Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SEWilco (talk | contribs) at 03:14, 27 September 2007 (→3RR Warning for User:SEWilco: see the source). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

First cut

I think this is a reasonable first cut at a split. However, I do think quite a bit of this needs to be NPOV'd. Right now, it starts off reading like we are going to present a case that these are conclusively forged. And we quite simply don't. The only real evidence here is the testimony of the "experts". So, we need to be careful that we present a balanced view of the range of opinions and statements by them, as well as their expertise and who asked them to comment. I'm not disagreeing that a bunch of them think these are highly suspicious, but I think the case may well be overstated that a consensus opinion is forgery.

Also, if one simply scans the headings on the "blogger evidence", one would assume that everything there is damning. In fact, most of that evidence is crap. I think we ought to find some way to relabel that explicitly as "blogger evidence" to indicate clearly that those aren't the issues that experts have raised. We need to be very clear about this delineation. The casual reader would probably infer that all those issues were raised by competent people.

Asides:

To me a great irony is that some of those issues, actually work against the MS Word hypothesis when you push on them ... like the superscripted th. Because, you'd have to go to a special effort _not_ to get the superscript for some of those cases. And if you're that conscious of it, you'd think you'd at least be consistent in typing up 4 docs. I clearly remember doing carriage rollbacks for superscripted footnotes on Selectrics in high-school typing class, and I'm only in my 30's. Who the hell came up with the idea that you couldn't superscript without a special key? But that's a danger, because you don't want to make the experts look like idiots when it's the bloggers who are. So you just can't jumble this stuff all up. Also, the crap about getting the jargon wrong ... I assume the prime suspect for forgery is Bill Burkett, and he damn well ought to know better than any blogger what jargon TexANG used. I'm not saying the typography guys are wrong, but some of these bloggers could use a remedial course in engaging their brains.

Also, did the fellow who made the "blinking gif" ever do the same for the other documents? I've always wondered because a bunch of the features really don't look like a great match to me. I'd find it a lot more compelling to see tham all done, otherwise it makes me wonder if he "cherry-picked" the only one that sort of looked ok. Just asking for my own curiosity. Derex 22:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

there are a lot of footnotes on this page that do not link to the text. Probably a carryover from the larger article. I will be pruning them shortly. Thatcher131 22:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• Pruned them. Let me know if I accidentally left any orphans. Thatcher131 23:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Planning some updates

I think this is an excellent article and congratulations to everyone who has worked on it! Where this article is weak is that it assumes a lot of prior knowledge of the issue and doesn't stand alone very well (for example it mentions Marian Carr Knox but doesn't say who she is). I would like to make some edits along those lines. I started with the th issue, to open with a background on what it signifies and what is actually in the memos, and then the analysis. I don't believe I have altered NPOV in any significant way, please let me know if you are unhappy. I also edited David Hailey, for two reasons. First, the article said he was accused by bloggers of flasifying his findings but did not provide any specifics. Second it did not acknowledge that Hailey has produced a more recent, more comprehensive report. Again, please let me know if you are unhappy with my work. Thatcher131 23:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnote issues

The automated conversion of the citation template left some mistakes. I will try to fix them soon if no one else does. Also, if we place the citations at the text using the <ref></ref> template, the footnote section will automatically number correctly. I will work on this too if no one objects. Thatcher131 07:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

• About half the article (the lower half) converted to the new WP:FOOTNOTE method, with the footnotes and links reconfirmed and verified. For the top half I removed the numbers from the notes since they no longer matched the number of the cites in the text (a defect of the {{cite}} and {{note}} method. The number in the text will still take you to the note and the arrow will take you back. I will fix the rest of the notes soon (1-2 days) Thatcher131 06:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

blockquote

the big blockquote under the typography section is not clearly attributed. if it's not actually a quote, the formatting is all wrong and the content probably pov. Derex 01:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

• It appears to be adapted from Thomas Phinney quoted here (and footnote 2 in the article) but does not appear to be a direct quote. The whole section is laid out awkwardly as well. The Phinney blockquote should probably be moved and rewritten, or dropped if it is redundant with other material. Part of the problem I think is that this article originally developed day by day in 2004 at Killian documents. When it was forked here it was never cleaned up as a retrospective whole analysis. I will make a few small edits tonight and continue on it after Sunday (some real world interference). I also want to clean up and verify the footnotes as I did on the main Killian documents article. you're welcome to assist of course. Thatcher131 03:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I took it out and rewrote the opening paragraph of the section. Thatcher131 04:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Ones versus Ells

I deleted this section

On September 13, CBS Evening News introduced two new experts to vouch for the authenticity of the memos. One of the individuals, a software designer named Richard Katz, stated that a lower case ell was used in place of the numeral one in the memos. Further, he asserted that this would be difficult to duplicate on a computer today. Mr. Katz did not publicly explain the details of how he made this determination

Mainly, Katz's argument has no bearing on whether the documents are authentic. Even if it is true that the memos used lowercase L's, it is not difficult to dpulicate on a computer, just type an L instead of a "one". The Thornburgh report basically repudiates CBS use of him as an "expert"; CBS made no attempt to verify his qualifications before putting him on the air. As a blow-by-blow account of the controversy as it was happening this was useful but as a retrospective summary it doesn't add anything verifiable to the article. Thatcher131 04:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

• In the Formatting section I took out the links to google searches purporting to show that certain "unofficial" abbreviations are actually used because the claim about official style relates to the style in use in 1972, not the style in use in 2006; also because google search results can change daily and we don't know what might show up at some future date. Also, I removed the comment about the 1994 list of official abbreviations because again, not relevant to 1972 documents. Thatcher131 06:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Curved apostrophes

I think there might be an inconsistency in this statement:
"Bloggers have frequently asserted the documents use curly, or "smart", quotes – distinct left and right double quotes. This feature is common on modern word processors. In fact, the documents use no quotation marks of any kind, either single or double."
According to the second CBS News Document, the word “He’s” has a single quotation mark. Thus the documents do feature quotation marks. =D Jumping cheese 07:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Diablo Systems HyType

There's a brochure at computerhistory.org that dates the HyType 1 (from Xerox, after their purchase of Diablo) as 9-73; I'm inclined to think that it was "cutting edge" then, had been for a year or three, and was probably not found in the TexANG (or any other state's NG!) --htom 05:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC) The modern daisywheel printer was invented at Diablo Systems in 1969, and the chief engineer of that project (David S. Lee) went on to form Qume. --htom 06:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The Diablo Systems Inc. Model 1200 HyType I Printer Maintenance Manual (Pub. No. 82003, 2nd ed., Nov. 1974) indicates that the printer supported a print line of "132 Columns @ 10 characters/in. (3.95 char/cm)" and "158 Columns @ 12 characters/in. (4.76 char/cm)" with column spacing of "60 Positions/in., 1/60th in./increment (23.6 pos./cm 152.4 mm/increment)" (Table 1-1, p. 1-1). The I/O interface included 11 data lines to carry BCD information representing carriage movement values. The high order bit represented the carriage movement direction. The ten low order bits represented the carriage movement distance, "in increments of 1/60th of an inch. Six increments equal 1 character column at 10 characters or columns per inch, while 5 increments equal 1 character column at 12 characters or columns per inch." (p. 4-2). This indicates that the Model 1200 HyType I printer was not capable of supporting the 18-units-per-em system of character widths used in the memos. 71.212.31.95 21:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Blog

I added back the blog info, due to fact that the entire subject revolves around blogs. The reason the controversy existed in the first place was because of the blogs. I'm aware to the "no blog" policy, but does not apply to pages that are heavily dependent and focused on blogs. Removal can qualify as blatant omission of information. Jumping cheese 20:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Our prohibition against blogs as a reliable source does not fail to streatch to articles where information can only be sourced to blogs. Please don't make up policies.JBKramer 21:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:V states that "blogs are largely not acceptable as sources". It not an absolute rule, and certainly does not apply to a subject that is heavily dependent on blogs. Excluding all info from blogs will severely limit having a well balanced page.
Also, refrain from making accusations such as "Please don't make up policies", which has a patronizing tone. I will not add the blog info back until you reply in a reasonable time (to prevent an edit war). ^_^ Jumping cheese 23:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I consider 32 hours a reasonable amount of time, so I'm placing the blog info back. Jumping cheese 07:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Review WP:RS.

