-deleted HuffPo articles, and Ayyadurai's own website and book have a different take on your point about the state-of-the art in 1979.  According to those articles, Ayyadurai's distinctive achievement was a system to emulate all the features of a paper-based interoffice mail.  From what I've been able to read, the state-of-the art then consisted of the ability to send messages between computers, with to: from: cc: and (possibly) attachments, not a fully integrated user-friendly system.  According to the David Crocker quote, the well known programmers of that era didn't try to create a user-friendly system, but rather depended on the expertise of the user with system-based services, such as sorts, to make things work. It was a system by and for expert programmers.  If someone can dispute this with facts, and not angry arguments, I will be glad to listen. --Zeamays (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Why don't you read Haigh instead of wasting everyone's time by asking the same questions over and over again. It's ABSURD that we're being asked to debunk a piece which has been retracted as though it presents some reliable, meaningful contribution to the debate. The extraordinary claim is that Ayyadurai invented email or that he made a novel and important contribution to the field. It's a claim that nobody on this talk page except you is putting forth. It's not our job to convince you of the baselessness of the claim. It's your job to convince us of the existence of any verifiable evidence that comes from somewhere other than the subject. Do that. Don't lecture us about how we haven't been convincing enough for your tastes. It's getting tiresome. Protonk (talk) 22:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Protonk: I am sorry I offend you so. Betweenfloors has a position very congruent with my own. I was discussing the one matter where we differ. If you want to address the full Crocker quote, and the state of the art in 1979, please do so with facts. The complete Crocker quote makes it clear what he meant. I welcome factual information that would clarify this point. Patient exposition, based on facts, is what we need here, not rhetoric. --Zeamays (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC) As you suggesed, I had a look at the Thomas Haigh reference I confess that I had not paid serious attention because it's an unedited blogspace, but it makes a difference is he is actually a published historian of the field. He author clearly doesn't accept any of Ayyadurai's claims, even the one on which I have focused. So that point is also debatable. But this is Wikipedia, not a courtroom with a zero-sum process. --Zeamays (talk) 00:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Zeamays: No--Betweenfloors' position re: EMAIL's importance is in the mainstream of opinion here and appears incongruent with yours. Barte (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Barte: I wrote sincerely that my position is congruent with that of Betweenfloors expressed above. I have had to adjust my position after the HuffPo articles were withdrawn, I admitted that earlier. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that through the entire discussion on Talk:Email and here, you hadn't read the Haigh reference that several different editors kept pointing you to and referencing? Since I'm still going to WP:AGF, my conclusion is that you are displaying a lack of WP:COMPETENCE. As for Crocker (here's the actual source ), please point to the page number(s) backing your claim. Are you talking about the "no attempt is being made ..." quote that Masnick debunks? IRW0 (talk) 02:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * IRW0: Please relax, try not to attack other editors, and stick to the discussion of Ayyadurai.  You are incorrect. I had, in fact, read the Haigh reference when it was first cited in opposition to some of my points.  However, as I wrote above, I didn't give it serious attention because it is a blog. Even Haigh does not give sufficient detail for the reader to know exactly the full list of features present in earlier programs that would dispute Ayyadurai's claim for a full emulation. The Crocker document you cite is a WP:Primary source.  I did read it after your suggestion, and the relevant pages that were quoted by Ayyadurai and the now-withdrawn HuffPo articles are on pdf pages 21 and 24, separated by several pages of figures (computer printouts).  In the following pages there is also a lengthy discussion of the use of an auxilliary program, MAP, to process files. It is the dependence on use of operating system level commands and auxilliary programs that is the heart of the issue with the Crocker quote. Let's not try to use Masnick to support your argument, please? It's not credible, as I discussed earlier. Betweenfloors comment below (19:23, 12 September 2014) supports not using blogs are sources. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll ask again. Is there a single verifiable source which is independent from the subject (i.e. not solely published on his site, not retracted when it was published elsewhere and not an interview with the subject) which corroborates those claims? Protonk (talk) 17:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * In the interest of making progress, please be more specific about "those claims". Do you mean 1979 Email as an emulation of paper-based interoffice mail (supported by WaPo/Smithsonian refs.), or do you you mean Ayyadurai's colloquial claim, which I do not take literally, to be "inventor of email"? If the latter, we agree. --Zeamays (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer one which directly corroborates the notion that EMAIL was the first to offer "email as we know it today" specifically "the first of its kind -- a fully integrated, database-driven, electronic translation of the interoffice paper mail system derived from the ordinary office situation" but as we're starting from 0, any reliable, independent source will do. Protonk (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The Smithsonian statement makes just that point in the last paragraph. --Zeamays (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The smithsonian statement is best treated as a primary source on the acquisition of the collection (See here for my comments on it). Whatever my complaints about the corresponding blog post I'll treat it for our purposes as a secondary source. Ok. Name one other. Protonk (talk) 20:25, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * To briefly recap some of what's discussed below: First, I think there's an emerging consensus that the Haigh post is not a blog (see discussion below). It is a statement by a representative of an internationally recognized society for the history of informatics, itself a subgroup of the prestigious and long-standing Society for the History of Technology. So it is basically fair scientific game. Moreover, it is substantiated by a peer-reviewed article by Haigh published by the ACM, the leading scientific organization for computing. That article is available for free download here: http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/CACM-SevenLessons.pdf . But finally, I do think the Crocker statements retain validity as a kind of expert testimony that seriously undermines Ayyadurai's claims. Sure, Ayyadurai disagrees, but I think at this point the onus is really on him to provide compelling counter-evidence. Pretty much every expert that has weighed in seems to reject Ayyadurai's claims, and Ayyadurai hasn't offered any substantial counter-argument. Mostly he's just advertised his cause to credulous culture and lifestyle reporters at HuffPo or puff-piece online publications like theverge.com. In short, I think we've reached closure-of-scientific-controversy here. Betweenfloors (talk) 20:23, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Betweenfloors: You and I come to a different conclusion from reading Crocker. I read it as strong support for Ayyadurai's point about a system emulating paper-based interoffice mail, rather than a, incomplete, cumbersome command-line program that requires the use of operating system commands and auxillary programs to execute many functions per Crocker's document. --Zeamays (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * And there on page v, as Masnick noted, is Crocker's 1977 reference to "electronic mail" as an ARPANET capability. Barte (talk) 02:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Barte: Please refer to my earlier statements regarding multiple inventors, each adding something. I must be missing something that you are pointing to as significant, so what is it that you think the Crocker reference to "electronic mail" means?   --Zeamays (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


