User talk:Michael Stuart Kelly

Objectivist link
Please stop adding commercial or personal-website links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks. Adding a link to your forum to many articles, and engaging in no other edits besides, definitely counts as linkspam. If you want sympathy here, you should build up a reputable as a productive and reliable editor, then politely ask on the Talk page for other users to examine your link proposal. CRCulver 20:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I offered material on the Branden article in the talk section. Frankly, those who know about this subject are very much aware of my site. It is referenced often by high-profile people (both for and against) in the Objectivist subculture. Michael Stuart Kelly 20:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What do you not understand about "don't link to your personal sites"? CRCulver 20:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a problem with links with "content-relevance," or did I read that wrong? I did not see the phrase "don't link to your personal sites" in the Wikipedia rules. I did read that links with content-relevance were OK. The rules are a lot of reading, but I will keep looking. I will be requesting more editorial opinions when I can figure out how to do it. Michael Stuart Kelly 21:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * All the linkspam templates warn users not to link to their own sites. The next level applied to your Talk page if you continue will state that such will result in blocking. CRCulver 21:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

CRCulver - I really don't want a fight and I don't understand your persucution. If another person links to my site, would that be OK? It is content-relevant as I said. And would it be possible to have this reviewed by other Wikipedia edtors? btw - What is a "linkspam template" since I never once received such a warning. Michael Stuart Kelly 21:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You got the Spam1 template on the anon IP page you used when you first added the link, and I just applied the Spam2 template. If you want the link to be on WP, why not just wait until someone else adds the link on their own initiative (i.e. without you telling them about it)? If your site really is so respected, and if it really is so appropriate here, then that will eventually happen. So please just cease adding it yourself, which is linkspam (especially if you make no other contributions to WP). CRCulver 21:22, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

How about if I ask Barbara Branden to add the link for the Barbara Branden article (especially as my site is the only place on the net where she actively posts) and Nathaniel Branden to add the link to the Nathaniel Branden article? Would that be acceptable? Michael Stuart Kelly 21:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

One other point. On the Barbara Branden article, I received the following message: "I don't know who you mean by "you"; I suppose the edit history would indicate that. I personally have no objection to that link. Go ahead and put it back---then if the person who removed wants to dispute the point, he can post on this talk page. Michael Hardy 03:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)" Michael Stuart Kelly 21:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that wouldn't be acceptable, because subjects of biographies are not permitted to edit their own articles. We've just had a problem with this where Michael Witzel has come to WP to edit his own article. CRCulver 21:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me for being dense. Your only problem is who inserts the link? Is that it? I ask because people against the Brandens have a long history (decades) of trying to remove their names anywhere they can and they persecute those friendly to the Brandens. If you are not familiar with this topic, ask someone who knows who is not anti-Branden. I would imagine you are interested in the quality of information given in Wikipedia aritcles, so on low traffic articles, waiting for someone to insert an informative link is simply abandoning the topic. Who is going to use it if it is too incomplete?

Do you have any comment on the permission I received to include the OL link on the Barbara Branden article? Frankly, the lack of a link there, given her amount of participation on OL, is denying pertinent information about her (as it is in the other places, but particularly there). I don't want to fight. I want to contribute responsibly. I haven't contributed information on topics yet because my site was recently hacked and the databases destroyed, so I migrated to a proprietary program but learning all the new forum commands and restoring the site from damaged backups has been a headache. Learning new rules (Wikipedia) of editing has not been to high on my list these days, but I actually do want to add quality information to the articles. So I will do this. I have good things to contribute. Can we lower our guns? Michael Stuart Kelly 21:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The person who gave the go-ahead seems not to have looked at your edit history, which would show that your only WP activity has been inserting the link in sundry articles. You claim to have good things to contribute, but there's no evidence of this in User contributions. As far as "quality of information" goes, editing should focus first and foremost on adding content to the article body. External links should be sparingly listed. If you know so much about the Brandens, why not add content and source it from formal publications instead of just listing your link everywhere? If information about a figure is really so important, it should be listed in the article, not hidden away behind a link to, of all things, a forum run by an individual. CRCulver 21:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey! I think we are getting somewhere! Adding information to the articles is no problem at all for me. That's where a good deal of it should be, anyway. I see several items right off the bat that need correcting (NB's marriage on May 20 to Leigh Horton, Barbara's NBI activities, including her widely heard 10 lecture taped course back then, Principles of Efficient Thinking, and a host of other stuff.) Give me a couple of days and I will start putting in selected facts. I have a question. After I do these text additions, am I still not allowed to post my link and it has to be someone else? Or can I then do it? Especially as certain information will have come from my site (like the NB marriage announcement)?

I can easily post this whole issue on my board and I have no doubt someone who normally contributes to WP will put the links up, but I would like to avoid a food-fight with a hostile site that monitors mine (which, btw, you do have a link and blurb for in Barbara's article). That site in particular - the one you feature - has insulted the Brandens in every foul manner possible ("scumbags" being one of the least offensive terms) and actively does this all the time. This on Barbara's article, with the large advertisement for the book criticizing her under a title called "Reference" makes the WP link and reference section seriously look like WP favors such criticism. On the NB article, the book is under "Criticism" and the site is not mentioned, so the link section just looks abandoned.

Like I said, give me a couple of days and I will put up lots of factual items for them. I want to learn how to do this correctly. Michael Stuart Kelly 23:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you mention this on your site, and someone else comes from there and puts in the link, it will still count as linkspam. Asking someone else to edit WP for you, called meat-puppeting in the jargon (a variant on sock-puppeting), is not condoned. As far as adding content goes, sourcing content from your own personal site seems to violate WP:NOR in spirit if not in letter. It would be best to source all content against publications that you personally aren't involved with. Also, sourcing against webpages in general doesn't do much for WP, aren't there academic publications you can use? CRCulver 23:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have a resistance to understanding what OL is. You keep calling it "my personal site." Actually it is a discussion forum where original and republished articles are also posted. Among the members are Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden, Ed Hudgins, Robert Bidinotto, Robert Campbell, Ellen Stuttle, Tibor Machan, Dennis Hardin, John Enright, Marsh Enright, Steven Kinsella, Philip Coates, Robert Jones, Roger Bissell, Ross Barlow, Fred Seddon, R. Christian Ross, Stephen Boydstun, and a host of lesser known people in the independent Objectivist movement. Some of those I cited like Kinsella are libertarians and Chris Sciabarra is a member but does not post since he curtailed posting everywhere except his own blog due to health issues, but this is a very respectable list of the top of the line in independent Objectivism. Since you post links to other "personal sites" of this nature, what is wrong with this one? The only essential difference is format of site and pro-Branden slant. Do you have any notion about the Objectivist movement at all?

About sourcing NB's wedding to Leigh, he didn't publish it anywhere that I know of. He sent me an e-mail announcement before he got married. I asked permission to post the announcement and he gave it. I didn't see any published source for his divorce from Devers which is in the article, so what's with the double standard? The guy's married to Leigh. He's married. (He also got divorced from Devers.) If you don't beleive me, ask some other people who know him. Why shouldn't this be included in his article merely because I have no other source than what he authorized me to publish?

Most of the information I wish to put up actually does come from print published manterial, though - either books, academic publications or original sources like The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist that Branden published with Ayn Rand. I also have some trascripts from Barbara Branden's taped interviews with Ayn Rand. Things like that. Michael Stuart Kelly 00:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)