Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/My Edits were removed from the Francis Drake and Nova Albion page

My Edits were removed from the Francis Drake and Nova Albion page

 * Editors involved in this dispute
 * 1) – filing party


 * Articles affected by this dispute


 * Other attempts at resolving this dispute that you have attempted
 * Talk:Fringe_theories_on_the_location_of_New_Albion
 * Horst59

Issues to be mediated
Ggitzen (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Primary issues (added by the filing party)
 * 1) I was never notified that my edits were removed from the Francis Drake and New Albion page.
 * 2) I would like to have my edits, which are very limited, on the Francis Drake page and New Albion page reinstated.
 * 3) I want to be removed from the Fringe theories on the location of New Albion page.
 * 4) email 5-16-15 from Horst59: Hi there - I received your note via Wikipedia.org. I have looked through your book (not a thorough perusal) with other info about Nehalem Bay.  I've also examined a bit about most of the sites listed on Wikipedia and a significant amount regarding some.  I've also looked at the work by Michael Turner from England regarding Drake's global circumnavigation. If passion and desire were adequate, you'd have a National Landmark designation for Nehalem Bay; but the facts simply do not point to any site except to a few miles north of San Francisco as Drake's 1579 summer landing and subsequent claiming of New Albion.  Please know I have found the edits made to your work appropriate. Thank you for your kind offer.  I politely decline. Steve Wright aka Horst59
 * 5) email to Steve Wright aka Horst59 from Ggitzen: Hello, One of the things I have not done enough of is publicity. At times I’ve neglected blowing-my-own-horn so to speak about Francis Drake in Nehalem Bay.  Two highly acclaimed books come to mind notating Francis Drake in Oregon. Samuel Bawlf’s Sir Francis Drake's Secret Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America, AD 1579  says; Costaggini and Schultz, Survey of Artifacts at Neahkahnie Mountain… may be the most important artifact of Elizabethan science yet found in North America".  Local historian Wayne Jensen of Tillamook County Pioneer Museum deserves to be congratulated for preserving in his investigation of the cairns and for bringing the American Society of Civil Engineers.” (p 142)  Bawlf refers to Neahkahnie Mountain, Oregon where Drake recorded his latitude and land claim, as Drake’s “Point of Position.”  Professor Schultz is still teaching at Oregon State and his email with me on July 3, 2009 states; “This past fall two of my older than average students [Peter Seaders and Beth Peutz] took on the task of checking the Costaggini survey project on Neahkahnie Mountain…They were asked to take these computer pages and back calculate the surveys to see how good the original work had been done…The spent a great deal of time working backward through the calculations…They concluded that Costaggini performed an accurate traverse survey” in a white paper report “Discussions and Review of Phillip A. Costaggini’s Project on Neahkahnie Mountain, Oregon.”  Even more important is the OREGON ARCHAEOLOGY by C. Melvin Aikens, Thomas J. Connolly and Dennis L. Jenkins, published by the Oregon State University Press, 2011.  C. Melvin Aikens is Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, University of Oregon; Thomas Connolly is the Director of Research at the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History and Dennis Jenkins is a Senior Research Archaeologist at the University of Oregon Museum.  In the section titled “The Euroamerican Taking of Oregon Native Lands: Trade, Disease, Settlers, War, and Treaties they state: “Sir Francis Drake, carrying the flag of England around the world for the first time, may have landed at several places on the Oregon coast in 1579 to measure the longitude (a major surveying task), repair his ships, and take on fresh water (Bawlf 2004, Gitzen 2008).” (p 410-411)The attempt by Michael Von der Porten of the Drake Navigators Guild to keep me from being on Wikipedia Nova Albion violates their own policy in the Guild’s 1971 Research Report titled “An Examination of the Botanical References in the Accounts Relating to Drake’s Encampment At Nova Albion in 1579” by President Robert W. Allen which states; “This paper is presented in keeping with the policy of the Drake Navigators Guild that no pertinent clue to the identification of Nova Albion should be disregarded.” Although much has been written about Francis Drake’s 1579 Pacific coast expedition by using the same list of primary first-hand materials without agreement; I have assembled considerable new material i.e., archaeological evidence, a map uncovered that was authorized by Queen Elizabeth I and some previously unexamined primary material comparisons with the expedition’s The World Encompassed journal.  