Thomson-Scientific admits wrongdoing

Well, almost but not quite. I received the following very suspicious-looking email from the general counsel of Thomson-Scientific (background info on this matter is here, here, here, and here). Don't anyone try charging that this email is a forgery -- there is no way I could forge this email because the header is provided by my ISP:
.

Dear Mr Fafarman
I am the General Counsel for Thomson Scientific.
I understand from Allison Hagan, our Director of PR and Communications, that you have raised a complaint relating to our inclusion of the 'Panda's Thumb' website in the index of the Web of Knowledge. We have carefully reviewed your complaint but, for the reasons explained to you by Kathleen O'Donnell, we will not be removing the website from that index.
We regard this as the end of this matter. We have instructed Allison and the members of our customer support team neither to take your calls nor respond to your emails.
If you continue to harrass Allison, the Customer Support team or any other employees of Thomson Scientific, we will have recourse to all legal remedies available to us.
Yours sincerely
Jane Reeves
General Counsel Thomson Scientific

As for your statement, "We regard this as the end of this matter," my answer is that "it ain't over until the fat lady sings," you blustering shyster.

The threat to sue me is of course an idle threat -- I can't be sued just for exercising my legal right of protesting the company's practices. The email's defensiveness and attempt at intimidation does raise some very big suspicions, though. I of course cannot compel any Thomson-Scientific employee to respond to my communications, but why would the company deny its employees the discretion to respond to my communications? That is very fishy -- it implies that the company is afraid that the employees might expose some wrongdoing.

Anyway, one thing I want is information about any government funding that the ISI Web of Knowledge may have received. This is something I have a right to know, and if Thomson-Scientific won't tell me, I hope to get this information by means of a Freedom of Information Act request. Our tax dollars should not support Thomson-Scientific's condoning of arbitrary censorship of our views, and particularly not the condoning of the abominable practice of IP address blocking, which is hardly even censorship because it often blocks comments from a large number of people who share the same ISP proxy IP address.

As for other points in the email:

. . . you have raised a complaint relating to our inclusion of the 'Panda's Thumb' website in the index of the Web of Knowledge.

That was only part of my complaint -- my complaint was much broader than that.

We have carefully reviewed your complaint but, for the reasons explained to you by Kathleen O'Donnell . . .

Kathleen O'Donnell did not explain any reasons at all -- she did not answer any of the points that I raised. Also, O'Donnell edits the index only in the areas of agriculture, biology, and environmental science, and there was no evidence that she was also speaking for the editors in other areas of science.

. . . we will not be removing the website from that index.

I did not expressly request that Panda's Thumb be removed from the ISI Web of Knowledge index.

If you continue to harrass Allison, the Customer Support team or any other employees of Thomson Scientific, we will have recourse to all legal remedies available to us.

One must start doing something before one can continue doing it. I did not "harass" those people -- I did not telephone them with any great frequency, and in many cases they did not respond to my telephone messages.

Also, I asked that this matter be brought to the attention of Thomson law affiliates Thomson-West et al., who sponsor the Law Professors Blogs network, but there is no evidence that this was done.

In a way I am glad that Thomson-Scientific brought this matter to a head quickly rather than string me along for a long time.

Anyway, folks, please keep those protest emails coming -- they are obviously having an effect.
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Form letter, new email addresses for protesting arbitrary blog comment censorship

To help increase responses, I am providing a form letter here. Of course, a protest in your own words is best, but this form letter is far better than nothing. Please send me a copy at LarryFarma@aol.com to help me gauge the support for this protest. For background info on this protest, see this post.

Do not underestimate the power of your email. I knew a dissident engineer who was getting nowhere in trying to get an invitation to testify before a Senate committee -- then 50 of his supporters sent in form letters and he was invited immediately.

I have also provided some new email addresses for this protest. Most of these new email addresses are for bloggers on the Volokh Conspiracy and Balkinization blogs. I selected these two blogs because (1) both have high numbers of citations by law journal articles -- 62 citations and 32 citations respectively according to a fairly recent study -- and (2) I have seen these two blogs frequently cited on the Internet. These long lists of email addresses are necessary -- it would be a tremendous help if just one of these bloggers were persuaded to post an article on this subject. I have also combined the new email address list and the old email address list to form a single list that is ready for insertion into your email. I can't make it any easier for you.

