Wickedpedian thugs fine-tune attacks on Yecke

One Wickedpedian thug appropriately named "Odd nature" wrote on the discussion page of the Wickedpedia bio of Cheri Yecke,

The article is looking better. My only concern is that in the recent change to "hired the Internet accuracy-watchdog service ReputationDefender to help clarify the record" implies that the record was indeed inaccurate, something that has subsequently been shown not to be the case. I think "hired the Internet accuracy-watchdog service ReputationDefender to change the record to reflect her views" or simply "hired the Internet accuracy-watchdog service ReputationDefender" are more accurate. Odd nature 21:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we can't suggest that maybe the record could use some clarification, now can we? And how could ReputationDefender possibly "change the record" to reflect Cheri Yecke's views?

Another Wickedpedian thug inserted the following in the section titled "Allegations of Nepotism":
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. . . Yecke's husband was hired as the deputy secretary of professional regulations by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation amid allegations that his qualifications do not significantly distinguish him from the rest of the qualified candidate pool available in Florida.

No one claimed -- or could claim -- that "his qualifications . . . significantly distinguish him from the rest of the qualified candidate pool available in Florida." He is not a rocket scientist. His Florida state position is just one of general administration and requires no specialized knowledge. According to a news report, his background is undistinguished --

While she [Cheri Yecke] was education commissioner in Minnesota, her husband was appointed to an $84,000-a-year position as a deputy commissioner with the state's economic development agency.

Dennis Yecke held a number of executive positions with the U.S. Marine Corps. He has a bachelor's degree in business administration from University of Wisconsin-River Falls, according to his resume.

In addition to his two-year stint in Minnesota, he was also a budget analyst for the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget for 10 years.

Anyway, how did the hiring of Dennis Yecke for his positions in Florida and Minnesota suggest "nepotism"? What authority or influence might Cheri Yecke have had in selecting him for those positions?

Anyway, I am digressing. It is not my purpose here to just defend Cheri Yecke -- my purpose here is to stop Wickedpedia censorship. Truth is a defense against charges of libel but is not a defense against charges of arbitrary censorship. And Wikipedia is run by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit outfit and Cheri Yecke is a candidate in a public election and the IRS says that her Wikipedia bio must therefore be presented as a "public forum" that is "conducted in a non-partisan manner."
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Wikipedia's political attacks violate nonprofit 501(c)(3) status

The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization. Wikipedia's extremely biased biography of Cheri Yecke, a political candidate for the office of Florida commission of education, is a flagrant violation of an IRS rule prohibiting 501(c)(3) organizations from campaigning for or against a candidate for elective public office. The IRS says,

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

. . . .voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that: (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

Not only is the Wikipedia bio of Cheri Yecke extremely biased, but my attempt to add a rebuttal was censored. When I attempted to add my rebuttal, I had the courtesy to not disturb any existing material, even though I saw clear bias in that material. Of course, the satanic Wickedpedian control freaks who censored my rebuttal don't know what "courtesy" means. Truth is a defense against charges of libel but is not a defense against charges of censorship of rebuttals.

Here are some examples of extreme bias in Yecke's Wikipedia biography. Her bio begins,
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Cheri Pierson Yecke, Ph.D. is a conservative politician who has been involved in attempts to teach creationism in science classes

Mentioning a bio subject's alleged pro-creationism activities in the first sentence of a bio might be appropriate in, say, a bio of Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis; it is hardly appropriate in the case of Cheri Yecke. Calling her "a conservative politician who has been involved in attempts to teach creationism in science classes" is based solely on a biased interpretation of a single minor event that happened in Minnesota in 2003. Yet about one-half of her bio is taken up with discussing that event.

There is no evidence that she ever made the following statement that was cited in support of the preceding claim:

1. Yecke: "every local district should have the freedom to teach creationism if that is what they choose" Minnesota Public Radio, June 9, 2003.

Her bio says,

In July of 2003 during her term as education commissioner, Yecke proposed that the Minnesota Science Standards included (sic) the technique favored by intelligent design proponents to Teach The Controversy in science curriculum.

Wrong -- she said that decisions about "teaching the controversy" should be made by the local school districts. A newspaper article cited by the bio said,

. . . she said she will instruct the science committee to avoid any clashes over the teaching of evolution. She will cite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits the teaching of strict creationism in the classroom and a section of the new federal No Child Left Behind Act that strongly advises school districts to teach evolution in a way that "helps the student to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

"My purpose is that we don't need to enter that debate," Yecke said. "And that these decisions lay with the local school boards."

"Teach the controversy" was also the technique favored by the 91 Senators who voted for the Santorum Amendment. And there is much more to the controversy than just evolution and ID -- there are many scientific and pseudoscientific non-ID criticisms of evolution.

The bio says,

She cited the pro-intelligent design Santorum Amendment as supporting her effort.

The Santorum Amendment is not "pro-intelligent design" -- this amendment does not even mention intelligent design. If this amendment is pro-ID, then so were the 91 Senators who voted in favor of it.

The versions of the Minnesota Science Standards circulated by Yecke contained language used by the pro-intelligent design Teach The Controversy campaign which casts doubt on evolution while offering intelligent design as a competing theory. The version that was circulated among the public did not include these revisions.

It is claimed that the original newspaper article containing this story is no longer available online, so here is the Pharyngula blog's quotation of the article --

Two drafts of Minnesota’s science standards circulated this week. The only difference? How they described the teaching of evolution.

The version the public didn’t see included words like “might” and “possible” at strategic points that clearly cast doubt on the certainty of biological evolution.

When members of the citizens’ panel that wrote the standards saw what was to be the final document, several saw the “mights” and “possibles” and protested that they didn’t write the document that way and that the department made critical changes without telling the panel.

In the end, the committee got the language it wanted, giving evolution the full stamp of approval of the state as the way to teach science to all students in Minnesota’s public schools.

The department said the confusion was a simple mistake caused by several versions floating around the agency, said spokesman Bill Walsh. He said it wasn’t that Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke — who has acknowledged her belief in creationism — tried quietly to place her own personal misgivings about evolution into the standards.

There is no proof that Yecke deliberately tried to sneak those words into the final version of the standards. The words were removed before the final version was released to the public.

