Talk:Jay Robert Nash

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]

Contents

[edit] Signpost article

Signpost article: Author threatens to sue, deemed unfit as source

[edit] Nash connected to Lisbon earthquake misinformation

[edit] Author of source material says changes needed

  • I came across this entry in connection with the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and since I am the person directly involved, Theresa Carpinelli, I would like to correct some information in the article, as well as to bring you up to date on some recent developments. Here are my proposed changes to the entry under the above heading:

When Theresa Carpinelli, a Catholic radio host based in Ohio, read in a Washington Post article[1] that after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake "priests roamed the streets, hanging those they believed had incurred God's wrath," she requested that the reporter provide a credible source for the claim. Vargas explained that he originally saw the allegation in the Wikipedia article on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, as it appeared on December 30, 2004,[2] He intended to have a church historian he was interviewing for the article verify the allegation, but because of a miscommunication, the historian did not know he was being asked to verify anything. He later stated that he could not have verified the allegation because he knew nothing of Portuguese history. The allegation about the priests remained unverified. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake article had no reference, and the allegation was subsequently removed.

Because there still remained no reference, and newspapers and authors around the country were reporting the allegation they picked up from the “Washington Post” article, Carpinelli asked Vargas for another credible source. Vargas then provided a quotation from Jay Robert Nash's book Darkest Hours: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters—From Ancient Times to the Present,” which won a "Best Reference" citation from the American Library Association. The passage from Nash's book alleged that in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, "Battalions of priests roved through the debris of Lisbon looking for heretics to burn, such as the previously mentioned Chase,…" p339.

While Nash’s book contained a very large bibliography, the allegation about the priests “looking for heretics to burn” was not footnoted. Carpinelli was unable to find a reference to priests “looking for heretics to burn” in the eyewitness accounts of Thomas Chase, published in both the Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 88, July-December, 1860, or in the “The Gentlemen’s Magazine”, London, February-April, 1813, as quoted in “The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755; British Accounts, Lisbon: The British Historical Society of Portugal, 1990,” and other sources she checked from Nash’s bibliography. But she did not check every reference in the large “Earthquakes” section of the bibliography, since the allegation in Nash’s book did not support the “priests hanging” allegation.

Rather, Nash’s book undermined it, since Nash, like Robert K. Reeves in “The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: Confrontation between the Church and the Enlightenment in 18th Century Portugal,” explains that after the quake, even the prisoners were running free, and there were problems with “looting, rapine, and murder.” The king ordered that gallows be erected in several parts of the city, and criminals hung on the spot, to deter more crime. This explanation for the hangings which occurred after the earthquake is supported by numerous other scholars, as well as eyewitnesses, such as Thomas Chase. So Jay Robert Nash’s “Darkest Hours” encyclopedia did not provide a support for the “hanging priests” allegation. Polycarp7 18:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I was hoping to make some changes to the article because it has come to my attention, and I have noticed some errors. Also, I want references to my articles removed, because my articles have been removed from the Internet. I made an assumption when I wrote my Parts 3 and 4 articles, which you have quoted from in this article, and I wanted to bring the matter to your attention, especially since the links won't work. Through mutual agreement between myself and Catholic Exchange, Catholic Exchange has pulled my articles off the Internet. I am not sure at this point if we are going to correct them and replace them, or just write a correction. Basically, when Jay Robert Nash wrote in his "Darkest Hours" on page 339 that "Battalions of priests roved through the debris of Lisbon, looking for heretics to burn, such as the previously mentioned Chase, who, to avoid their attention, pretended to be unconscious as he lay sprawled in the Terreiro de Paco;..." I made the assumption that Nash was referring to his previous mention of Chase on page 337, where he says: "An Englishman named Chase was quoted by 'Blackwood's Magazine' in 1860, a century after the catastrophe (upon the discovery of a letter he had written his sister)..." I therefore assumed that Nash's allegation about the priests was from Thomas Chase's eyewitness account, published in "Blackwood's Magazine." When I checked "Blackwood's," as well as "The Gentlemen's Magazine" and found Chase in the “Terrio do Paco,” and “…determined to feign insensibility…”, but no mention by Chase of an experience concerning priests, I wrote: "To imply this information came from Chase's account in the 'Blackwood's Magazine,' as Jay Robert Nash does, is simply false." Since I did not check every reference in his bibliography, and since Nash was not implying anything - I only assumed that - my editor and I have mutually agreed to remove what I wrote until corrections can be made. I also labeled Nash's claim, which I only assumed he was taking from "Blackwood's Magazine," "erroneous and misleading." I apologize to you for any inconvenience, but I wanted to let you know of my error.Polycarp7 19:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)Polycarp7 19:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)Polycarp7 21:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I also wanted to mention that I believe the original source for the Wikipedia nascent 1755 Lisbon earthquake article of October, 2003, was the book "The Astrology of the Macrocosm," which has an entry on the Lisbon earthquake. The entry from this book, published on the web at [[1]]is virtually identical to the nascent Lisbon article. I also obtained the book through interlibrary loan, in order to see if the book had a footnote. It did not. The book was published in 1991, has nothing in it's bibliography showing any scholarly secondary work on the Lisbon quake, or even any eyewitness accounts. Nothing in the bibliography by Jay Robert Nash, either. There are only 13 libraries in the entire country that have the book, so it took a couple of months to get. But I do believe the Lisbon entry from the book, published on the web, is where the information from the October, 2003 Wikipedia article on the Lisbon quake originated. Polycarp7 19:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
If your original article about all of this has been removed b/c of factual issues then I believe the entire section on this should be removed (and I will be doing this shortly). Wikipedia does not do original research and relies on the validity of our sourced material and does not serve to pass on false allegations against people. In this case, since the information in your article was wrong, there is no reason for it to be here. In fact, I am going to add info about these false allegations against Nash to the article b/c it shows how Nash was wronged by all of this. I'm deeply disturbed that the article on this was wrong b/c I, like all editors here, have to rely on our references for information. I appreciate you sharing this information. I must also ask you not to remove the last reference I have to your article b/c it is a valid reference, only this time it is in support of how you made unfounded allegations against Nash.--Alabamaboy 16:49, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on changes to article b/c source material mistaken