Suggested subject line: Protest of authoritative referencing of arbitrarily censoring blogs

Suggested text:

By arbitrary censorship, I mean that comments and/or commenters are censored for the sole reason that the bloggers disagree with the opinions and/or arguments of the comments or the commenters. Bloggers who arbitrarily censor comments have shown an intention to present just one side of controversial issues and the blogs of these bloggers should therefore not be quoted, cited, or listed for authoritative purposes -- e.g., by court opinions, scholarly journals, and scientific databases. Citation of blogs by law journal articles is already widespread and citation of blogs by court opinions has begun -- see

http://3lepiphany.typepad.com/3l_epiphany/2006/08/law_review_arti.html

-- and --

http://3lepiphany.typepad.com/3l_epiphany/2006/08/cases_citing_le.html

Arbitrary censorship on blogs can include IP address blocking, which is disreputable and irresponsible as well as often being ineffective. IP address blocking can block comments from large numbers of Internet users who share the same ISP proxy IP address.

IMO, a blog that is cited by a court opinion becomes like an official governmental public hearing that must accept all comments.

For more information, see --

http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2007/04/protest-of-authoritative-referencing-of.html

Sincerely,

- - - - - - - - - -

===========================================
(end of proposed letter)

Additional email addresses:

Bloggers on the Volokh Conspiracy blog:

dalecarp@umn.edu,
dbernste@gmu.edu,
David.Post@temple.edu,
jaffe@esjpc.com,
volokh@law.ucla.edu,
isomin@gmu.edu,
jlindgren@law.northwestern.edu,
jha5@case.edu,
choset@gmail.com,
okerr@law.gwu.edu,
paul.ohm@colorado.edu,
rbarnett@gmail.com,
korobkin@law.ucla.edu,
volokh@post.harvard.edu,
benjamin@law.duke.edu,
tzywick2@gmu.edu,
tcowen@gmu.edu

Bloggers on the Balkinization blog:

jackbalkin@yahoo.com,
ian.ayres@yale.edu,
lee-epstein@northwestern.edu,
mgraber@law.umaryland.edu,
sgriffin@tulane.edu,
shorto@law.columbia.edu,
akoppelman@law.northwestern.edu,
marty.lederman@comcast.net,
slevinson@law.utexas.edu,
david.luban@gmail.com,
kimlane@princeton.edu,
dsolove@law.gwu.edu,
tamanahb@stjohns.edu,
mtushnet@law.harvard.edu


Webcontent.gov -- Guide to Managing U.S. Government Websites, General Services Admin.:

Sheila.campbell@gsa.gov,
webcontenttoolkit@gsa.gov,
webmanageruniversity@gsa.gov

Additional Thomson-Scientific:

jane.reeves@thomson.com,
ts.current.web.contents@thomson.com,
GeneralInfo@Thomson.com

==============================================

Combined email list -- this post's email addresses plus the email addresses from the previous list here.
(Reminder -- please send me a copy at LarryFarma@aol.com to help me gauge the support for this protest)