The bio says,

Wesley R. Elsberry, marine biologist and critic of intelligent design whose blog The Austringer had referenced the article linking Yecke to the Teach The Controversy method of promoting intelligent design was contacted by ReputationDefender in June 2007.

Again, "teach the controversy" is not just specifically a method of promoting intelligent design.

The bio says,

Readers of blog then provided links to archived recordings of Twin Cities Public Television broadcasts from 2003 showing Yecke saying that teaching intelligent design was a decision local school districts could undertake and teaching intelligent design is supported by the Santorum Amendment.

Well, Yecke was correct -- teaching intelligent design is supported by the Santorum Amendment. The only thing is that the Santorum Amendment is not in the No Child Left Behind Law itself but is in a modified form in the House-Senate conference report accompanying the Act.

BTW, the Wikimedia Foundation is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, the home state of Cheri Yecke. How convenient.
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Update on holy war against Wickedpedians

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"I don't make the rules." Famous restaurant scene in "Five Easy Pieces"

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I just found the following additional Wikipedia rule:

Self-published sources (e.g., blogs) should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer.

So much for the phony claim that the blogs of BVD-clad bloggers Ding Elsberry and Sleazy PZ Myers are entitled to a special exception because these bloggers are "nationally syndicated columnists." What a farce.

It's past time to bring in ReputationDefender.com. If ReputationDefender does not help now, then Cheri Yecke should cancel her membership.

Also, the Wikipedia rules for the biographies of living persons say (here and here):
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Reliable sources

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, a biography will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims.

Material available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Material from self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source about a living person, including as an external link, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below).

Editors should avoid repeating gossip published by tabloids and scandal sheets. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Editors should corroborate contentious material about living persons with proper sources, and add them if they are not present. An editor who cannot find a source should remove the material promptly — simply tagging it as questionable is insufficient. Where the material is derogatory and unsourced, relies on improper sources (see Wikipedia:Verifiability), or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research), it does not belong in Wikipedia.

Contentious material about living persons on user and talk pages also must follow the above rules. Negative biographical material needs to be placed in proper context. If this is done, contentious material from questionable sources may be discussed on talk pages, but problems with the material and the sources must be clearly identified, and it may be removed if the discussion has ended or is not contributing to the development of the article. When in doubt, contentious material that is not properly sourced should be removed.

Removal of material under these principles is not subject to normal restrictions, and the three-revert rule does not apply. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked (see the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel). Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).

Jimmy Wales has said it is better to have no information at all than to include speculation, and has emphasized the need for sensitivity:

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.

Those Wickedpedian control freaks have broken every rule in the book, which ought to be thrown at them -- hard.

Also, the following is an excerpt from an email that I sent to a ReputationDefender customer service representative:
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. . . I might add that I am defamed in the Wikipedia discussion page on Cheri Yecke's bio, so my reputation needs defending too. Wikipedia administrators on this page are trying to justify their discrimination against my blog -- other blogs are used as references in the bio -- by calling my blog "crappy" while calling the other blogs "reputable." I know that you don't offer your $29.95 clean-up service to non-members, but let me ask you this -- if I were a dues-paying member, would you refuse my request for help in my fight against Wikipedia? Also, a lot of people do not want or need your monthly search report service but just want help with specific problems. I could understand you charging non-members more than your $29.95 fee but I cannot fathom your policy of not offering your clean-up service to non-members. Remember that famous scene in the movie "Five Easy Pieces" where a waitress tells a customer that giving him a side-order of toast is against the rules, so he tells her, "OK, I want a chicken-salad sandwich on toast, hold the chicken-salad and the mayonnaise and just bring me the toast, then give me a check for the sandwich and you haven't broken any rules"? OK, here is what I propose: sign me up as a member, then help me fight Wikipedia for $29.95, and then I will cancel my membership, and you would not be breaking any rules.

LOL
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Simplified instructions for holy war against Wickedpedians

Update: Cheri Yecke's Wikipedia bio has been "semi-protected," which means that only those with Wikipedia user registrations four days old or older can edit the bio.

The crusade against the Great Satan, the evil Wickedpedian control freaks, is in full swing. There were about 20 reverts yesterday on Cheri Yecke's bio.

This article contains instructions on how you can very easily help even if you know absolutely nothing about Wikipedia editing.

I have been unexpectedly joined by three allies on the Wikipedia bio of Cheri Yecke. Their editing has been far less restrained than mine -- they are wiping out everything that has anything to do with the evolution controversy. In contrast, in my first edit, I did not delete or change anything already there but only added a short rebuttal along with links to this blog. When they censored that rebuttal, I retaliated only by censoring their material that referenced blogs, saying that if my blog goes, then the other blogs go too. There is a Wikipedia rule -- with some narrow exceptions that do not apply here -- that blogs may not be used as sources. So if an exception to the rule is made for some blogs pursuant to Wikipedia's "Ignore the Rules" rule, then the exceptions must be made for all blogs. On the discussion page, the Wickedpedians had the gall to try to justify their discrimination by calling this blog "crappy" while calling the blogs of Ding Elsberry and Sleazy PZ Myers "reputable." The Wickedpedians even made some frivolous claims about these two BVD-clad bloggers being "nationally syndicated columnists." If you don't find all of this to be an outrage, then I beg you to read some other blog (like the Glenlivet whiskey ad where the brewmaster says, "if you can't drink Glenlivet in the proper way, then I beg you to drink some other Scotch").

Reinforcements are badly needed in the holy war against these satanic Wickedpedian control freaks. The scumbags have now blocked me so I cannot wage jihad myself. I find that anonymous proxies no longer work in hacking Wikipedia. A lot of readers here might not be familiar with Wikipedia editing, so below are some simplified instructions in what to do. I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but it is so simple that a trained monkey could do it in a few seconds:
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You can edit Wikipedia without registering. Go to this webpage. This is my initial edit, with just my rebuttal added and no other changes. Also, this version has my name and the name of this blog -- I was too generous before in removing these when the names of the other bloggers and their blogs are included. This is the way the bio is supposed to be.

Click on "Edit this page" tab on the top (I could have eliminated this step if I weren't blocked), above and to the right of the name "Cheri Yecke."