  • I agree completely that the entire section should be removed - but since I have done no work on this article, I wanted to leave that up to those who have done the bulk of the work. I believe that what you have written now adequately reflects the facts, however, my error was normal human error, since I did check the references in Nash's bibliography that were obviously related to the Lisbon earthquake. His work included entries about dozens of other earthquakes, but was not delineated, so there was no way of knowing which works were the source of which earthquake. My "unfounded allegations" were unintentional, and we have addressed the issue as soon as we realized it. I am not happy that you have felt the need to reproduce the very words I wrote that, by mutual agreement between me and Catholic Exchange, are the reason we pulled my articles - so that they will not serve to continue to be a source of distress to the very person agrieved by my error. I will ask that you remove the quote, and suffice to say that I made an error that is being corrected. As you yourself said, "since the information in your article was wrong, there is no reason for it to be here." Please remove my quote - I am retracting it, so there is no reason for you to use it. Also, the link will not work, which was the other reason I removed it yesterday. Thank you for considering that by leaving the quote in, it will continue to be a source of pain to Mr. Nash. It would also be nice if you would mention that I also stated in my article that Nash's work actually undermined the "priests hanging people" allegation. Polycarp7 19:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)Polycarp7 18:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I also want to clarify that my mistake was not that I did not check every book in Nash's bibliography. I am sorry I presented it that way, because it really isn't germain to the discussion. The fact is, his bibliography, as I stated in my articles, has over 400 references in the earthquake section, and since there was no way of knowing which books were about the Lisbon quake, I used the obvious and checked the books that had Lisbon in their name, or something else identifying them with Lisbon's quake, i.e. Pombal, King Jose, etc. Even some books, such as Eloise Engles' "Earthquake!" make some reference to the Lisbon quake, but are not scholarly accounts of the Lisbon quake, and generally made other unattributed allegations, which I had no intention of tracking down. So, my error was not in not checking every book in Nash's bibliography. That would have been an unneccessary task. My error was in "assuming" that when Mr. Nash said "the previously mentioned Chase," he was talking about the Blackwood's Magazine account of Chase, previously mentioned, which I checked. I also checked the Gentlemen's Magazine's eyewitness account by Thomas Chase, which is in Mr. Nash's bibliography. There was a distinct discrepancy between what Thomas Chase's eyewitness account said, that he was in the Terriero de Paco, feigning insensibility to avoid the attention of some Catholic ladies who were praying over him, and the allegation made that Chase was in the Terriero de Paco pretending to be unconscious to avoid the attention of a battalion of rogue priests. Since I "assumed" that Nash was talking about what was in the eyewitness account in Blackwood's Magazine, and there was a discrepancy, THAT and only that is what I labeled "false." Since the discrepancy was there, there was no reason to look further for a source for the unattributed allegation - there are many works that make unattributed allegations of that nature. I was labeling only the discrepancy, and my assumption that Nash's allegation came from Blackwood's. In addition, Nash's account of the Lisbon quake showed the "hangin priests" allegation to be false, and I wish I had stopped there in my analysis, becauase finding a credible source for the hanging priests was my objective, NOT finding a source for every unattributed allegation I came across in my research, such as "Battalions of roving priests looking for heretics to hang." Now that I have clarified it more, I hope you will change the article to reflect my actual error, and leave out the quotation. Thank you. Polycarp7 20:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the quote. I am going to leave in the referenced link to your article, though. That way people will know the original citation of your article. Even if the article has now been pulled, the reference should retain the original link b/c the link is what was used when the original reference was cited. This is standard citation format. Best, --Alabamaboy 22:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Alabamaboy, so very much, for your consideration. The entry now sounds much better. I also understand your point about the link. I would like to change the wording somewhat with regard to the last 3 sentences, and have it read something like this: "Carpinelli wrote an article for The Catholic Exchange in which she showed that Nash’s entry on the Lisbon earthquake, rather than supporting the “hanging priests” allegation, actually undermined it by showing, as did many eyewitness and scholarly secondary accounts of the quake, that security was an issue after the quake. It was the king who had looters immediately hanged, in full view of everyone, to discourage anymore looting. However, Carpinelli, in attempting to find a source for Nash’s “burning priests” allegation, made a mistake which she has since retracted. Believing that Nash’s source for the allegation was Chase’s eyewitness account, as recorded in the Blackwood’s Magazine, she checked the magazine. Finding a discrepancy between Chase’s published eyewitness account, and Nash’s presentation of Chase’s experience, she concluded that Nash’s presentation was misleading.[3] Carpinelli has since discovered that she made a mistake in attributing to Nash the use of the Blackwood’s Magazine as his source for Chase’s experience. She has now apologized for this error and The Catholic Exchange has pulled her article from the internet until corrections can be made."[4] I'm going to place it in the article, so I hope you are okay with it. I think it respects Mr. Nash's right not to have false allegations repeated, and it shows the fact that I made an honest error, and am now doing the right thing by correcting it, and letting anyone who may have quoted me, like Wikipedia, know of my error. Thanks again, Alabamaboy, for allowing me to explain and correct my mistake. Kindest Regards, Polycarp7 03:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind words. I must state, though, that I'm a bit nervous with you editing the article with regards to your own situation. I'm going to ask another editor or two to look over your edits and see if they are comfortable with them. Best,--Alabamaboy 13:43, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't reference a talk page

After reviewing the situation by e-mail with another editor, it was pointed out to me that we should not be referencing this talk page in the article. As a result, I have removed that reference and any mention of your apology. While I believe you are indeed Theresa E. Carpinelli, we have no definate proof of this and so can't reference the apology in the article. Perhaps Catholic Exchange could put an apology or statement on their website, which we could then reference. This other editor also agreed with me that you should not be editing the statement in this article about yourself b/c that is a conflict of interest. Do feel free, though, to continue to raise any issues with the article on this talk page. I will then take anything you say into account. Best,--Alabamaboy 15:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I think the entry, as it now reads, is fine. You've done a great job of paraphrasing what I have explained. I trust your editorial judgements, and see no reason to make any further adjustments. Again, I appreciate your letting me explain my error. Kindest Regards, Alabamaboy, and good luck with your projects. Polycarp7 04:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate you letting us know about all of this. Best,--Alabamaboy 13:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Edits by Alabamaboy

If you want to see the purest speculation, here it is: "It turned out, though, that Carpinelli evidently did not check Nash's actual source, causing the The Catholic Exchange (sic) to pull her article from the internet."

The clear implication here is that Ms. Carpinelli or her editors, after seeing Nash's actual source for his claim that priests went around burning heretics in the wake of the Lisbon earthquake, were persuaded that it was a valid one and, at that point, she had to fall on her sword in what looks like a huge overreaction even if this were true, and took everything she had written about the matter down from the Internet. If Alabamaboy or Mr. Nash or anyone would be so kind as to share with the general public what that actual original source is and what it says, I might agree that the Wikipedia site as it now stands fairly represents the situation. However, until such time comes, I have to say that this just looks like a big bluff on Nash's part, or on his behalf, and the site as I modified it most accurately represents the situation. It would be nice if some other fair-minded person would put it back like I had it. If, for whatever reason, that doesn't happen, I promise that I shall continue to try to make this Wikipedia page reflect the truth as I see it.

Since Carpinelli disagrees with you, and you have no sources to back up what you say, your words remain speculation. While I'm glad you want the article to "reflect the truth as I see it," that is Wikipedia:POV and not what Wikipedia is about. Best, --Alabamaboy 01:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

How can Carpinelli agree or disagree that Nash has a valid source for his libel on the priests of Lisbon? Has she seen it? If she has, but won't share it with the rest of us, she's as bad as Nash. The professional historian, David Shi, hasn't retracted anything. Here's what he has written:

"My own follow-up research into the eyewitness accounts of the Lisbon earthquake produced the same results. I found no evidence in the original sources about the execution of heretics."

Right now what bothers me most, and what should bother everyone interested in truth in history, is that Carpinelli's very valuable research work is no longer readily available on the Internet for the public to read and learn from. The lies told by the Washington Post and by George Will are still there but the truth told by Carpinelli is gone. What brought me to this site was that I had recommended to a friend the article attacking The Post for its treatment of the Lisbon earthquake that appeared on the web site of Accuracy in Media, [2] Post Slanders Priests]. My friend came back to me and said that he would have found the case a good deal stronger if AIM's link to the Carpinelli article worked. I did a Google search for "'Hanging Priests' Lisbon" and it led me here.

To tell you the truth, I really don't care a whole lot about Jay Robert Nash. I'll bet not one Jeopardy champion in ten would even recognize the name. I do care about The Washington Post and George Will, and I don't like the fact that this silly charge that Carpinelli failed to guess correctly what Nash's secret source for his calumny was seems to have ended up robbing the public of some very valuable information about these bigger shots. --Root50, June 12, 2006.

While you are correct that Mr Shi does make such claims, it would be quite prudent to point out that he offers no sources, no detail of his research methods, and no attempt at scholarly justification. Is there a chance you could find a better source to support your claim? Luna Santin 06:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by Root50

A new editor named User:Root50 recently revised this article in an attempt to state that Theresa Carpinelli's mistaken finding of errors in Nash's research were correct. This was pure speculation and I have removed these edits from the article. In short, Root50 is correct that Carpinelli's article did prove that the Washington Post and other writers made mistakes with regards to the Lisbon earthquake. However, the sources given by Root50 do not even mention Nash, let alone say that Nash made any errors. In light of Carpinelli's admission of being mistaken with regards to Nash, and the fact that her article was removed from the internet b/c of this mistake, the info in the article should stand as is.--Alabamaboy 16:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

On the topic of speculation I removed the speculation about the cause of "Catholic Exchange" removing the entire four-part article by Ms. Carpinelli. Where is the evidence that Ms. Carpinelli was wrong about Nash's source for the "hanging priests?" Until a source is provided by Nash, Carpinelli's admission may actually be an error. It is speculation to conclude Ms. Carpinelli's admission to not knowing Nash's source necessarily leads to the conclusion there is a source. --Thomist June 12, 2006
Carpinelli, the author of the "hanging priest" article, has admitted she was wrong. The Catholic Exchange has published a retraction and I have added this reference to the article. As a result, the article should stand as is. Best, --Alabamaboy 12:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The admission by Ms. Carpinelli and retraction by Catholic Exchange may be in error. If they have been wrong before they can be wrong now. This statement in the article, "It turned out, though, that Carpinelli evidently did not check Nash's actual source..." goes to the heart of the issue. What actual source? Without any actual source provided it seems foolish that CE would retract and take down the article. The apology by Ms. Carpinelli and retraction by CE did not in any way produce Nash's actual source for "hanging priests." If there is no actual source perhaps Nash should be doing some apologizing and retracting. --Thomist June 12, 2006
If you want to do research on Nash's source and write an article on it, please do. However, Wikipedia has a policy of no original research, so none of what you are speculating about can be placed in the article. What is known is that CE took down the article and issued a statement saying the article was wrong with regards to Nash. --Alabamaboy 14:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me but the burden is on you, not me, to provide some evidence of Nash's "actual source." The no original research policy applies to you. It is you, not me, who advanced the theory in the article that Nash has an "actual source." The absence of any source may indicate that CE acted improperly in removing their article and CE may be guilty of self-censorship. There is no reason to assume Nash has an actual source for "hanging priests." --Thomist June 12, 2006
I have changed the sentence you refer to to state, "It turned out, though, that Blackwood’s Magazine was not the source for Nash's book, causing the The Catholic Exchange to pull her article from the internet." I hope that settles your concern. Personally, you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill here. However, you are correct in that the statement from CE does not mention Nash's original source. Since I don't have a copy of Nash's book with me I can't state what his source was. What is relevant is that the CE stated Carpinelli made a mistake and they apologized for it. Anyway, the wording you hated is now changed. Everything else related to all of this is now sourced and should not be changed without good reason. Best, --Alabamaboy 17:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