A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites, and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and 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.

Exceptions to this may be when a well-known, professional researcher writing within their field of expertise, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications, and they are writing under their own name or known pen-name and not anonymously. Another exception may be when an individual publishes their own personal biographical material (they are a subject matter expert in this case). See "Self-published sources in articles about the writers of those sources" later in this guideline.

I do not see any of the afformationed people. There is no policy that says "if it's necessary for a "balanced" article, you can break WP:RS." If the article cannot be balanced without original research, it should be deleted. JBKramer 00:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree again. The info in the blog has been cited in credible news organizations and the authors of the pieces are not anonymous. As I stated earlier, the rule against self-published sources is not absolute. I guess the sources can be resourced to major news publications, but that will be like quoting someone quoting a source. I'll wait for a response before further edits. =D Jumping cheese 08:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to disagree, too. When the secondary sources don't accurately report what the primary sources did or said, they should be bypassed. It is more important that the article be accurate than that it cite tertiary authority. htom 15:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy is not a policy - in fact, it's expressly stated that we do not strive to be accurate, we strive to be verifiable. Blogs are not reliable sources, and as such, are not veriable. JBKramer 15:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Your statement that blogs are not reliable sources -- and implication that they are never reliable -- is at best prejudice and is not supported by the policies you cite. The newspapers you urge us to use instead are known to change their articles without notice or mention of their changes, making them no more reliable or verifiable than blogs. The prohibition against citing blogs is not absolute. In any case, if "verifiability is more important than accuracy" is indeed the goal of Misplaced Pages, why bother? Verifiable incorrectness presented as factual correctness is less than useless, it is anti-useful. Picking random information would then be more useful than Misplaced Pages, as it would sometimes be accurate. htom 16:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

If you guys want a third opinion, I think JBKramer is clearly right on this one.

1. If a blog post were independently notable on its own as a historical document, then you might be able to argue that the blog should be linked as a primary source. At a minimum, this would require that the blog post itself be the subject of non-blog media coverage. (As an example, the original "Buckhead" post regarding the Killian documents received substantial press coverage, so you might be able to make an argument that the post itself might merit a link from the primary Killian documents article as a historically significant document, rather than to establish its contents. Of course, even the use of a self-published document as a primary source would violate the letter of Misplaced Pages's reliable source guideline, so if there was substantial controversy, it would probably just be wiser to cite to reliable source articles discussing Buckhead, and let people google if they want to view the original.)
2. In this case, it looks like Jumping Cheese wants to include a DailyKos post and another blog post not because those specific posts are themselves historically notable, but as support for the facts stated in those posts. IMHO, that's not even a close decision -- it's forbidden both by WP:V and WP:RS.

Just my 2 cents, TheronJ 16:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Blinking GIF

The original blinking gif comparison was by Charles Johnson at LGF. I think he did one other comparison, non-blinking, and one of his users did a high-resolution version of the blinking gif. I suspect that he would do the same for all six, if asked nicely, but those would be orginal research ....

The Smoking Memo post at LGF, with a link to the index of LGF posts about the memos: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12615&only

htom 22:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Desktop Magazine and the Times Roman Font

Does the person who included the info about Desktop Magazine at the end of the "Proportional Fonts" section have the article and does the article specify the filenames of the Times Roman font in question? Was it a PC font? In particular, was it TrueType? A comment at Tim Blair's blog on Sept. 14 2004 (direct link to comment) claimed that the Killian memos font looked most like a PC TrueType font Times Roman and gave the filenames:
timr65w.ttf Times Bold
timr66w.ttf Times Bold Italic
timr46w.ttf Times Italic
timr45w.ttf Times Roman (screen name: Times)
74.72.218.159 03:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

David Hailey

I note that some editors seem to think that David Hailey has proved the documents to be genuine. Anyone who wants to go on believing that should not click on these links.

Dr Hailey's most recent work on this topic claims that "the memos were typed", but never even tries to explain the pseudo-kerning, varied space sizes etc. (In order to produce those documents on a typewriter, the typist would have to position the paper by hand before almost every character, and a simple memo would take hours to type!)

Cheers, CWC(talk) 15:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You're linking to some Wizbang posts as being some sort of proof of something?! Hah! The irony -- I had just finish ruining some people's day(s) at Wizbang. This is probably not the best venue for this, but...what the heck. Thanks to Google Groups screwing up, I was lurking at Wizbang and I had picked a fight over a post involving Ted Koppel. In the course of that, someone brought up this web site I had put up about the Killian memos in order to take a snipe at me. That provoked a different fight with a very, VERY unexpected ending. I'm not going go into the details here, but for anyone interested and willing to run through a very long and winding debate thread, this is the link.

And as far as Hailey goes, he was apparently trying to describe a type of impact printing device that he didn't know existed at the time -- a proportionally printing computer printer. He was just thinking that there were only typewriters back then and that there was maybe something like an improved Executive model. The first proportionally printing daisywheel printers I could find being sold were OEM Diablos. The earliest shipping dates I could find for one was for the end of 1972 for Redactron, with quantity shipments starting in 1973. According to the "Business Machines Executive Newsletter" of May 1972,

blog sourced info

If the information I'm removing isn't just some guys webpage, please show how it meets WP:RS. Thanks. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Are the revert warriors just going to revert, or respond here? Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

is a link to the CV of the individual with the weblog. I do not see any typesetting experience. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(The heading is wrong: Dr Newcomer's website is not a blog.)

Dr Joseph Newcomer was one of the pioneers of digital typography. From his résumé:

Pioneered desktop publishing — wrote one of the earliest word processing programs for a high-resolution xerographic printer (the “XGP”, ca. 1970, was a predecessor to today’s laser printers).

From http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm:

I am one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting. I was doing work with computer typesetting technology in 1972 (it actually started in late 1969), and I personally created one of the earliest typesetting programs for what later became laser printers, but in 1970 when this work was first done, lasers were not part of the electronic printer technology (my way of expressing this is “I was working with laser printers before they had lasers”, which is only a mild stretch of the truth). We published a paper about our work (graphics, printer hardware, printer software, and typesetting) in one of the important professional journals of the time (D.R. Reddy, W. Broadley, L.D. Erman, R. Johnsson, J. Newcomer, G. Robertson, and J. Wright, "XCRIBL: A Hardcopy Scan Line Graphics System for Document Generation," Information Processing Letters (1972, pp.246-251)). I have been involved in many aspects of computer typography, including computer music typesetting (1987-1990). I have personally created computer fonts, and helped create programs that created computer fonts. At one time in my life, I was a certified Adobe PostScript developer, and could make laser printers practically stand up and tap dance. I have written about Microsoft Windows font technology in a book I co-authored, and taught courses in it. I therefore assert that I am a qualified expert in computer typography.