Then, without making any changes, go to around the middle of the webpage and click on "save" or "save page" or something like that (I don't remember exactly). You may want to add some remarks in the box just above the save button, like "restoring Larry Fafarman's initial edit, with just his rebuttal added and no other changes. This is the way the bio is supposed to be."

That's it!

BTW, this bio is a smear campaign against Cheri Yecke. Here are the facts: Back in 2003, Yecke, as Minnesota's commissioner of education, said that teaching creationism was "off the table" as a result of a 1987 Supreme Court decision but that a Congressional report accompanying the No Child Left Behind Act recommended "teaching the controversy" and she said that decisions about "teaching the controversy" should be left up to local school districts. For this she is being vilified today. There is nothing wrong with citing a Congressional report for support -- the courts do it all the time.
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Seeking tag-team members for edit jihad against Wickedpedians

So far, no less than four different tag-teaming Wikipedia control freaks have canceled my edits on the bio of Florida K-12 education chancellor Cheri Yecke. Two can play this game. I invite my supporters to help me wage jihad against these control freaks. With your help, we can break the power of the Great Satan, these Wickedpedian tyrants. Anyone can edit Wikipedia -- you don't even have to register. If you don't use a registered name for editing, you will be identified by your IP number. I have no idea why they post the IP numbers -- they are pretty useless pieces of information. When these IP numbers are dynamic, they can't even identify a particular Internet user from one Internet session to the next. Anyway, Wikipedia is fairly easy to edit and if you don't know how to edit Wikipedia, IMO this is a good time to learn.

The biggest issue now (there are other issues) is that the Wickedpedians are violating the Wikipedia rule against using personal blogs as sources. There are two exceptions to this rule: (1) when a blogger is writing about him/herself and (2) when a blogger is a news media professional who is writing on a blog that is under the "full editorial control" of a news media outlet (called a "newspaper" in the rules but presumably also including other kinds of media outlets). Neither of these exceptions applies to the personal blogs cited in the bio, i.e., the personal blogs of Wesley "Ding" Elsberry and Sleazy PZ Myers. The Wickedpedians went so far as to claim that these two BVD-clad bloggers are "syndicated columnists" or "nationally syndicated op-ed columnists"!

It could be argued that the Wikipedia rule called "Ignore All Rules" allows exceptions to be made to the Wikipedia rules. The "Ignore All Rules" webpage says, "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them." However, this rule is ambiguous, because the Wikipedia webpage titled Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means implies that the "Ignore All Rules" rule was only intended to encourage readers to edit Wikipedia without first bothering to learn the Wikipedia rules. Also, it is not clear whether a consensus of a Wikipedia article's editors is needed for making an exception to a rule. But if the "Ignore All Rules" rule is applied to create an exception to a Wikipedia rule, in this case the rule against using blogs as sources, then I assert that the exception must be available to all editors of the Wikipedia article. Otherwise the "Ignore All Rules" rule would just be a tool for a clique of Wickedpedian control freaks to create exceptions to the rules just for themselves whenever they please. The Wickedpedians censored references to this blog while citing the blogs of Ding Elsberry and Sleazy PZ.

Personally, I think that the rule against using personal blogs as sources is stupid. A citation of a personal blog does not imply Wikipedia endorsement of the citation. And the blogs themselves often contain citations of reliable sources. What is the difference between direct citation of a reliable source and giving a link to a blog that contains a citation of that source? The linked blog article might contain the blogger's own personal opinion in addition to the citation of the reliable source, but IMO there is nothing wrong about Wikipedia linking to a personal opinion in a blog so long as it is clear that the opinion is not endorsed by Wikipedia. Links are a convenient way of avoiding cluttering up text with material that is contained in the linked sources. That is the way that the Internet is supposed to operate. Welcome to the 21st century. But as I said, if an exception to the rule against citing blogs is made for some blogs, then I assert that the exception must be made for all blogs.

I think that the Wickpedians are becoming nervous about canceling my edits. My edits now often last for several hours -- they used to be deleted within minutes, even when made in the wee hours of the morning. I think that the Wickedpedians use audible automatic alarms to inform them when particular articles are being tampered with.
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Edit War at Wickedpedia!

I am engaged in another edit war at Wikipedia, on Cheri Yecke's bio -- and this one is a dilly! Those Wikipedia control freaks have really painted themselves into a corner! Here is the exchange of editing messages (the maximum allowable length of the message is short -- otherwise I would have said more) --

IMO Wikipedia is not the place for political campaigning, but if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (I added my entry)

non-notable self-promotion by long-known internet crank (my entry censored)

Larry Fafarman's name and the name of his blog have been removed from this entry because of complaints of "self-promotion" (I restored my entry, less my name and blog name)

Advocacy for intelligent design and Teach The Controversy - removing unreliable sourcing, non notable self-promotion from Larry again (my entry censored again)

Removed references to personal blogs -- Wikipedia verifiability rule against using personal blogs as sources makes no exception for personal blogs of "notable" people (I censored references to blogs of BVD-clad bloggers Ding Elsberry and Sleazy PZ Myers -- two can play this game).

no Larry, read the sourcing policy (references to blogs of Ding and Sleazy PZ are restored)

The sourcing rules say that the only exceptions to the "no blogs" rule are for bloggers who are (1) professional journalists or (2) writing about themselves. Stop playing games, dunghill (I censor Ding's and Sleazy PZ's blogs again)

Reverting POV edits (Ding and Sleazy PZ restored again)

Now they have plumb run out of excuses -- they can't even dream up any more phony reasons for canceling my edits. Right now I am planning a late-night editing raid.

I am really giving those control freaks hell on the discussion page! On the discussion page, one of them went so far as to call BVD-clad blogger Sleazy PZ Myers a "syndicated op-ed columnist"! LOL. I wish I could bring in ReputationDefender to really give 'em hell. I would gladly pay their $29.95 fee but there are two problems: (1) their $29.95 jawboning/blackmailing service is available only to members who pay a $10-16 monthly fee, and (2) it's not my bio. I hope that Cheri Yecke will take action -- after all, she has the most to lose. I invite others to join the fray -- this is great fun!
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"Riiight! We'll defend any reputation, any character for $29.95! Riiiiiight!"