What evidence supports this statement, "It turned out, though, that Blackwood’s Magazine was not the source for Nash's book?" Ms. Carpinelli and CE have not provided any evidence to rule out Blackwood's Magazine as the source for the eyewitness account of burning priests. How has it "turned out" that Blackwood's Magazine was not the source? The only way to rule out Blackwood's Magazine as the source with certitude would be to provide the "actual source." --Thomist June 12, 2006
CE admitted in their statement exactly that Blackwood's Magazine wasn't the reference. Nothing personal, but I'm not a fan of beating a dead horse to death. If you come up with evidence to support your claims, please post it. Otherwise, I will not be taking part in this discussion anymore. --Alabamaboy 23:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
It is your claim that is lacking evidence. So what if CE admitted that Blackwood's Magazine wasn't the reference. CE doesn't know what Nash's reference was, nobody knows. If CE admitted cows can fly, it would not make it true. Until Nash provides the source for the "burning priests" calumny, nothing in his bibliography can be ruled out, including Blackwood's Magazine. Lacking any evidence to support your claim, you wish to retreat from the discussion. I understand. --Thomist June 13, 2006

[edit] Note to all editors

User:Thomist and User:Root50 appear to be sockpuppets of the same user, who is pushing a POV opinion with regards to this article.--Alabamaboy 02:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

And Alabamaboy, with his legalistic hair-splitting, sounds for all the world like Jay Robert Nash's attorney himself. Considering Nash's penchant to sue, Alabamaboy shouldn't be lacking for work anytime soon. Root50, June 12, EDT.

I notice that this article, and its edit history, are ridden with POV from at least two of you -- it's not for us to decide if allegations are "wrong" or not. Please stick to providing notable, referenced facts in accordance with WP:NPOV. If accusations are notable, let them stand, and present major points and counterpoints as they are available. Let the reader decide on their own who is right; in any situation where a reader can tell where the writer's sympathies are, the writer has effectively presented a POV. Try to remain objective, eh? Luna Santin 01:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Alabamaboy is wrong to allege that I am a sockpuppet. Alabamaboy has wrongly assumed that two people are the same user. Jay Robert Nash would probably threaten to sue Alabamaboy and make him take down all of his Wikipedia articles for committing such a "grievous error". --Thomist June 13, 2006

I take it that Luna Santin is agreeing with me that it is improper for Theresa Carpinelli's allegations against Jay Robert Nash to be characterized as wrong, and that it is doubly improper for the charge to be in a section heading. Carpinelli's central allegation, after all, is that Nash made a claim about priests seeking heretics to burn in the wake of the Lisbon earthquake without having any credible source that supports the claim. Where or how has anyone shown that allegation to be wrong? Carpinelli made a purely ancillary supposition, and a reasonable supposition, I might add in light of how Nash used the reference and in the absence of any other evidence that even comes close to supporting Nash's claim, that he must have misconstrued or misrepresented a particular source. That supposition might very well be true, but because Carpinelli could never prove it to be true without mindreading power, a huge to-do is being made here over her perfectly awful and unfair "wrong allegations." I say that that's wrong and it's unfair to Carpinelli and it ought to stop. Root50 June 13, 2006.

Looking at the edit history, it was indeed Alabamaboy who added that particular POV heading, but you say that as if it's the only thing that's happened in the history of this article -- I'm not convinced of that. I'll be making some NPOV edits when I get the chance; for the time being, personal attacks aren't going to get anybody anywhere. I don't know who any of you are, so I'm incapable of playing favorites; personal attacks and rhetoric will bore me, factual arguments will prove exciting and productive. Also, please sign your comments using the traditional four tildes style, as per this page. Thank you. Luna Santin 03:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Just so you know, I added in almost all of the info to this article, including all of the info about the questions being raised about Nash's accuracy. Initially, I had a complete run-down on Carpinelli's allegations against Nash, all referenced and sourced to show exactly what was being said. Then Carpinelli stated on this talk page that her allegations had been in error. As a result I corrected the article to state this, again using detailed references to support what was said in the article. The thought that I'm supporting Nash is a laugh--if that were true, why would I add all the the info on the questions raised about his accuracy? That said, I also do not have an axe to grind against him. My goal is to keep this article NPOV and well referenced. As stated, User:Thomist and User:Root50 appear to be sockpuppets of the same user and this editor is unable to produce a credible source to support his/her POV allegations. As a result, this editor's edits are not allowed. Best, --Alabamaboy 20:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In the interest of NPOV

I've proposed a rewrite of the article at Jay Robert Nash/temp. As far as I can see, there are no significant changes to the factual content of the article, but please do correct me if I'm wrong on that count. I have almost completely rewritten the section on alleged factual inaccuracies, per WP:NPOV, fixed a typo or two I happened to spot, and reorganized the legal actions sections (with no changes to the copytext that I can remember making). Please discuss changes to the temp article here, before making them. Luna Santin 07:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with the rewrite, especially since you were able to condence the Carpinelli stuff so it was still understandable but didn't leave out any salient facts. That section had always been too long, which was a fault of my own inability to summarize it in decent manner. Excellent work. I say we post it on the main article space. Best, --Alabamaboy 13:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there should be one change to the revised article. The headline for the current inaccuracy section is titled "Controversy and alleged inaccuracies." Unfortunately, this seems a bit POV since it implies that all of the charges against Nash are valid. Since a major portion of the section is about a "false allegation," as CE put it, the way to fix this is to change the subheadline "Theresa Carpinelli" to something like "False allegation by Theresa Carpinelli." I made this change to the proposed article text. Otherwise, everything else as rewritten is fine with me.--Alabamaboy 14:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It looked like we were beginning to make some real progress toward a consensus with the contribution of newcomer Luna Santin, but Alabamaboy couldn't wait until a full discussion had taken place before he rushed in and tampered with Luna's temp article, restoring the absolutely most objectionable part of the current page. He had already moved the current page backwards a giant step by replacing "wrong allegation" with "false allegation," saying that because the word "false" is in the odd CE mea culpa statement that he was thereby more closely reflecting it. That is not so. They say they made a false statement, and then they restate the charge against themselves by saying that they made a false assumption (because they assumed something for which they had no proof, something like the false assumption that I employ sockpuppets).

To see why I find the construction "false allegation" so objectionable, let's have a look at the dictionary: # Something alleged; an assertion: [as in] allegations of disloyalty. n : (law) a formal accusation against somebody (often in a court of law); "an allegation of malpractice"

Notice the examples given. The term is often used in a legal context and the examples given are representative of its general use to charge serious wrongdoing. To make a wrong allegation, then, is bad enough, but to make a false allegation is even worse. That is not what Theresa Carpinelli did and that is not what CE said that she had done.

As I have said before, the central claim that she made in "Journalistic Un-integrity" against Mr. Nash is that he wrote that priests in Lisbon roved the streets looking for heretics to burn, without any credible evidence to back it up. That is an allegation concerning Nash's scholarship, and a consensus seems to have developed that that is a valid allegation.