I am convinced that the worlds Drake scholars will cheerfully accord me the same privileges - as the California historians George Davidson, Henry Wagner and the Drake Navigators Guild received - in cumulating my evidence.  Each new point I present is without biased and based on factual documentation of materials.  Though some might dispute a point or even two, the open-minded reader will ultimately and undeniably conclude that the Nehalem Bay, Oregon is the 5 week Nova Albion landing site of Francis Drake. Best regards,Garry Gitzen. I’d like to have all of my edits on the Nova Albion Wikipedia reinstated.
 * 6) email 5-18-15 from Dr. Melvin Aikens to editor Ggitzen: Hi Garry- I followed up on your message by reading through the associated Wikipedia comments, and I’m afraid that my opinion of Wikipedia as a scholarly forum has diminished.  I’m appalled  by the venom exhibited by some parties to the discussion.   I was quite taken by the  overall picture  that emerged for me out of my reading both your and Bawlf’s books,  and by the local survey data you brought to bear on your hypothesis of Drake’s  seeking to plot Nehalem’s global position from astronomical observations.  I don’t know enough about  either the facts on the ground or matters of celestial navigation to be  confident about the strength of your case, but it seemed to me that you brought real data to bear on a reasonable hypothesis, and I’m puzzled by the Wikipedia decision to suppress your proposed ideas rather than keeping  them out there as fodder for further research and consideration.  I’d be happy to inject this opinion into the discussion if you can advise me on how it is done. Mel
 * 7) One final thought, My information about Drake has been deleted from the Francis Drake and Nova Albion pages? I have done more research into the subject than anyone alive including Michael Turner who has been held up as an authority of Oregon history (he is also self published. I am the curator of the M. Wayne Jensen (1930-2005) Library. Mr. Jensen's private library was collected over a lifetime of interest of Pacific Northwest history. Mr. Jensen was the Director of the Tillamook County Pioneer for more than 25 years.  As a trained anthropologist, it was he and an associate who first developed the theory that the incised rocks and cairns on Neahkahnie Mountain Oregon, known since the late 1800's as Treasure Rocks, was a survey by Francis Drake.  My book "Francis Drake in Nehalem Bay 1579, Setting the Historical Record Straight" published in 2008/2011 contains more research, endnotes and bibliographical references than any main stream or self published publication. Harvey Steele, past president of the Oregon Archaeological Society said in "Screenings" their Vol. 57 No. 12, 2008nnewsletter: “No one has written in such depth on the subject, every school and library in Oregon should have a copy…frankly, it’s  magnificent, it has no parallel...” Additionally, my article titled "Edward Wright's World Chart of 1599" published in the "Terrae Incognitae", Volume 46.1, April 2014, the blind peer review journal of the Society for the History of Discovery eliminates all California theorized sites.  My research is not "Fringe" as Michael Von der Porten, son of Edward Von der Porten, President of the Drake Navigators Guild has had it placed in with other "Fringe theories".  I have been endorsed by numerous academics and  historians. Additionally, I have 2 draft manuscripts documenting the mistakes and false theories developed over the past 160 years by California theorists. Drake never set foot in California and that is why I have been singled out.


 * Additional issues (added by other parties)
 * Additional issue 1
 * Additional issue 2

Parties' agreement to mediation

 * 1) Agree. Ggitzen (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Decision of the Mediation Committee

 * Reject. I'm going to reject this case under the authority granted to the chairperson under prerequisite to mediation #9, "the Committee has the discretion to refuse or refer back to other dispute resolution venues (e.g. dispute resolution noticeboard, third opinion, request for comment, or additional talk page discussion) a dispute which would benefit from additional work at lower levels of the dispute resolution process." For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 13:47, 16 June 2015 (UTC) (Chairperson)