allison.hagan@thomson.com,
kathleen.odonnell@thomson.com,
marylou.warwick@thomson.com,
jane.reeves@thomson.com,
ts.cts.amer@thomson.com,
service@techstreet.com,
rs.info@thomson.com,
rs.sales@thomson.com,
foundation-press@thomson.com,
west_lawschool@thomson.com,
support@westacademic.com,
paul.caron@uc.edu,
berman.43@osu.edu,
nancy.soonpaa@ttu.edu,
faigmand@uchastings.edu,
David.Kaye@asu.edu,
Michael.Saks@asu.edu,
JSanders@central.UH.edu,
edward.cheng@brooklaw.edu,
mgiangra@depaul.edu,
ianbest@sbcglobal.net,
joe.hodnicki@gmail.com,
JONESRE@UCMAIL.UC.EDU,
jaywex@bu.edu,
quarter@wulaw.wustl.edu,
rosenhjd@jmu.edu,
nmsrdave@swcp.com,
abottaro@pandasthumb.org,
ed@pandasthumb.org,
brauer@pandasthumb.org,
reed@pandasthumb.org,
welsberr@pandasthumb.org,
rbh@pandasthumb.org,
garyhurd@pandasthumb.org,
minlay@pandasthumb.org,
jkrebs@pandasthumb.org,
jml@pandasthumb.org,
ianfmusgrave@pandasthumb.org,
pz@pandasthumb.org,
tara@pandasthumb.org,
wilkins@pandasthumb.org,
webmaster@seedmediagroup.com,
newblogger@seedmediagroup.com,
advertising@seedmediagroup.com,
dalecarp@umn.edu,
dbernste@gmu.edu,
David.Post@temple.edu,
jaffe@esjpc.com,
volokh@law.ucla.edu,
isomin@gmu.edu,
jlindgren@law.northwestern.edu,
jha5@case.edu,
choset@gmail.com,
okerr@law.gwu.edu,
paul.ohm@colorado.edu,
rbarnett@gmail.com,
korobkin@law.ucla.edu,
volokh@post.harvard.edu,
benjamin@law.duke.edu,
tzywick2@gmu.edu,
tcowen@gmu.edu,
jackbalkin@yahoo.com,
ian.ayres@yale.edu,
lee-epstein@northwestern.edu,
mgraber@law.umaryland.edu,
sgriffin@tulane.edu,
shorto@law.columbia.edu,
akoppelman@law.northwestern.edu,
marty.lederman@comcast.net,
slevinson@law.utexas.edu,
david.luban@gmail.com,
kimlane@princeton.edu,
dsolove@law.gwu.edu,
tamanahb@stjohns.edu,
mtushnet@law.harvard.edu,
Sheila.campbell@gsa.gov,
webcontenttoolkit@gsa.gov,
webmanageruniversity@gsa.gov,
ts.current.web.contents@thomson.com,
GeneralInfo@Thomson.com
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Thomson-Scientific is violating law in UK

An email that I received from Thomson-Scientific contained the following information:

The Thomson Corporation PLC is a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales (registered number 2978875) having its registered office and address for service at First Floor, The Quadrangle, 180 Wardour Street, London W1A 4YG

That really surprised me because I always thought of Thomson affiliate Thomson-West as being a quintessentially American company -- it is one of the largest publishers, if not the largest publisher, of law books in the USA. Maybe Thomson-West once was an independent American company -- I think it was known as Westlaw (at least that was the name printed in law books). Talk about globalization!

Anyway, as I pointed out, a Thomson-Scientific scientific database, the ISI Web of Knowledge, lists the Panda's Thumb blog, which practices IP address blocking, which -- as I show here and here -- is illegal in the UK, where Thomson-Scientific is incorporated. So Thomson-Scientific is in cahoots with bloggers who are violating the law in the very country where Thomson-Scientific is incorporated!

American courts have not only started to cite blogs but have also started to cite foreign laws. So maybe American courts could convict Thomson-Scientific under UK laws (that would save me the trouble of suing Thomson-Scientific in a UK court). LOL
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Thomson-Scientific refers blog comment censorship issue to legal counsel

I have been informed by telephone that Thomson-Scientific has referred the blog comment censorship issue to its legal counsel and that other staff will not discuss the issue further with me. I don't know if this referral means that Thomson-Scientific and its affiliates in the field of law are giving this matter more attention or less attention.

Arbitrary censorship of comments on blogs is not necessarily a legal issue, but IMO it can be. IMO it is definitely a legal issue when a blog is cited by a court opinion. It might be feebly argued that court citations of blogs are no different from the courts' thousands of citations of law journal articles -- however, several of the court opinions' citations of blogs cited visitors' comments rather than the bloggers' original posts. An important legal decision can hinge on whether or not a particular comment or commenter was arbitrarily censored by a blogger. Listen up, Darwinists -- theoretically you could lose an important case against the fundies because some blogger arbitrarily censored your comment. Also, IMO this censorship is a legal issue whenever a blog is referenced by any authority -- such as a scholarly journal or a scholarly database -- that receives direct or indirect government support.

Please send in your protests (see this post) -- and please send me a copy so I have some idea of the amount of support I am getting ( my email address is LarryFarma@aol.com ). Even if your blog comments have not been arbitrarily censored in the past, they might be arbitrarily censored in the future. If it happens to you and you did not join this protest, you will have no one but yourself to blame.
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Protest of authoritative referencing of arbitrarily censoring blogs

At last, my piece de resistance -- an organized protest of arbitrary Internet censorship. This post has a list of email addresses and telephone numbers for participating in the protest. I am posting this stuff because I have not been getting adequate responses to my own protests.