So much for the most unwelcome and truth-distorting "False allegation by" part of the "Theresa Carpinelli" section, rushed back into service by Alabamaboy. Otherwise he says the section is fine, sliding approvingly right over the seriously misguided POV description of "Journalistic Un-integrity, Part Four" as a "scathing diatribe." Anyone who has read the article in question who would let that characterization pass without objection has clearly thrown objectivity and fair play to the wind. Here's what the professional historian, David Shi, says about her work:

"Thanks to the efforts of an intrepid Catholic researcher in Ohio, Theresa Carpinelli, the story about Portuguese priests hanging heretics appears to be a journalistic urban legend, a distorted version of the past that has been repeated so often that it has assumed an unwarranted authenticity. Over the last year or so, Carpinelli has exhaustively consulted virtually every historical source related to the Lisbon earthquake, and the only executions she has found involved thieves who were caught trying to take advantage of the chaos in the burning city.

"My own follow-up research into the eyewitness accounts of the Lisbon earthquake produced the same results. I found no evidence in the original sources about the execution of heretics." "Urban legends scramble historical facts" http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/OPINION/511130308/1016.

So I would drop the "scathing diatribe" characterization, and I would also like to ask if either Alabamaboy or Luna has read the article in question and, if so, how so now that it has been taken down.

Finally, I would add the sentence, "Carpinelli's findings with respect to the charges against the priests of Lisbon seem to have carried the day, however. The Wikipedia page on the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 no longer carries the incriminating allegations against Lisbon's priests."

I would also like to see added the further statement that the really serious false allegations are those of Jay Robert Nash against the priests of Lisbon, but I guess that would be asking too much. Root50 01:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

A few responses. First, I propose we name the section, "Withdrawn allegations by Theresa Carpinelli," as such a heading is empirically and undeniably true, avoiding POV judgements while (I think) maintaining the distinction Alabamaboy wishes to achieve. Second, "scathing diatribe" is indeed subjective, my apologies; with what shall we replace it? Luna Santin 04:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I have read the article before it was taken down. As I said, it was the basis for my original section on all of that, which I then had to revise when Carpinelli admitted that her research was wrong. I am also tired of your attacks, Root50. Please maintain a civil tone.
Anyway, we can not use the sentence "Carpinelli's findings with respect to the charges against the priests of Lisbon seem to have carried the day, however. The Wikipedia page on the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 no longer carries the incriminating allegations against Lisbon's priests." That is POV without any reference to support it. It is also irrelevant to this article b/c Carpinelli's article was correct about the Wikipedia article being wrong. What she was wrong about was with regards to Nash and this is an article focused on NAsh. That said, I have no problem dumping the term "scathing diatribe" or using the subhead "Withdrawn allegations by Theresa Carpinelli" in order to reach consensus on this article. That said, I will not support any other changes to the revised version b/c it is factual as is. Best, --Alabamaboy 13:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
There are facts, and then there are facts. The world is full of facts. The facts that one chooses to present and how one chooses to present them is what counts. I think that we can agree that it is a fact that, for a period of time, the Wikipedia page carried a statement suggesting that Roman Catholic priests went on a lynching rampage in the wake of the 1755 earthquake, blaming supposed heretics in their midst for the disaster. We can also agree, can we not, that in what some have treated as a reference work, Jay Robert Nash once wrote that "Battalions of priests roved through the debris of Lisbon looking for heretics to burn"? It has also been rather firmly established that this unsourced allegation by Nash was, in all likelihood, the origin of the calumny against the priests in Wikipedia, which later found its way out into a much wider sphere through The Washington Post, Simon Winchester, and George Will. Fortunately, the facts about this ridiculous claim have now been discovered, Wikipedia has worked as it should on the Lisbon earthquake page and the claim has been purged.
Some work, however, remains to be done. This page as it now reads, and even with the revision as proposed, gives the strong impression that Jay Robert Nash is the aggrieved party in this whole affair. That is just plain wrong. Administrator Alabamaboy can admonish me all he wants, but as long as the page reads that way, I cannot in good conscience, agree to it. In one thing he has stated, however, there may be a door opened toward consensus:
"What she was wrong about was with regards to Nash and this is an article focused on NAsh (sic)."
That being the case, I believe that a section about Carpinelli is simply out of place here. It is not needed. Notice that I have described above essentially what has transpired with respect to the burning/hanging priests allegations, and there was no need to mention her at all. There's already a Wikipedia page on Carpinelli and there is a Wikipedia signpost about the misinformation on the priests that got out through Wikipedia.
Some additional work needs to be done. There is a serious disconnect between this statement at the top, "In addition, questions (some of which have been proven to be unfounded) have been raised about the accuracy of minor aspects of the information in Nash's reference books," and the role that Nash played in fostering a major historical inaccuracy. That's big time, and it should not be minimized. The statement at the top is also inconsistent with the quoted charge at the bottom by Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, that Nash's work should not be relied upon. Root50 10:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
We can't remove the info about Carpinelli b/c it it involves an allegation she publically made about Nash and which she and her publisher later retracted about Nash. As I've said previously, you are free to research and publish a reexamination of Carpinelli's allegation and why you believe what she wrote was actually correct. You can not, though, publish original research such as that on Wikipedia. I have supported the compromise language of the rewritten version of the article b/c it improves the article. I also don't have an issue if that one sentence in the lead is reworked. That said, I will not support any other major changes to the Carpinelli section b/c it is factual as is. If Root50 wishes to take this to arbitration, then that is fine with me and he/she should do so. As I said before, I will not support any other changes to the revised version of the article.--Alabamaboy 14:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Root50 is totally wrong when he/she writes, "We can also agree, can we not, that in what some have treated as a reference work, Jay Robert Nash once wrote that "Battalions of priests roved through the debris of Lisbon looking for heretics to burn"? It has also been rather firmly established that this unsourced allegation by Nash was, in all likelihood, the origin of the calumny against the priests in Wikipedia, which later found its way out into a much wider sphere through The Washington Post, Simon Winchester, and George Will." Yes, Nash wrote that sentence but Carpinelli stated--ON THIS VERY TALK PAGE--that, "I also wanted to mention that I believe the original source for the Wikipedia nascent 1755 Lisbon earthquake article of October, 2003, was the book "The Astrology of the Macrocosm," which has an entry on the Lisbon earthquake." For more, see Carpinelli's statements in the long dialog she and I had on this talk page. She is the one who said she made a mistake with regards to Nash. In fact, she wanted the article to include an apology from her (see [3]) but I told her we couldn't do that b/c it was original research since we didn't have an independent source for the apology. However, once Catholic Exchange published their apology and retraction we could include that b/c it was an credible independent source. This is the final time I will say this: Carpinelli--the original author of all of these acusations against Nash--admits she made a mistake and wanted this article to acknowledge that mistake. Catholic Exchange admitted they made a mistake about Nash. If the article is including questions about Nash's reliability, in the interest of being NPOV the article should also include facts about any allegations against him that were later retracted.

As I've told Root50, if he/she can provide one independent source to back up any of what he/she is saying, then please do so. If no source can be provided, then his/her allegations are original research and not allowed here and we should simply go with the new version of the article. If Root50 wishes to discuss this more, he/she is free to take it to arbitration.--Alabamaboy 19:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC

    • Wow!! I couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided to check and see if there have been any new developments in this article. It seems, from reading what has been written here, that I need to clarify some things. It is one thing for me to own up to a mistake I made, (a perfectly natural and understandable mistake), but I will not sit by while MY reputation and integrity as a researcher are impuned. Alabamaboy, I am afraid that my earlier discussion with you has been misunderstood - at least with respect to exactly what I was mistaken about. Alabamaboy wrote that "Carpinelli admitted that her research was wrong" is completely erroneous. What was wrong was NOT my research at all. In fact, Nash alleged that a man named Chase, (who was quoted in Blackwood's Magazine in 1860, after a letter that he had written to his sister was found, etc, etc) was in the Palace Square, pretending to be unconscious, to avoid the attention of battalions of priests who were roving the debris looking for heretics to burn. When I checked the Blackwood's Magazine, I found the account of Thomas Chase, who had written a letter home to his sister, in which he stated that he was in the Palace Square, pretending to be unconscious, but it was NOT to avoid any priests. No priests were mentioned at all in Thomas Chase's eyewitness account, published by the Blackwood's Magazine, in 1860, except for one priest who accidentally stepped on his leg in a crowded boat.. So, a very large discrepancy existed, and STILL exists, between what Nash alleged, and what the Blackwood's Magazine printed as the experience of Thomas Chase. An eyewitness account is an eyewitness account - no matter who publishes it, it will remain the same, with minor variations. But not with major variations, such as what exists between what Nash wrote, and what Blackwood's wrote. Now, I have had many, many years of research experience, in a somewhat different field, but research is the same, no matter the field. It is attention to detail that is the hallmark of research, and so, another detail bothered me with regard to Nash's bibliography. His bibliography contains the Gentlemen's Magazine of 1813, which also published Thomas Chase's eyewitness account. In my article for CE, I wrote that the only difference between the two publications with regard to Chase's account was that in one, his fried was referred to as Mr. Jorg, and in the other, it was Mr. Forg. That is the only difference. The problem I had then, and still have, is that Mr. Nash, having the actual eyewitness account of Thomas Chase in his bibliography, STILL wrote the allegation about burning priests, when Chase himself NEVER once mentions these priests. If the accounts in both Blackwood's and Gentlemen's were only condensed versions of a larger account, then one would still have to explain how Thomas Chase could have TWO different experiences in the SAME place, at the same time. It is highly improbable. So, a huge discrepancy exists, as I have said, and that discrepancy remains. No one has to produce a "source" for the burning priests allegation, because I have already shown that the eyewitness account of Thomas Chase, the one Mr. Nash referred to in his Lisbon account, makes no mention of burning priests. Even if there is a source out there that claims that Thomas Chase had that experience, it is an embellishment of the eyewitness account that is published in several places. Which should I believe – an eyewitness account published with little or no variations in at least 2 sources, or an unsourced allegation that claims the eyewitness had an experience that the eyewitness himself refutes? So I am 110% confident that the Chase that Nash refers to is the same Thomas Chase quoted in Blackwood's and Gentlemen's - and Chase refutes the burning priests allegation. I am also 110% certain that no priests were running around Lisbon killing people after the earthquake, as is alleged only in unsourced allegations. Dr. David Shi has already written that he backed up my research by his own.
    • So, there is nothing wrong with my research. As I stated in my discussions with Alabamaboy, printed above, my mistake was in making an assumption. When Nash wrote on page 337 of a man named Chase, quoted in Blackwood’s, and then later, on page 339, wrote of the “previously mentioned Chase” as having the experience of being in the palace square, pretending to be unconscious to avoid the attention of a band of priests, roving the debris, looking for heretics to burn, I quite naturally, (and I believe that almost anyone would do the same) thought that Nash was referring to the account in the Blackwood’s Magazine, mentioned on page 337. However, I will stress this again – IT DOES NOT MATTER what Nash’s source was for the allegation made about Chase. The actual eyewitness account, published also in Gentlemen’s magazine, which Nash has in his bibliography, refutes the allegation that Nash wrote on page 339. I am starting to get really angry that my wrong assumption has become the cause for much ink being spilled on Wikipedia. I said it before, and I will say it again. My mistake was that I badly worded my question as to why the discrepancy between what Nash wrote, and what the eyewitness experienced, when the eyewitness account was in Nash’s bibliography. Rather than focusing on the discrepancy itself, I focused on what I wrongly assumed - that Nash was referring to Blackwood’s Magazine. As a result, I then wrote that “To imply that this information came from Chase’s account in the Blackwood’s Magazine, as Jay Robert Nash does, is simply false.” That is it. That is my mistake. Maybe the reason there is so much misunderstanding about this is because I asked Alabamaboy in the beginning not to use that sentence in the article, since it was the reason my articles were pulled from CE. And frankly, I am not sure why all of my articles were pulled, since it was only one line in the fourth part that was in question. It was around that sentence, and that sentence ONLY, that the retraction, by CE, and by me, revolves. NOT, as Alabamaboy stated, that "Carpinelli admitted that her research was wrong" – nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing wrong with my research. The discrepancy between Nash’s account and Chase’s eyewitness account still stand. My focus was misplaced, my editor didn’t catch it, and that sentence has been retracted. There is no need to impugn my research skill, or my integrity in writing about this unfortunate error. Please try to take into consideration what I have written - and because of what is transpiring on these pages, I have written much more than I really wanted to write - but I felt it necessary to defend myself. I am disappointed, because I thought I made it clear in my previous discussion with Alabamaboy exactly what the error was that I made. I HOPE it is clear now. 69.221.175.167 09:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC) Doggone it! I hate it when that happens! I was logged in when I started the above edits, but just noticed that I timed out (again), so, here's my tilde: Polycarp7 09:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I just read CE's retraction on their site (I read it before publication, but did not know when it would be published. If anyone will go back and read it, it clearly states that the ONLY dispute was the one line, which I have quoted. I cannot for the life of me understand how that one line has been embellished to "Carpinelli admitted that her research was wrong" Yikes!!Polycarp7 09:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I am angry enough now, after re-reading all this stuff, and the "new" Nash article, to tell you people that the ONLY reason I am involved in this whole mess at all, was because Wikipedia was using what I wrote in their arsenol of "mistakes and misrepresentations" in Nash's books. One wonders if it was their own attempt to damage the reputation of Mr. Nash. I never intended for what I wrote to be used in such a fashion, and it was for THAT reason that I agreed to have my articles removed from the Internet. My purpose in writing "Journalistic Un-integrity" was to show that the priests in Lisbon were innocent of charges being made against them. It was not to be a party, however unknowingly, to impugning anyone's reputation. This entire affair, as far as I am concerned, should have been over in May when CE and I signed our respective retractions. It is being prolonged because of Wikipedia's insistence on writing about it in their Nash article. With all due respect, I am sure that Mr. Nash, a prolific author, who has been around for a few years, has much more interesting events in his life that can be written about. Can't you focus on the positive in his life, and not on incidents he would rather forget? I would also rather forget about this - I signed a retraction, I have a huge attorney fee, even though I didn't take his advice, and I am trying to move on. But I would strongly advice you, that if you want to use what I wrote, then you need to admit your own role in the matter. Had it not been for your contributors trying to discredit Mr. Nash, I would not have been dragged into this. And so, if you insist on dragging this out and smearing my name, as though I INTENDED to hurt Mr. Nash, and you do not write about your own role, then I will. Polycarp7 10:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
To be perfectly honest, I don't believe I changed the factual content of the article by one iota; I only copyedited to remove what I felt were biased statements -- if you find any more (seems we've seen at least one), please let me know about the specific sentence(s) in question. I do not, nor do I intend, to defend to my last breath the factual accuracy of this article. I very honestly don't know the history of this incident, I am only here in an attempt to mediate a dispute and present the apparent facts I am given in a fashion which offers as little bias as I can manage. Per WP:V and WP:NOR, I will ask that any requests for factual edits to the article be backed up with reliable sources. If you can find reliable sourcing for any role Wikipedia may have played in the situation, I will be happy to discuss adding it to the article. If you can find me a link for Mr Shi's research (the prior link was an editorial which couldn't tell me anything about his research), I would likewise be happy to discuss that. Especially in controversial situations such as this, it is important to adhere to policies and guidelines such as WP:V and WP:NOR. It does appear to me that the allegations were made without source, but that doesn't free us from our obligation to reference our writing (it appears to me now that unreferenced articles started this whole brouhaha, so I think it would be quite hypocritical to try and use an unsourced statement as a band-aid). So, your references, please. Luna Santin 11:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
To Polycarp7: I don't believe the article is that different from what you and I agreed on a few weeks back. It was merely condensed to not overwhelm the section. That said, as I told Root50, since you publically made claims about Nash then this info should be here. In short, the article mentions the questions people have raised about Nash and, in the interests of being NPOV, it should mention when a place like Catholic Exchange retracts an allegation and apologizes. That said, too many people involved in this article have POVs they wish to push. As a result, I believe all of this should be taken to Wikipedia mediation or arbitration.--Alabamaboy 12:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Alabamaboy keeps asking for sources from me, but this is a page about Jay Robert Nash, who has written preposterous allegations about rampaging priests in Lisbon in 1755, and no one before him ever seems to have written anything of the sort. Why should he be given a free ride for that? If he has done something as indefensible and important as that, how can his errors be characterized as "minor"?
Was he the ultimate source for the recent "urban legend" about the priests actions, as David Shi calls it? This is from Theresa Carpinelli's "Journalistic Un-integrity, Part Three":
Before examining the work of Winchester, an “Oxford trained geologist,” it will benefit us to take a look at the how Vargas defended the allegation. He sent me the following paragraphs on the Lisbon quake from Jay Robert Nash’s Darkest Hours: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters — From Ancient Times to the Present:
One harrowing escape followed another during the quakes. An Englishman named Chase was quoted by Blackwoods Magazine in 1860, a century after the catastrophe (upon the discovery of a letter he had written his sister), as having survived the crashing of the old house in which he lived.... (p. 337)
But Dom Joseph and his family were not in the palace at the time of the quake. They were in residence at nearby Belem, and at the first shock the apprentice monarch was beseeched by a throng of priests "to intercede with the saints for forgiveness of the sins which had brought about this calamity." (Battalions of priests roved through the debris of Lisbon looking for heretics to burn, such as the previously mentioned Chase, who, to avoid their attention, pretended to be unconscious as he lay sprawled in the Terreiro de Paco; a Protestant minister was surrounded by a mob of Portuguese priests and forcibly baptized in admonishment of his obviously sinful instigation of the quake.) (p. 339)
The Washington Post reporter Vargas is implying that Nash is his source, but he is a slippery one. As he originally wrote the article, he gave the impression that Martin Marty was his source, and Carpinelli very effectively debunked that. But did the astrology book writer just make the story up? That's hardly likely. Nash wrote his very similar allegations in 1976. The astrology book came out in 1991. When one traces back the claim of rampaging priests, the trail ends with Nash in 1976. There it is.
And it is a truly preposterous claim that two people would have hardly come up with independently. It hardly needed a dogged researcher like Carpinelli to be debunked. The Roman Catholic Church is rigidly hierarchical. Can you imagine priests on such a lynching rampage without permission from their bishop, and would he give permission without approval from higher ups? And cosidering the nature of communication in those days, would there have been time for all the approvals needed to have been granted. And look at the thing from below. Would suspected heretics hold still to be burned? Substantial manpower would have been required to subdue the victims and to assemble the fuel. All of this would have to have been accomplished in a city that was under the strict control of the autocratic prime minister, the Marquis de Pombal.
Even at this very late date, should Nash come up with what he claims to be a source for his absurd allegations, that shouldn't let him off the hook. When I first read the claim in a column by George Will, I knew enough not to believe it. Nash could have written what he did only out of malice or incompetence. Root50 17:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I refer to the original article as the "role" Wikipedia played in the situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jay_Robert_Nash&diff=52710126&oldid=prev The entire section on questions of Nash’s work is questionable as to why it was in the article in the first place. Obviously, it was going to cast doubt on Nash's work. It is precisely because of Wikipedia’s use of my material in that section that I and CE agreed to pull my part four article – we did not want to be a party to any effort to discredit Mr. Nash. The entire section on "questions" about Nash's work in the article could have easily been left out of the article, and still produce a balanced article. I question its inclusion in the first place.