The title of this post is a variation of the old advertising slogan of the Earl Scheib car-painting shops: "Riiight! I'll paint any car, any color for $29.95! Riiiiiight!" An outfit called ReputationDefender.com charges a one-time fee of $29.95 to attempt to remove an unwanted item from an Internet website -- unfortunately, this service is now available only to members who pay a monthly fee of $10-16 for searches for unfavorable material.

As I noted in a previous article, there are a number of enterprising dot.com startups that are dedicated to having unfavorable material about their clients removed from the Internet. I think that these outfits would have better luck if instead of -- or in addition to -- trying to get material removed, they requested opportunities for posting rebuttals on the websites that display the unfavorable material. IMO refusing a request for allowing a rebuttal is much harder than refusing a request for removal. And truth may be a defense against a libel claim but is not a defense for denying opportunities for rebuttal. In fact, these reputation defending outfits could fight any kind of censorship on the Internet.

As these outfits become better known and better connected, I think that their jawboning and blackmailing capabilities will become increasingly greater than those of their clients acting individually. These outfits have far better access to the media than their individual clients have and can also accumulate complaints against particular websites, a particularly great advantage in the case of big websites like Wikipedia. These outfits should be able to handle the most egregious cases of defamation and censorship on the Internet.

I am going to ask ReputationDefender.com to lobby for a "fairness doctrine" law that would prohibit arbitrary censorship of visitors' comments on blogs. Helping to enforce such a law would be a great opportunity for the company. There is not much excuse for not having such a fairness doctrine if a blog can be exempted from the doctrine by posting a prominent notice stating that arbitrary censorship is practiced on that blog.
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Something must be done about Wickedpedia censorship NOW

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The clowns who run Wickedpedia. Picture is courtesy of the Wikitruth website. "NPOV" stands for "Neutral Point of View," the name of one of the Wickedpedia content policies and a policy that Wickedpedia frequently ignores.

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I feel that it is inappropriate to use Wikipedia for political campaigning, but since the Wikipedia bio of Cheri Yecke already contained political attack ads, I decided to respond with a rebuttal. Incredibly, my rebuttal was brazenly censored by a Wikipedia control freak named "FeloniousMonk" who gave the following incredible reason -- "non-notable self-promotion by long-known internet crank" -- see here.

Talk about arbitrary!

Unless we do something about Wikipedia censorship NOW, we might as well just throw in the towel now and forget about having a big democratic online encyclopedia open to reasonable editing by all.

Wikipedia should not be considered to be "private" -- it should be considered to be in the public domain. A lot of people supported Wikipedia in the belief that we should have a big public online encyclopedia and not just a lot of little private online encyclopedias. That is why so many people volunteered their time to work on Wikipedia. That is how Wikipedia got so big.

Darwinism must really be on its last legs if the Darwinists have to resort to that kind of censorship.

Cheri Yecke's current Wikipedia bio is here.

The last version before my entry was censored is on the bottom of the page here (my entry is just above the title "Allegations of Nepotism" near the bottom and the links are at the very bottom).

Also, I made some recent additions to the discussion page. I added comments to the "Deletion?" and "Advocacy for intelligent design" sections.

I will not stop until FeloniousSkunk is removed as a Wikipedia administrator. One would think that with all the credibility problems Wikipedia has been having lately, they would not have a jerk like that on their staff.

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Best "reputation defender" is a "fairness doctrine" for blogs

Articles have reported that Florida K-12 education chancellor Cheri Yecke hired an outfit called "reputationdefender" to try to help persuade Ding Elsberry to remove or modify a statement about her on one of his blogs. One of these articles says,

About reputationdefender

-The company works by contacting the offending Web sites to request that they remove the material.

-Cost: For $10 to $16 per month, you'll get a monthly report that lists what's out there about you.

-It costs $29.95 for each item you want the company to eliminate. For information, go to www.reputationdefender.com

What can $29.95 buy today? In pre-inflationary days, Earl Scheib would paint your car for just $29.95 ("Riiight, I'll paint any car, any color for twenty-nine ninety-five! Riiiiiiight!"), but those days are long gone -- now prices at Earl Scheib shops start at $259.95.

A Wall Street Journal article says,
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ReputationDefender begins by sending emails on behalf of its clients to Web-site owners. The letters typically introduce the company, identify the client and the offending content, and ask the recipient to remove it. The letters don't make threats -- Mr. Fertik, despite his training, and others at ReputationDefender aren't lawyers -- but instead try to appeal to recipients' sense of fairness: "Like our clients, and perhaps like you, we think the Internet is sometimes unnecessarily hurtful to the privacy and reputations of everyday people," one such letter reads.

"The first thing we do is we just ask, very politely," said Mr. Fertik. "Thereafter, we can get less polite," including contacting a site's Internet service provider to complain about the site. When Web site owners don't respond to its letters, ReputationDefender sometimes suggests that clients hire a lawyer, though Mr. Fertik said that happens infrequently.

The WSJ article gave an example of where jawboning a blogger failed to result in removal of the material.

However, the reputationdefender.com website claims that they have the ability to "destroy" targeted material, but I don't see how they could do that without illegal hacking. There is something else I want to say about this WSJ article but I will save it for a later post.

Fertik said, "Thereafter, we can get less polite," but it would be hard to get less polite than the "reputation defender" in the following story. A report about a particularly enterprising reputation defender said,

Arizona resident Ed Magedson is the manager of Xcentric Ventures, which operates RipOffReport.com, a clearinghouse where disgruntled customers can post freely about how much they hate a company, its products, or the people who work for it.

As you might imagine, RipOffReport has become something of a magnet not only for frustrated consumers, but also the reputation-defending services that can charge up to a few hundred dollars a year to try to clean up someone's name (or business name) online.

Magedson said, and a judge eventually agreed, that William Stanley (behind DefamationAction.com and ComplaintRemover.com) sent him a series of threats demanding that uncomplimentary information be deleted from RipOffReport.

Below are excerpts from one of those threats that Stanley sent to Magedson:

This letter is being sent to you in the name of more than 500 businesses. No matter where you go, we will cause you a problem. Your life is in danger until you comply with our demands. This is your last warning.