Also, the text you keep removing about sub-character spacing, negative escapement etc is common knowledge. Please leave it alone. Dr Newcomer is far better qualified than Dr Hailey, so please also leave the link to (and quote from) Newcomer's rebuttal of Hailey alone. (Furthermore, please allow other editors more than 10 minutes to respond to your comments in future.) Thanks, CWC(talk) 23:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Dr Joseph Newcomer

Hipocrite (talk · contribs) has put a Template:self-published tag on this article. I'm guessing that he objects to using Dr Joseph Newcomer as a source. (The complete edit summary was "more blogshit". Since Dr Newcomer is not a blogger and his analysis is cogent and convincing, that's 2 unfortunatenesses in 3 syllables.) Let's look at Dr Newcomer's writings in the light of WP:RS. Although Dr N has published scholarly works, the relevant writings are not peer-reviewed, so the Non-scholarly sources section applies.

1. Attributability - Yes
2. Expertise - Yes, see #blog sourced info (sic) above
3. Bias - He writes "I am not a fan of George Bush", FWIW
4. Editorial oversight - No
5. Replicability - Yes
6. Declaration of sources - Yes
7. Use of confidential sources - None used, so no problem
8. Corroboration - by Dr. Philip Bouffard, Peter Tytell (CBS's own analyst!) and others
9. Recognition by other reliable sources - quoted as a recognised expert by the Washington Post here and here, and by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here
10. Age of the source and rate of change of the subject - Not relevant here
11. Persistence (of web links) - No problem here

Of the 9 relevant criteria, Dr Newcomer satisfies 8. That's a pass.
Cheers, CWC(talk) 16:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You appear to have missed "Self-published sources as secondary sources" - "Personal websites, blogs, and other self-published or vanity publications should not be used as secondary sources." Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And you appear to have missed WP:V#SELF - "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field or a well-known professional journalist." Jinxmchue 19:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

He's neither. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I will agree that he does not appear to be a professional journalist (although what that has to do with the topic I don't understand.) He is, however, a computer science professional who I, at least, knew of before Bush announced that he was running for President. Dr. Newcomer's CV -- ::::http://www.flounder.com/resume.htm As well, he's been cited by several of the mainstream press:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18982-2004Sep13.html

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/640pgolk.asp?pg=2

If you want to maintain that his informed opinion is not relevant, you have to do better than what you've done. Because you don't agree with him doesn't make his informed opinion either wrong or unverified; it appears to be both correct and verified.

htom 20:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? You're saying there are mass media sources that will let me avoid blogs? Done. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in the mania for verification, other things can be found. Of course, linking to the WP and WS is a dangerous activity, as both have been known to change pages without noting that they've done so. In any case, the page(s) provided by Newcomer are not a blog, although it is self-published. Please remove the warning tag, unless you have some other complaint. htom 20:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I was working on fixing it as you were commenting. I was unable to find mention of kerning in the mass-media sources - if you have that, please include it also. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

More importantly, it seems to me that we are using Dr Newcomer as a primary source which WP:RS#Types of source material defines as "a document or person providing direct evidence of a certain state of affairs; in other words, a source very close to the situation you are writing about. The term mainly refers to a document produced by a participant in an event or an observer of that event."

Another issue is that Appendix 4 of the Thornbourgh-Boccardi report is probably a better primary source, but is much harder to use because (1) that PDF does not allow copy and paste (!) and (2) it is written in indirect language. For example, the second para begins:

Tytell concluded, for the reasons described below, that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle.

Hence my preference for using Dr Newcomer as a primary source. However, if necessary, I will type in experts from Appendix 4. Cheers, CWC(talk) 04:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please use the report as opposed to some guys blog. Hipocrite - «Talk» 08:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please explain why you think the paper published by Dr. Newcomer is "some guy's blog" while Dr. Hailey's paper is not. htom 09:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Would you like his paper excised also? It looked like an academic paper to me. Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather not excise either, thank you. I prefer the "dated notebook" of the scientist, unpolished, presentation of Dr. Newcomer to the well-dressed handwaving of Dr. Hailey. I don't think that either presentation is a blog. htom 14:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

(Some days later:) I've WP:BOLDLY put back a much shorter version of the argument from "pseudo-kerning", citing Dr Newcomer as the source. Here's a copy:

Inter-character spacing

Joseph Newcomer, an expert cited by critics of the memos, claims that the memos display a simple alternative to kerning characteristic of TrueType fonts but not available on any office equipment in 1972. For example, in words containing "fr", TrueType moves the "r" left to tuck it in under the top part of the "f".<ref>{{cite web | title=The Bush "Guard memos" are forgeries! | url=http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm | author=Joseph Newcomer | date=2004-09-15 | accessdate=2007-01-29 }}</ref>

Please note that my version uses Newcomer as a primary source, and so plainly is quite acceptable per WP:RS and WP:V#SELF. Cheers, CWC(talk) 17:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Newcomer is not an acceptable primary source. Per WP:ATT "Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation you are writing about." How is Newcomer very close to the situation? It appears to me that he downloaded the documents like anyone could and looked at them like anyone could. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, the policy states that "Primary source material that has been published by a reliable source may be used for the purposes of attribution in Misplaced Pages." Self-published sources are only reliable in articles about themselves. This is not an article about Newcomer. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I contend that

1. Joseph Newcomer is very close to the situation that "Joseph Newcomer ... claims ...".
2. Self-published sources are acceptable if from a "well-known, professional researcher writing within his or her field of expertise", which Newcomer is.
3. Newcomer indeed just "downloaded the documents like anyone could and looked at them like anyone could" — but he saw clear signs of forgery most people wouldn't, because of his deep knowledge of pseudo-kerning in TrueType fonts.

So IMO he is acceptable as a primary source for what he wrote. Two more important points:

(A) If anyone were to refute Newcomer's claims, his reputation and his business would suffer. He has a lot at stake here, so Misplaced Pages policies aimed at anonymous bloggers are much less applicable.

(B) There are other sources for this pseudo-kerning stuff. The only reason I keep arguing for using Newcomer is that it would be even more work to Google-and-winnow for an alternative source.

The article is going to end up mentioning that the "fr" (and "fe", and "fo") sequences in the memos could not have been produced by a typewriter ... because, guess what, that's the plain truth. If we don't cite Dr Newcomer, we'll just cite some other expert.

Cheers, CWC(talk) 18:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Joseph Newcomer is not very close to the situation. He is a guy who downloaded the documents and looked at them.
2. Joseph Newcomer has not been published in typeography... ever. He is not an expert.
3. Joseph Newcomer has no expert knowledge of "TrueType fonts," nor does he state such.
4. Joseph Newcomer's buisness of being a computer consultant would not be harmed by someone arguing about politics on the internet with him.
5. Please provide reliable sources for your claims. You have now stated, for the record, that they exist. How about someone that isn't self published? I'll return the fact tags untill such a person is found. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Newcomer is really, really close to the situation that Newcomer says the documents are forgeries. In fact, he's as close to that situation as anyone could be, donchathink?
2. Newcomer has published in typography. I put a citation in the article (diff); Hipocrite removed it! Much more relevant is chapter 15 of Win32 Programming.
3. Newcomer is an expert in TrueType fonts. See chapter 15 of Win32 Programming, again. He has repeatedly stated that he has expert knowledge of using (though not of designing) TrueType fonts, and he has repeatedly demonstrated that he does have such knowledge. (Look at how well he uses "Font Explorer", one of the most advanced FOSS tools for examining TrueType fonts! If only we could see what the guy who wrote "Font Explorer" says about the Killian memos ... oh, wait.)
4. Newcomer's business of training and consultancy would be harmed, as would his reputation, if anyone could point out any major flaws in his arguments. Lots of people have tried; they all failed.