With regardt to my assertion that Wikipedia had an interest in discrediting Nash, I refer especially to the section on this Talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-04-24/Jay_Robert_Nash “Flaws in Encyclopaedia “I've started to collect the flaws, fake entries and every other tidbits of false facts present in JRN's litterature so that we can prove that his papers aren't of any encyclopaedic importance and utility. You can see it at Flaws. Lincher 15:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)”

I refer also to Lincher's page and I quote him/her below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lincher/Flaws&diff=50983457&oldid=50266851

“This page is intended to find false statements and fake entries in Jay Robert Nash's papers and books so that the world can see how ill-fated and corrupted this writer is and that we can prove to a larger group that his papers aren't of academic use nor utility.”

This effort to discredit Mr. Nash, by user Lincher, remained on Wikipedia from April 26th until June 1st. when someone removed it. It should have been removed the second after Lincher put it up, because it clearly states that an effort was underway to discredit Nash. Even if this was entirely Lincher’s project, then why did it take such a long time to remove it? And, it still is relevant to the any discussion about “false allegations” being made against Nash. I maintain that the ONLY reason I have been dragged into this is because if Wikipedia's use of my material to discredit Nash, and therefore, if you are going to write about my mistake, then you need to write that Wikipedia was also involved. In fact, it is precisely because of your use of my material, which was pointed out to me by Nash himself, that I, of my own accord, took it upon myself to notify you of my error.

I fail to understand why Dr. Shi’s article, linked above, “can’t tell you anything about his research.” http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/OPINION/511130308/1016 Especially when he himself tells the reader about his research. I also quoted Dr. Shi in several of my articles, from personal correspondence with him, updating me on the progress of his research.

