Apparent plagiarism in Nightingale's deleted Huffingon Post article
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 to https://web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http:/www.huffingtonpost.com/debo rah-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 <https://esd.mit.edu/Faculty_Pages/nightingale/nightingale.htm> (which also calls her a faculty member), but is not listed, for example, on the <http://ssrc.mit.edu/people> "People" directory of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center which she used to direct (!) and her Linked In page <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/deborah-nightingale/5/313/619> 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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Reply-To: dave@farber.net ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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/deb orah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-five-myths-about-email_b_5756340.htm l <https://web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http:/www.huffingtonpost.com/deb orah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-five-myths-about-email_b_5756340.htm l> "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/rob ert-field/history-of-email-first-email-system_b_5722000.html <https://web.archive.org/web/20140904233350/http:/www.huffingtonpost.com/rob ert-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-man datory/ <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/123955-4ecfd750> |
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@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/debo... 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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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/deb... "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/rob... "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-man... Archives |
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette
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@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Jean-François Blanchette [blanchette@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@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/debo... 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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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/deb... "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/rob... "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-man... Archives |
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
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@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@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@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf > of Jean-François Blanchette [blanchette@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@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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> > > Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai > > Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT > > To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> > > Reply-To: dave@farber.net > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> > > Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM > > Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai > > To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> > > Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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@sigcis.org, the email discussion > list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp:// > sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription > options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members > > -- > Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur > Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA > http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette > > _______________________________________________ > This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list > of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at > http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription > options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members > _______________________________________________ > This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list > of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at > http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription > options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members >
To second Barbara's sentiments, an academic essay yes, but I'd also love to see a good piece of public scholarship on this; this is a great opportunity to make the benefits of historical thinking engaging to a broad audience. The Altantic, Wired and Medium.com have a great standard of op-eds and essays from media studies and games academics. It would be nice for SIGCIS to be represented in some other capacity than our mysterious status as CABAL.... Laine Nooney Research Fellow with the Intel Science & Technology Center for Social Computing <http://socialcomputing.uci.edu/> Department of Media, Culture and Communication <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ New York University www.lainenooney.com On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:14 AM, Marie Hicks <mhicks1@iit.edu> wrote:
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@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@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@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Jean-François Blanchette [blanchette@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@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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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:
"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
"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
"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
https://plus.google.com/+KQEDSCIENCE/posts/emYcPo9ZjVw
Similarly, another now-deleted HuffPo blog post in the series was
https://web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deb... program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a flat-file." program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a flat-file." 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: published under the name of Rutgers technologist Robert Field. It uses this sentence:
"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
https://web.archive.org/web/20140904233350/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob... 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
Archives |
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion
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-man... list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp:// sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Well, sometimes the Google algorithm is perceptive. I like the descriptive sentence it pulled in its search results for inventorofemail.com. (For those of you reading the plain text digest or archive, it says simply “Contains a history of email and false claims of it’s invention.” Just perfect, right down to the misplaced apostrophe). Tom From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Marie Hicks Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 4:15 AM To: Hahn, Barbara Cc: sigcis Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Apparent plagiarism in Nightingale's deleted Huffingon Post article 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@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@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@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Jean-François Blanchette [blanchette@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@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/debo... 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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@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@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai Date: September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai To: <jpgs@ittc.ku.edu>, <jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Cc: <dave@farber.net>, <dnight@mit.edu>, <news@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/deb... <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/rob... <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-man... Archives |
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-- Jean-François Blanchette, Associate Professeur Dept. of Information Studies, UCLA http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
participants (5)
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Hahn, Barbara -
Jean-François Blanchette -
Laine Nooney -
Marie Hicks -
Thomas Haigh