Since I stated quite plainly that finding another source would be lots of work, I regard Hipocrite's peremptory demands that I do so as baiting.

I pointed out at the start of this section that Newcomer satisfies 8 out of 9 relevant criteria for a WP:RS. No one has argued otherwise. Hipocrite responded with a statement that no-one else has found convincing, or even (AFAICT) relevant. I say that we treat Newcomer as a RS until someone shows a flaw in my earlier argument. What do other editors think? CWC(talk) 20:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You wrote the following over 10 days ago - "Hence my preference for using Dr Newcomer as a primary source. However, if necessary, I will type in experts from Appendix 4. " I asked you to type in. You have not done so. Why are you so adverse to using an actualy reliable source as opposed to someguysblog? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thirty seconds with google brings the non-self published: http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0744118

Accession Number : AD0744118 Title : XCRIBL: A Hardcopy Scan Line Graphics System for Document Generation, Corporate Author : CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE Personal Author(s) : Reddy,R. ; Broadley,B. ; Erman,L. ;Newcomer,J. ; Robertson,G. Report Date : 28 MAR 1972 Pagination or Media Count : 69 Abstract : XCRIBL is a system developed at CMU for generating hard copy computer output of arbitrary type fonts, graphics, and grey-scale images using a Xerox Graphic Printer (XGP). XCRIBL can be used to generate documents approaching the quality of printed text with the use of a document generation language (XOFF or PUB) and a character set design program (BILOS). Textual and graphic information to be printed is shipped in its raw form from the host computer (PDP-10) to a mini-computer (PDP-11) which acts as an intelligent channel controlling the XGP. Careful design of the data structures and the hardware interface permit the mini-computer to generate each scan line as needed without having to resort to a brute force solution of generating a bit-image for the whole page (3.5 million bits) for off-line printing. Variable width characters and the ability to mix text and graphics distinguish the present solution from the known simpler schemes for scan line generation. (Author)

Descriptors : (*DATA PROCESSING, GRAPHICS), (*COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, INSTRUCTION MANUALS), INPUT OUTPUT DEVICES, OPTICAL IMAGES, INTERFACES, CONTROL SEQUENCES, SYSTEMS ENGINEERING Subject Categories : COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND SOFTWARE COMPUTER HARDWARE Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Close enough? htom 20:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an article about scan line graphics on the pdp-11. I'm begging that we use published reliable reports - like newspapers, magazines, journal articles, government reports, stuff like that, not someguysblogs. I hate blogs. They lie - dissemble, are regularly garbage and more ofen than not totally innacurate. I want every blog mention removed from this encyclopedia. You find me a blog being used as a source, and I will delete the blog sourced garbage. I want the blogs out of this article, but people keep puting some computer consultants website back in, even though they say the information is an exact copy of information in a reliable source. Why can't we just quote the reliable source? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You are under the impression that stinet.dtic.mil is a site that hosts blogs? This is a reference in a military database to a published paper. Someone who was in at the START of digital publishing would have indeed probably worked on a PDP-11, Windows had not been invented then. There was a whole world of computing before Microsoft. Your hatred of blogs is clouding your reading comprehension, perhaps. htom 21:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no doubt he wrote a paper about the pdp-11 in the mid 1970s.

Hipocrite asks me:

Why are you so adverse to using an actualy reliable source as opposed to someguysblog?

To summarize points made repeatedly on this page:

1. It's not a blog.
2. He's not just some guy: the Washington Post and other RSs called him an expert.
3. Newcomer is a reliable source. No-one has even tried to rebut my 8-out-of-9 argument, just dodged it.

I say that we simply treat Newcomer as a WP:RS in TrueType "pseudo-kerning". Barring reasoned objections that address all my previous arguments without relying on misquoting of Misplaced Pages policies, I'll edit accordingly in a day or two. CWC(talk) 21:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Attributability - Yes - agreed
2. Expertise - Yes, see #blog sourced info (sic) above - dubious - while he is clearly an expert on the pdp-11, he is unpublished with respect to modern typography or typography in use in the 1970's away from the pdp-11.
3. Bias - He writes "I am not a fan of George Bush", FWIW - disagree - his statements to his bias are not verifiable.
4. Editorial oversight - No - agreed - none whatsoever. Not a smidge. He could make up every word he wrote and no editor would say naught abotu it.
5. Replicability - Yes - Disagree - has not been replicated, has it?
6. Declaration of sources - Yes - Disagree - has no sources except primary document. This is not a declaration of sources, it's a declaration that he used no sources.
7. Use of confidential sources - None used, so no problem
8. Corroboration - by Dr. Philip Bouffard, Peter Tytell (CBS's own analyst!) and others - disagree - they do not corroborate his statements about TrueType, do they? They all think the document is a fraud? Fine. He is used to make specific factual claims.
9. Recognition by other reliable sources - quoted as a recognised expert by the Washington Post here and here, and by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here - disagree - he is treated as a cute sidebar by all of these.
10. Age of the source and rate of change of the subject - Not relevant here - disagree. Flounder.com has no reputation.
11. Persistence (of web links) - No problem here - disagree. Flounder.com has no reputation.

I do not believe this qualifies as an unquestionably relevant source and ask that you find another one. Any other corroborating source of unquestionable reliablity, please. Just one. You said you had some appendix 4. Please use it. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, dear. An initial response:

#2: The 1972 paper and the book chapter deal directly with computer typography.

#6: He had one source (as H admits before contradicting himself) and he declared it.

#9: ("cute sidebar all three")

      He was quoted more than any non-CBS expert in the WaPo items and was only topic of PG item!

      How on earth did H expect to get away with something that blatant?!

#5, #10, #11: more irrelevancies.

All my other arguments: H didn't even try.

Baiting rating: C+ for effort, F for quality. Cheers, CWC(talk) 22:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

ok, let's edit war. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nah, let's not. Let's see if other editors think Dr Newcomer is a RS, then try to reach a consensus. (But I have a strange feeling that unanimous agreement might be a bit out of reach ...) I see no need to hurry. Cheers, CWC(talk) 23:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, let's not edit war. I am quite against nuking Newcomer from this article. Arkon 01:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Who, other than Tytell, Hailey, Phinney, and Newcomer are there? Where are all the other reliable sources i.e. typography experts, named and on the record with an analysis of the documents? You have to write the article with the sources you have, not the sources you wish you had. Is there a more detailed analysis of the typography of the documents on the Internet better than Newcomer's? patsw 03:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

When the furor erupted, newspapers asked a whole bunch of experts (and not-so-experts) for their opinions. I suspect that Newcomer's bush2.htm is the best analysis, but I'm sure that other experts mention the pseudo-kerning. CWC(talk) 14:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

WaPo cited Newcomer

In this article, the WaPo cited Newcomer on inter-character spacing:

One telltale sign in the CBS documents is the overlapping character combinations, such as "fr" or "fe," said Joseph M. Newcomer, an adjunct professor with Carnegie Mellon University. Blown-up portions of the CBS documents show that the top of the "f" overlaps the beginning of the next letter, a feat that was not possible even on the most sophisticated typewriters available in 1972.