Again, I do not believe that any of this needs to be written about, but since you disagree, then justice demands that you give the context of all of this, and that is, Wikipedia's section on "questions" about Nash's work. Those questions still remain, by the way. The only difference is that I have retracted a statement made in error. That statement has no bearing whatsoever on the questions raised about Nash's work. This is why I fail to understand the mountain being made by you about my statement - it leaves the questions that Wikipedia initially raised completely unchanged. Polycarp7 17:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Alabamaboy, it is true that I stated that the article, as it stood awhile ago, was "Fine." I had some problems with it, but I was not going to pursue the matter. This is because I was reading the article though my own lens. Yes, we all have a POV - we all have some lens through which we see the world. To deny that is foolish. I was reading what you wrote though my own lens, which knows the truth of what happened. But, last night, I read the article through the lens of one who believes that "Carpinelli admitted that her research was wrong." Reading it through that lens, those statements which I had a problem with before, have now become something I can't ignore. A person who believes that I have "admitted" that my research "was wrong" - when I have done no such thing - is writing an article about an error I made. Naturally, reading it through the lens of one who believes my research was erroneous, instead of a single statement I made, changes a lot of things for me. The entire entry at the new Nash article is confusing - paring it down has left out parts important to the understanding of what I did and did not do. Statements like "Carpinelli's claims and assumptions about Nash's work had "impugned (Nash's) integrity" do not accurately reflect what CE published, or the truth of what was being retracted. I disagree with this sentence in the old article: "Nash has also been the subject of wrong allegations about the accuracy of his work." It doesn't accurately reflect the facts. I have a problem with "causing the The Catholic Exchange to pull her article from the internet." I have given you the reason my article was pulled. I could easily correct the erroneous statement I made, and the article would be back up. I have not yet discussed with CE what is to be done with the series I wrote. I have a problem, again, with "The Catholic Exchange eventually stated that Carpinelli had made a false statement and assumption about Nash's work." They stated no such thing. Read the apology again. What they stated was that I "mistakenly attributed to Mr. Nash the use of a reference in a passage in Mr. Nash’s work that he did not make, i.e. Blackwood’s Magazine, relative to a passage Mr. Nash wrote concerning the activities of priests at the time of the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, and, in so doing, impugned his integrity and honesty as an author and as a person." The apology is clear - and the article as it stands does not reflect the facts.
  • Again, I will state that this decision to put this into an article about Jay Robert Nash is narrow-minded. Nash has had a full and productive life - why are you focusing on a microscopic aspect of it that should be over and done with? The decision to include this in Nash's article is fruitless - it will lead to much more speculation by intelligent people about the discrepancies still present in his work, which will bring us all right back to square one. I also think the decision is unjust, because it leaves entirely out of the article the role that Wikipedia had in this entire affair. What is your real goal here? To write about Nash, or to write about some controversy that Wikipedia had a huge part in promoting? Polycarp7 19:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)Polycarp7 19:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • There's a number of things that don't seem to add up, here. I don't understand why any website would pull a four-part series of articles, over one line of text, and then since you say it'd be so easy to edit the article and get it back on the Exchange, why nobody seems to be interested in doing that. I don't understand why the difference between an editorial by Mr Shi and an actual research paper by Mr Shi isn't patently obvious, especially to an historian such as yourself. I don't understand why the one person who complains about the focus on the Exchange incident seems to be the only person interested in having it completely monopolize all discussion of Mr Nash's article. I don't understand why someone would repeatedly complain about the lack of content in an article without offering any new content to include (that's sort of how Wikipedia works, really; if you want to see something added, you may as well take the initiative and add it yourself, or give someone else the references to do so). I don't understand why a private user's private page is relevant, unless you're saying that used to be an article (user pages are seperate and distinct from article pages), or why that one random editor is somehow supposed to stand for the myriad opinions of all Wikipedians. I don't understand what you're asking for or what you want, and I don't think I properly understand your objections. I'm not trying to attack you, really, so I hope this doesn't come across that way... I'm just really having trouble getting my head around what I see as a series of conflicting statements. At once we're a bad evil website for not citing our sources, but now we're supposed to take someone's word for it and include edits without reliable references? At once we're slandering you by calling your article about Nash inaccurate, but then slandering Nash by focusing on that article? At once we're focusing too much on this incident, but you're not proposing anything to add? I'm sorry, I really am, but at this time I just can't get my head around some of this. I'll try again, tommorow. Luna Santin 07:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Luna Santin – I appreciate your honest attempt to resolve this dilemma, and the kind way in which you have expressed your frustrations. I will try to answer your questions as best I can, but please understand that I have said more already than I feel comfortable in saying about this situation. For your first question, CE and I were, frankly, threatened with a law suit, primarily because my articles, particularly parts three and four, were being used by Wikipedia in an article under the sub-heading “Nash Connected to Lisbon Earthquake Misinformation.” http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jay_Robert_Nash&diff=52710126&oldid=prev Mr. Nash, in rightly seeking to clear his name, believed that the sentence which Wikipedia quoted (i.e. “To imply that this information came from the Blackwood’s Magazine, as Jay Robert Nash does, etc.”) needed to be removed from Wikipedia, as well as the Internet, and all links to it as well. Because, for Catholics, to detract from a person’s good name (even if what you say is true) is a very serious offense against charity, (unless one has a very good reason for) and so, CE and I very quickly agreed to remove any and all links to my articles until we could determine exactly what we could do to fairly resolve the situation. If I was mistaken in anything I said about Mr. Nash, then I certainly wanted to correct it. That the articles are still not up is mostly my fault. I suffer from numerous health problems which confine me to bed, or to my home, about 80% of the time. I simply do not function like well people, and so, it takes me weeks to do what a normal person does in a day, especially when I have duties towards a child, an ill sibling who is staying with me, and the radio station. So, I have not made the correction of my mistake a top priority. I did notify my editor last night that I would like to do the re-write, and I received an email from her today that said she’s ready when I am. I hope this clears up that mystery.
  • As for Dr. Shi, he did not write a research paper. Dr Shi originally wrote an article in which he used the “priests roamed” allegation. I contacted him and requested his source, which was Vargas’ article in the WaPo. Having a great deal of integrity, Dr. Shi, a professional historian, promised to look into the matter himself and to print a retraction if it turned out that he used an urban legend, rather than a factual story. We wrote numerous emails back and forth, in which we exchanged updates on our research. I wrote about the sources he checked in my articles. As promised, since Dr. Shi became convinced by his own research that the incident alleged by the WaPo never happened, he wrote the retraction I linked to above. If you cannot use that, then that is fine.
  • I don’t understand this question: “I don't understand why the one person who complains about the focus on the Exchange incident seems to be the only person interested in having it completely monopolize all discussion of Mr. Nash's article,” so I can’t answer it.
  • ” I don't understand why someone would repeatedly complain about the lack of content in an article without offering any new content to include (that's sort of how Wikipedia works, really; if you want to see something added, you may as well take the initiative and add it yourself, or give someone else the references to do so).” I don’t recall complaining about the “lack of content” in any article. I have complained only that your summary of my error and subsequent retraction have been mischaracterized, despite my detailed explanations of the error’s exact nature. I have been told that for me to edit the section that pertains to me would not be a good idea, so I have to rely on you to understand and to accurately reflect the truth. The only lack of content I have complained about is the fact that the article nowhere mentions that role Wikipedia played in the entire matter – and I have provided links to those references. The only “content” I am concerned with is what relates to me – and frankly, I’ll say it again – I believe you are giving my one sentence error much too large a role in the entire article.
  • As for the person’s private page, you have to realize that the general public will not see it as someone’s “private page,” but as something that “Wikipedia” as a whole is responsible for. I realize this is an incorrect conclusion, but that is exactly how it was perceived by Mr. Nash. It was not a person’s private page, but the entire Wikipedia community, who was out to discredit him, especially in the context of remarks that his work was “unfit” to use as reference material. Add it all together, the original Nash article’s heading “Questions raised about Nash's reference works,” remarks by Jimmy Wales, etc, would make anyone on the receiving end feel that a coordinated effort is being made to attack him/her. Frankly, it took a lot for me to convince Mr. Nash that I was not involved in any way with this perceived effort to discredit him. Nonetheless, I paid a heavy price for your use of my work – but since my work was “out there” – it was anyone’s prerogative to use it. Pulling it from the Net prevented that. It’s just unfortunate that I made the statement, and that of all my other statements, you chose that one to quote! (and I don’t mean you, personally, Luna – I just mean the Wiki editor who used it). I would have been better off to say something like: “The incident regarding Thomas Chase, as described by Nash, is clearly not the same experience that Chase himself describes,” or something to that affect. I attacked an assumption that came from my own head, rather than the very real discrepancy that exists between the eyewitness account and what Nash described. It is not like me to make assumptions, but I guess, when I do, I really to make an A-s out of myself! Big time.
  • My objection to what is written now is simply this: In no way did I “make a false statement and assumption about Nash's work” – the operative word being “work.” The error, or “false statement” as it reads now (and I would prefer “error” because that is what it was – an innocent mistake that I believe any reasonable person would have made – false statement seems to imply intent to mislead. Yes, I agreed to the publication of CE’s apology, but under some duress, as I was too sick at the time to quibble), was in regards to an assumption that I made, not about Nash’s work in general, for I made no comment about any part of his Lisbon article, or his entire encyclopedia. It was in particular, for his treatment of Thomas Chase’s experience in the Palace Square right after the earthquake. Nor were the allegations I made about the accuracy of his work “wrong.” First of all, I again will state that I made no comment on any part of Nash’s work other than it’s relation to Thomas Chase’s experience – CE’s apology clearly makes that distinction. I was not wrong in discovering a large discrepancy between Chase’s actual experience, and the version that Nash presents. What I was wrong about was simply in assuming that Nash was trying to get the readers to think that what he wrote about the priests came from Chase’s eyewitness account as published in the Blackwood’s Magazine. Again, the way it is written, I believe any reasonable person would have concluded the same thing. But since Nash himself says that the Blackwood’s was not his source for the experience he related, then I have to believe him, and correct my mistaken assumption. However, it is important to once again stress that Thomas Chase’s eyewitness account, published in both Blackwood’s and Gentlemen’s (which Nash has in his bibliography), clearly refutes the version that Nash presented, and my error does not in any way change the fact that, no matter what source Nash may have used, it was clearly an embellishment of the eyewitness’ own account. The question still remains as to why Nash would use a version that was refuted by the eyewitness account. He had the eyewitness’ account in his bibliography – why did he choose to use an embellished version? And that is the question I should have focused on.
  • As to your other questions, I have never overtly or covertly stated that you are a “bad evil website for not citing our sources”- so, no comment. What do you consider a “source?” Isn’t an eyewitness a “source?” What do you consider a reliable reference? I have not asked you to use speculation or opinion – I have asked ONLY that, since you used the CE apology, that you read the CE apology CORRECTLY. It does NOT say that my mistake was about his work in general. It says that “she mistakenly attributed to Mr. Nash the use of a reference in a passage in Mr. Nash’s work that he did not make, i.e. Blackwood’s Magazine” – NOTE WELL: It is to a reference in a passage in his work, not his entire work, that my mistake involves. I am so sorry, but I just can not understand why you guys are having such a hard time making a distinction here. In addition, my “ARTICLE about Nash’ was NOT “inaccurate” – as CE’s apology clearly states, I “implied a reference to Blackwood’s Magazine, an implication that he did not make.” Please read the apology correctly and carefully. Since I wrote most of the last two paragraphs of the apology, I ought to know what I was, and was not, apologizing for! If you cannot use Dr. Shi’s printed retraction, then don’t use it. Personally, I don’t see any significant difference between his retraction, and CE’s, that would make your use of CE’s okay, but use of his, not okay. CE is admitting an error they and I made, and so is Dr. Shi admitting an error he made. I would ask also that you use my corrected article when it is posted, if you feel the need. That should satisfy your concern for appropriate references.
  • With regard to “At once we're slandering you by calling your article about Nash inaccurate” – all I can say is, much of what one does has to do with one’s intention. I do not believe you are intentionally trying to slander me, or impugn my work – I think you just don’t understand that my error had nothing at all to do with the correctness of my research, or my article. Maybe you could understand it if I had written something really off the wall, like, “I’ll bet Nash used a pencil to write his Lisbon article, and that would make his methods really archaic.” Had I then discovered that Nash used a pen, and that he objected to my characterization of his methods as “archaic,” I would be forced, in good conscience, to retract that statement, even though it has not in any way affected either his article, or the veracity of my research. It is a peripheral statement that does not belong, and is rightly removed. In fact, it was my use of the word “False” to which Nash objected, just as I object to the word “false” in describing what I did. I guess the reason I didn’t squawk about its use in CE’s and my apology to him is because I used it against him, and so, deserved to see how it feels. Tit for Tat. But the fact is, I notified you out of courtesy to both you and Nash, that the sentence you quoted from my article was retracted. I had hoped you would show me the same courtesy and get the facts straight.
  • Finally, (I hope!!). I have not accused you of “slandering Nash by focusing on that article.” That is a complete mischaracterization of what I have written – and anyone can go back and read my complaint to see that. I don’t’ believe I even used the word “slander.” What I have questioned is the idea that to “balance” an article, one has to find something negative to say about the person. So I questioned why anything negative had to be written about Nash in the article on him. No one has answered my question. Can’t you focus on the positive? Or at the very least, make mention that questions have been raised without going into detail, and then provide links so that if anyone is interested in reading about those questions, they can. You could have done that with me – said simply that some questions have been raised about some information in the Lisbon entry of his encyclopedia, and then provide the link. I therefore objected to your use of my article in way it was used. I cannot determine anyone’s intent for why they felt the need to write negative information about Nash, and as I said, it matters little to the average man on the street that user’s have personal pages. Anything on Wikipedia is the realm of Wikipedia to them, and I do believe that many Wikipedia-persons simply expect that general users just somehow “know” the inner-structure. That said, regardless of reality, it certainly could “appear” to an outsider as though a campaign were being launched – in light of statements written, the fact that Nash has threatened to sue Wikipedia, all of it put together can give any outsider the idea that at least some members of Wikipedia are retaliating against Nash, collecting “misinformation” in his works in order to back up statements made that his work isn’t good enough to be used as a source for Wikipedia articles – a sort of “defense” against charges of plagiarism.
  • I have spent entirely too much time on this one thing. As I have revealed to you, I am very, very sick, and quite overwhelmed by the duties I have as a single parent and my child’s primary educator. I cannot be a contributor to Wikipedia at this point. I courteously notified you of an error I made, only because you used the erroneous statement in an article. I gave the facts regarding the error, and hoped it would be the end of it. I have no wish to spend anymore time on this; however, I will not allow you to misrepresent my work or my error. You have all the facts at hand. You have CE’s apology, you will soon have my articles back up, and that should be enough to. If you can’t write a good section from that, then I urge you again, just leave the matter out entirely. I’ve no doubt it would make Nash happy, and it would make me happy, for the reasons I stated previously.Polycarp7 16:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have put in a request for mediation on all this (see section below). However, I don't understand what is wrong with the proposed rewrite to the section dealing with all of this at Jay_Robert_Nash/temp#Theresa_Carpinelli. The section is two short paragraphs stating what happened, with references to support what happened. Yes, the two paragraphs don't go into all the details you mention but they are made without any opinion or misinformation. The proposed new section seems to keep to the essence of the discussion you and I had a while back on this talk page. --Alabamaboy 17:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for mediation