Your neighbors already know about your criminal dealings and how you are making many people loose (sic) their business. You will soon be beaten to a pulp and pounced into the ground six feet under with a baseball bat and sleg (sic) hammer. You will soon be sorry not just from what I am capable of doing to you, but what other members will do as soon as they know exactly where you are. Its (sic) just a matter of time until I get to you.

Here is what you can do to save your life. But you must act imidiatly (sic). Make what ever deal it takes, you must comply.

You have the previous list of companies that you need to remove from Rip-off Report. We know you hold the power. We know you have that list.

That kind of cease-and-desist letter is what lawyers call "zealous advocacy."

I assert that the best "reputation defender" for blogging would be a "fairness doctrine" law that would prohibit arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments so that defamed people or others would be able to respond directly. Also, I propose that bloggers insisting on the right to arbitrarily censor comments be required to prominently post a notice such as the following:

The blogger on this blog arbitrarily censors comments for any of the following reasons:

(1) The blogger disagrees with the comment.

(2) The blogger wholly or partially agrees with the comment but the comment is contrary to a point that the blogger is trying to make.

(3) The blogger dislikes a commenter or a suspected commenter.

(4) No reason at all.

Also, I propose that all bloggers be required to fill out and prominently post a standard comment policy form.
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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

I don't think that Wikipedia bios are appropriate places for political campaigning, but since political attack ads have been posted on Cheri Yecke's Wikipedia bio, I figured, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," so I decided to post the following response (the numbers in brackets represent links to this blog):
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Larry Fafarman disputes most of these claims of Elsberry and Myers. Fafarman makes the following claims on his "I'm from Missouri" blog: (1) an article by the National Center for Science Education, Elsberry's former employer, misinterpreted the No Child Left Behind Act and the Santorum Amendment [11]; (2) an "incriminating" ( Fafarman's sarcastic description ) Yecke letter posted by Elsberry did not misrepresent or misuse either the Act or the Amendment [12]; (3) Elsberry censored blog comments that disputed his interpretation of the Act and the Amendment [13]; and (4) Yecke's Wikipedia bio is being misused for posting political attack ads against her [14].

Now we'll see how long it stays up there before the Wickedpedia control freaks censor it.
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Attack ads in Cheri Yecke's Wikipedia bio

As everyone knows, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and should not be used for political campaigning. However, Wikipedia is being used for just that by the presence of attack ads in the bio of Florida K-12 education chancellor Cheri Yecke, who is campaigning to be the state's next education commissioner. Her Wikipedia bio says,
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Cheri Pierson Yecke, Ph.D. is a politician who is best known for her role in an attempt to teach creationism in science classes . . . .

Advocacy for intelligent design and Teach The Controversy

In July of 2003 during her term as education commissioner, Yecke proposed that the Minnesota Science Standards included the technique favored by intelligent design proponents to Teach The Controversy in science curriculum. She cited the pro-intelligent design Santorum Amendment as supporting her effort.[The versions of the Minnesota Science Standards circulated by Yecke contained language used by the pro-intelligent design Teach The Controversy campaign which casts doubt on evolution while offering intelligent design as a competing theory. The version that was circulated among the public did not include these revisions. PZ Myers and other critics of intelligent design deemed the move an attempt to misinform the public in order to sway the committee decision in favor of intelligent design using public opinion.

In her campaign to be Florida's next education commissioner, Yecke has attempted to groom her reputation online. In June 2007 she disputed the accuracy of the newspaper article which said she supported including intelligent design in Minnesota science curricula in 2003, and hired the internet information-scrubbing service ReputationDefender to remove any association of Yecke with intelligent design online. Wesley R. Elsberry, marine biologist and critic of intelligent design whose blog The Austringer had referenced the article linking Yecke to the Teach The Controversy method of promoting intelligent design was contacted by ReputationDefender in June 2007. They requested that he remove a quote from Yecke on the issue of teaching creationism and intelligent design on the grounds that she disputes the quote in the original newpaper article. In considering the request Elsberry has asked for proof that the newspaper article did indeed quote Yecke inaccurately, going so far to contact the original reporter. Readers of blog then provided links to archived recordings of Twin Cities Public Television broadcasts from 2003 showing Yecke saying that teaching intelligent design was a decision local school districts could undertake and teaching intelligent design is supported by the Santorum Amendment. Elsberry says her statements in these broadcasts are consistent with the quote Yecke disputed and tried to remove in the newspaper article. PZ Myers, who had commented extensively on Yecke's support of intelligent design in the past, Myers described the recent effort by Yecke to distance herself from intelligent design as an attempt to "whitewash the past and silence her critics."

The above attack-ad material violates the Wikipedia verifiability rule -- quoted below -- by using blogs (Elsberry's and Myers' blogs) as sources:

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

What is worse is that the bloggers on the cited blogs -- Elsberry and Myers -- arbitrarily censor blog visitors' comments.

The above attack-ad material also violates the Wikipedia rules for biographies of living persons:

We must get the article right. Be very firm about high quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid, and as such it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives.

The attack ads in the bio have some serious factual errors. For example, as for calling the Santorum Amendment "pro-intelligent design," neither version of the amendment (there are two versions -- one in the original Senate bill and one in the House-Senate conference report) says anything about intelligent design. As for the statement that the "[t]each The Controversy campaign . . . casts doubt on evolution while offering intelligent design as a competing theory," the Teach the Contoversy campaign does not offer intelligent design as a competing theory. As I have said many, many times on this blog, there are also non-ID criticisms of evolution, e.g., criticisms concerning co-evolution, the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction, and chromosome counts. None of these three criticisms questions the effectiveness of the Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection. As for oral statements that Yecke made on Twin Cities Public Television, oral statements should not be taken as seriously as written statements because a statement's author has virtually no time to reconsider the statement when it is oral.

It is hypocritical of Elsberry to complain about the vandalization of his own Wikipedia bio. The above attack ads count as vandalization too, and furthermore, Elsberry censors blog visitors' comments that dispute his charges against Yecke.

Darwinists have a big history of hijacking Wickedpedia for their own partisan purposes. Wickedpedia has been called a "Darwinist grudge factory".
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Elsberry censored comments under blog posts cited by Miami Herald!