 * A few points. First, the HuffPo pieces were (1) retracted, and (2) blogger-generated, so I think we need to disqualify them as sources. I think we've all basically agreed that blogger-generated materials are out of bounds. Second, I think we've agreed that Ayyadurai gets to have some say, which is why there's any discussion at all. It seems to me that his claims have been given a substantial hearing, along with the various criticisms of his claims. But if he claims in his book or on his blog that he's a major figure in the history of email, that doesn't make it so. Uninterested, impartial sources from a wide range of domains have challenged that claim and offered concrete evidence to counter his claims. Third, I think it's inaccurate to characterize the Haigh material as "an unedited blogspace." It's content on the web presence of an international community of historians of informatics, a group that meets for conferences annually around the globe, and they operate as a group within the most prestigious society for technology history, namely The Society for the History of Technology  SHOT. Haigh weighed in on the SIGCIS web domain as part of a broader discussion within this community of specialized historians. In this regard, Haigh's comments seem to me a more reliable source than even Ayyadurai's website, on the grounds that Haigh is subject to constraints of other members in his group, SHOT, and in principle his comments there become part of the academic record that shapes his evaluation for things like tenure and so on. In this regard, it's not an unedited blog; it's the instrument of an international community of historians, with Haigh acting as one of their voices. Similarly, if the spokesperson for the Governor's Association in the USA or the  president of the Modern Literature Association (also in the USA) made a statement on these organization's webpages, it wouldn't be part of an unedited blogspace--I would see it as an expression of that organization and its values, regulated by their internal procedures. And all of these groups have more or less democratic procedures to remove spokespersons and leaders, so I consider statements made by members in an official capacity as approximate expressions of the group, or at least expressions allowed by that group. Finally, as far as sources go, Haigh has made his claims in a peer-reviewed journal published by the ACM, which I think is the world's largest and most reputable scientific society for computing. The article is online here: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/9/154586-seven-lessons-from-bad-history/abstract . So even though the initial posting from Haigh doesn't seem to be a blog in any typical sense of the term, his major claims are reiterated and validated in alternate form in a peer reviewed scientific context vetted by engineers, historians, and so on. This leaves us with a basic situation where Ayyadurai has made some very public and insistent claims that have been given a lot of attention here and in the mass media. The mass media has largely retracted or revised major stories and groups like the Smithsonian have qualified their claims on his behalf. Except for one or two poorly sourced professors with a personal relationship to Ayyadurai, no notable figures in science and technology have supported his claims. On the contrary, representatives and members in the obvious groups for evaluating his claims-- ACM, Society for the History of Technology, and SIGCIS -- have weighed in against Ayyadurai's claims. So in summary: What's the controversy here? The current article allows for Ayyadurai to make his claims, it lets experts (including Haigh) counter in forums of scientific and scholarly evaluation, and the remaining task is basically to whittle back some of the poorly sourced claims. But I don't see any argument for saying that Ayyadurai has made a major contribution that has been neglected. If members of Wikipedia feel that is in fact the case, that should be put forward under their proper names in a scientific journal, such as the Proceedings of the ACM or something of that ilk. As a community editors of Wikipedia, all we can go is give a summary of the dominant conversation. I don't think we can decide for ourselves, and against dominant scientific and technological opinion, that in fact he did do something major that needs to be better acknowledged. I think the current trend in revisions moves towards this qualified and contested presentation of Ayyadurai's claims.  Betweenfloors (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I will defer to your position on Haigh. I would have liked to see a more exact statement of the state of the art prior to Ayyadurai in Haigh's SIGIS article (the Communications of the ACM article requires a subscription). But I will accept your major points, given the evidence now available. --Zeamays (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