Is there any reason we cannot use this as a WP:RS for the "Inter-character spacing" issue? (I feel really dumb for not noticing this until today.)

Perhaps we should reference the WaPo article and put "See also Newcomer's detailed analysis" at the end of the footnote?

Which reminds me: the references are in a real mess, with URLs as titles and independent references to the same sources. I've started tidying them up. (Take a look at reference .) I'll finish the job in a few days, unless some kind person does it first. Cheers, CWC(talk) 14:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Newcomer is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a citeable expert. His website regarding the Killian memos is laughably wrong on key technical points, including completely omitting the vast array of proportionally spacing word processing sysems available in the early-mid-70's, most notably those using Diablo daisywheel printers. He labeled the memos as forgeries a week before he even looked at a print sample, a wedding program, from an IBM Executive, a one time very common typewriter that could proportionally print, super/subscript with small typefaces and actually had come available in with a choice of fonts in the form of interchangeble typebars. His site is very, very long on words but very, very short on actual comparisons between his supposed Word replicas and the original memos, making the whole thing utterly unscientific and worthless as a useful source. -BC 65.78.25.69 17:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

That's how the scientific process works. You publish, others complain, you do research, publish again, answering their questions of your conclusions. I would like to see evidence that Diablo mechanisms were available at the offices where they would have been used to type these memos before worrying about them. The mid-seventies, btw, don't count; they have to be there by the dates on the documents. The comparisons, I grant, are done using numbers and measurements rather than .gifs. htom 21:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with user 65.78.25.69 (talk · contribs) about Dr Newcomer. Newcomer does discuss proportional-font typewriters. He points out that they used "escapements" which were multiples of 1/3-em — ie., every character was 1/3 em, 2/3 em or 1 em wide. His detailed analysis showed that the character widths in the memos had much finer variations than that. That was only one of the reasons he designated the memos as forgeries. He did not need to look at the output of an IBM Executive because he already knew all about them. Note especially his argument about negative escapements, which conclusively proves that no typewriter could have produced those memos, only a typesetter or a computer with a laser printer.

Whether 65.78.25.69 likes Newcomer, his website, his arguments or (more importantly, I suspect) his conclusions has nothing to do with whether Newcomer is a WP:RS.

(People who have some need to believe in these memos often suggest that an early word processor with a daisy-wheel printer could have produced them. However, such systems only became common years later. The first Wang Word Processing System was not released until 1975 and it used an IBM golfball typewriter. WYSIWYG systems driving daisy-wheels were common by the late 1970s (I used one), but required CRT-based computer terminals. I have not seen any evidence that any system available in 1972 supported escapements finer than 1/3 em, let alone a system that would be available to a secretary working for a bunch of part-time officers while the U.S.A.F. was conducting a very expensive war on the other side of the world.)

Cheers, CWC(talk) 06:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, there is nothing "scientific" about Newcomer's methodology. Go look at his site again -- he's utterly wrong about 70's technology. Actually most people have no clue that the word processing market was in full bloom by the early to mid 70's with a slew of now utterly forgotten manufacturers like Redactron and NBI (Wang was a latecomer.) But if you're going to be an "expert" on the matter, you better know better than most people. Newcomer particularly and completely undermines his credibility regarding 70's tech with this statement from his site: The only other printer I am aware of in the 1970s that could print at reasonable quality was a research prototype I saw at Xerox PARC, called EARS, which could print at 300 dpi. It was not created until 1971, and I remember it has having several large cabinets of extremely expensive computer components controlling it. It was a “hand-built”, one-of-a-kind printer. All other technologies were quite elaborate and clumsy mechanical devices, and although there were some proportional-spaced typewriters (such as the IBM Executive) and print production technologies (such as the VariTyper), none of these would have produced something that was a near-perfect match for Times New Roman under Microsoft Word.

'Nuff said. -BC 65.78.25.69 03:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Link

So it's the link you really want in the article? What's your relation to the site? Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

(I guess this is addressed to me, following this edit.) I think including the link adds to the article (and conforms to Misplaced Pages rules), but it's not essential. As I tried to explain in the edit summary, since we mention the Weekly Standard article praising Dr Newcomer's analysis, I think we should link to that analysis. That's all.

I live on a farm in Australia and have nothing to do with Dr Newcomer, his company or his website.

For what it's worth, I think our combined edits have improved the "Dr. David Hailey's analysis" section quite a lot.

Cheers, CWC(talk) 13:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Blogs as sources

Blogs are not acceptable as sources about questions of fact. Inserting statements of the blog, and then stating "it's his opinion" does not get around WP:ATT - if no one reported the opinion in a reliable source, it doesn't exist. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Blogs are reliable sources for what the blogger wrote. The statement "logs are not acceptable as sources" is true for most articles, but not for all articles. In a small fraction of articles, things written by bloggers can be important and notable.

In an article about a political blogger, the blog is a RS for the blogger's opinions, for what the blogger has written, etc. See Glenn Greenwald#Views on other matters for a good example.

In articles about controversies in which bloggers played an important role, which blogger wrote what when can be important, and blogs are good sources there. In this article, a blanket no-blogs rule would exclude citing the LGF post with the blinking GIF in this article; I say that's a reductio ad absurdum proof that a complete and unconditional ban on blogs as sources is unwise.

Of course, that leaves lots of room for healthy argument about whether a particular blog post is relevant, notable, etc. OTOH, as Hipocrite rightly points out, using blogs to smuggle opinions etc into articles is not acceptable. Cheers, CWC(talk) 23:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Dr David Hailey

Remember Dr David Hailey? Holds a "PhD in technical communication"? So he'd know all about this stuff wouldn't he?

Wrong.

His PhD was in "Language and Rhetoric, Theory of Criticism" and was titled "The Objective Metaphor: An Examination of Objects as Metaphors and Metaphors as Objects".

Not much about fonts and typefaces there!

I've fixed the article. CWC(talk) 18:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I tracked down the edit which introduced the "PhD in technical communication" idea. CWC(talk) 21:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

From the aheckofa.com guy

"BC" added this enormous comment in the "Planning some updates" section above. I've moved it to the end of the page and added this heading. CWC 11:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi all. I never really noticed this separate "Killian documents authenticity issues" Wiki until recently. While I have made a couple of casual postings in regards to Newcomer, I hadn't really wandered through the entire section. Some of you may know me from this page I maintain, and which is due for a MAJOR update by, hopefully, the end of the month. For all intents and purposes, the authenticity discussion is now pretty much resolved -- it's impossible for at least one of them memos to have been forged because the contents had information connected to records that weren't released by the DoD until Sept. 7th, which happens to be after CBS had received all six memos from Burkett, two on Sept. 2nd and the rest on Sept. 5th. This shoots down a key contention the pro-forgers had used to explain the contents of the memos -- that the forger has used publicly available records, like those contained on this DoD site, to fill in the details of the memos.

The memo in question is a very short one dated February 2nd, 1972, that wasn't even used by CBS. The memo makes a very interesting passing mention of "Bath" aka James Bath, a future business partner of Bush, and who was verbally suspended by Killian exactly one month after Bush was and for the exact same official reasons, and whose name is now currently and very mysteriously redacted from currently available DoD records. Very, very interesing, but that's not even the relevant part. The memo also indicates a concern about flight certification for both Bush and Bath. Looking through the raw, unsorted flight records on the DoD doesn't really tell you much, so I thought to see what would happen if I entered those records into a spreadsheet and then sort, sum and graph in different ways to see any sort of obvious pattern that would connect to a flight certification worry. What I ended up with was this graph, which shows a clear, sharp rise in training flights (in yellow) coinciding with the date on the memo. Obviously the additional training flights were for Bush to meet certification. If we had Bath's flight records, we would likely see something very similar or even identical.

