[SIGCIS-Members] Apparent plagiarism in Nightingale's deleted Huffingon Post article

Tue Sep 9 02:14:54 PDT 2014

I'm guessing most here will be unhappy to see what Google currently thinks
on this matter:
http://oi60.tinypic.com/20rjvnp.jpg

Marie

______________________
Marie Hicks, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, History of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL USA
mhicks1 at iit.edu | mariehicks.net <http://www.mariehicks.net> | @histoftech
<http://twitter.com/histoftech>

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 3:37 AM, Hahn, Barbara <barbara.hahn at ttu.edu> wrote:

> Hi all: I was just myself thinking what a fantastic article this would
> make.  Since Tom's earlier response to me explaining what makes this case
> unique, I think such an article would be a splendid introduction to a few
> other (more classic) examples of technological myth-making.  Comparing the
> usual story (various court battles over patents for, say, Eli Whitney's
> cotton gin; or market competition, as in the cases of lightbulbs or safety
> bicycles) would provide a really wonderful hook, and a great introduction
> to what historians of technology do.
>
> Though it doesn't seem particularly difficult to do, I don't have the time
> to write such a thing, but frankly someone should.  Alternatively, it could
> be an class assignment for an upper-division undergraduate or postgraduate
> student, or a research exercise, or something.
>
> What fun.
> + + + + +
> Dr. Barbara Hahn
> Associate Editor, Technology and Culture
> Associate Professor, History Department, Texas Tech University (on leave
> 2014-2016)
> Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow
> School of History, University of Leeds
> @behahn
> http://ttu.academia.edu/BarbaraHahn
>
> ________________________________________
> From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [members-bounces at sigcis.org] on behalf
> of Jean-François Blanchette [blanchette at ucla.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 2:53 AM
> To: sigcis
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Apparent plagiarism in Nightingale's
> deleted      Huffingon Post article
>
> Dear Thomas and all,
>
> This is such a fabulous story on so many levels, it truly boggles the mind
> —— the inclusion of a Hollywood celebrity into the cake batter had been so
> far the only ommission and that has now been thankfully corrected.
>
> I’d really love to introduce more people to it, especially students ——— is
> there an up-to-date guide to the story available somewhere, or lacking
> that, what’s the best place to start?
>
> Thank you!
> Jean-François
>
> On Sep 9, 2014, at 5:44, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org> wrote:
>
> > Thanks Andy,
> >
> > Yes, I noticed the similarities myself in a comment posted on the now
> deleted Nightingale article. The same chunks of text also appear in
> Ayyadurai's 2013 book, again without mention of her name. So leaving aside
> the issue of factual accuracy this would appear to be a clear cut case of
> plagiarism: chunks of previous published text pasted and/or paraphrased
> without attribution to the original authors.
> >
> > In fact all the articles in the now deleted Huffington Post series had
> significant overlap with each other, Ayyadurai’s website, and his book in
> terms of the quotations used, the talking points repeated, the evidence
> presented, the pictures used, and as we see in this case the actual words
> used. The 5 “myths” she claimed to rebut were all found on a longer list of
> 12 “myths” on Ayyadurai’s own website. Ayyadurai has  rather distinctive
> prose style and it is echoed in phrases all over the HP articles, which
> some commentators noted read as if they have a common author. For example,
> he always puts “historians” in quotes when talking about us.
> >
> > Nightingale’s is a literally incredible article, and if you haven’t yet
> taken the time to marvel I urge you to go tohttps://
> web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http:/www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-five-myths-about-email_b_5756340.html
> before reading on. Did you know, for example, that “Popular sites such as
> Wikipedia, unfortunately, continue to promulgate the myths of email's
> history. Industry insiders dominate and monopolize such forums, and
> immediately remove even documented citations and facts, which expose and
> counter their false claims on email's origin.”
> >
> > That article states that “As an MIT professor who led MIT's
> Sociotechnical Systems Research Center for nearly half a decade and served
> on the faculty in MIT's Engineering Systems Division for over 17 years…..”
> You might ask, why would an MIT faculty member allow plagiarized (or, in
> the kindest interpretation, ghostwritten) and blatantly inaccurate material
> to appear under her name? Surely she would have too much to lose?
> >
> > Well, she is actually referred to on her own bio page and in other
> sources as a “Professor of the Practice” which at MIT is another name for
> “Adjunct Professor.” http://web.mit.edu/policies/2/2.3.html states that
> “Appointments to the rank of "Adjunct Professor of _____" and "Professor of
> the Practice of _____" are equivalent…” Also that “An appointment as an
> adjunct professor or professor of the practice carries no implication of
> academic tenure or of membership on the Faculty.” So a Professor of the
> Practice is not actually a faculty member.
> >
> > Nightingale still has a bio up on an MIT personal page (which also calls
> her a faculty member), but is not listed, for example, on the “People”
> directory of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center which she used to
> direct (!) and her Linked In page says that she left her MIT jobs in June
> 2014. So she appears to be a former adjunct rather than a current faculty
> member.
> >
> > Having said that, she is a member of the National Academy of
> Engineering, so you might expect some kind of baseline professional
> responsibility from her. http://www.nae.edu/29986.aspx Also, according to
> Linked In, “Past-President and Fellow of the Institute of Industrial
> Engineers.” Not someone you would expect to sign her name to a factually
> deficient, plagiarized and/or ghosted piece of badly written propaganda.