"a system emulating paper-based interoffice mail"
I'm not sure where to put this, so here it is. This idea that Ayyadurai's EMAIL was a significant innovation because it was the first to emulate paper-based interoffice mail, "like the email we use today", is fairly pervasive.

First of all, it doesn't. Some features of interoffice mail (eg easy colour highlighting and the ability to send arbitary documents) would take years to emerge in email implementations. Conversely, some of Ayyadurai's list like an integrated UI have nothing to do with interoffice mail; in a traditional email system the user uses a separate text editing program of their choice, which is much more akin to an interoffice mail system where the user can type or write or print (etc) their document but the system itself provides no document composing support. Much of the remainder (eg the Bcc: field) we know wasn't innovative at all.

Essentially (and we've seen this with the ever more specific lists of features from Ayyadurai) the claim is that EMAIL was the first email system to implement the exact features of EMAIL. That is unremarkable.

Secondly, it may be more like the email clients most people use today, but that doesn't make it more like email. People still use text-mode clients (I do) or even the command-line "mh"; they are, just as much, using email. (This isn't just polemic; it could be easily cited to RFCs, because of course what determines that it is email is the message, not the client).

So we've reduced this to Ayyadurai writing an early email system with a client with some sort of UI integration (but we don't know exactly what because it's all self-cited). But even first for that? Before Ayyadurai stretched his claims, he started in 1978 and finished in 1980 - a year after Compuserve's home email service (for which they trademarked "Email", rendering it quite unclear that he even coined the term). Pinkbeast (talk) 13:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, ha, Haigh's Communications of the ACM paper says "Xerox had built a modern, mouse-driven graphical email system for office communication", and he's an authority. So even the idea the UI was innovative is citably false. Pinkbeast (talk) 13:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Haigh's ACM paper is as yet uncited in the article. Feel free to do so--it certainly qualifies as a reliable secondary source. (I checked to see if the article is available from the Communications of the ACM website itself, but the full article is behind a pay wall.) As long as it's Haigh's reasoning you're adding, not yours alone.  Barte (talk) 14:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * To be honest, this was more to bat off fresh uses of that phrase on the talk page from Ayyadurai fans, but I've inserted a quote from the paper. If the idea that the UI maketh email seems to be getting traction, I'll dig up cites to counter that. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:02, 15 September 2014 (UTC)