I had initially used this bit of analysis to show how ludicrous it is to believe that a forger would go all through this trouble just to get an indication that Bush needed training flights for something that the forger confidently guessed had to be for meeting flight certification. But that was before a nagging feeling got me to check when the flight records were actually released by the DoD, which turned out to Sept. 7th -- too late by just a couple of days for any forger to have used.

Some people I've already debated on this, while grudgingly admitting that I have a point here, claim that it could be that some of the memos are true while the others are fake. Since all of the memos show the same character type, spacing and other characteristics, that's an unfounded and basically idiotic explanation. If one is proven impossible to have been forged, then that becomes defacto authentication of not just that one memo but for all of them since there is no other explanation. A or B, forged or not forged. There is no "C" option.

This then gets back to how the forgery charges started and who is responsible and culpable for their spread, and whether it was done out of genuine confusion (even if pushed along by a political agenda) or with deliberate, malicious intent, and what roles did the bloggers and the mainstream media, especially CBS played in all this.

The initial Free Republic post by "Buckhead" was laughably wrong and confused in every way regarding 70's office technology, but that served well enough to stir up the right wing blog sites.

So the initial surge of forgery charges were based on a post, by a GOP activist, that was filled with utterly nonsensical information about 70's era office. An ignominious start for what will be an utterly ignominious episode of journalism being supplanted by mob news.

Those forgery charges then surged to another level with the posting of another blogger the following day, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who stated in a post with the title "Bush Guard Documents: Forged" that:

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft's Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date "18 August 1973," then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian.

And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as "authentic."

And it was in this post Johnson that displayed his first overlay experiment using the "CYA" memo, which also happened to be the shortest and simplest of the 4 memos CBS used in their report. Subsequently he "refined" his overlay experiment and ended up with a post that included the animated GIF that got extremely wide circulation.

Now, near the beginning of this page, in an aside, "Derex" asks, Also, did the fellow who made the "blinking gif" ever do the same for the other documents? I've always wondered because a bunch of the features really don't look like a great match to me. I'd find it a lot more compelling to see tham all done, otherwise it makes me wonder if he "cherry-picked" the only one that sort of looked ok. Just asking for my own curiosity.

The answer is no, Johnson didn't. How do I know? I asked Johnson in a very recent email about whether he attempted to recreate any of the other memos in Word, and if not, why not since "It would seem logical and proper to have tried the overlay experiment with all of the memos before coming to the rather harsh conclusion that all of them were forged." His response was only a link to another post of his comparing but not overlaying one of the other memos, the one dated May 19th, 1972 the second simplest one of the 4 memos.

And what would happen if the overlay experiment was done on the some of the other memos? The much maligned (by right wing blog sites, that is) Dr. David Hailey obtained some high resolution copies of the memos from Mary Mapes and tried Johnson's overlay trick with the somewhat complicated Aug. 1st memo and got this result. A bit less convincing, no?

Since the proportional spacing in Times Roman (Mac, what Johnson used) and Times New Roman (Windows) is highly derivative of the proportional spacing used by the early word processing systems -- especially ones using Diablo and Diablo compatible daisywheel printers, which were the standard for about a dozen years prior to the first laser printers -- you would actually expect some sort of rough match-up on a shorter memo like the CYA one, but not so much with more complicated and/or longer one. Which is the exact situation we have here.

But does this necessarily mean Johnson deliberately perpetrated a fraud? Couldn't he have been just a rank amateur who got this interesting result from a test, reached a snap, poorly thought out conclusion and just couldn't wait to post it all? Possible in theory, but extremely, EXTREMELY unlikely. He made a number of postings from Sept. 9, 2004 through the 13thin regards to the memos, and spent considerable time futzing only with the CYA memo. In one of those posts, though, he discusses his qualifications -- or "bona fides" -- in regards to his tests and conclusions, stating:

I’ve been involved with desktop publishing software and scalable software fonts (as opposed to hot lead type) almost since their inception. I’m a former West Coast editor of a popular computer magazine for a now-orphaned computer, the Atari ST/TT.

I also co-owned a software publishing firm, CodeHead Technologies, for whom I designed and laid out packaging and manuals for more than a dozen products (in addition to developing most of those products, using 680x0 assembly language). We used a combination of DTP and traditional typesetting techniques for these jobs, and I cut my teeth on some of the first serious DTP software ever created for personal computers—including Aldus Pagemaker and Aldus Freehand on the Mac, and less recognizable titles available for Atari computers (anyone still using Calamus or Pagestream out there?).

My software company also marketed a word processing program (Calligrapher, written by a developer in Britain) that had the ability to import and use Postscript Type 1 fonts. And I had early experience with some of the dinosaur-like dedicated word processors that were available in the 70s/80s.

I’m not boasting like this just to pump up my lizardoid ego; it’s to let you know that I have an extensive background in these subjects—and when I tell you that there’s no way the CBS News documents were created on any machine available in 1972/1973, I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

All of which makes it highly improbable in the extreme that he didn't at some point type up Word recreations of all 4 memos, and then proceeded to deliberately ignore the overt discrepencies in at least the May 4th and Aug. 1st memos for a "created by Word" scenario in order to go forward with his claim that all the documents were forged. Such deliberate cherry picking of data to support a hypothesis is considered outright fraud in the scientific community, and it's apparently no less the case here.

So the second escalation of the forgery charges came about from an apparently utterly fraudulent post. More ignominiousness.

Now whither the mainstream media, especially CBS, with their collective vast resources, in all this? MIA, basically. Research and investigation was limited to a few inclusive interviews and very, very little, if at all into the appearance issue, which is what the forgery charged were based on. Also completely lacking was any attempt to systematic match up the contents of the memos to official records -- there were all sorts of dated information, so.... No. How about the technology available in offices in the 70's -- anybody do much checking into that? Aside from relaying the evidently unchecked opinions of dubious experts like Joseph Newcomer, there was none at all -- it was virtually all Selectric this and Selectric that. It's very telling that is took a casual comment by Marian Carr Knox, an office pool secretary (no, she wasn't Killian's personal secretary) about how she had an Olympia typewriter that a little "th" key that there was even a suggestion that more than Selectric typewriters existed back then. Did the mainstream media follow up? No. Did they note this document in the DoD records with pristine, superscripted "th's" that was obviously not created on a modern word processor? No, again.

How about when the DoD, after having claimed to have finally posted all off Bush's records, quietly released, within days of CBS backing away from the memos, another PDF packet of files labeled Documents Released on September 24, 2004 that contained very pecularly formatted documents, including the only proportionally printed one in the entire DoD site -- did the news media make even a mention of this? No, again. Collectively they were absolutely worthless and journalistically incompetent in every way in regards to the memos mess, allowing for the forgery charges to grow futher, with every would-be Sherlock pointing out increasingly idiotic "proof" of forgery.