> But, apparently, she did.
> >
> > An odd aspect of all this is that, like Ayyadurai himself, she gains a
> great deal of apparent credibility from her former association with MIT.
> Both have frequently been called “MIT professors” in reports, and I am sure
> the association helped to convince reporters to repeat Ayyadurai’s claims.
> Yet they are going to great lengths in a quixotic attempt to undermine
> MIT’s actual historical accomplishments in email, including CTSS mail and
> the work of the many MIT graduates and faculty who founded and worked at
> BBN. Ayyadurai has also been deploying a lot of populist rhetoric against
> the idea that elite institutions like MIT are essential to innovation.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
> > From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
> Behalf Of Andrew Russell
> > Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 2:05 PM
> > To: sigcis
> > Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai
> >
> > Hi everyone -
> >
> > I’m reposting below an email from Dave Farber's list - it's another
> interesting turn in this bizarre tale.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> >
> > From: "Dave Farber via ip" <ip at listbox.com>
> > Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai
> > Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT
> > To: "ip" <ip at listbox.com>
> > Reply-To: dave at farber.net
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
> > Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM
> > Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai
> > To: <jpgs at ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs at comp.lancs.ac.uk>
> > Cc: <dave at farber.net>, <dnight at mit.edu>, <news at the-tech.mit.edu>
> >
> > [Dave, for IP if you like]
> >
> > Prof. James P.G. Sterbenz wrote to MIT prof Deborah Nightingale:
> > Do you plan to make a statement on your
> > Web page to protect your reputation, or do we assume that you are
> > (figuratively) in bed with Ayyadurai?   If you do make such a statement
> > I would like a pointer and will include in with the other materials I
> > maintain on this case along with your original blog entry.
> >
> > I just noticed something unusual about the now-deleted Huffington Post
> article published under the name of MIT professor Deborah Nightingale.
> >
> > What's unusual is that paragraphs of that now-deleted article defending
> "email inventor" Shiva Ayyadurai are word-for-word identical to a web page
> called InventorOfEmail.com. It looks like Mr. Ayyadurai created that page
> himself, though I haven't checked.
> >
> > You can see this unexpected bit of synchronicity for yourself. Prof
> Nightingale's article is archived here:
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-five-myths-about-email_b_5756340.html
> > "Those who promoted MAIL as "email," when the term "email" did not even
> exist in 1965, were attempting to redefine "email" as a command-driven
> program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external
> editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a
> flat-file."
> > "One would be hard-pressed to draw a historical straight line from MAIL
> to today’s email systems. MAIL was not "email", but a text messaging
> command line system, at best."
> >
> > The InventorOfEmail.com page, which Archive.org says predates Prof.
> Nightingale's HuffPo blog, is here:
> > http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp
> > "Those who promoted MAIL was "email" when the term "email" did not even
> exist in 1965 are attempting to redefine "email" to be a command-driven
> program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external
> editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a
> flat-file."
> > "One would be hard-pressed to draw a historical straight line from MAIL
> to today’s email systems. MAIL was not "email", but a text messaging
> command line system, at best."
> >
> > Also it looks like about 10 paragraphs in Prof. Nightingale's
> now-deleted HuffPo blog, published September 2, appear in a Google+ comment
> posted under the name "Jason Rebule" a week earlier. That comment appeared
> in a KQED thread attacking critics of Ayyadurai. You can see the thread
> here:
> > https://plus.google.com/+KQEDSCIENCE/posts/emYcPo9ZjVw
> >
> > Similarly, another now-deleted HuffPo blog post in the series was
> published under the name of Rutgers technologist Robert Field. It uses this
> sentence:
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20140904233350/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-field/history-of-email-first-email-system_b_5722000.html
> > "Standard histories of the Internet are full of claims that certain
> individuals (and teams) in the ARPAnet environment in the 1970s and 1980s
> "invented email." "
> >
> > That sentence also, according to Archive.org, had previously appeared on
> the InventorOfEmail.com site:
> > http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp
> >
> > I don't see either Prof. Nightingale or Robert Field credited on the
> InventorOfEmail.com site.
> >
> > I presume there's a good reason why a Huffington Post guest blog
> published under the name of a well-known MIT engineering professor would be
> assembled in such a manner, but I confess I haven't yet been able to think
> of one.
> >
> > -Declan
> >
> > PS: I recall a CNET article written by some enterprising journalist who
> revealed the provenance of an anti-Net-neutrality op-ed published under the
> name of an MIT adjunct professor. The op-ed was actually written in part or
> in whole by a "secretive lobbying organization in Washington, D.C. called
> the LawMedia Group" that counted Comcast as a client. I would not dare to
> suggest, of course, that such a thing could be happening here.
> http://www.cnet.com/news/wanted-writers-for-d-c-tech-lobby-group-secrecy-mandatory/
> > Archives |
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion
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>
> --
> Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur
> Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA
> http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette
>
> _______________________________________________
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