I have long pointed out that blogs where visitors' comments are arbitrarily censored lack fairness, reliability, and credibility and therefore should not be authoritatively cited by official news media, court opinions, scholarly journal articles, etc.. Now I have an example.

BVD-clad blogger Wesley "Ding" Elsberry has two recent blog articles -- one on Panda's Thumb and another on his personal blog Austringer -- charging that a top Florida education official, Cheri Yecke, had four years ago as a Minnesota education official misinterpreted the "No Child Left Behind Act" and the significance of the Act's proposed Santorum Amendment that was not adopted into the Act but was included in an accompanying Congressional report. This charge and one of the blogs was the subject of a recent Miami Herald article that I discussed here. Comments that attempted to defend Yecke's interpretation of the Act were brazenly censored on Panda's Thumb! Elsberry, responding to a censored comment posted by "Anonymous," who Elsberry claimed is me, said,
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[quoting Minnesota State Rep. Jim Davnie in a videotaped discussion with commissioner Yecke] What the commissioner is failing to mention [undecipherable] is that the Santorum amendment that she refers to never passed into law. And Minnesota has to follow federal law, not, uh, amendments that were offered in conference committees at the federal level.

Larry “Anonymous” Fafarman wants to know why Rep. Davnie would make the comment he does about following federal law. It isn’t because there is an explicit power involved; it’s because the federal government can withhold federal funds from schools that do not comply with things such as the “No Child Left Behind” act. Any school that has no use for such federal funding can, of course, tell the federal government to go get stuffed concerning those particular federal programs. That amounts to a vanishingly small percentage of the many thousand local school districts throughout the country.

"Anonymous" then replied with a statement essentially saying that the No Child Left Behind Act does not authorize the withholding of federal funds from states or local school districts that require, allow, or do not prohibit the teaching of intelligent design or other criticisms of Darwinism. That statement was censored and there was no reply.
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Gossip about my private affairs

Some commenters here have been losing debates with me and have been taking out their frustration by gossiping here about my private affairs.

How many times do I have to explain to you jerks that a fairness doctrine for blog visitors' comments does not mean that comments may not be censored for legitimate reasons, e.g., being abusive, threatening, illegal, invading privacy, etc.. And while you accuse me of being a hypocrite for censoring gossip about me, you see nothing wrong with the egregious arbitrary censorship that goes on at Panda's Thumb, Fatheaded Ed Brayton's blog, Sleazy PZ Myers' blog, etc.. What a bunch of lousy two-faced hypocrites.

OK, I will leave your lousy trash on this blog so that you can't accuse me of any kind of censorship.

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The real reasons for conservative talk show dominance

What is the explanation for the dominance of conservative talk shows on the radio? Aren't the radio broadcasters just giving the listening public what it wants? I think that the biggest explanations for this dominance of conservative talk shows are (1) the oligopolistic concentration of media outlet ownership in the hands of just a few huge businesses and (2) commercial sponsors' preference for conservative talk radio shows. I presume that broadcasters get most of their money from commercial sponsors -- even public broadcasters often have commercial sponsors. Presumably the owners of the big-business media and the commercial sponsors care little or none at all about conservative positions on such issues as abortion, gay marriage, and the so-called separation of church and state. But the conservative talk-show hosts tend to oppose government regulation of businesses and therefore tend to oppose "liberal" anti-business positions that are pro-environment, pro-worker, pro-consumer, etc., and -- yes, you guessed it -- tend to oppose rules against concentration of media ownership! So the big-business media's and commercial sponsors' preference for conservative talk shows on the radio is no big mystery after all -- and of course the greedy conservative talk show hosts see that preference as benefiting themselves, which in turn tends to make them more pro-business, which in turn increases that preference, and so forth in a vicious circle. The conservative talk show hosts are not going to bite the hands that feed them.

Also, a summary of a report by the presumptuously named "Center for American Progress" says,
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As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:

Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.

Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

. . . . . . There are many potential explanations for why this gap exists. The two most frequently cited reasons are the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and simple consumer demand. As this report will detail, neither of these reasons adequately explains why conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves.

Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

Ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance based on the data. Quantitative analysis conducted by Free Press of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows . . . .

. . . . . . The disparities between conservative and progressive programming reflect the absence of localism in American radio markets. This shortfall results from the consolidation of ownership in radio stations and the corresponding dominance of syndicated programming operating in economies of scale that do not match the local needs of all communities.

This analysis suggests that any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. We suggest three ways to accomplish this:

Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

The full report is here. This summary and report unfortunately missed the points that I made above.

A law against concentration of blog ownership wouldn't work because most blogs are independently owned and operated. However, it would not be a bad idea to make Wesley "Ding" Elsberry -- who shamelessly practices arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments -- give up ownership of one of his two big websites, the Panda's Thumb blog and the Talk.origins website.

Another proposed solution for media bias is, of course, restoration of the FCC "fairness doctrine." As I said, I am opposed to an unlimited "fairness doctrine" for broadcasters because (1) I feel that it would be too great a burden on broadcasters because of limited air time and (2) it is often difficult or impossible to define what is "liberal" and what is "conservative." Indeed, I don't know how the Center for American Progress's study distinguished between "liberal" -- called "progressive" in the study -- and "conservative" radio talk shows, and it is noteworthy that the study's example (page 7) of a "progressive" talk show host is Al Sharpton (however, there is a general perception that conservative talk shows are dominant -- that perception was not created by this study). However, a fairness doctrine prohibiting arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments would have none of the disadvantages of a fairness doctrine for broadcasters.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey's Media Ownership Reform Act would restrict concentration of media ownership and also restore the FCC's Fairness Doctrine -- however, the House recently voted to ban the use of federal funds for enforcing an FCC Fairness Doctrine.
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House votes against FCC "fairness doctrine"

Speak of the devil. I was just talking about Congressional proposals to restore the FCC "fairness doctrine" and now I find out that the House just voted 309-115 against restoration of the doctrine. The fairness doctrine for broadcasters is of particular interest to me because of its close relationship to my proposal for a "fairness doctrine" prohibiting arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments. A news article says,
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The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters who feature conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

By a vote of 309-115, lawmakers amended the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill to bar the FCC from requiring broadcasters to balance conservative content with liberal programming such as Air America. (emphasis added)

Note the above emphasis on "taxpayer dollars." If the FCC defied a Congressional prohibition of using taxpayer dollars to enforce a Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters, taxpayers might not be granted standing to sue over such defiance because a 3-justice Supreme Court plurality held in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation that taxpayers do not have standing to sue over executive branch allocations of funds (however, this holding is not binding, because it was made only by plurality). LOL. And there are many private outfits and individuals out there that would be glad to pick up the tab for FCC enforcement of a fairness doctrine for broadcasters. The FCC could create a private right of action for seeking enforcement of a fairness doctrine, as where a political candidate is denied an opportunity to respond to an attack ad.