But what about CBS, the once proud network of Edward R. Murrow -- beset by the hounds of the right wing blogosphere and abandoned by their fellow news organizations, how did they respond? Fully investigate and address the forgery charges? No. Take a time out to see if they more fully authenticate the memos? No. What they ended up doing was turn tail and run, and then try to save face by setting up a supposedly independent panel to "probe" the memos story. The resulting "report" showed a laughably incompetent amount of real investigation was done, indicating that it was never more than a face-saving effort to find scapegoats for the memos mess. According to the DoD records, Bobby Hodges and especially Rufus Martin should have been able to answer and clear up a lot of the discrepencies in the official records, nevermind the memos, but they were only asked some lame questions that they disengenously evaded answering, including who even it was that suspended Bush from flight status.

So some people got ourright canned, including Mary Mapes, and Dan Rather was apparently forced out.

The one person who knew best of all whether the memos were real or not, Bush himself, was evidently never asked and who to this day avoided making any direct comments on the matter. Why would he not have made a comment? It was a while ago, but getting canned from flying would not be something you would forget, especially with a big shot dad who was a hotshot pilot in his day. Bush's silence only makes sense if the memos were real and not forged -- the right wing media was doing just fine and dandy in giving CBS and Dan Rather grief over the matter, including even dragging in Kerry, so why ruin a good thing? Obviously if Bush was a man of strong ethics and good character, he would have spoken up regardless, but....he never did.

So basically, to summarize, the forgery charges were bogus from beginning to end, the news media completely fell down on its collective face in sorting out fact from even outright nonsense, the blogosphere showed itself to be worthless as a legitimate alternative news media, and a really, really bad person got re-elected because of it all.

Hope this clarifies. -BC 65.78.25.69 21:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Updates

The main article is in serious need of updating, especially in regards to common early 70's office technology , which now appears to have been far more sophisticated than had been thought. There are also many factual errors as well. I will be creating a list of suggested and will post here for discussion. Others are also very much invited to offer up suggestions for improvement. -BC aka Callmebc 00:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that the article you reference supports your argument that such things were "common" in TANG squadron offices at the times referenced. Dreamed of, perhaps. htom 01:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The forgery charges were based on extremely faulty if not ludicrously wrong assertions about common early 70's office tech. It also appears that people's recollection of what was around is just as off, which I guess makes sense since only engineers were not completely computer illiterate in those days -- there were an astonishing number of sophisticated printers and word processing systems sold during the early 70's and yet few can remember them. It might be because many of those systems, especially the early models, looked typewriter-ish enough to not register as being something other than typewriters to people with no reason to know the difference. A Diablo daisywheel printer with the "KSR" option (Keyboard Send Receive) looks very much like an IBM Mag Card system or even a regular typewriter: , & . Also, I'm finding that most of what few Memorandums for Record posted online from the early 70's and even before are actually proportionally printed: & . So unless someone can say for sure what was around TANG or nearby (let's not forget law firms, JAG offices and such), then any reference that sheds better light on the true state of office technology would seem actually mandatory for inclusion in the best interests of the article. -BC aka Callmebc 04:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"One of the most significant innovations that affected the growth of word processing products was the development of the “daisywheel” printer technology, which became commercially available in 1972 ." (Your reference 8.) That they were commercially available is very different than their being "common". The leadscrew feed for the Selectric mechanism is announced in 1973 for the MagCard II. No 1970's secretary would confuse a Selectric with a MagCard, either a Model I or a Model II. htom 04:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The people making all the claims about 70's tech, with the exception of Knox, were not secretaries. And Redactron and other early word processing companies making word processors switched from using the mysterious OEM I/O Selectrics (mysterious in that what few specs on them indicate they were capable of proportionally printing like slow daisywheels, but it's unclear which companies used them despite IBM selling 20-40 thousand of them annually by 1972 -- see: ) to daisywheel printers beginning in 1972. And do you really think secretaries paid much attention to the details of the printer mechanism if everything else seemed more or less the same? Also most systems were apparently compatible with the Mag Card/Tape systems introduced by IBM in the 60's, meaning that a letter could be composed and saved on one system in, say, 1970, and printed out on another in 1973, much like people can today. The basic point is that by 1972, proportionally spacing word processing sytems were commonly available: . All of which at the very least cast serious questions on key contentions of the pro-forgers. -BC aka Callmebc 12:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of venturing too much into WP:OR territory, I suppose I should mention that I recently finished creating animated overlays of all the memos, as well as two "bonus" ones for your slowing blinking pleasure/displeasure: . I guess WP:IAR could apply here, though.... -BC aka Callmebc 16:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Word Wrapping

I'm a little distracted at the moment, but I will return with a whole buncha recommended fixes for the main page. I have noticed, though, a little editing done on the "word wrapping" issue. Aside from the word wrapping being of little or no value forensically if an old word processor had been used (standard margins with a similar enough font will word wrap at the same point), who exactly are the "critics" being referred to in this this comment: Critics have argued that it is implausible that a manual typist would have ended each line at precisely the same point as a computer program written decades later? I did a quick Google and the word wrapping seems to be only discussed in blog sites, which are not reliable sources. So if a reliable source cannot be found in regards to the word wrapping "issue," it would seem that the entire paragraph should be removed on the grounds of WP:RS. Ya think? -BC aka Callmebc 14:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

We have a source for the F word

I seem to recall saying on this page or Talk:Killian documents that we had no Reliable Sources that called these documents forgeries. I may have been wrong. This profile of Charles Johnson describes the memos as "the forged documents". The question now is whether it counts as a Reliable source per Misplaced Pages rules. (Put me in the "don't know" column for now.) Comments, please? CWC 11:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not that simple. The right wing mediasphere as a group has labeled the memos as being faked, forged, phony, fraudulent, discredited, or a hoax especially by the blog sites and the hard right journals like the Weekly Standard and The National Review. Broader conservative media like Fox News and The Wall Street News let pro-forgey pundits have their say. The mainstream media mostly just "covered" matters in their now usual specious, he-said-she-said, non-investigative way, but the big guns like the Washington Post and even the NY Times gave credence to the forgery nonsense, including "liberal" use of the "F-word". The Post, though, really confused things with this idiotic "analysis".

As an aside, you and others may be wondering why I'm not doing more "updates" to the Killian wikis, especially after that little business back in the spring -- while I may know more than most about the true situation regarding the memos, I prefer to play by the rules whenever I can. And it would be very inappropriate for me by Misplaced Pages rules to source my stuff as evidence, however possibly compelling some people may find it, since I've never admitted to being anything than a smartalecky troll. I'm mulling over other options not involving Misplaced Pages, but....whatever. FYI. -BC aka Callmebc 15:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, BC. I'm now leaning to the "not a reliable source" side re that N Y Sun profile. (I hope the Red Sox are doing well.) Cheers, CWC 16:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is going to sound a bit strange coming from me, but since Misplaced Pages entries generally represent the "status quo" in terms of what is generally believed, especially in terms of press coverage on current or current-enough news, however inaccurate that may be, it would be kind of tricky to now modify that sources for this particular news story since the blogosphere and the mainstream media are kind of mooshed together here. Bloggers started the forgery meme and the mainstream media finished it (sort of). In terms of reliable sources, Misplaced Pages's definition WP:RS is rather vague in key areas: Books and journals published by universities and known publishing houses; mainstream newspapers and magazines published by notable media outlets; and mainstream websites published and maintained by notable media outlets.

The vagueness comes with the terms "notable" and "mainstream" -- there are no clear boundaries between notable and nonnotable, mainstream and nonmainstream. The "NY Sun" for instance is neither a notable nor mainstream publication by my thinking, but obviously others might feel otherwise. I feel likewise about things like the Weekly Standard, Washington Times, National Review, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, but again others would likely feel very much otherwise. Regarding blog sites, some like Little Green Footballs are "notable" in the sense of being widely known and being mentioned in the press, but does that make them "notable" in the Misplaced Pages sense?

