Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-09-26 Pearl of Lao Tzu

Who are the involved parties?
FlaRiptide

202.69.82.130 - Assume persons are Caitlin Williams and Kathie Hodson, or member of the Pearl-Guide.com

What's going on?
The person(s) at the IP address of 202.69.82.130 have added a paragraph to the Wikipedia page debunking the Legend of the Pearl of Lao Tzu. The first paragraph is decidely sufficient to make the point. The next two paragraphs may be considered defamatory and based upon singular conjecture. Those paragraphs belong in Discussion, and not the article itself.

Also, recently Caitlin Williams and Kathie Hodson authored an article called "The Pearl of Allah: The Facts, the Fiction, and the Fraud.  This article is posted at www.pearl-guide.com.  The person(s) at IP address of 202.69.82.130 has repeatedly placed the link to this article as an External Link on the Wikipedia page.

I consider this article to be conjecture based upon the misinformed notion of these two individuals. As stated by me in the Discussion Page, some of their facts are totally incorrect (such as the $93 million appraisal). It appears that their intent may be to defame the Pearl by insisting that the Legend is being used inappropriately. The fact is that the Legend, as is with all legends, is just that - a LEGEND. The Wikipedia article does not portray the Legend as being real. The one paragraph listed as "The Legend Examined" was input by the same person(s). The two paragraphs that I removed were considered as overkill of the subject.

Those two paragraphs are as follows:

One problem with this legend is the way it salts "facts" into the fictions, such as the unproven visits from the Lee family. The purpose appears to be to convince people that the legend is factual, which it is not.

Another problem with the story is that the pearl began being cultivated in 600BC. That is 2,400 years ago yet the appraisal put up on Barbish's website says it is maybe 600 years old [15]. That alone makes the "legend" impossible, along with making the two factual visits from the two Mr. Lee's rather questionable. Why would either one of them make these claims? Unless it is proven otherwise, the two visits and their story should also be taken as myth, not fact.

I may be contacted at: admin@pearlforpeace.org

What would you like to change about that?
Have an outside mediator determine whether the content as described above benefits or detracts from the article. If it is determined that the additional paragraphs and the external link is NOT beneficial, then block the perpetrator.

Mediator notes

 * Note to involved parties: I am going to conduct this on the article's talk page for now. Please refer there for further comments.   Into The Fray   T / C  23:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Administrative notes

 * Case opened for a little discussion today.  Into The Fray   T / C  23:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * All parties listed in dispute above notified of case acceptance.  Into The Fray   T / C  23:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
I am not the author, but I am a non-posted member of Pearl-Guide. I work for for a news agency in Hong Kong and we report on the gem industry. I have been following the case of the pearl of allah for some times now. I am at my office so the IP address is changed, the other is my home address. If you would like my credentials please post a question to my home IP.

The article is so far the best I have ever seen written about this pearl. This is why I posted a link. I think it is important because you "say" that it is only a legend, but court documents show that this legend was told as fact in the Bonnecelli case, and it is expresssed as fact on your writings and your own website - it is a legend, but you claim it is true. The legend has been told as fact many times as a matter of fact. The appraisals, which are legal documents, state that the pearl has been carbon dated only to back up the legend. That is a lie. It is a fraudulent document.

I feel there is nothing libelous about the article. In fact it is the first article to ever debunk the legend with real fact, and to tell the truth about Steenrod's perjury and the fraudulent appraisals. Of course it casts doubt on all the other dubious claims because so many lies have been told. But how can they prove Marcos and Al Qaeda did not contacted you to buy the pearl? 203.86.133.127 06:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not certain, yet I assume the Legend was "born" when Wilburn Cobb published his account of the Pearl in the Feb. 1969 Mensa Bulletin. This is available for viewing from the Pearl For Peace Foundation's website. Mr. Cobb was quite the story teller as can be told by reading his Nov. 1939 account of acquiring the Pearl which was published in the Natural History magazine. I've never seen the Bonicelli case court documents. If like you indicate, they show the legend was told as fact, then perhaps you should confront the Colorado Courts. If you have the court documents available, or know where they may be viewed, I would enjoy reading them. Though, I assume you are basing your comments not on physical documents, but on media reports you have seen on the Internet. I have never portrayed the Legend to be real, the Foundation's website does not, and to the best of my knowledge Vic Barbish has never portrayed the Legend to be real. As I have stated several times, Vic never authorized the 2007 appraisal. The appraisal that was requested and performed for the Pearl of Lao-Tzu's owner, Victor M. Barbish, was done in 1982 and states the Pearl's age as being approximately 600 years old. This makes the legend untrue. Thus the legend should be viewed as just that, a legend. No one is saying otherwise. You say the article is the first to debunk the legend with fact, yet the article is rittled with untruths and misinformation. As earlier pointed out to you the unauthorized Jan. 2007 Steenrod appraisal was NOT $93 million but was $61.85 million. This appraisal refers to others that were done by Steenrod in 1992 and 1997 yet I've never seen these or know anything about them. FlaRiptide 14:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)