I have put in a request for mediation on all of this at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Jay_Robert_Nash. I strongly recommend that all editors involved in the discussion here sign on to the mediation. If anyone wishes to add any issues to the list of items to be mediated, do so under the "Additional issues to be mediated" subhead. I'd recommend keeping the additional issues to one sentence b/c the mediators dislike long or rambling statements. All of us will have a chance later to make a complete statement on all of this. Best, --Alabamaboy 14:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] A modest proposal

I have a proposal which, perhaps, will end the need for mediation (although I still encourage people to agree to mediation b/c this may not be resolved). While I still believe the info on the questions about Nash's accuracy and Carpinelli's retraction are worth covering in this article, I do not believe any of this is worth all the anguish we are going through. Why don't we simply cut all info regarding any questions about Nash's work and Carpinelli's retraction, along with the info about the Wikipedia lawsuit (b/c Wikipedia is the source of info about Wikipedia perhaps being sued it probably shouldn't be here). I have done all of this at Jay Robert Nash/temp so people can see what the article would look like. As an admin, I can also delete all previous versions of this article from the history, so only the new version would be here. Is this a decent compromise? It should address the concerns of everyone here.--Alabamaboy 17:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to think on this one a bit. I'm hesitating to say yes, but nothing in me is screaming about it, either. It all does seem notable in one form or another, but this does seem to be causing everybody involved some hassle or other. One other thing that's come to mind, I hadn't realized until now how very recently some of this took place, and part of me is wondering if it's unwise to cover such current events, especially when they don't seem to be finished unfolding just yet. So, not sure yet. Do we need to delete the history, or is that an optional aspect? Luna Santin 17:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
We don't have to delete the history. I just thought I'd offer (what with Carpinelli appearing to be worried b/c of the threatened lawsuit and all). I believe that the threat of lawsuit surrounding Carpinelli lets this article fall under one of the "extreme circumstances" mentioned at Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Version_deletion.--Alabamaboy 17:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Luna Santin – you have articulated a point which I have been struggling (in my own in-articulate way) to get across. In the whole scheme of things, this is not only very recent, (and, as you say, still to be unfolded completely), but a very narrow focus on a man as prolific and active as Nash. I agree completely that it may be unwise to include it right now.
  • Alabamaboy – I haven’t read your new edits yet, but I certainly agree this is not worth all the anguish, or the digital ink! I understand why you would like to keep the section on questions about Nash’s accuracy, as well as the stuff on my retraction. My concern, as you have guessed, is that for Nash, it will revisit a painful incident in his life that HE would rather not be reminded of. For me, I fear that, unless the information about my retraction is presented accurately, it may leave some with the impression that you seemed to have – that my “research was wrong.” While I don’t like to be misrepresented, my main concern here is that it may resurrect the “priests hanging/burning” canard that I worked so hard to dispel. There are a lot of people who would like to believe it to be true, and this may give them opportunity to promote it, all over again. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to go there – again! This is why I have been so insistent that the retraction be presented accurately – you have the power to undue over a year of intense research that I have conducted into the matter, at my own expense, both financially, and health-wise. I appreciate both of your attempts to mediate this – I really do. I'll go read the proposed article now. And personally, I like the idea of removing the history. Polycarp7 21:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Just read your proposed article, Alabamaboy, and, obviously, I like it very much! Of course, there are many who will disagree with me, but that is their perogative. Being raised Catholic, the value of a man's good name was impressed upon me from a very early age. One of my "pet peeves" is the news media's ability to destroy a person's good name, without a second thought - and if a retraction is printed, it is buried on page 10 behind the underwear ads. I read an entry on Wikipedia a year ago, about Patsy Cline, one of my favorite female singers. I was shocked and disappointed (in Wikipedia) to read rumors about her alleged affairs. I felt that it detracted not only from her good name, (and she isn't around to defend herself), but from Wikipedia itself. Maybe the article has been improved since then, due to Wiki's policies now of citing sources. But, the point is, detraction is very serious, and I would prefer not to engage in it, and if I do, however unintentionally, I hope that I can make restitution as aoon as possible. If it is necessary to print "questions" about Nash's work in the article, can't it be done, as I suggested elsewhere, with a general mention and a link to the site, so that any individual who wants to read "the dirt" can do so. It's only a suggestion, and again, I am sure that many would disagree with me - until it is their own good name that is being damaged! I just don't know where the idea has come from that an article is "balanced" by adding gossip, rumor, false allegations, the person's own bad behavior, etc. So, I vote for the article you have proposed, Alabamaboy. It shows great charity towards your subject. Polycarp7 21:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I think I could live with Alabamaboy's proposed modification of the basic page, as long as there is no whitewashing of the discussion page. Looking up "Jay Robert Nash" has never been a good way to get accurate information about what happened in Lisbon in 1755, anyway, and there's no particular reason why a Wikipedia page devoted to the man should be any exception. I certainly didn't like the way the truth-seeking investigator was coming off worse than the apparent original misinformer in the hanging/burning priests episode, and simply dropping all that from the basic page takes care of that problem. Getting an admission of error from the likes of The Washington Post and George Will remains a much higher priority with me...and getting Carpinelli's great 4-part article back up on the Net, minus her speculation as to what Nash's source could possibly have been, if need be. I think that I have made it plain why I am quite sure that it could not possibly have been any credible source. Oh, I would change the spelling of "skulduggery." Root50 03:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Since we seem to have agreement here, I will place the revised article in the main article space. I will also leave the talk page as is. Thanks to everyone. I will leave the request for mediation up for another day or two (just to make sure that no new issues come up with all of this--if they do, we have to go down the mediation road). Best, --Alabamaboy 13:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


This solution may be the most convenient but it fails to resolve the "actual" source the "burning priests" calumny by Nash. Perhaps the article should note that Nash has no known source. If not for the trouble he caused Jay Robert Nash would have remained forever obscure. Thomist 23:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/a/y/Talk%7EJay_Robert_Nash_e8a7.html"