House Democrats argued that it was merely a Republican political stunt because there is little danger of the FCC restricting conservative radio while George W. Bush is president.

Republicans counter that they are worried about new regulations if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008.

However, it was not just a "Republican political stunt," because a lot of Democrats went along with it.

The article said that restoring the Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters has high-level support in the Senate:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Tuesday that the government should revive the Fairness Doctrine, a policy crafted in 1929 that required broadcasters to balance political content with different points of view . . . . .

. . . . . .Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said this week that she would review the constitutional and legal issues involved in re-establishing the doctrine.

Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic Party’s 2004 presidential nominee, also said recently that the Fairness Doctrine should return.

Other Congressional support for restoring the Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters is described in this article on this blog.

The date 1929 looks bad. Different histories of the fairness doctrine say that its predecessors date back to the Communications Act of 1937 and the Radio Act of 1927. Modifications in the doctrine were made over the years. The fairness doctrine or something similar was in effect for decades and the world obviously did not come to an end -- however, that was before conservative talk radio shows had the dominance that they have today. The fairness doctrine is not the only issue concerning balance of viewpoints in the media -- another big issue is the current high concentration of media outlet ownership in just a few hands.

I am opposed to an unlimited Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters because (1) I feel that it would be an unreasonable burden on broadcasters because of limited air time and (2) it would be virtually impossible to administer. It is often impossible to define what is "liberal" and what is "conservative." Also, I feel that people should not be pigeonholed as being liberal, conservative, or "moderate" -- for example, my opposition to school prayer is considered to be "liberal" but my opposition to censorship of criticisms of Darwinism in the public schools is considered to be "conservative." However, I am in favor of the following Fairness Doctrine "lite":

Two corollary rules of the doctrine, the "personal attack" rule and the "political editorial" rule, remained in practice until 2000. The "personal attack" rule was pertinent whenever a person or small group was subject to a character attack during a broadcast. Stations had to notify such persons or groups within a week of the attack, send them transcripts of what was said and offer the opportunity to respond on the air. The "political editorial" rule applied when a station broadcast editorials endorsing or opposing candidates for public office, and stipulated that the candidates not endorsed be notified and allowed a reasonable opportunity to respond.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, ordered the FCC to justify these corollary rules in light of the decision to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC did not provide prompt justification, and ultimately ordered their repeal in 2000.

(from Wikipedia article on the fairness doctrine)

As I noted above, denying taxpayer dollars for enforcement of a "personal attack" rule, "political editorial" rule, or a similar rule might not work because there could be a private right of action to seek enforcement of such a rule (and as I noted above, taxpayers might not be granted standing to sue for enforcement of a Congressional prohibition against using FCC funds to enforce a fairness doctrine -- LOL).

Question: Would somebody please tell me why my proposed fairness doctrine for blogs is less constitutional than the fairness doctrine for broadcasters?
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Fatheaded Ed's blatant hypocrisy

I saw the following exchange in the comment thread under an Ed Brayton blog article about the campaign to restore the fairness doctrine for broadcasting:

Ed Brayton: Nice try Larry. I don't know how long it's gonna take to sink through your thick skull that you are not allowed to comment here, period.

ard falten: appears to be a lot of censoring going on right here -- makes it quite hipocritical for you, ed, to be whining about a new fairness doctrine as a censorship tool.

Ed Brayton: What censorship has gone on here? And even if there was, how would that make me a hypocrite?

I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.

Also, one commenter actually proposed that all related comments be deleted in order to destroy the evidence --
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Actually, I think you'd be completely justified in deleting our comments responding to him. I'd hate to lose that one above, though (posted June 28, 0924), as I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out -- frequently not the case with my own writing. But if I notice one of my responses vanished along with someone else's, I'll hold my tongue -- or at most, complain via e-mail. I hope and expect that most of your other readers would do the same.

Sick, sick, sick.
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Fairness doctrine for broadcasters

There has been a fair amount of publicity lately about a campaign to restore the fairness doctrine for broadcasters. Rep. Maurice Hinchey's website has an undated notice announcing that he will soon be re-introducing a bill called the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA), which would restore the fairness doctrine as well as change the rules for media ownership. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has proposed a companion bill in the Senate. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), chairman of the House subcommittee on domestic policy, announced he would hold hearings on the media, which would include looking at restoring the fairness doctrine. However, a previous House version of MORA in the last Congress, H.R. 3302, had only 16 co-sponsors, a small number for the House, which has 435 members.

The fairness doctrine for broadcasters is discussed here and here, and also on Uncommon Descent and Fatheaded Ed's blog.

For various reasons, I am opposed to an unlimited fairness doctrine for broadcasters. I think that a requirement of, say, equal time for "conservative" and "liberal" talk shows would be too great a burden for broadcasters. Also, it is often difficult to define what is "liberal" and what is "conservative." However, I am in favor of an "equal time" or "right to reply" rule requiring that individuals who are personally attacked on a broadcasting station be given a few minutes to respond. The case in which the Supreme Court upheld the fairness doctrine, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), was about such a requirement that an individual be given an opportunity to respond. In Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974), the Supreme Court inexplicably struck down a similar "right to reply" law for newspapers. These two cases are discussed here (Red Lion is item #5 and Miami Herald is item #8).