By arbitrary censorship, I mean that comments and/or commenters are censored for the sole reason that the bloggers disagree with the opinions or arguments of the comments or the commenters. If you get pissed off at bloggers who arbitrarily censor your comments, you are not alone. This arbitrary censorship is bad enough by itself, but IMO it becomes intolerable when blogs whose bloggers arbitrarily censor comments are quoted, cited, or listed for authoritative purposes -- e.g., by court opinions, scholarly journals, and scientific databases. Bloggers who have shown an intention to present only one side of controversial issues do not deserve to have their blogs used for authoritative purposes. That's all there is to it.

Comment censorship in blogs is discussed in the posts listed here and here (these lists of posts may also be found by clicking on "Internet censorship (1 of 2)" and "Internet censorship (2 of 2)" in this blog's left sidebar). These posts show that the use of blogs as authoritative references is already widespread and is growing.

If you don't mind such authoritative use of blogs that have arbitrarily censored your comments, then I beg you to not join this protest (in a Scotch whiskey ad -- I think it was for Glenlivet whiskey -- the brewmaster said, "if you won't drink this whiskey in the proper way -- that is, warm instead of on the rocks -- then I beg you to drink another Scotch"). And no, Voice in the Wilderness, you don't need to thank me for the opportunity to make a counterprotest -- I don't need your thanks for helping you and your pals to make complete fools of yourselves.

To Darwinists who might be reading this post: there is no law, regulation or policy that says that the anti-Darwinist Uncommon Descent blog, for example, may not be referenced for an authoritative purpose. This arbitrary censorship is not just an anti-Darwinist issue, it is not even just an evolution-controversy issue -- it is a universal issue.

IMO a blog article that is cited by a court opinion becomes like a governmental administrative public hearing where all comments must be accepted (of course, by the time a blog is cited by a court opinion, it is too late to accept comments that were previously censored). And blogs may indirectly influence court opinions through the opinions' citations of scholarly journals that cite the blogs. Actually, any blog that is referenced by an entity that is supported by our tax dollars should be considered to be a public forum.

Arbitrary censorship on blogs can include IP address blocking, which is disreputable, irresponsible, and possibly illegal as well as often being ineffective. IP address blocking can block comments from large numbers of Internet users who share the same ISP proxy IP address. If we do nothing else, let's put an end to this abominable IP address blocking.

Aims of protest:

(1) Discouraging authoritative use of blogs whose bloggers arbitrarily censor comments and/or commenters.

(2) General discouragement of arbitrary censorship on blogs. Creating an Internet culture of disapproval of such censorship. At the least, this censorship is very inconsiderate because often a lot of time is spent writing comments.

(3) Ending the abominable practice of IP address blocking.

(4) Discouraging blog services from aiding and abetting this arbitrary censorship. Blog services aid and abet this censorship by offering IP address blocking or other means of censorship. Discouraging blog services from leaking commenters' IP or email address information to bloggers (such leakage may already be illegal in Europe).

(5) Discouraging comment "moderation" (the holding up of comments pending approval by the blogger). Comment moderation prevents the timely posting of comments, disrupts and greatly slows down discussions, loses comments, and leaves commenters up in the air wondering when and if their comments are going to be posted.

(6) Encouraging bloggers to post a comment policy. This blog's comment policy is linked at the bottom of the left sidebar.

(7) Establishment of a government agency that certifies blogs as being free of arbitrary comment censorship. Government rules prohibiting citation of uncertified blogs by courts, government agencies, people or organizations receiving government funds, etc.. (this idea was added on 04-20-07).

(8) Automatic archiving of censored comments on blogs. Then if there is an intention to authoritatively reference the blog, the archive can be checked to see if there are any arbitrarily censored comments (this idea was added on 04-20-07).

(9) When a blog article and/or its visitors' comments are authoritatively quoted or cited by a court opinion, scholarly journal, etc., then the article, its comment thread, and any linked websites should be permanently and securely archived somewhere for possible future reference (this idea was added on 04-21-07).