With that said and in terms of the Killian documents, the sources currently listed are mostly useless in terms of "reliable" and truly accurate and useful information regardless if the source is either mainstream or blog -- it's all degrees of misinformation.

In terms of the Red Sox, they aren't doing so bad. Thanks for asking. -BC aka Callmebc 21:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-superscripted superscript?

"have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout; however, they are not raised above the level of the normal text."

This sentence seems to contradict itself as "superscript" means that the text is raised above the rest.
—überRegenbogen 05:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

There are basically two types of superscripting: the full, traditional one on, like say, Word, mimics what had been done on typewriters -- a half line feed down prior to typing a character puts the text up in between the lines; but there is also a partial one that only goes up as high as a quote mark, which means it doesn't extend above the height of a capital letter like a true, full superscript. Example: this has a full superscript, 10, while this has a partial one, 10¹². -BC aka Callmebc 22:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"Mother's Day"

I removed the "Mother's Day" add on the main page because, well, it's based on nonsense. Please read the memo more carefully and then check the date when Bush left Ellington in this official DoD doc (page 2). -BC aka Callmebc 15:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The official DoD doc says Bush "cleared this base 15 May 1972". How is that in conflict with a supposed memo days before then? (SEWilco 01:13, 23 September 2007 (UTC))

Um, because that explains why Killian wanted Bush to take his physical by the 14th -- that was the last day Bush would be on base. "Mother's Day" has nothing to do with this -- that was just some more amateur "Sherlocking" done by people who probably usually lose at "Clue". -BC aka Callmebc 15:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Read the source, the author is "William Campenni, an engineer living in Herndon, Virginia, served as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s." He is not a detective, he was there. (SEWilco 23:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC))

Why don't you read the source you provided -- oh wait, you can't because the link doesn't work. Hmmm, let's see if we can find another copy with an exact quote...this Weekly Standard piece seems to have the pertinent section verbatim: For the weekend that 1st Lt. Bush was supposedly ordered to report for his physical, May 13-14, 1972, the Ellington Air Guard Base was closed. It was Mother's Day. Except for emergencies, Air Guard units never drilled on Mother's Day; the divorce lawyers would be waiting at the gate. If George Bush showed up at the clinic that weekend, he would have had to get the key from the gate guard. The drill weekend for May 1972 was the following weekend, May 20-21.

The slight problem with this is that Killian never ordered Bush to take his physical on the 14th -- the memo clearly says that Bush was to report for his physical "not later than (NLT) 14 May, 1972" which as I pointed out, is also clearly shown by an official record to be Bush's last day on base before leaving for Alabama/parts unknown. Also check the date on the memo, May 4th, which means that Bush was actually given 10 days to take his physical. Ergo, Campenni's point is pointless/dumb and the Mother's Day thing is erroneous/irrelevant, hence I again removed it from the main article. -BC aka Callmebc 07:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The edit you dislike is properly cited. However your reason for repeatedly deleting it is that you disagree. What you describe above is your original research. Please continue your edits to your partisan Killian website but please stop disrupting npov articles with them. 68.242.64.112 14:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to find some reliable source showing that the anecdote is correct and that the official record is wrong. -BC aka Callmebc 17:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

In what way does that official record which mentions May 15 contradict something with dates May 4-14? (SEWilco 21:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC))

The link which I provided is correct, although obsolete for the Washington Times site, and is useful for archives. The fragment which you quoted implies that the base clinic was manned on certain weekends, but you're assuming without sources that Bush somehow could have reported to the clinic on days other than weekends. Campenni used the base then, can you provide other sources of its schedule? (SEWilco 15:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC))

Sorry, but that was only an anecdote told by a known Bush supporter; you're using a broken link; and the story itself is overtly refuted by the source documents. What are you not understanding? Or are you really just trying to weasel in some right wing POV?

Also, and at the risk of being accused of doing original research, May 4th, 1972 was on a Thursday -- you figure out how many weekends there were until May 14th. -BC aka Callmebc 17:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article states May 4 was a Thursday. A letter dated May 4 would thus have been mailed no earlier than Thursday or Friday, thus delivery that Saturday was unlikely. (SEWilco 21:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC))

???? It's a memo from a commander to a subordinate on the same military base -- it gets handled in house or is hand delivered, meaning that Bush would have received it that day or the next day at the latest (which would be a Friday). Your logic would have a lawyer mailing a memo to his secretary. Also the Washington Times is not a paper of record, so without a working link, it would be extremely difficult to verify the contents of the "article" or even if it was only an opinion piece. I'm removing it yet again, this time citing WP:VERIFY. Please refrain from posting this illogical, unsupported, POV-pushing silliness any further. Thank you. -BC aka Callmebc 22:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

In house mail might well mean being put in an officer's mailbox to wait for the next time they came for drill, which might be several weeks. htom 03:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it was to be hand delivered in person then having the wrong address would not be relevant. I wonder why an address was put on it. How often were National Guard soldiers on base so stuff could be hand delivered to them? (SEWilco 06:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC))

It's not at all hard to verify the contents. The article is described and the Washington Times web site has links to an archival service which makes the article available. Or you can get the article from a paper copy. It's verifiable and you already quoted from it. (SEWilco 05:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC))

3RR Warning for User:SEWilco

User:SEWilco's last revert to Killian Documents Authenticity evidently went beyond POV and has crossed over to deliberate fabrication

1) SEWilco substituted a passage from the Killian memo in question "not later than (NLT) 14 May, 1972" in place of what William Campenni actually wrote in the Washington Times piece, ''For the weekend that 1st Lt. Bush was supposedly ordered to report for his physical, May 13-14, 1972, the Ellington Air Guard Base was closed. This was done presumably to disguise the fact that Capenni's comment does not match up with the actual contents of the memo.

2) SEWilco asserts that the memo had the "wrong address" -- an unsupported contention that's also another fabrication: "The address used for Bush is his parents’ home, the official address used for much of his military documentation. The address of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron is correct" .

3) SEWilco asserts "Bush could not have been expected to get the letter in time to get a physical the weekend of May 6-7." -- yet another unsupported contention that likewise yet another fabrication: the memo clearly shows a date of May 4th, and it was from a commander to a subordinate on the same base so there would be no reason for it to be mailed -- it would immediately go into the recipient's slot at the base mail room .

Additionally:

4) SEWilco asserts "The Ellington Air Guard Base was closed for Mother's Day the weekend of May 13-14". Aside from the relevance of this, there is no supporting evidence whatsoever to support this. The claim originates solely with William Campenni, again a highly biased source, who is neither a reporter nor even a recognized reliable source, and who also apparently never provided evidence to support this contention.

So given the above, I am obligated to remove yet again SEWilco unsupported and this time demonstrably fabricated "Mother's Day" insert. Any further attempts to reinsert this without meeting even the most basic Wiki standards for verification will force me to file a 3RR complaint. -BC aka Callmebc 01:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Campenni did write "report for a flight physical not later than May 14", that there was a wrong address, and that Bush was supposedly ordered to report when the base was closed for Mother's Day. (03:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC))

The Proportional Fonts Section

I've noticed that it's a bit confused and with a tremendous amount of false, misleading and poorly sourced information. I will endeavor to help clean it up. -BC aka Callmebc 18:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)