A common argument against restoring the fairness doctrine for broadcasters is that we have an abundance of broadcasting stations today, but that argument does not hold water. Some stations are going to be more popular than others and there is nothing in the First Amendment that says that the more popular stations are more equal than others in regard to a right to control what reaches the largest audiences. Also, ownership of broadcasting stations is concentrated in a few hands (that is also an issue which MORA seeks to address). Still, though, I feel that the disadvantages of an unlimited fairness doctrine for broadcasters outweigh the advantages. This specious argument of an abundance of sites is also raised in opposition to my proposal for a fairness doctrine for blogs.

My proposal of a fairness doctrine for blogs -- which would generally prohibit arbitrary censorship of visitors' comments -- is based on the following points: (1) the doctrine would not be a burden to bloggers because comment space is unlimited; (2) some blogs have become de facto major public forums; (3) blogs are being authoritatively cited by court opinions, official news services, etc.; and (4) BVD-clad bloggers are seeking special privileges -- e.g., a "reporter's privilege" that would allow them to keep their confidential sources secret -- and so should accept some responsibilities. I have also proposed a fairness-doctrine exemption for bloggers who post prominent notices saying that they practice arbitrary censorship. A fairness doctrine for blogs is eminently fair, practical, constitutional, democratic, and ethical.
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Egregious censorship on Panda's Thumb

This has got to be the most brazen case of censorship I have seen on the Internet -- a PT blogger made a long reply to a visitor's comment and then deleted the comment! The visitor at Panda's Thumb was named "Anonymous." The unscrupulous PT blogger, Timothy Sandefur, left the following message:

Update: “Anonymous” has been identified as Larry Fafarman, who has been banned from PT for his many abuses. PT is, of course, private property and its owners (of whom I am not one) determine the rules to be followed on it. Thus his comment has been removed.

Wrong. I am not Anonymous, and -- as I have shown -- there is no way to identify messages from me anyway. And yes, PT is "private," but that does not mean that it is not subject to government regulation. For example, an environmental law or regulation can be practically the equivalent of confiscation of "private" land. There is no reason why a government cannot enact a "fairness doctrine" prohibiting arbitrary censorship of visitors' comments on blogs. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC "fairness doctrine" for private broadcasters is constitutional, and a fairness doctrine for blogs would be even more constitutional because blogs -- unlike broadcasting stations -- have unlimited space for visitors' comments.

As a blog where flagrant arbitrary censorship of visitors' comments is practiced, PT is totally undeserving of its blogging awards and authoritative citations.

Arbitrary censorship on blogs is anti-intellectual, unscholarly, unethical, unconstitutional, and extremely rude.

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Another arbitrarily censoring blogger: Jason Rosenhouse

Touchy Jason Rosenhouse, blogger on the Evolution Blog and also a blogger on Panda's Thumb, said that his main reason for banning me from the Evolution blog was that he was offended by my post titled "Funny, he doesn't look like a Jew. Who knew?". Jason wrote,
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I've been barely tolerating you as it is, but you are not going to be using my blog to promote holocaust denial and anti-semitism. You are no longer welcome to comment here. I understand now why so many other bloggers have seen fit to ban you in the past.

None of my posts here are anti-Semitic. And I was not using Jason's blog to promote my holocaust revisionism -- I did not discuss the holocaust on Jason's blog and I did not link to any of my blog articles about the holocaust.

Jason said,

I've long had a policy of allowing people to post whatever comments they wanted at this blog, as long as they weren't vulgar or libelous. But your behavior in this thread has been so obnoxious and your remarks so idiotic that you have forced me to reevaluate that policy.

Here are some of my "vulgar," "libelous," and "obnoxious" remarks on Jason's blog:

There are always those self-appointed cyberbullying blogosphere goons who won't even give a commenter a chance to respond before they make a disparaging remark.

IMO Behe should apologize for quote-mining Coyne and you should apologize for charging that he "doctored" quotes and that his EoE ["The Edge of Evolution"] book quote-mined Carroll.

It is one thing to argue that Behe is wrong and something else entirely to charge that Behe quote-mined Carroll. I am astonished that I need to explain this difference to you people.

I can't believe this. I feel like I am Alice in Wonderland -- maybe at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party -- trying to reason with characters who are completely irrational and nonsensical.

"I will not be replying to any further comments from you. " Thank you -- I don't think I could stomach any more of your arguments.

You are just talking through your hat, Jason.

Those remarks don't sound very vulgar, libelous, or obnoxious to me.

The real reason why Jason kicked me off his blog was that he was upset that I had completely demolished his claim that two particular quotations in Behe's new book "The Edge of Evolution" were quote mines. A lot of the other commenters could do nothing but make their usual insults and ad hominem attacks against me.

An introduction to Jason's article, posted on Panda's Thumb, said of "The Edge of Evolution,"

A new ID book, a new selection of yummy delicious quote-mines to ponder. EoE offers up quite the little smorgasbord.

All that Jason provided on this "little smorgasbord" of "yummy delicious quote-mines" was just two quotations in EoE that were not quote mines at all. The Darwinists can dish it out but they can't take it.

Fatheaded Ed Brayton had to throw in his two cents worth in a post titled "Behe Caught Quotemining":

Jason Rosenhouse has the details. Fafarman shows up in the comments to disagree with him, which is pretty much prima facie proof that Jason got it right.

These stupid Darwinists have distorted the meaning of the term "quote mine" beyond recognition. The only way that these Darwinists could make the charge of quote mining in EoE was by making up all sorts of things that were not in the contexts of the quotations. To these Darwinists, any quotation whose use they don't like is a "quote mine."

Jason has unwittingly done me a favor -- my SiteMeter shows that his condemnation of this blog has backfired by actually increasing this blog's traffic. Once here, people can see how reasonable this blog really is.
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OK, blogs are "private" property. So what?

The main argument that has been presented against my proposed "fairness doctrine" for blogs (i.e., a prohibition of arbitrary censorship of blog visitors' comments) has been that blogs are "private" property. Until now, I have countered that argument by claiming that blogs are "public" property. I thought that my counter-argument was reasonable because some private things are quasi-public. However, I now realize that it is better to just concede that blogs are completely private, because being completely private does not mean that the government does not have the power to regulate them. The government is always telling us what we can and cannot do with private property, e.g., zoning and environmental laws -- which are often extremely burdensome -- tell people what they can do with their private land.

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