(10) Bloggers who practice arbitrary comment censorship should not be considered to be eligible to receive blogging awards (this idea was added on 04-21-07).

(11) Prevent or discourage the "banning" of particular commenters. It makes no sense to ban particular commenters and then complain when they post comments under false names or multiple names in an attempt to evade the ban (this idea was added on 04-24-07).

List of email addresses and phone numbers:

The following email list includes the following:

(1) Staffers of Thomson-Scientific, which maintains a scientific database called the ISI Web of Knowledge. They told me that it is their policy to include arbitrarily censoring blogs in this database.

(2) Email addresses of Panda's Thumb bloggers. PT practices arbitrary censorship and is listed in the ISI Web of knowledge. PT admits to practicing IP address blocking.

(3) Email addresses for Thomson-West, a law publisher that is affiliated with Thomson-Scientific. Thomson-West sponsors a group of law blogs called the Law Professor Blogs.

(4) Emails of the bloggers on Law Blog Metrics, a member of the Law Professor Blogs network. A Law Blog Metrics blogger, Ian Best, sent me a very rude email refusing to post a comment of mine -- fortunately one of his co-bloggers posted the comment. Ironically, my comment was a complaint about the possibility of a court opinion citing an arbitrarily censoring blog.

(5) Some other emails of bloggers on the Law Professor Blogs network. Law blogs are particularly likely to be cited in law journal articles and court opinions.

(6) Scienceblogs blog service. Scienceblogs is a blog service with a lot of "science" blogs. Commenters' IP and email addresses are leaked by Scienceblogs to Scienceblogs bloggers. Scienceblogs has enabled IP address blocking. There is a fair chance that a Scienceblogs blog may be used for an authoritative purpose.

I have made it easy to create a single string of email addresses by keeping interruptions in the email list to a minimum.

Your protest email could, for example, state the aims of this protest or describe incidents of arbitrary censorship of your comments by bloggers. You might also say that the "show me" guy from Missouri sent ya. You could also send a copy of your protest to me at LarryFarma@aol.com You could also tell your friends about this protest.

Take advantage of the power of the Internet to make your thoughts widely known.

Remember, folks, if this protest fizzles, the situation will be worse than it was before -- the protest will then be seen as evidence that people don't care about authoritative referencing of blogs whose bloggers arbitrarily censor comments.

Thomson-Scientific:

allison.hagan@thomson.com,
kathleen.odonnell@thomson.com,
marylou.warwick@thomson.com,
ts.cts.amer@thomson.com,
service@techstreet.com,
rs.info@thomson.com,
rs.sales@thomson.com

Thomson-West et al.:

foundation-press@thomson.com,
west_lawschool@thomson.com,
support@westacademic.com

Law Blog Professors Network:

paul.caron@uc.edu,
berman.43@osu.edu,
nancy.soonpaa@ttu.edu,
faigmand@uchastings.edu,
David.Kaye@asu.edu,
Michael.Saks@asu.edu,
JSanders@central.UH.edu,
edward.cheng@brooklaw.edu,
mgiangra@depaul.edu

Law Blog Metrics bloggers:

ianbest@sbcglobal.net,
joe.hodnicki@gmail.com,
JONESRE@UCMAIL.UC.EDU

Misc. law:

jaywex@bu.edu,
quarter@wulaw.wustl.edu

Panda's Thumb bloggers:

rosenhjd@jmu.edu,
nmsrdave@swcp.com,
abottaro@pandasthumb.org,
ed@pandasthumb.org,
brauer@pandasthumb.org,
reed@pandasthumb.org,
welsberr@pandasthumb.org,
rbh@pandasthumb.org,
garyhurd@pandasthumb.org,
minlay@pandasthumb.org,
jkrebs@pandasthumb.org,
jml@pandasthumb.org,
ianfmusgrave@pandasthumb.org,
pz@pandasthumb.org,
tara@pandasthumb.org,
wilkins@pandasthumb.org

Scienceblogs:

webmaster@seedmediagroup.com,
newblogger@seedmediagroup.com,
advertising@seedmediagroup.com

Also, there are these telephone numbers:

Thomson-Scientific:

1-800-336-4474

Allison Hagan, ext. 1881
Department of Public Relations and Communications

Marylou Warwick, ext. 1591

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